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I just laughed out loud at a satirical blog post written by Matt Robison titled How to Read the Bible the RIGHT Way - MY Way. This tongue-in-cheek piece speaks volumes. Here is part of Matt’s post:

There are too many different sects of Christianity out there, and too many sects within those sects. Each one has their own interpretation of the Bible. Frankly, it’s sickening. We all know that God personally wrote the Bible, so how in the world can we possibly come up with so many different meanings?

The answer is simple: most people are wrong. After all, “narrow is the way”. There is obviously only one interpretation that is the correct one. Here are my tips on how to reach the same interpretation of Holy Scripture that I came to.

In other words, here is how you can reach the only CORRECT interpretation.

Ignore the Old Testament.

The key word here is “old”. We’re living under the New Covenant now. Sure, Jesus said that he came not to abolish, but to fulfill, but what he really meant by fulfill was “to replace completely with something that has no relation or roots whatsoever in Judaism.”

God is calling a mulligan. The Jews really screwed things up, so now he wants to give Christians a chance. I used to think that the Old Testament could be used for examples to teach children in Sunday School, but that temptation was the Devil talking. God got rid of it for a reason. I mean, honestly, have you ever read the Old Testament? It’s full of things like sex and violence, which aren’t appropriate for anyone. It’s just safer to ignore it so people don’t get confused.

Be sure to buy New Testament-only Bibles. It’s clear evidence of the Devil’s power that it’s hard to find a Bible that does not include at least Psalms and Proverbs, but it’s nothing a pair of scissors or a some vigorous page-ripping can’t remedy. [Take out all that stuff about unclean animals and obedience]

Now that we’ve gotten that distraction out of the way, the following tips can focus exclusively on the New Testament. Click to read the entire post.

Don’t Miss Out on Our Rich Roots!

A Jewish rabbi from Tarsus, known as the apostle Paul, wrote these words to the Christians in Rome, “Do not boast against the branches (Jews). But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root (the Hebraic origins of our faith), but the root supports you (Christianity). (Romans 11:18).”

The root is the origin, the cause, the source that establishes and gives life to that which is attached to the root. The more we can learn about our Hebraic/Jewish roots, the more blessed we will be in our Christian lives.

Except for a few familiar passages-Genesis 1, Psalm 23, Isaiah 53-The Old Testament remains a closed book to most Christians. Yet it was the only form of Scripture which was used by Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the first Christian community. Jesus referred to the Old Testament consistently. When the words were written, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” (1 Timothy 3:16) the statement was talking about what we call the Old Testament and what was then known as “Scripture.”

The majority of God’s Word is in the Old Testament. When the Bible is divided into 52 weekly readings we don’t even get to the New Testament until Week 41! For more on this topic read The Importance of Both Testaments.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me,”Oh, that’s Old Testament,” usually said in a superior tone, as if the Old Testament is meaningless. I’d have at least enough money to visit Israel once a year or maybe for every Bible holiday.

Click here for books that DO NOT ignore the First Testament.

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The Super Simple Spiritual Sunday Meme is simply a list of encouraging links I have enjoyed this week. We are in the end of the Fall Holidays. See links for Feast of Tabernacles here.

Links:

1. Powerful audio message by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. She read a list comparing the evidences of pride and humility.
2. BlogsforGod.com: A list of Christians who blog that has morphed into a social bookmarking network over time.
3. The Interview: Transcript of a radio interview (spoof) of a homeschool mom.
4. Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling: Excellent (long) article by Reb Bradley. I believe it is actually a free book online. Well worth the time; read, print, save reread and send to your friends. Here is an excerpt:

• • … in 1988 Pastor Wurmbrand was speaking to our newly planted church when it was meeting in our home. He finished what he wanted to say to us and opened the floor for questions. My wife Beverly was first to speak and asked him what we could do as a new church to grow, be healthy, and advance the kingdom. His response took us off guard – he said, “I do not have the answer to that question. Who has the next question?” He then took a question from a young man, a political activist, who wanted to know what we could do in America to prevent the same kind of persecution the church endured in Romania. In response, Pastor Wurmbrand said, “I cannot answer this question either. And now I want to tell you why. I cannot answer your questions because they are the wrong questions. To ask, ‘What must I do…?’ is like asking ‘What is the melody of a prune?’ A prune has no melody. As Christians we cannot ask ‘What must I do…?’ We must ask ‘What must I be…?’”

    His point was that fruitful Christianity comes from the inside out – from who we are – not from what we do. It is the inside that must first be changed, and then the heart will give birth to healthy, genuine expressions. For example, a shortsighted question asks, “What can I do to show love to my liberal, feminist sister?” Would it not be better to actually love her? The first approach is concerned with outside appearances – the second is based on what is actually in the heart, and will have far greater impact. At issue is not the appearance of love, but actually having it. With our children, when we preoccupy ourselves with what to do — with following all the right steps and enforcing all the standards given us by homeschool veterans – we will merely be controlling the outside. It is as though we have nothing genuine to pass on at a heart level, so we do what we can from the outside in….

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Feast of Tabernacles : September 27 - October 3, 2007

The Feast of Tabernacles is a week-long autumn harvest festival. Tabernacles is also known as the Feast of the Ingathering, Feast of the Booths, Sukkoth, Succoth, or Sukkot (variations in spellings occur because these words are transliterations of the Hebrew word pronounced “Sue-coat”). The two days following the festival are separate holidays, Shemini Atzeret and Simkhat Torah, but are commonly thought of as part of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the final and most important holiday of the year. The importance of this festival is indicated by the statement, “This is to be a lasting ordinance.” The divine pronouncement, “I am the Lord your God,” concludes this section on the holidays of the seventh month.

The word Sukkoth means “booths,” and refers to the temporary dwellings that Jews are commanded to live in during this holiday, just as the Jews did in the wilderness. The Feast of Tabernacles lasts for seven days and ends on the twenty-first day (3×7) of the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is Israel’s seventh month.

This holiday has a dual significance: historical and agricultural (just as Passover and Pentecost). Historically, it was to be kept in remembrance of the dwelling in tents in the wilderness for the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert.

It is expounded in Leviticus 23:43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Jesus Celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles

Jesus celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles. He taught in the Temple on the Feast of Tabernacles. Although His disciples had not expected Jesus to attend the feast, the vast majority of the pilgrims from afar who had heard of Him entertained the hope that they might see Him at Jerusalem. They were not disappointed, for on several occasions He taught in Solomon’s Porch and elsewhere in the temple courts. These teachings were really the official or formal announcement of the divinity of Jesus to the Jewish people and to the whole world. Jesus risked His life to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, but the audacious boldness of Jesus in publicly appearing in Jerusalem overawed his enemies; they were not prepared for such a daring challenge.

On the last day and greatest day of the Feast of Tabernacles (the day the Rabbis poured the water) Jesus stood (calling special attention to his message) and proclaimed Himself the very fountain of living water in John 7:37-38.

What were they to remember?

Matthew Henry’s commentary explains,

1.) The meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note: Those that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own eyes.

2.) The mercy of God to them, that, when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for Himself among them, but, with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable, hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God’s former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting remembrance.

The eighth day was the great day of this holiday, because then they returned to their own houses again, and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in the land of promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the comforts and conveniences of their houses when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.

They were to keep this holiday in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; however, the emphasis is that Israel’s life rested upon redemption which in its ultimate meaning is the forgiveness of sin. This fact separates this holiday from the harvest festivals of the neighboring nations whose roots lay in the mythological activity of the gods.

Spiritual Lessons from the Feast of Tabernacles

God is Our Shelter

This holiday reminds us not to hold too tightly to material things. We live in a very materialistic age. When the Israelites were wanderers in the desert, they all lived in tents–rich and poor alike. Material possessions can control and manipulate us; they become gods, or idols, over us. We must remember that this life is only temporary. We are also on a pilgrimage to a Promised Land in eternity. We need to seek God’s kingdom, not earthly comfort. As we seek first the Kingdom of God (Luke 12:31), God is our shelter. For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall (Isa. 25:4).

Jesus is the Living Water

Our spiritual thirst cannot be quenched with anything less than Christ. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:14).

Jesus Washes Away Our Sins

Jesus is the true living water cleansing us from sin through His blood. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:13-14).

Jesus is the Light of the World

The light from the Feast of Tabernacles lamps illuminated the whole city. Scholars suggest that Jesus referred to this custom when he spoke those well-known words, “I am the light of the world…” (John 8:12) Also see John 1:1-9 and John 9:5.

Jesus is Preparing Our Permanent Home

These physical bodies we now occupy are only temporary dwelling places. Our bodies are frail, and will eventually begin to deteriorate. Life is short. Our hope is not in what the world has to offer, but in what God has already provided for us for eternity. Our permanent home is being prepared for us in eternity. Jesus said in John 14:2-3, In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

As the Israelites Left Bondage, We Leave the Bondage of Sin

God brought the Children of Israel out of the bondage of their Egyptian taskmasters into freedom. For Christians, we can celebrate that God redeemed us from a life of bondage to sin and brought us into His freedom in the Kingdom of God.

• Fall Holidays Overview
  
• Tabernacles in Bible Times
• Jewish Customs
• Messiah in Tabernacles
  
• The Birth of Christ
• Celebrating Tabernacles
• Building a Sukkoth
• Sukkah Craft
• Sukkos Exhibit

A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays (on sale)

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WOW! Check out this list comparing the evidences of Pride and Humility. I found it after listening to a powerful audio message by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

The message was very convicting. It forced me to recognize pride in my life. I became conscious that there are times when I communicate a superior attitude. God forgive me.

I certainly have no reason to be proud. My struggles with sin should be enough to keep me humble. In my lifetime, I have broken every commandment. I have failed God and He has been displeased with me. I battle with sins of bitterness, complaining, impatience, and more on a daily basis.

We become humble by identifying and admitting our complete reliance upon the Lord for any righteousness. When we are aware of our weaknesses, the Lord can use those very weaknesses to bless our lives through Him and prevent sins of pride and self-exaltation.

2 Corinthians 12:9,10 (pictured above) says My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore will I rather glory in my weakness that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in weakness: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

When we acknowledge and admit our weakness, we learn to understand the power of God’s strength.

God gives us the strength to endure and even rejoice in trials. We can rejoice in weakness, trials, hardships, persecution, and calamity when we understand God is building in us dependence on the glorification of the grace and power of His Son. Thanks be to God - our sins are forgiven and are as distant from us as the east is from the west. To God, it is as if they never were. Don’t be misled, this doesn’t mean there are no consequences to sin. I, and those I love, suffer the consequences of my sins. And yet, through God’s grace, all will be well. I know He will work out everything for the greater good.

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.(2 Corinthians 3, 4-5.)

We are Called to be Salt and Light: Even in Our Weakness

Matthew 5:13-14 explains that we are the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” I Corinthians 1:27 explains that we are also the weak and the foolish of this world. God called me in my weakness, in spite of my failures, to be salt and light. He allows me the privilege to share parts of my life with others–things I have learned, discovered, and studied. My desire is to share my findings and my mistakes with the hope that I might encourage others to seek God and keep others from making the same mistakes—from having to live with the same consequences.

For What I Want to Do I Do Not Do, But What I hate I do.

Paul said , “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (See Romans 7: 14-25)

I sincerely, with all my heart, want to produce the fruit of God’s Spirit—love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness and self-control. But at times I produce the fruit of my flesh–self-centeredness, pride, impatience, a judgmental attitude, anger, and bitterness. I default to my sin nature daily. I sincerely want to be a Proverbs 31 woman, but I have been a less than godly wife and I have failed in marriage. I sincerely want to be a loving mother, but I have acted in anger to my children; times I will regret the rest of my life. I have been a disobedient and disrespectful daughter. I have been an uncaring sister and a selfish friend.

I make hundreds of little decisions a day, and many times I get them wrong. These are the things I don’t want exposed - things I prefer never to admit. But I must be open about how I have failed, because only then can God forgive me, cleanse me and use me. He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13. Praise God.

Only when I abide in the Lord and in the power of His might, then I become strong. (Eph. 6:10)..

Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I stand before the throne of God and marvel. I deserve hell and He has not given me what I deserve. He gave me Christ. He gave me hope. He blesses me over and over in spite of my failures. He has turned my mourning to laughter and my heaviness to joy.

My favorite Bible story, the one I have clung to since I gave my life to Christ, is the story of the sinner woman with the alabaster box.

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was sitting at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “What is it, Teacher?” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more. And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Luke 7:36-47.

The woman publicly declared her sorrow over her sin and displayed humility and deep gratitude. She surrendered all that she was and had to Him. My sins are many; they are numerous and heinous. I have been afflicted, crushed, forsaken, desolate, and miserable. Out of pure compassion, the God of infinite mercy forgave my sins. He has shown me mercy according to His loving kindness; His tender mercies have blotted out my transgressions. He has washed me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleansed me from my sin.

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: Romans 5:20.

Since the foundation of the world, God’s purpose has been to bring all things into harmony with Him, giving us an exhilarating and inspirational relief from the fearful and depressing heaviness of sin. Christ’s sacrifice gives us the opportunity to choose to live in Adam, under condemnation, or in Christ, justified. Christ accepts those who are unacceptable and receives those who are rejected. I am filled with gratitude that He accepts me.

When we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us the depth of our sin and the dear price paid for those sins we will not be able to help but resist pride, recognize His mercy and love Him with all our being.

What about you? Did you listen to Nancy’s message on pride? Did you read the convicting list? Has God used you in spite of your weakness? Encourage others by commenting below.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

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• The Secret to Producing Spiritual Fruit
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• A Proverbs 31 Woman
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• Scheduling by Faith (object lesson)
• • Are You Prepared for Self Control? (Have You Ever Had One of Those Days?)

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The Washington Post’s Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone: (n.), The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Cashtration: (n.), The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
5. Giraffiti: (adj.),Vandalism spray painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
7. Inoculatte: (v.),To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: (adj.),Terminal coolness.
9. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon: (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
13. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
14. Caterpallor: (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you’re eating.
15. Dorkestra: A kazoo ensemble.
16. Certifried: (adj.),guaranteed not to be cooked in trans fat oil.
17. Flabbergasted: (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
18. Negligent: (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
19. Flatulence: (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller
20. Balderdash: (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
21. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
22. Pagerism: (n.), a journalist using someone else’s beeper.
23. Puntuate: (n)m Flavoring a speech with this low form of humor,…the pun.

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