John Sunday, Feb 20 2011 

Biblical history kennethbow 10:29 pm

John

John was Jesus’ first cousin and His best friend for 3 ½ years. Jesus’ mother and John’s mother were sisters. No man on earth knew the story of Jesus better than John. His gospel is a magnificent treatise to the life of Christ and it’s impact on planet earth.

His gospel is different than the others. Very different! It is written like John is sitting under a shade tree with his feet propped up, just daydreaming about the life of Jesus. He only selects vignettes, short insights or events, from 20 days in the life of Christ.

John uses the simplest words, and a small vocabulary to plunge us into the deepest mysteries of God. John uses the vocabulary of a six year old child. A child learns about 100 words a year and John uses about 600 words in his writing.

The words John selects are powerful words. He uses words like world, father, light, and truth. He uses the simplest words to paint a profound God and His plan.

Matthew writes to the Jew, so he begins his gospel at the lineage of Abraham. Luke writes to the gentile Roman world, so his lineage begins at Adam. John writes to the church, so he reaches all the way back to eternity. He begins with, “In the beginning”.

.John reaches back to the inky blackness of eternity, before there was the brush of an angel’s wing. He reaches back before there was the first blazing shaft of light that shattered the darkness. When there was nothing but God. In the beginning was the logos, the word, the thought, the intent. And the logos was God.

John does not cover the same material as the other three gospels do. The only miracle he repeats is the feeding of the 5000. He writes to the church about 60 years after the other writers. The church was facing many challenges.

When John wrote, there were those who said Jesus never really existed. There were others saying Jesus was not a human, but rather a phantom. Other views at that time proclaimed Jesus did exist but he was just a man with divinity projected upon him by his disciples. It was into this morass that John wrote his gospel.

John writes of no parables, and uses 7 signs to build his story of Jesus. He explains things like no other writer. When he tells a miracle, he often explains why he used that miracle. An example would be the feeding of the 5000. He tells us Jesus is the bread of life. The other three writers did not explain the connection for us. When Jesus heals the blind man, John explains Jesus is the light of the world. It is his explanations that give his gospel an added dimension.

He also includes things of immense importance. Consider how important John chapter three is to the doctrine of the new birth. The story of Nicodemas is the bedrock of salvation. Ye must be born again. That one inclusion validates the day of Pentecost and the doctrine of the New Testament church. Chapter by chapter, John gives the church a gospel for the ages. He delivers the most profound insight into Jesus the man, of any writer of history.

2/3 of John’s book is about the last week of Jesus’ life. Fully 1/3 of his book is about the last 24 hours of Jesus’ earthly life. After 60 years, the need was for a complete record of the importance of calvary. A whole generation had arrived that were not eye witnesses to the events of Jesus’ death. Someone needed to write it down and John succeeded as Heaven’s emissary.

We have the gospel of John and it is indeed magnificent!

 

Luke Saturday, Feb 19 2011 

Biblical history and New Testament kennethbow 8:23 pm

Luke

The third Gospel is the only one written by a gentile. Luke also wrote the book of Acts. His two works comprise 25% of the New Testament.

Luke was a doctor. The flavor of the man always comes out in his writings.

In Luke we see more conversation about women, gentiles, and the social outcasts.

When a beggar lays at the gate of the rich man, Luke says he was full of sores. Matthew would have said he was broke. Matthew’s perspective as a tax collector was his financial status, while Luke had the perspective of a doctor.

Luke’s gospel is written to the Greek, or Gentile world.

He uses Mark as his time line and repeats somewhere around 50% (320 of 661 verses), of the same material Mark provides.

Because he is writing to the Gentile world he begins his genealogy at Adam.

Matthew goes back to Abraham, Mark bypasses the genealogy, and Luke goes back to the first man Adam. John, who writes to the church, reaches back to the misty darkness of eternity.

It appears to me that Luke took the time to interview the people of the early church. He states that his book is from the beginning and that he had perfect understanding of it all.

When you read of Jesus’ birth in Luke’s account, you find some tidbits of information no one else includes. One example would be the details of Mary’s song and inner thoughts and feelings.

That causes me to think Luke must have sat down with Mary and spent time talking to her. I can envision him sitting quietly many years later, at the end of her life, recording her words as she softly speaks of those bygone years. As she wistfully remembers, he dutifully records.

Not only does he provide information about people’s feelings and inner thoughts, he also documents his writings with names, offices and titles of over 50 people. This gives his work a credibility the other gospel writers do not have to the world of scholars.

One example of his documentation is the introduction of John the Baptist in chapter 3. Luke places 7 men in the scripture for historical evidence. He mentions an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and two high priests. These are the kind of things that give Luke credibility with the world of scholars. This also gives further credibility by association to the other Gospels who give the same information. For this alone Luke is invaluable.

Another contribution of his is the writing of parables spoken by Jesus. He records 18 parables not recorded anywhere else. We are indebted to him for the famous parable of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and many others.

I am going to go out on a limb here and state my opinion for what it is worth. I know that Luke traveled with Paul. I am somewhat sure he joined Paul on one of his missionary journeys, because the text of Acts changes from they, to the first person of I and we. So my thought is that somewhere Luke sat and listened to Paul tell his insight into the life of Jesus. My best guess would be this occurred while Paul was being held at Caesarea.

Just like when he started his book by making the journey to see Mary, I can see Luke taking notes at the feet of Paul and then the Holy spirit washing them though the man Luke with his training, his education, and his perspective. From out of that flowed the gospel of Luke.

The gospel written to the Greeks adopts the Greek idea of the perfect man. The Greeks created their Gods by deifying man into a God.

Luke very ably and perfectly adopts their premise and presents them with the perfect man, who was indeed God, Jesus Christ the savior of the world.

 

Thanks for reading today!

 

 

Mark Thursday, Feb 17 2011 

Biblical history and Doctrine and New Testament kennethbow 8:54 am

My last blog was about Matthew, today is Mark.

I will post Luke and John next.

The Gospels.

Four books that the Holy Ghost approved out of the 200 gospels written about Jesus.

Mark

Mark’s gospel was the first gospel written in 50 AD. It was written to the Roman world. It came at a very critical time! The Caesars were killing the Christians in Rome and there was fear and consternation across the empire. Nero was on a rampage! The need was for direction. And the need was now!

So we have the Gospel of Mark. It is the shortest Gospel because time was of the essence. It is the fastest paced Gospel. It uses hurry up adverbs 42 times. Words like immediately, and straightway are the norm.

I am convinced Mark’s Gospel was dictated by Simon Peter. This was a commonly held belief well into the second century. Papias says this in AD 60-150. Papias call Mark Peter’s interpreter. Probably Peter spoke in Aramic and Mark translated into Greek. Finally, Peter calls Mark his “son”, 1 Peter 5.13.

Mark is the timeline that Matthew and Luke work off of. 90% of his gospel is found in Matthew and Luke. He is fast. He has three miracles in the first chapter. The other writers wait until chapter three before introducing a miracle.

Because it is to the Roman world, Mark quotes the Old Testament only one time. He ignores the Mosaic law, then explains the Jewish laws and the passover. Once again, time was pressing them to get this message into the hands of suffering Christians.

It is the shortest gospel, and is proclaimed by an eyewitness, so hence the nod goes to Peter. Matthew repeats over 90% of Mark in his gospel and Luke repeats over 53%,(330 out of 660 verses).

It is interesting to me that Mark does not mention anything about Jesus before Jesus’ baptism. No birth, no early years, or any other information.

Also, Mark deals with Jesus’ humanity. Mark shows Jesus tired, weary and hungry. The Roman world and the new Christians needed to be reminded He was the Messiah. The Avatar, the highest form of God in humanity.

In all probability, the Christians of that day expected the return of Christ any day. They no doubt saw no need for a record of his life, for they would all remember. However when He did not return quickly, it became obvious a whole new generation needed the facts to be recorded.

It is certainly reasonable to assume that Mark knew all the early church leaders and populace. He was a relative of Barnabas and traveled with Barnabas and Paul on their one and only missionary journey together.

Mark is also believed to be one of the few men who accompanied Simon Peter to Cornelius house in Acts chapter ten.

So it was the first Gospel written of the four in your Bible.

It is authored by Mark and dictated by Simon Peter and inspired by God himself!

Thanks for reading today!

 

Matthew Wednesday, Feb 16 2011 

Biblical history and Doctrine and New Testament kennethbow 3:28 pm

Matthew

The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Therefore it is reasonable that the Bible is the most read book of all time. Statistics say that Matthew is the most read book of the Bible for almost everyone starts there!

Now if you or I were going to write a book that we knew more people were going to read more than any other book in the history of the world, would we start it out with a long list of names that no one can even pronounce? Yet God in His wisdom does just that! Why?

Well, one supposition is that He loved the Jewish nation and preferred them with the first Gospel in honor to His commitment to them through the centuries. One thing is for sure; Jesus was not the Messiah they were looking for! He did not fit the image of their expectations!

The Jewish nation were looking for someone to come in and overthrow the Roman grip on their land. Jesus came to overthrow the grip Satan had on their land. So we have the Gospel of Matthew…

• Matthew was a tax collector, therefore he speaks of money more than any other writer, (example, Peter go catch fish and there will be a coin in it’s mouth)

• He starts his genealogy with Abraham instead of Adam because his book is to the Jew

• He has 31 passages unique to him, 10 parables, 2 miracles, 9 discourses, 6 events

• He is the only gospel writer to mention the church

• Uses the term Kingdom of heaven because the Jews did not use the name “God”

• Writes like a tax collector, Example 8 beatitudes at start of book and 8 woes at

end, like bookends

• His style is narrative, discourse. Jesus’ story then, speech or sermon. 5 times says “when Jesus had ended these sayings”

• Quotes the Old testament more times than any other New Testament writer (129 times)

• 16 times says “that it might be fulfilled”

• 2 great sermons, sermon on the mount, and Olivet discourse (one at beginning of book, one toward end of book)

There had been 400 years of silence! Then Matthew’s gospel pulls it all together.

It is the bridge.

Matthew portrays Jesus as the King of the Jews. His gospel is considered as the most important book in Christendom by the French skeptic Renan!

One of the great contributions of Matthew to oneness people is his information on the transfiguration. In chapter 16 Matthew begins the story of Jesus leaving the area of Galilee and going north to the regions of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus literally turns His back on the country of Israel and goes to a gentile region and spends about 8 days with His disciples.

After 6 days of rest and relaxation, He poses the question to them, who do men say that I am? It is a supreme moment in Jesus’ earthly journey. For 3 1⁄2 years He has prepared this select group of men for this revelation. They offer the current scuttlebutt of names, and then Simon Peter makes the famous reply, “Thou art the Christ”.

Jesus no doubt breathed a sigh of relief knowing they had truly got the concept of His being the messiah. Two days later is a remarkable event. I call this “When a good Jewish son took over the family business”.

The event is called the mount of transfiguration. Jesus waits another 2 days and then takes Peter, James, and John with Him up on the mountain. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all inform us what happened there.

Jesus is transfigured before them and Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus. The disciples are speechless, and stunned. Peter finally blurts out an inane babbling, something about three temples.

These three disciples are witness to the transfer of all spiritual spokesman ship from the Father to the Son! A voice booms from the heavens and says, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him”.

This same voice had spoken at the baptism of Jesus, but had not said, “Hear ye him”. At that moment, the eternal spirit of God proclaimed His residence forever to be in the man Christ Jesus. Christ’s earthly ministry was complete. The only thing left was to be the perfect sacrifice.

Never since that moment has the voice of God ever spoken outside of Jesus Christ! The voice that spoke worlds into existence, the voice that spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai, now speaks only through the mouth of Jesus Christ! He is God manifest in the flesh!

Go to your Bible and look. God has never spoken again outside the mouth of Jesus Christ! What a wonderful revelation to the oneness of God.

Truly in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!

Thanks for reading today!

 

You can’t make money selling hamburgers! Tuesday, Jan 25 2011 

Uncategorized kennethbow 9:14 am

Ray Kroc founded McDonald’s when he was 52 years old.

After trying for two years and talking to more than one hundred people to raise the money, he started the hamburger chain.

One of the men he asked to invest was Tom Seay. Ray Kroc came to Tom Seay’s office and offered Tom thirty percent of the new company for $100,000.00.

It was a Friday afternoon and Tom was busy. He said he would take the business plan home over the weekend and take a look at it.

Tom considered it a “crazy plan”.

Monday morning rolled around and when Tom got to his office, Ray Kroc was waiting for him at the front door.

Tom invited him in and said, “Ray, I read this plan three times; even shared it with a friend. And we both decided that there’s no way in the world you can make any money selling hamburgers”.

Ray had a dream.

Dreams are free and just having them makes life worth living.

Thanks for reading today!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

 

The Spirit of Herod Friday, Dec 17 2010 

Biographical and Motivational and Uncategorized kennethbow 9:29 am

Recently while reading the story of Herod killing the children again my mind drifted back over the years of things I had heard of this event.

I read the number of children killed reached into the thousands.  Maybe as high as ten thousand.

I thought of the prophecy teachers who said this was the fulfillment of the verse in Daniel that says He shall not regard the desire of women.  This verse is usually used by prophecy guys to say the antichrist will be gay, but some have said it referred to Herod because the Biblical definition of desire of women is children.  Meaning that Herod did not regard the children, hence the desire of women.

As I tried to grasp the enormity of this event my mind thought of the spirit behind this atrocity.

Selfish.

Heartless.

Ruthless.

The leap for a preacher was not a long one. The spirit of Herod lives on.

Killing infants.

Spirits in a church that would cause spiritual babes to be exterminated.

Jealousy.

Envy.

Strife.

Bitterness.

Hatred.

Things God hates!

Jesus left the country until the spirit of Herod died.

Then He came back.

Do you ever wonder if Jesus leaves?

Do dry empty altars possibly mean He is not comfortable with some spirit, and leaves until that spirit dies?

Thank you Herod for your help in making our nation more independent of Rome.

Thank you for the magnanimous temple you built our nation.

But I would like to say to you Herod, all your contributions are washed away in the grief of mother’s wails!

Thank you for singing in the choir saint of God.

Thank you for going on outreach.

Thank you for all you do for the church.

I wonder if all those good deeds are washed away in the silent wake of Jesus leaving because you grumble.

Does your gossip cause him to leave and our altars are dry and barren?

 

Thousands of children murdered! Thursday, Dec 16 2010 

Uncategorized kennethbow 6:40 am

Jerusalem Gazette: Thousands of children murdered!

The Gazette has learned through informed sources that before dawn today soldiers of Herod’s army began the massacre of thousands of small children. The murders have been literally from house to house. All the children killed are young, in fact none have been over two years old.

In attempting to find out what is behind this unprecedented horror, we have asked Herod to make a statement. At ten this morning Herod’s press secretary read a statement from the King.

It stated that recently there had been a formal request to see the King from a group of Magi. These wise men had journeyed from the east for approximately 18 months in search of the King of the Jews.

Their claim was that they were astrologers and were following a star that reportedly was to lead them to the King of the Jews. Herod took them serious. There were about forty Magi in the group, the normal number that travel in these troupes. The Magi claimed they had gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

Herod complimented the Magi and requested when they found the new King, that they inform him so he also could go and worship him.

An unidentified source informed us that Herod was livid. After the magi left he went into a tirade. No one would take his Kingdom from him that he had spent years developing in conjunction with Rome. He was the rightful King of the Jews! He had Caesar’s guarantee!

Our source also informs us there was a heated family argument on how to handle this recent threat to the Herod’s throne. Antipas, Philip, and Herodias all put forth different ideas. After long and acrimonious debate, it seems Archalaeus won out. It was he who put forth the simple solution.

Well, he said slowly, there is one sure way to rid us of this threat. All eyes centered on Archalaeus, he took a deep breath and said, just slay all the male children under two years old. Our sources say it was as if the air left the room. The enormity of the idea was nauseating. Even the ruthless Herod clan was speechless. All eyes were on the floor. For many minutes no one said anything.

Herod stood and left the room.

Before dawn today the soldiers of Herod began the massacre that is to eliminate any future King of the Jews.

Our latest news states somewhere around ten thousand young children have been murdered.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

 

Guess who’s coming to town? Thursday, Dec 9 2010 

Uncategorized kennethbow 11:03 pm

Guess who’s coming to town?

Well let me give you some hints!

He wears Red.

His hair is white.

He arrives in the middle of the night.

He knows if you’ve been good or bad.

He lives in the north.

He let’s children sit on his lap.

He sits on a throne.

When he laughs he says…Ho, ho!

Yep, you got it…..

His name is…….

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Jesus!

He wears a scarlet robe,

His hair is white as wool,

He is coming as a thief in the night,

He knows all things,

He lives on the sides of the north,

He welcomes the children,

He sits on a throne,

Zechariah says he laughs….Ho, ho!

Just don’t forget who is really coming to town!

Thanks for reading today.

 

Santa Claus is dead! Tuesday, Nov 30 2010 

Family kennethbow 3:04 pm

The Physics of Santa Claus

A Scientific Disproof of the Santa Theory.
Original source: sirius@wam.umd.edu (The Human Neutrino aka Linda Harden)
Original Title: IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that “flying reindeer” (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload – not even counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion — If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

Thanks for reading today!

 

51 and fading……. Saturday, Nov 20 2010 

Biblical history and Biographical kennethbow 7:25 am

He was fifty one years old. He had never been this weary. He was weary in body, but even more weary in his soul.

His life dream was not happening. He had failed to reach his goal in the last four tries.

Questions bombarded his mind. Did he do the right thing? Should he quit? Maybe life was not worth it all anymore!

To make it worse he was all alone.

He walked and thought and brooded. On the horizon was a big city. It was a sinful city. Should he try again? Maybe just once more!

700,000 people were over there in the new city only 100 years old. He was aware it was not an easy city. Soldiers, merchants, slaves and prostitutes.

As he trod toward the outskirts he made what he thought might be his last important decision of life, after all he was despairing of life.

Slowly he stopped as the people on the road drifted by. He was just another traveller on this fine Roman road. Some where along the outside of the metropolis, Paul made a decision.

He decided, I will try again. The past four failures will not keep me from trying again.

Only this time I am making a decision.

This time I will only preach Jesus Christ and him crucified!

He had no fore boding that he was about to do what no other man in history would ever do again.

In the next eighteen months he would establish the largest church in the history of the world.

Corinth, the second largest city in the Roman Empire, the hardest challenge of Paul’s three journeys, would fall before the great apostle.

Paul at his lowest, was Jesus at His best.

God picked up His human crayon and drew a picture for all millenniums.

When I am weak, then am I strong.

It really isn’t about you after all.

Would you just let Jesus be the artist and you be the canvas?

Thanks for reading today!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

 

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