June 25, 2005

• Friday’s Bible study was a continuation of Tuesday’s Bible study. Pastor Don wanted to keep sharing on this topic, but there is an interesting side journey as well.

  
  

  You can find Tues’ Bible study a few days ago and it would be helpful to give you some of the foundation that we were working off of.

  
  

  Pastor Don reminded us about 1 Cor. 13 and how it is often mis-quoted to imply that signs and wonders are not in existence. He said that there is a new generation of Christians who don’t read the Bible, and who don’t believe in signs and wonders.

  
  

  God ordained supernatural signs and wonders. Christ functioned using signs, wonders, and gifts.  It was a tool that He used to get the attention of the people. It helped to spread the Word. When Jesus gave his great commission, he told the disciples to spread the word throughout the world. It would have been physically impossible for the disciples to have walked and taken ships and covered the entire face of the globe, so we are still under that commission to spread the Word to the whole world, and one of the tools Jesus gave us, as he gave the disciples are signs, wonders, and gifts.

  
  

  There are many Christians who believe in Christ, but have not experienced a wonder. In order to experience the wonders, you need faith. So many of us are stuck on believing only what we can see with our physical senses. Faith goes beyond the physical.

  
  

  It is important to believe (and those who believe are not inferior), they are just not acting on all that Jesus has given us. Many Christians only believe what they can see, believe what others testify about, believe in the Written Word of God, and those are good, but there is more.

  
  

  Pastor Don went onto a side-track to talk about the authenticity of the Bible. He pointed out about finding the dead sea scrolls, and how it was shown that there were only 17 differences in punctuation between what had been buried before Christ, and what we still use as the Old Testament today. He also pointed out that there are 24,000 copies of the New Testament in ancient Greek, and they all convey the same information, nothing added, nothing taken away. He talked about how these copies were spread from church to church, copied and sent on to another church. There would have been glaring discrepancies if someone tried to modify the words.

  
  

  King James in 1611 gathered many copies of the scripture, to make sure that they all said the same thing, and he had 300 people to put together the King James version of the Bible, and 100 of them were poets who tried to keep the beauty of the psalms intact.

  
  

  Some cults try to point out that there are various versions of the Bible and they all differ, but when you get back to the original Greek and Hebrew that the scriptures were written in, there is no difference. Not to mention that there have been no archeological evidence that disproves any fact in the Bible. Pastor Don pointed out that if there was ever something that differed, we would be sure to know about it for the newscasters would be all over the information.

  
  

  He also pointed out that there were other historical documents, but none with as many copies as the bible.

  
  

  There are 17 copies of the Iliad and Oddesy
  There are 49 copies of Dante’s Infernal.

  
  

  And the copies of the Iliad and Oddesy, and the Infernal all disagree.

  
  

  (Heather’s note) If you ever want to read a detailed description of the above side-issue, I recommend The Case For Faith and The Case For Christ Both books are written by Lee Stobel, and they helped me sort this out.

  
  

  Pastor Don also pointed out that in the book More Than a Carpenter Josh McDowell points out that if all the copies of the Bible were destroyed, you could put the Bible together from secular sources for it is the most quoted book in the world.

  
  

  Then someone in Bible study asked Pastor Don what it meant that the Bible was written in the stars, and we went on another side journey.( Heather’s comment:  I love Friday Bible studies, if you are ever in this area I strongly recommend you attending. We have a pot-luck lunch, and it is very informal. Pastor Don allows people to ask questions, share opinions, and it is very open and non-intimidating. He, as my husband often tells our kids, is like a Professor of the Bible. People can ask a question and he can go to many sources to answer the question from the top of his head. And we get a lot of great laughs at the Bible study.)

  
  

  In answer to the question about the Bible written in the stars, he pointed out that God named the stars with Adam, and the names that we use today do not completely tell the story that God wanted to show in the stars.

  
  

  Ursa Major – The Big dipper – Bear
  Ursa Minor- The Little dipper
  Scorpio
  Virgo

  
  

  These are secular names. He pointed out that the stars do not really picture, unless you use your imagination.

  
  

  Who named the constellations? Virgo, the virgin, all ancient cultures had a virgin goddess, Egypt, Greece, etc. The Mizzarach (excuse the spelling)

  
  

  In order to see the Bible in the stars, you have to look at the individual names of the stars within a constellation.

  
  

  Virgo, some of the names of the stars in this constellation are:

  
  

  The Woman,
  With Child
  Holding Corn
  Seated on throne
  
  So it portrays a woman with child seated on a throne and holding corn. This talks about the Christ child, who like wheat and corn will die, and then will produce new life, etc.

  
  

  The names of the stars in the constellations were passed down from father to son.

  
  

  Aquarius the water bearer (water is the Word).

  
  

  Orion – Hercules – sword and scythe. No warrior would carry a sword and a scythe in battle at the same time. But Christ would carry the Sword which is the Word of God, and the scythe which is the harvest, and Christ will also be the warrior.

  
  

  Gemini – the dual nature of God.

  
  

  Sheep Fold Constellation – ahh, our great Shepherd

  
  

  Nothing happens on earth, any great event, that is not mirrored in the sky. Astronomy is a phenomenal study, but astrology is a perversion of what God wrote in the stars.

  
  

  Satan will imitate what God has done to pull people away from God. Pastor Don pointed out that before he was saved two astrologers told him that he and his wife were such opposite characters that their marriage would never last, it has lasted over 30 years so far. 

  
  

  Revelation 12:1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.

  
  

  If you think about the sky, there are times when a similar occurrence of positioning of stars like this is possible.

  
  

  Rev. 12:3-4  And another sign appeared in heaven: behold a great, fiery dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth,  And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, do devour her Child as soon as it was born.

  
  

  Now this passage talks about the birth of Jesus, and how Mary had to go into hiding, as well as how satan tried to destroy the savior.

  
  

  And if you think about it, some of the signs in heaven are the same signs that the wise men followed to find the Christ child.

  
  

  If you mess around with astrology remember that it is a tool of the devil to try and hide the fact that you can find out about Jesus in the stars.

  
  

  God is returning everything to its rightful place by the end times.

  
  

  I will continue this later. I have to go and get my daughter from a birthday party.  Sorry that I am doing it in two parts, but maybe it is easier to read that way.

  
  

  Heather                                                                         
  

  • 5:07 pm
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