Trump Has Capitalized On This Idea Of Vessel Theology
Numerous evangelical leaders have used the Trump-as-Cyrus comparison to explain how a leader who, while not religious, might nevertheless figure into a divine historical plan.
In December, Christian evangelical leader Mike Evans made the comparison while praising Trumps decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, another act with deep theological connotations.Before seeing Trump right after the announcement, Evans said, the first word I’m going to say to him, ‘Cyrus, you’re Cyrus. He explained that Cyrus was used as an instrument of God for deliverance in the Bible, and God has used this imperfect vessel, this flawed human being like you or I, this imperfect vessel, and he’s using him in an incredible, amazing way to fulfill his plans and purposes.
Likewise, last year, Creation Museum founder Ken Ham used the same rhetoric to explain how God had, in his view, brought Trump to power: God is in total control, Ham told the Deseret Daily News early last year. He makes that very clear in the Bible where he tells us that he raises up kings and destroys kingdoms. He even calls a pagan king, Cyrus, his anointed, or his servant to do the things that he wants him to do.
Trump himself seemed to bolster this particular comparison. He referenced a quote from Cyrus in March 2017 as part of a speech commemorating Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
You Will Not Find The United States Of America Mentioned Anywhere In The Bible
Some people say that is debatable. But the Bible doesnt lie. The United States of America doesnt appear anywhere in the Bible. You may infer it does, you may make assumptions that it does, you may point to some potential sign or symbol to say it does, but nowhere in the Bible is the U.S. mentioned. Some say that Revelation 17 or Revelation 18 is a reference to the U.S. I disagree. The Bible, in prophecy, talks about world powers that have been around for thousands of years. The U.S. is just a blip on the screen by comparison. So any references to the Great Prostitute, Revelation 17, or Mystery Babylon, Revelation 18, are only of interest to Christians now. Two-hundred fifty years ago there was no U.S. and no comparison was available. It may well be that way in another few years.
China is rapidly overtaking the U.S. in a number of major and critical areas. Over the past 50 years and thanks to both Democrats and Republicans who clearly followed the leading of the prince and power of the air , America has been set up to fail, to be removed, to be of no consequence, to be destroyed, and most likely at the hands of the Chinese. But that is probably prophetic. Revelation 16:12-14 talks about the sixth bowl of judgment being poured out and the kings of the east going to Israel to fight the Lord at the battle of Armageddon. No mention of the U.S., or the eagle, or the bad orange-man.
A Village Of Tarshish
Probably one of the most popular passages where people claim to have found the U.S. is in Ezekiel 38 where the prophet describes an invasion of Israel that will be launched in the end times by a nation from the remote parts of the north. The descriptive verses about the northern power make it clear that this nation is Russia. What is not so clear is where the U.S. fits into this invasion.
Those who find us in the passage point to Ezekiel 38:13 which says that the merchants of Tarshish and all its villages will speak out against the invasion. The argument is that Tarshish is Britain and the villages or young lions are the English speaking nations like the U.S. and Australia that were founded by British immigrants.
To say the least, this is a highly imaginative interpretation. Its validity is seriously questioned by the fact that no one knows for certain the true identity of Tarshish. Furthermore, recent archaeological developments indicate that Tarshish was most likely Spain, not Britain.
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The Bible Is The Word Of God
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like many people around the world, find comfort and inspiration in the Bible. We believe it to be the sacred word of God and a holy record of Jesuss ministry on earth. We cherish its teachings.
In the Bible, the Apostle Paul taught, In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established . When God teaches an important principle, He sends another source to confirm it. The Book of Mormon is a second witness to the Bibles teachings.
Animal Kidneys As Sacrificial Offering
The formulaic verse And thou shalt take all of the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul that is about the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them above the altar is repeated monotonously in the instructions given for the sacrificial offering of bulls, rams, sheep, and calves and restated all over again as Moses installs Aaron as high priest, who then makes the prescribed sacrificial offerings: And he took the fat, and the rump and all that was upon the inwards and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder . This may be a custom acquired from the Egyptians. The kidneys and their surrounding fat as funerary offering is documented in a relief from the tomb of Tepemnkh . There is a reference to the kidneys as nourishment when in the recounting of Gods loving actions on behalf of Israel, Moses recalls how the Lord found Jacob abandoned and fed him butter of kin, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape .
Relief from the tomb of Tepemnkh , ca. 2700 to 2200 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Reproduced with permission. Among the list of funerary offerings, fat around the kidneys is shown in the boxed hieroglyph.
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Republicans And Democrats Have Very Different Beliefs About The Divine
Republicans and Democrats have very different notions about God. Among Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP, seven-in-ten say they believe in God as described in the Bible. Democrats and those who lean Democratic, by contrast, are far less likely to believe in God as described in the Bible , and are more likely than Republicans to believe in another kind of higher power . Democrats also are more likely than Republicans to say they do not believe in any higher power or spiritual force in the universe .
Additionally, while 85% of Republicans believe God loves all people, eight-in-ten believe God is all-knowing, and seven-in-ten believe God is all-powerful Democrats are less likely to express each of these views. Two-thirds of Republicans say they believe God possesses all three of these attributes, compared with roughly half of Democrats . Republicans also are more likely than Democrats to say God has protected, rewarded or punished them .
Among Democrats, the survey finds big differences between whites and nonwhites in views about God. Most nonwhite Democrats, who are predominantly black or Hispanic, say they believe in God as described in the Bible, and seven-in-ten or more say they believe God is all-loving, all-knowing or all-powerful, with two-thirds ascribing all of these attributes to God. In these ways, nonwhite Democrats have more in common with Republicans than they do with white Democrats.
Did America Have A Christian Founding
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Abstract:Did America have a Christian Founding? This disputed question, far from being only of historical interest, has important implications for how we conceive of the role of religion in the American republic. Mark David Hall begins by considering two popular answers to the queryOf course not! and Absolutely!both of which distort the Founders views. After showing that Christian ideas were one of the important intellectual influences on the Founders, he discusses three major areas of agreement with respect to religious liberty and churchstate relations at the time of the Founding: Religious liberty is a right and must be protected the national government should not create an established church, and states should have them only if they encourage and assist Christianity and religion belongs in the public square. In short, while America did not have a Christian Founding in the sense of creating a theocracy, its Founding was deeply shaped by Christian moral truths. More important, it created a regime that was hospitable to Christians, but also to practitioners of other religions.
The role of religion in the American republic has been a source of controversy since the nations inception. Debates are particularly fierce when they concern religious liberty and the proper relationship between church and state. Arguments on these questions are often framed in the light of the Founders intentions, but unfortunately, their views are often distorted.
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The World Of The Bible
A brief overview of biblical history is helpful in understanding its use of the kidney, which henceforth is used in the plural as it appears throughout the Bible . Its use in the plural has been interpreted to mean that the ancients knew that there were two kidneys. They most certainly did. However, their use in the plural also implies the kidneys in general, as reference to the heart is also made in the plural on occasion but not invariably so as it is for the kidneys. In doing so, the biblical authors were following the dialects of the ancient Semitic languages, of which Hebrew is one, spoken in the Middle East. The Akkadian use of the kidneys in the plural appears in cuneiform texts from 1700 before Common Era or even earlier . Of interest is the explanation given for the presence of two kidneys in the Talmudic corpus, which reasons that there are in humans two kidneys, one to give good and the other bad advice .
Time course showing the principal periods, regions, events, and personalities during biblical times.
What About The Eagles Wings That Were Plucked
The American Eagle can easily be associated with the British Lion because the United States of America was plucked up from the British Empire when the citizens of the thirteen original American colonies declared their independence from King George III in 1776. Two thousand years ago Daniel saw the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents ever written in the history of mankind.
The symbols used to depict modern nations in Daniel chapter 7 are used one other time in scripture, but in a different way. In Daniel chapter 7, the four beasts depict four individual nations. In Revelation chapter 13, the Apostle John saw a vision of one beast instead of four. The one beast was described as having the body of the leopard, the feet of the bear, the mouth of the lion, and the ten horns of the ten-horned beast. This conglomerate beast of Revelation 13 is depicting the endtime world government of the Antichrist. All of the beasts in Daniel chapter 7 have now merged into this one unified beastexcept for one. The eagles wings are not mentioned in the description of the world government beast. So, the big question is, Why not?
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The Heart Versus The Brain
In Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, which is alisting of primary words contained in the King Jame’s version of theBible, the brain is not mentioned once, whereas the heart is cited 826times. Thought and emotions, however, can be said to occur in one’s heador mind, and, therefore, the citations of “head” and “mind” must be examined. An analysis shows that although the headcontains the brain, in the Bible the word “head” is used only in twosenses: as a reference to that part of the body that can be, orexample, bowed, injured, or crowned, or to represent leadership whensomeone is described as being the “head” of a household, church, or agovernment. But the “head” is not represented as the site where allthinking and emotional feelings originate.
This analysis also applies to the word “mind,” although in a fewplaces “mind” is simultaneously used in the same sentence with the word”heart.” In these places, however, it still is not clear from the contextthat the mind is located in the brain or head. For example:
I Sam
…perfect heart and with a willing mind… Chr 28:9
…with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and withall thy mind… Luke 10:27
These examples, however, could just as well represent the writer’suse of different words to mean the same thing in order to give emphasis,which is a literary technique commonly used in the Bible.
Ex
…he will harden his heart… Ex 4:20
…hate thy brother in thine heart… Lev 19:17
DeutJob
Why Thomas Jefferson Rewrote The Bible Without Jesus’ Miracles And Resurrection
The third president had a secret: his carefully edited version of the New Testament.
The ex-president bent over the book, using a razor and scissors to carefully cut out small squares of text. Soon, the books words would live in their own book, hand bound in red leather and ready to be read in private moments of contemplation. Each cut had a purpose, and each word was carefully considered. As he worked, Thomas Jefferson pasted his selectionseach in a variety of ancient and modern languages that reflected his vast learninginto the book in neat columns.
Thomas Jefferson was known as an inventor and tinkerer. But this time he was tinkering with something held sacred by hundreds of millions of people: the Bible.
Using his clippings, the aging third president created a New Testament of his ownone that most Christians would hardly recognize. This Bible was focused only on Jesus, but none of his mystical works. It didnt include major scenes like the resurrection or ascension to heaven, or miracles like turning water into wine or walking on water. Instead, Jeffersons Bible focused on Jesus as a man of morals, a teacher whose truths were expressed without the help of miracles or the supernatural powers of God.
Made for his private use and kept secret for decades, Jeffersons 84-page Bible was the work of a man who spent much of his life grappling with, and doubting, religion.
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Heart Versus The Brain Response
My correspondent chose to avoid my suggestion that the omission ofthe word “brain” in the Bible implies that the brain had little importanceto biblical writers and/or that its function was poorly understood.Instead his reply concentrated on three relationships: thesignificance of the word “head,” whether “thought” is said to comefrom the “heart,” and whether “mind” and “heart” have equivalentusages in the Bible. I have paraphrased his responses.
Equivalent Usages Of Heart And Mind In The Bible
In regard to the equivalency of the words “mind” and “heart,” hisresponse provided the following quotations from the New American StandardBible, which is then followed by the creation scientist’s arguments.
…changed their minds… Acts 28-6
…over to a depraved mind… Rom 1:28,p.
…complete in the same mind… I Cor 1:10
…being of the same mind… Phil 2:2
He avers that here the word “mind” cannot be replaced with “heart”and make any sense out of them. He opines that although heart and mindare comparable in many places, they are certainly not equal and do notrefer to the same entity.
In the aforesaid arguments he dodges the issue. The word “heart”could very well be substituted in each of these quotations on the basis ofthe many examples given in the first part of this article in whichemotional expressions and mental thoughts are attributed to the heart.
If it is true that the Bible is scientifically accurate inseparating the mind from the heart as being distinctly different, thensomewhere that distinction might be expected to be clearly “spelled out.”For example, let’s look again at three examples of the aforesaidquotations to emphasize points previously made.
Ex
…why do thoughts arise in your heart… Luke 24:38
…nor understand with their heart… John 12:40
…why do thoughts arise in your mind …
…nor understand with your mind …
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Human Kidneys As Mirrors Of The Psyche
To differentiate between anatomic references to animal kidneys as body parts burned on the altar in the Torah from its subsequent figurative use in later books authored by more poetic biblical scribes, the translators of the King James Bible elected to use the term reins rather than kidneys in referring to the latter instances, perhaps reflecting their stated commitment to enrich the language with civility and eloquence .
The kidneys are mentioned five times in the Bible as the organs examined by God to pass judgment on a person. They are mentioned either before or after but always in parallel with the heart, as for example, I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings , and, Examine me, O Lord, and prove me try my reins and my heart . All five mentions are in Jeremiah and Psalms, both of which are poetic and epigrammatic in style and, hence, their free metaphoric use of the kidneys and heart as the central essence of a person, or, as we would call it now, the psyche of a person.
When Americans Say They Believe In God What Do They Mean
Nine-in-ten Americans believe in a higher power, but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible
Previous Pew Research Center studies have shown that the share of Americans who believe in God with absolute certainty has declined in recent years, while the share saying they have doubts about Gods existence or that they do not believe in God at all has grown.
These trends raise a series of questions: When respondents say they dont believe in God, what are they rejecting? Are they rejecting belief in any higher power or spiritual force in the universe? Or are they rejecting only a traditional Christian idea of God perhaps recalling images of a bearded man in the sky? Conversely, when respondents say they do believe in God, what do they believe in God as described in the Bible, or some other spiritual force or supreme being?
A new Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults finds that one-third of Americans say they do not believe in the God of the Bible, but that they do believe there is some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe. A slim majority of Americans say they believe in God as described in the Bible. And one-in-ten do not believe in any higher power or spiritual force.
To explore the U.S. publics beliefs about God, the survey first asked, simply: Do you believe in God, or not?
A note on trends in belief in God
Why, then, is this an opportune moment for a new survey exploring American beliefs about God?
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