Saturday 31 January 2009

The Name Of God - Shaddai

ok i'm really sorry but i didnt take any notes, so this is all from a bad memory.

We started off by looking at John 1v1 and how other religions thought that it meant that Jesus was God here, and we went to v14 where it says 'The Word became flesh' which shows Jesus is the manifestation of God's word.

Ruth 1v21 'I went out full and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?'
We looked at this verse because it had the mention of 'the Almighty' adn it was such a great way to describe God - The Almighty, and the english of Shaddai is 'Almighty'


Then we looked at Deuteronomy 12 v 3 +4. '3.And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4. Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.' Which was showing that there was only one God, and all the wooden images (Asherim) will be struck down with fire.

Also we said that Yahweh meant - I will be who i will be


our homework was to find the last use of the word Shaddai and say what we think it means and what it says about it.

my comment:
Revelation 21:22 'And i saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the lamb'
i think what it is saying here is that ther was no temple because the temple is Shaddai.

Thursday 15 January 2009

The Eunuch by Philip

Last week (Jan 11th 09) we looked at Baptism: John, Jesus and the Apostles. No-one really took any notes as far as I know, but Eilidh took a few at the start so I've put them in this blog.

We went round the table saying what baptism meant:

-Under the water - total immersion

-Symbolic of death and resurrection

-Baptism in order to be saved

-Cleansing of sins

-Need for repentance

The first recorded baptism was the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14. We know this was a baptism because 1 Cor 10 says 'For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea...'

The first literal baptism is Matt 3:6 'and they were baptised by him (John) in the river Jordan, confessing their sins'.



So... this week we were told to look at the eunuch by Philip (Acts 8) and it seems I'm first so I'm starting off the blog.
It was only after I was looking at the online version of Acts 8 that I realised my Bible (an ESV) had missed out verse 37 - 'And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." ' and then the eunuch was baptised. He was obviously a religious man because he'd come all the way from Ethiopia to worship at Jerusalem (verse26) and once he'd understood all the fundamentals he asked to be baptised, he knew it was the right thing to do. --I guess it shows that we don't have to know (or can't ever know) the Bible inside out because no-one ever could.

(sorry - just got distracted by a site i just found http://www.ondoctrine.com/10chdelp.htm - what??!)

Sunday 11 January 2009

The Transfiguration (21/12/08)

Sorry for being a little bit late...





The Transfiguration is obviously important - it's in three of the gospels (Matthew 16/17, Mark 9, Luke 9). It's some form of future event, a future vision. From 30AD - day of coming.



Jesus, Peter, James and John his brother had been around Caesarea-Philippia (north of Galilee, by Dan) and six days later Jesus led them up a high mountain by themselves. There are a few possible locations of this mountain - Mt. Hermon (north of Caesarea-Philippi), Mt. Tabor (near Nazareth) or J.Jarmuk (halfway between the two mountains i just mentioned). These are the three that my bible map tells me, but we also thought about Mt. Nebo which is near the Dead Sea.

In Deuteronomy 34, Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mt. Nebo, to the top of Pisgah and the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, Ephraim & Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain (the Valley of Jericho), as far as Zoar. Moses was being shown the land but was not allowed in. (v4 - And the Lord said to him "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and to Jacob, 'I will give it to your offspring.' I have let you see it with your eyes but you shall not go over there." )

In 2 Kings 2 it's the last recorded public activity of Elijah. v8 of the chapter is crossing the Jordan, v11 shows they have gone on from there and Elijah is taken from Elisha. That's the region (the land just north of the Dead Sea) where Moses & Elijah were both around at the end of their ministry - and Jesus was there at a potential end of his ministry. Jesus was looking forward, seeing when he is King. This transfiguration was to galvanise (sp?) Jesus to keep going forward - he had his crucifixion coming - to give him courage and strength, and reassurance.

We looked at references for Matt 17:2 - about Jesus' face shining, white clothes, all links with the Kingdom. Rev 1:16 'In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength')
and also Rev 10:1 - 'Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire'.
Also for the white clothes - Dan 7:9 'As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire.'

2 Peter 1:16-18
'16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when we received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.'
This could be either Jesus' baptism or the transfiguration - however; at the time of his baptism Peter, Jame & John weren't disciples. Jesus was not in his Majesty during his life, as far as the people were concerned.

We should look at the two other gospel records of the transfiguration, there are some different details.