My Journey From Jew To Completed Jew

My Journey From Jew To Completed Jew.

I always like to read and/or hear someone's testimony of how they came to place their faith into Jesus Christ. This is the testimony of one woman's journey to conversion from the Jewish faith to faith in Messiah--Jesus Christ. Enjoy!

4 Things that are good for every person

1. Hear
   
2. Teach
   
3. Deliver
   
4. Wait
   

Psalm 27:7-14

Hear me

1. Means to listen. He is asking God to please listen to my prayer. It is always good to pray when there is a need or not.
   
2. Have mercy. Mercy is, even though we deserve punishment or the consequences of our wrong decisions, we do not get the punishment or consequences we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. We also need to show mercy to others since we have received mercy (Luke 10:37, Jude 1:23).
   
3. Answer. He wants a positive answer from God. God always answers prayer. The answer might be yes, no, or wait. The yes may be different then what we are expecting. We may pray to be hired for a certain job, but we may not get it, for God knows it to be better to have another one, or He wants us to learn something.
   
4. Seek. No human seeks God. Mankind as a collective or individually have no desire to seek God and do not seek God (Romans 3:11). God seeks us. He initiates the plan of salvation. He opens our eyes, mind, and heart to our true condition and the punishment for it. He then gives command to seek (Psalm 27:8, Mark 1:15). King David does, most refuse, resist (Act 7:51, 2 Timothy 8:8). In his seeking the Psalmist fears and so ask 3 things: do not hide from me, don't put me away in your anger, and don't forsake me. In faith he states that even if his parents forsake him, God will not.
   

Teach me

1. He wants to know God's ways of doing thing, His lifestyle, and His rules, to that he may also live this way.
   
2. He wants to be led by God so that he may know, understand, and obey God's rules.
   

Deliver me

1. Not to my enemies. The Christian has many enemies. Many times Christians are harmed and killed. The main enemy is the enemy of our souls—the Devil. The Psalmist knows that only God can deliver (2 Peter 2:9) and that we cannot deliver ourselves (Psalm 34:4).
   
2. Not to false witnesses. These lie so that the believer in God get in trouble Mark 14:56).
   
3. Then he shows his faith in believing that God will deliver him. Even if God does not and he dies, God receives him into heaven (Daniel 3:17-18).
   

Wait

1. We must wait patiently for answers to prayer and deliverance (Jeremiah 42:7, Acts 10:31).
   
2. We are to have courage while we wait. This courage is that God will answer when the time is right (Acts 28:15).
   
3. We need God's help to strengthen our hearts, for we need to be taught that His timing is best. It is God adding to our maturity as Christians (2 Peter 1.5-9).
   

Why Study Biblical Ethics?

This is another part in a series on Biblical Ethics.

 

Why Study Biblical Ethics?

 

A1 The Importance of Bible Study

B1 Not just reading but study

B2 This article on why we should read and study the Bible has some good reasons.

C1 It is God's Word to us.

C2 It is totally reliable and without error.

C3 We should read and study the Bible because God does not change and because mankind's nature does not change.

C4 We should read and study the Bible because there is so much false teaching.

C5 We need to be equipped to serve God.

C6 We need to see the consequences of giving into temptations.

C7 We read and study it so that we can apply it to our lives and situations.

 

A2 The importance of Biblical Ethics

B1 In light of Topic A1 we can know right from wrong.

C1 Things we must do.

C2 Things we must not do.

C3 Examples of what happens otherwise.

C4 Examples of people's choices/decisions to guide us.

C5 Principles that we can apply to situations that are not clearly labeled as right or wrong.

B2 We are to be a light to the world. The world is to look at us and see the difference between Christian living and unchristian or corrupted Christian living.

B3 We are to glorify God.

B4 We need to learn the laws of God's Kingdom.

B5 Choices do have consequences.

 

A3 The Old Testament and its laws are for a nation.

 

A4 The New Testament and its laws are for a people, a group called the church.

 

What Is Biblical Ethics?

This is a topic of a bigger work that I am laboring on.

 

What is Biblical Ethics

 

A1 Ethics is

B1 the study of moral values and rules.

B2 the study of right and wrong

 

A2 The philosophical study of ethics refers to people coming up with a rational (scientific) arguments for a code of right and wrong.

B1 Three broad views

C1 Virtue ethics has to do with the character of the person, not the act or deed.

C2 Deontology refers to strict adherence to rules, not necessarily character or deed.

C3 Consequentialism deals with rightness or wrongness from the outcome/result of the act or deed.

B2 Examples

C1 Virtue ethics would say it depends on whether the lie helps or hurts one's character or the group's character.

C2 Deontology would hold that lying is always wrong.

C3 Consequentialism would believe that lying is wrong if it hurts someone.

B3 Source of the rules

C1 Virtue ethics would rely on what would make the being of a person the best.

C2 Deontology has a number of theories one being the divine law and moral absolutes from these laws.

C3 Consequentialism bases its rules on what the outcome would be thus would be flexible or changing depending on the circumstances.

B4 What is desirable

C1 Virtue ethics would hold to desirable virtues or characteristics of one's being, however, how they derive their list of what is virtue is debated among them.

C2 Deontology would point to meeting a standard, an absolute standard. Murder is always wrong.

C3 Consequentialism often bases what is desirable on the principle of the greatest happiness. Murder would be wrong it the outcome is not for the happiness of a person, a group, a family, or society.

B5 Famous examples

C1 Virtue ethics--Aristotle taught that the greatest happiness comes from practicing virtues. Probably in the sense of having good, virtuous habits based on reason. Some of these would be reason, wisdom, justice, temperance, etc. The most common example is to meet a mean between two extremes, thus courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness.

C2 Deontology

D1 Augustine taught that humans are to seek the highest good for personal and societal happiness. This is done by loving God. If one loves God then he/she will do what God commands. God always does things according to love. Moral truth exists only in dependence of what God says, so his commands are mortality (right and wrong).

D2 Robert Adams teaches

E1 Two theorems

F1 It is wrong to do X.

F2 it is against God's laws to do X.

E2 God's laws do not explain what is moral (right or wrong) but the laws themselves show and teach what is right or wrong, thus why God made those laws.

E3 Laws and actions would have to be in agreement with God's character especially His characteristic of love.

F1 An action is wrong if and only if it defies God's character of love.

F2 God cannot command cruelty for instance because it is against His character of love. Cruelty is not loving. God is loving, thus cruelty is against God's character and is wrong.

D3 The Euthyphro dilemma

E1 Offered by Plato as, "Is X good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?"

E2 The first would imply that everything that God commands is good.

E3 The second would imply that God is subject to a law, a standard, greater than Himself.

C3 Consequentialism

D1 Basically is the end justifies the means

D2 Forms

E1 What is best for the state (government) is what is morally good. (State Consequentialism).

E2 What is best for maximum pleasure is morally good, and what is painful is morally bad. (Utilitarianism, Hedonism)

E3 What is best for me is morally good; everything else is morally bad. (Ethical egoism)

E4 What is best for others is morally good; what is best for me that might hurt others is morally bad. (Ethical altruism)

E5 What is best may be mistaken, but if the motive was good then it is morally good. (Motive Consequentialism)

E6 What is most loving (as defined by the individual) is morally good, and what is not loving is morally bad. It all depends on any given situation. (Situational Ethics)

E7 And many others.

D3 Many different adherents from Milton Friedman to Sam Harris, Peter Singer, and others.

 

A3 Biblical ethics is the study of what the Bible teaches on what is right and wrong.

B1 Philosophically Biblical Christians would be considered to be believers in some form of deontology.

B2 My view

C1 The Bible is God's revealed words.

C2 God is accurately portrayed in the Bible.

C3 God is good.

C4 God created all things good.

C5 Creation needed laws and regulations for everything to operate smoothly.

C6 Therefore, God's rules are good. (because the results are good according to the operator's manual).

 

 

The Term: Spiritual Resurrection

Note on the topic/issue/term "spiritual resurrection":

A1 Definitions:

B1 Spiritual

C1 Not physical

C2 Physical would point to the flesh, the body

C3 Spiritual would be speaking of the nonmaterial of a being

B2 Resurrection

C1 Becoming alive again

C2 Implies

D1 Something that is living

D2 Then dies

D3 Then comes alive again

B3 Spiritual Resurrection then would refer to something that is alive, then dies, then is made alive again.

A2 Bible

B1 Not taught

C1 Bible teaches that we are dead because of sin. This would be the sin nature that we are born with (original sin).

C2 Bible teaches that God initiates the salvific process, not any person.

B2 The most common Bible reference (verses) used for this is Ephesians 2:1-6

C1 Verse 1 in many translations has the words "has quickened". These words are not in the Greek.

C2 Literally translated the verse reads "and you being dead in trespasses and sins"

D1 Trespass is going or doing what we must not do

D2 Sin is to violate or break a law

C3 Verse 5: "...even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." (Ephesians 2:5, EMTV)

D1 Parallel passages

E1 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, (Colossians 2:13, EMTV)

E2 For as the Father raises up the dead and gives life, thus also the Son gives life to whom He wills. (John 5:21, EMTV)

D2 The word for resurrection and used in the sense of raising something (sleep, sitting, disease, or death, etc.) is egeiro.

D3 The word for made alive is zoopoieo.

D4 The word used in verse 5 is suzoopoieo, that is make alive together.

D5 Resurrection and made alive are two different concepts.

E1 Resurrection (as mentioned above) is something alive that dies, and then is raised from death.

F1 The Lord Jesus as man was alive, died, and raised to life, that is, made alive again. (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

F2 Those who are trusting in God for salvation will be resurrected in the future, that is, were alive, died (physically), then raised again to life. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

E2 Make alive is something dead that is, well, made alive.

F1 The saints, God's people, are made alive, that is, existing as dead then made alive. (Colossians 2:13)

F2 Jesus was made alive in the sense that in the grave He was dead and when raised from death is alive again.

E3 They are similar in that

F1 in resurrection and make alive both have dead to being alive again.

F2 in make alive only being dead to being alive.

B3 So while not in error to use the term, it would be better to avoid especially as Gnostics and others use the term to indicate things as Jesus did not raise physically only spiritually or some other sense.

A Changed Life

This is a brief about a man named Louis Zamperini. He was full of bitterness and rage. He was torn up with addictions to alcohol. He rage had affected his marriage. All this came about in part because of the severe abuse he suffered as a Japanese prisoner of war. Here is part of his story. Read the full article here: Louis Zamperini's Story of Survival and Redemption.

When 94-year-old Louis Zamperini opened his mailbox a few months ago, he found a letter he will always treasure.

"Dear Louis," wrote Billy Graham, "My associate read me parts of the new book about you yesterday. What a life you have lived. What a description you have in the book of your conversion to Christ in 1949, and the great part that [your wife] Cynthia played in it, which I was aware of, but not in such detail. I had tears in my eyes and praise in my heart for what God has done through you."

Mr. Graham's letter is one of thousands that have poured into Zamperini's mailbox since the release of the New York Times No. 1 bestseller "Unbroken." The story about Zamperini's remarkable journey from Olympic runner to World War II hero has been hailed by TIME magazine as the best nonfiction book of the year.

And Billy Graham isn't just a consumer of "Unbroken," he plays a pivotal role in the book.

As his letter said, the year was 1949. The city: Los Angeles. Louis Zamperini was adrift and struggling with alcoholism and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following savage abuse as a prisoner of war in Japan. Cynthia was ready to saddle him with divorce papers.

It was around…

Some say there cannot be a change as this but there is such a change as mentioned in the article. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17, EMTV).

Changing the political scene does very little if anything, but when God changes the person into a new creation, then society changes.

 

Prophet

Today there are millions of prophets. Are they really a prophet?

Qualifications of a prophet
Typical Today	A little tougher	Bible's list
Attend a prophet school (Search engine search for "prophet school")	Have God's Heart	True Call (Joel 1:1, Deuteronomy 18:18)
Have an experience	The Power to Create True Unity	True Message (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)
	Prophetic Sacrifice (God first)	True Prediction (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)
	Willing to die for the brethren	True God (Deuteronomy 13:5-6)
		True Doctrine (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)
		True Life See (Jeremiah 6:13, Matthew 7:15)

 

A prophet is one who speaks for God. It is usually a message of imploring people to repent to avoid God's judgment. It rarely indicates telling the future.

Are there prophets today?

There are no official spokesmen/women for God today. Everyone who calls themselves such is either deceived or a liar.

More later…