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Woe Unto Edom By Philip Cottraux When it comes to Bible prophecy, end-times study is the most popular subject among Christians. However, we miss out by not looking more at prophecy that’s already been fulfilled. If you want to see God’s fingerprints in history, it’s worth examining predictions from the Old Testament that were fulfilled within ancient times, in some cases even before the New Testament age. Daniel is the best example. This prophet lived during the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar all the way through the occupation of Babylon by the Medo-Persians, in the time span of 620-538 BC. But...

Over at the Institute for Family Studies, Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, has found that Americans who have only ever slept with their spouses are most likely to report being in a “very happy” marriage. Meanwhile, the lowest odds of marital happiness—about 13 percentage points lower than the one-partner women—belong to women who have had six to 10 sexual partners in their lives. For men, there’s still a dip in marital satisfaction after one partner, but it’s never as low as it gets for women,... (Skip) In an earlier analysis, Wolfinger found that women with zero...

The Consequences of Child Favoritism By Philip Cottraux The Bible is timeless. Despite being thousands of years old, it still can teach us profound lessons about ourselves. Setting aside just their historical truth, its stories contain universal metatruth on the nature of man. Specifically, the story of Jacob and Esau is perhaps its most cautionary tale on the danger of dysfunctional family dynamics. Like his father Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah had trouble conceiving. And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was inteated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived (Genesis 25:21). After...

The Price Lot Paid By Philip Cottraux Because of a conflict between their herdsmen, Abraham and his nephew Lot decided to part ways. The grazing land just wasn’t big enough for both tribes. Lot could choose where to go; in Genesis 13:9, Abraham said is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. Then lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that...

I was recently confronted with a challenge about marriage at one of my events. The claim was that God permits same-sex marriage today because marriage is not clearly defined in Scripture. Adam and Eve were a monogamous heterosexual couple, but later in Scripture God allowed men to marry multiple women. This signals a trajectory in the Bible towards more openness of sexual expression and in the definition of marriage. Therefore, same-sex marriage should be allowed by Christians today. I don’t think the Bible permits same-sex marriage for a whole host of reasons, but I’ll only explain the ones I offered...

North Point Community Church Senior Pastor Andy Stanley has stated that Christians need to "unhitch" the Old Testament from their faith. In the final part of a recent sermon series, Stanley explained that while he believes that the Old Testament is "divinely inspired," it should not be "the go-to source regarding any behavior in the church." To justify this, Stanley preached last month about Acts 15, which described how the early church decided that Gentile converts did not need to strictly observe Jewish law to become Christians. "[First century] Church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and...

Recently, PJ Media published a piece purporting to demonstrate that three Biblical passages refer to the crucifixion of the Messiah. The piece erroneously refers to all three of these passages as “prophecies,” and wrenches them out of context in the attempt to make the point. I have been asked to offer a response indicating what these passages really mean.The first, which is not a “prophecy,” is Psalms XXII, 16-18. The salient passage is actually at the end of verse 17, which the author renders as follows: “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” On the basis of this...

SYMPOSIUM SESSIONS: What happened back then and how can we know? Archeology, History, and Methodical Issues Surrounding the Old Testament God’s ways with His people: How to hear God speak through His servant Israel. Doing Theology with the Patriarchs and Prophets God has spoken and He still speaks: Engaging a listening world with the Gospel from both Testaments

Everything you ever wanted to know 
about your favourite Torah characters, 
and the ones you’ve never heard of Urriah the Hittite was an outstanding soldier in David’s army. While away fighting, David noticed Uriah’s wife Bathsheba bathing on a roof. He asked about her and invited her to his palace. David was apparently reassured that she had bathed from her menstruation. Get The Jewish News's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP! Our rabbis teach that the ancient Israelite practice was that husbands officially divorced their wives before leaving for war in case they...

MORNING MAY 3 Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. Ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am Holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine. Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. Ye are complete in Him, which is the Head of all principality and power. Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity.Be diligent that...

MAY 2 EVENING Keep yourselves from idols. My son, give me thine heart. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them? Mortify ... your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. For the love of money is the root of all evil:...

MAY 2 MORNING Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and...

APRIL 26 EVENING Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? The Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own Blood. Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman...

APRIL 26 MORNING His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me. Underneath are the Everlasting Arms. When [Peter] saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with His Hand. The...

Our Lord Jesus Christ, ... though He was rich, yet for your sakes ... became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich. It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell. The brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they. Who, being in the...

Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins. Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins. - That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. -He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. - Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, ... that...

From a charred Hebrew scroll, researchers resurrected one of the earliest known versions of the Old Testament using a new digital reconstruction technique that may prove invaluable in revealing words from other previously unreadable finds, said scientists who plan to make the imaging software freely available. In research published in Science Advances Wednesday, computer analysts at the University of Kentucky in Lexington detailed the technology they used to reveal text within a roll of parchment reduced to charcoal in a burning synagogue 1,500 years ago, “virtually unwrapping” the scroll without ever actually touching the artifact. While important to archaeologists, the...

What Does It Mean When Scripture Says That God Hardens Certain Human Hearts? Msgr. Charles Pope • June 27, 2016 • One of the more difficult biblical concepts to understand is that of God hardening the hearts and minds of certain people. The most memorable case is that of Pharaoh: before sending Moses to him, God said that He would “harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Ex 4:21). And there are other instances in which biblical texts speak of God hardening the hearts of sinners, even from among his own people.What are we to make of texts like these, which explicitly or...

... "The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn, a messianic rabbi from the Jerusalem Center-Beth Israel Congregation in Wayne, N.J., deciphers stunning connections between what some may think is a cryptic biblical prophecy to the news events happening right now, in our current time. ... The key verse in question is Isaiah 9:10, which states: "The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." (King James Version) These words were first uttered by leaders in ancient Israel and in response to a limited strike by Assyria on...

In Genesis chapter 2 the order of creation seems to be different to that in chapter 1 with the animals being created (2:19) after Adam (2:7). Doesn't the Bible contradict itself here? Between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve, the KJV/AV Bible says (Genesis 2:19) 'out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air'. On the surface, this seems to say that the land beasts and birds were created between Adam and Eve. However, Jewish scholars apparently did not recognize any such conflict with the account...