Truth Be Told

I admit I’ve heard of Matthew West but never really listened to him. In the car today we heard the song Truth Be Told. As he sang all I could do was nod my head in agreement. Some denominations pride themselves on being fishers of men. They invite people to church, and that’s great, but what happens when those people show up and their baggage is discovered?

Lyrics copied and pasted from AZLyrics. This song is from 2020

There's a sign on the door, says, "Come as you are" but I doubt it.

'Cause if we lived like that was true, every Sunday mornin' pew would be crowded.

But didn't You say church should look more like a hospital?

A safe place for the sick, the sinner and the scarred, and the prodigals, like me?

But truth be told, the truth is rarely told

Oh, am I the only one who says..."I'm fine, yeah, I'm fine, oh, I'm fine, hey, I'm fine

"But I'm not, I'm broken

Jewels From Jesus- More on Repentance

 Hi everyone. Welcome to another Thursday's Child

I've been listening to an Introduction To The Hebrew Bible course on the website The Bible Project. It's explaining the Old Testament and how it was put together. At one point it talks about God's covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. That got me thinking about God's covenant with us through Jesus. Here's what I've found on our covenant. When Jesus came down from the mountain after being in the wilderness for 40 days, he came back and began His ministry teaching repentance. 

As a lot of you know I have an issue with the sinner's prayer being the only thing some churches teach their members as a way to go to heaven, when Jesus taught differently.

So, here's my understanding on our covenant with God.

From the Hebrew Bible

Joel 2:12-13 12) Yet even now saith YHVH turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, 13) and rend your heart and not your garments, and turn to YHVH your God. For He is gracious and merciful, and slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

This wasn’t Jesus speaking this time but Peter, speaking the teachings of Jesus, is scolding people in the temple who are amazed that he and John healed a man lame since birth, for turning Jesus over to be crucified, tells them....

Acts 3:19 19) repent ye therefore, and turn again, so that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may become seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.

The Hebrew noun for repent is Teshuvah meaning return or turning back. The verb is shuv, also meaning to return or turning back.

God made a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. Each time the Israelites were on there own they abandoned their part of the covenant, yet God always kept His covenant with them. 

Jesus taught us to repent, that is our covenant with God. Turning away from our sinful ways. Yes, we slip up and can momentarily abandon our covenant, but having remorse for that sin is what brings us back to repentance and renewing our covenant.

I may start adding a link on here to my substack page also called Nite Reflections. Come find me there. Keep Searching,

Paul

Moses Birth To Exodus

 Hi Everyone,

As we finish up the Book Of Jubilees it was interesting to see that God told Moses to go to Pharoah but it doesn’t say it was in a burning bush. Moses’s conversation with the Pharaoh was different. The Book of Jubilees listed the plagues but didn’t give the conversation of each individual plague. Then, with the Passover and the death of the first born, It says “and all their idols the Lord took vengeance and burned them with fire.” The rest was the same as the Hebrew/ Protestant Bible including the Laws regarding the Passover and Sabbath. 

To finish the book I thought it would be fun to end with the events of Moses in AI pictures. 4 from Google Nana Banana 2 from my ArtSpaceAI program. Google wouldn’t create the violent picture of Moses killing the Egyptian. It was also interesting that it wouldn’t create Moses as a baby in the basket but when I took the word “baby” out of my prompt, it put the baby in the basket. I’m also aware that The Red Sea was a lot further that the city they fled from, but it is AI.

I have thoughts about what the next blog will be but it seems like when I say it, it tends to change, so maybe we'll all be surprised. Until then,

Keep searching,

Paul

Timeline Recap in Book Of Jubilees

 Hi Everyone, I’m hoping everyone is having a great week. I started some fun stuff on Substack this week. Please come over and join me there. It’s also called Nite Reflections. It’s a little daily thing that shows how Jesus used the book of Psalms His teachings. I went through the 23rd Psalm then saw how He spoke Psalm 22 when He was on the cross, so now I’m going to try to find where Jesus actually spoke scripture even if it wasn’t in His formal teaching like the Sermon On The Mount ect. I’ll start with Psalm 22 then start at the beginning of Psalms.

Since it’s been a few posts since we were in the Book Of Jubilees I want to recap the timelines we’ve talked about. I also put this blog on Substack as well.

From Adam to the birth of Noah was 707 years. Adam died in the year 930.

Noah started building the ark in the year 1307 and finished it in 1308. That made him 600 years when he started building the ark. The flood was over in the year 1309

God came down with the angels and confused the speech of the people and they were spread out over the earth from the Tower Of Babel in the year 1688.

In the year 1876, over 500 years after the flood Abram was born. In the year 1965 since Sarai was barren she told Abram to go sleep with Hagar and that’s when Ishmael was born. In the year 1979 God told Abram how much He approved of his faithfulness and changed his name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah, told them that Sarah would give birth to Isaac and established the ordinance of circumcision. There aren’t any dates for what follows so I’m guessing they are still in the 1979 timeframe. Sodom and Gomorrah and Zeboim and all of region of the Jordan were destroyed. Lot was saved and there isn’t any mention of Lot’s wife in this book.

Isaac was born, still no date, but in 1982 Isaac was weaned Hagar and Ishmael were made to leave. In 2003 God told Abraham to take Isaac to the high country and sacrifice him. The same story as the Hebrew Bible, Abraham takes a knife to sacrifice Isaac but an angel stops him and there is a ram hooked on a bush provided for the sacrifice.

In 2115 Jacob has the dream about the ladder where the angels go up and down on the ladder and God blessed Jacob and promises him the land where he is sleeping. The next date given is 2143. During that 28 years Jacob and Rebecca travel to Bethel, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. There is no mention of wrestling with an angel.

During the next 200 years Jacob and Esau wage war on each other, Joseph is sent to Egypt but now mention of a Coat Of Many Colors, and in the year 2330 Moses was born. It’s interesting that since the angels are narrating this to Moses it says “ In the seventh week, in the seventh year, in the forty-seventh jubilee thy father went forth (2303 A.M.) from the land of Canaan, and thou wast born in the fourth week in the sixth year thereof in the (2330 A.M.) forty-eighth jubilee.

As we read the book of Genesis we often read it not thinking about the length of time all these events take place, but it was actually over 1000 years from the creation of the heavens, earth, water, plants, animals, angels, spirits of all creation and man and woman, to the flood, then another 1000 years from the flood to the birth of Moses.

Next time we’ll look at Moses as a baby, The Passover and The Exodus. In the mean time come over to substack, search for nite reflections and join me in my mini bible search. Until then,

Keep Searching,

Paul