Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen 543 Replies latest jw friends

  • wantingtruth
    wantingtruth
    ~~~ Above everything guard your heart ! - Why? ~~~
    .
    Proverbs 4: 23
    Above everything else guard your heart,
    because from it flow the springs of life.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Mark 7 :
    18. And He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding?
    Don’t you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him?
    19. For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.” (As a result, He made all foods clean.)
    20. Then He said, “What comes out of a person—that defiles him.
    21. For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,
    22. adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.
    23. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    1 Thessalonians 4 :
    2. For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
    3. For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality,
    4. so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor,
    5. not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God.
    6. This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you.
    7. For God has not called us to impurity but to sanctification.
    8. Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Hebrews 10 :
    26. For if we sin deliberately
    >>> after receiving the knowledge of the truth,
    >>> there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
    27. but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Hebrews 3: 12
    Watch out, brothers, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    James 1: 21
    Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and evil,
    >>> humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you.
    =============================
    Questions for study:
    1) Why should a man guard his heart ?
    2) From what kind of heart do the evil things listed by Jesus come out?
    3) What is God's will for us?
    4) What does "holy" (holiness) mean in accordance with God's word?
    5) Is there still a "sacrifice for sins" if we sin willingly after receiving the knowledge of the truth?
    6) How can we obtain salvation?
    ==============================
    Please study God's Prophetic Word which foretells what is to happen within His people during the "latter days" :
    .
    .
    ~~~~~<<<<<ooooo00OOO00ooooo>>>>>~~~~
  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    Wantingtruth, Important things to keep in mind you shared from God's word. Thank you. 👍😊

  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    Some biblical thoughts from my daily Bible reading

    Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well-spoken-of, whatever things are virtuous, and whatever things are praiseworthy, continue considering these things.

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    PioneerSchmioneer....You remind me of Narkissos. Someone I regard as a friend. BTW he is recovering from his surgery.

    The "discarding" of the DH is almost entirely a European phenomenon. So..are you perhaps from that side of the pond? The point is well taken however. Sure, sometimes a desire for certainty gives a model/hypothesis greater authority than the evidence alone provides. In my reading, the European approach simply avoids the source labels but says essentially the same thing. Different streams of tradition were merged by a compiler/redactor. It is a difficult concept to grasp. Why would this compiler both skillfully and yet clumsily retain clearly contradictory elements? His/their allegiance to tradition must have been pathological. Below is an article arguing for the adoption of a refined Neo-DH.

    The Re-Emergence of Source Criticism: The Neo-Documentary Hypothesis | Bible Interp (arizona.edu)

    And I also found Goodacre's argument, against Q, compelling. In short Q unnecessarily, maybe even disparagingly, limits the creativity of later redactors of G.Mark. The Mark-Matt-Luke (with some later harmonizations) approach works just fine and doesn't require an otherwise unknown document.

  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    How long did it take before God gave manna to the Israelites after they left Egypt?

    The Israelites celebrated their first Passover the 14th day of the first month and left the same day.

    Then we can read in Exodus 15:1 …on the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the entire assembly of the Israelites began to murmur against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites kept saying to them: “If only we had died by Jehovah’s hand in the land of Egypt while we were sitting by the pots of meat, while we were eating bread to satisfaction. Now you have brought us out into this wilderness to put this whole congregation to death by famine.” 4 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Here I am raining down bread for you from the heavens, and each of the people should go out to gather his amount day by day, so that I may put them to the test to see whether they will walk in my law or not.”

    So within a month they had finished the food they had taken with them from Egypt, and the people started to panic. Apparently they had lost their confidence that God would provide for them. I wonder how many days they were without food? How many days did they go hungry before God gave them manna? How patient would I have been if I had been there?

    We can think about Jesus who after his baptism did not eat for 40 days and how hungry he was. Then also Satan came and urged him to miraculously turn stones to bread. I wonder also how much weight Jesus lost during these 40 days?

  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    Sorry, it was Exodus 16, instead of Exodus 15.

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    Kosonen...Your comments illustrate the didactic intent and value of those stories. Parable and narrative novel are powerful means of moral instruction and motivation. The reader was meant to ask questions, "How would I have felt in that situation? Would I have complained?"

    In addition, they provide typological reinforcement of the concept of divine providence and blessing. Jesus, just like Elijah, survived 40 days (or Israel 40 years) eating what angels of God provided, "so why should I lack faith in God's ability to take care of me?" This again is how these stories were meant to be read and understood.

  • PioneerSchmioneer
    PioneerSchmioneer

    Good points, peacefulpete.

    Kosonen wrote:

    The Israelites celebrated their first Passover the 14th day of the first month and left the same day.

    This is a common mistake Christians make due to thinking that Passover begins with "eating." It doesn't. It begins with a sacrifice--or at least it used to. (I got this from my brother who converted to conservative Judaism and from one of my closest friends who is a rabbi.)

    The date on the Jewish calendar for Passover is Nisan 14 at sundown, that part is correct. But what starts at Nisan 14 is not eating, but this:

    You shall keep [the lamb] until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.

    Passover begins with the act of the slaughter of the lamb, "at twilight," a sacrifice--which only later turns into a meal: a communion with God. But since the slaughtering must be done first by the fall of night, it is the 15th when the next festival day begins, the Festival of Unleavened Bread (otherwise there is no bread to eat with the meal...and no meal to eat, period.)

    Deuteronomy 1:6 explains:

    You will make the Passover sacrifice in the evening, when the sun goes down, at the time when you went forth out of Egypt.

    Jewish days go from evening to evening. Thus it was during the daytime, on the 14th, when lambs were gathered and collected, sundown (twilight) when they were slaughered, and thus the 15th when the Passover seder began.

    This is why today Jews celebrate their Passover meals on the 15th, not on the 14th. One did not have a meal to eat or celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread until the 15th. The Jews could not have had enough time to gather all those lambs together on the 14th, slaughter them all at "sundown" or "twilight" of the 14th, and have a meal going...which would be the next day on the Jewish calendar, the 15th.

    In John's gospel, the author has Jesus die the "day before Passover" on "Preparation day" instead of Passover as in the other accounts. (John 19:14) Why? A narrative device to teach a point.

    In John's gospel Jesus is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."--John 1:29, 36

    Preparation Day is Nisan 14, the day Jews were gathering lambs to slaughter them for the passover communion meal or seder. In the gospel of John, Jesus is "the Lamb of God," who is slaughtered on Nisan 14 on the eve before Passover, whose "blood" literally gets spilled on wood and bones not crushed, like the Passover lamb of ancient times.--Note the details of John 19:31-37.

    Scholars and the Church Fathers agree that the rabbinical figure Jesus of Nazareth died on the 15th on Passover. The author of John was merely using a series of religious motifs to instruct.

  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    Thank you peacefulpete for your encouraging comment 🙂 .

  • Kosonen
    Kosonen

    Hi Pioneerschmioneer, I read your comment and checked what the scriptures say about it. So here it is. So what conclusion can be drawn from these scriptures?:

    Exodus 12:6 You must care for it until the 14th day of this month, and the whole congregation of the assembly of Israel must slaughter it at twilight.

    18 In the first month, on the 14th day of the month, in the evening, you are to eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month, in the evening.

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