Paul's Passing Thoughts

The Old Testament book of Daniel is a kissing cousin to the New Testament book of Revelation. Daniel wrote that “knowledge will increase” in the last days and people assume that refers to technology. No, it’s not referring to technology, it’s referring to knowledge of the Bible. There is little doubt that the unfolding of history lends understanding to what has been in the Bible for about 10,000 years.

First, let us understand what the so-called “Bible” is, which is a word that is not in the Bible. God has been content in the past with his truth being a collection of letters, books, oral tradition, and the commonsense we are all born with. Living life God’s way is also like a stone memorial of sorts regarding his truth. It was the church’s idea, in the 4th century, to compile God’s documents in a book and it was eventually dubbed, “The Bible.” Of course, the church also claimed authority over these documents, which is laughable.

The interpretation of oral tradition, books, letters, the teachings of prophets, and later, the apostles, was an individual endeavor practiced in private homes considered to be “households” of God because families live in households. Here is what Jesus NEVER said to the apostles:

Ok guys; so, what we need to do is document everything I am teaching in one book and distribute the book among purpose builds where followers of our religion will gather to get more and more salvation on the installment plan. The Bible will be used for that purpose; to show everyone what I have done that they cannot do in order to drive them back to the cross to get more salvation at church. And see, your authority over salvation on my behalf is going to be passed on to an institution called “the church.”

Apparently, though this was Jesus’ plan from the beginning, it took the church 300 years to get the plan in place.

Not.

Nevertheless, the Bible does contain what God wanted documented to some extent. But remember, in the Bible, God warns that no one should take away from God’s word or add to it. What does that tell us? Right, it’s going to happen. But, the Bible also states that we have a way of knowing the difference through study and discernment. Did God superintend what is in the Bible? Not to the point of excluding our participation in discerning truth individually.

So, all of God’s people, through a series of events, ended up in Egypt for like 400 years. When they went to Egypt, they were a clan, but they became a nation that didn’t assimilate into the culture so the Egyptians made them slaves.

So, God led the Hebrews out of Egypt as a nation. Along the way to the land where he wanted them to live, he regulated what they were allowed to eat and not eat. People see Old Testament dietary laws as things thundered from heaven by God who apparently has control issues. Now we know why God regulated the types of animals that could be eaten and not eaten. It’s very much about the transmission of diseases.

Also, the Old Testament is a wealth of information regarding many reasons that globalism is a very bad idea, and not “racist.” Because other countries have really, really bad ideas, and America was founded on Enlightenment ideas which encourages guiding our lives according to what is “self-evident” (God-given individual commonsense), we really need to have a CIA version of something that would watch for the beginning of pandemics. Name one pandemic that started in America. The beginning of most pandemics are caused by what people in other countries eat.

The Bible told us so.

God also addresses sex ideas in the Bible extensively. Again, we see these regulations given to Israel as coming from a divine killjoy. The problem here is a God that doesn’t know how to party. Actually, God throws the most awesome parties you could ever imagine. But his party favors are good ideas. Those are in the Bible also. But, God tells us in the Bible that multiple partners and having sex with animals is generally a bad idea. So, people didn’t listen to God’s counsel on sex, and we have things like HIV.

The Bible told us so.

The ideology of anti-humanity is emerging more and more in these last days. By the way, according to the Bible, what is the “last days” and are we in the last days? According to the Bible, the last days begin with the ascension of Christ and end at a time only God knows. So, yes, we are in the last days. At a time known only to God, a rapture will occur described as the imminent disappearance of all Christians on earth followed by seven years of God’s wrath on the earth. That seven years will be followed by Christ doing government right from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

During my recent research on a book project, my eyes have been opened to the recent emergence of anti-humanity movements particularly expressed by the environmentalist movement. The ancient practices of worshiping creation and animals as opposed to God are grounded in that ideology.

The Bible told us so.

God has pushed back against that ideology. The Bible says that God so loved humanity that he gave his only Son that we may have everlasting life. The Bible says the demarcation of all reality is love/life versus hate/death. There is no neutral ground; you either stand with the haters, though unwittingly, or you stand with those who know how to love life according to God’s knowledge.

Christ, through his family and acting diplomats on earth, preach no different message in our day than Moses: “Choose life!.” He is coming back unannounced and pleads with you to be ready for his return.

The Bible tells us so.

paul