IT'S ACTUALLY CALLED THE DAY OF SHOUTING

I LOOKED UP THE "DAY OF TRUMPETS" IN THE BIBLE AND THE WORD "TRUMPETS" IS IN ITALICS. THE WORD "BLOWING" IS "TERUAH" WHICH MEANS SHOUTING. IT'S REALLY A DAY OF SHOUTING!

SO IF YOU ARE WONDERING WHY I AM TYPING IN ALL CAPS, IT'S BECAUSE I AM ACTUALLY SHOUTING AT THE COMPUTER SCREEN!

HAPPY YOM TERUAH! I CAN'T WAIT FOR YESHUA TO RETURN AT THE LAST SHOUT AND THE DEAD IN MESSIAH WILL RISE FIRST! WON'T THAT BE A GLORIOUS DAY! WOO HOO!

Super Christian, a Doctrine that Divides

I totally see the allure to wanting to feel special in my faith. The desire to find some reason other than the seemingly random call I received to break away from Babylonian Christianity and start on this path of finding the same faith as the first century Christians is quite strong. Apparently this desire has been manifest in believers for a very long time:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She *said to Him, "Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left." 
Matt 20:20-21 (NASB)

Granted, this mother was thinking the kingdom was going to be in their lifetimes and an earthly-type kingdom, but still, she wasn't content just being in that kingdom; she wanted her sons (and by extension her) to be of higher office than others.

This is what I see in the doctrines surrounding skin color and heritage in the modern churches who keep Sabbath, the High Days, and reject Babylonian Christianity. The white people came up with British Israelism which is the idea that America, England, and Australia are somehow Ephraim and Manasseh. Sure, there are a lot of parallels in the creation of the United States and imperial Britain that would lead one to suspect such a thing, but there is no scripture to indicate this to be true in the least. The black folks have come up with an idea that their plight (which has been a very hard and terrible struggle, don't get me wrong) parallels them being the actual descendants of the Hebrew people. And, again, the parallels with the plight of Africans, both those still on the African continent and the descendants of those who were brought here in chains, does parallel some scriptures. But the problem arises when these doctrines build walls.

By building walls, I mean when these ideas get so far out of hand that they become a primary doctrine of a church and the followers start to segregate themselves from people who are not "Hebrews". This is not of Yahweh or the Spirit. This is divisive and serves to stop people from coming to the truth.

I like to quote Rosa Parks quoting Paul quite often when this topic comes up. Rosa Parks, after she refused to sit in the back of the bus (rightly), quoted the following scripture to her accusers:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in  Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.
Gal 3:28-29 (NASB)

I tend to agree with Sister Rosa. Christianity, The Way, The Faith, Followers of Messiah, whatever you want to call us is about adoption. Let's just look at another scripture, when the Spirit came on Pentecost:

Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own  language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and  Cappadocia,  Pontus and  Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God." 
Acts 2:5-11 (NASB)

Could it be any clearer? Jews and proselytes, people from everywhere, of all languages, and of all skin colors hearing the word of God in their own tongues. Why would we want to go away from this marvelous truth?

 

Darwin, Continental Drift, and Evolution

Charles Darwin died in 1882. The theory of continental drift was not widely accepted until long after World War II. What on earth could those things have to do with each other and then with evolution? Buckle up because I think all three are linked and very much related.

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift in the early 1900s and was outright rejected by the "scientific community". He was ridiculed for proposing such nonsense. "What force could possibly move land masses?" they asked. Since Darwin died twenty years prior to Wegener's hypothesis, it is likely that Darwin had no clue about the theory. This is important because Darwin's theory of evolution is based on his observations of animals he made on voyages to other continents. His perspective would have been that animals on other continents which appeared similar to those on the European continent would have evolved to be that way at the same independently would have proven evolution. Today, from a pure science perspective, we understand that (hypothetically) finding fossils of wooly mammoths on two continents to be due to the continents actually being connected at some point in the distant past. But if we thought the continents had ALWAYS been separated and (hypothetically) found fossils of wooly mammoths on two continents, we would have just found irrefutable evidence of evolution.

By evolution, I mean the cross-species type by the way. There is no refuting that species change to adapt to their environments. There is no evidence, however, of one animal evolving into another animal. And by "no evidence", I mean, "none".
When science appears to be religion, as it is with the case of evolution, it is very important to put things into their original context. Charles Darwin is the equivalent of an "Early Church Father" or a New Testament author when it comes to the scientific community. Putting his observations into the context of the time can show how incredibly ignorant the man really was of the world around him. Today, we take continental drift for granted - as if it has always been accepted. The reality is that there were serious, degreed, and credentialed scientists who did not accept this theory as we do today into the 1960s. I wonder what it was like to be a scientist back in the 60s when dissent was tolerated and even expected?

The Most Comprehensive Doctrinal Dissertation Ever on the Last Great Day

Um, there is no holiday in the Bible called the Last Great Day. It's the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles. That is all.

The Resurrection of the Dead

Click here to download:
The_Resurrections_of_the_Dead_by_Chris_DeWeese.pdf (100 KB)
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What I'm Not Going to Forget about 9/11

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 (NASB)

With the scrolling of names, memorializing the dead, and painful re-hashing of old arguments, the part that really gets to me are the people who knowingly gave their lives so others could live. The policemen, firemen, and civilians who worked their way up the stairs while everyone else was running down is very stirring. But when I remember Todd Beamer and the others who actually called their loved ones and said goodbye prior to facing pure evil, it really gets to me. It's one thing to go off to fight prepared and armed, it is another entirely to give one's live spontaneously so that strangers might have life. This is what Christ did for us on the cross and the model those of Flight 93 followed. May the heroes of 9/11 rest in peace.

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