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Moishe and Miriam were having a friendly argument. Moishe said that he was very self-sufficient and could easily survive on his own. Miriam, well let’s just say that she didn’t agree. To prove his point, Moishe decided that he was going to wash his own laundry. And he would start with his favourite old college sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, Moishe shouted to Miriam, "What setting do I use on the washing machine?" "It depends," Miriam replied. "What does it say on your shirt?" Moishe yelled back, "Columbia University."

Chaim Yankel was standing on the side of the road hitch hiking on a very dark night in the middle of a storm. The night was rolling and no cars passed. The storm was so strong, he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly Chaim Yankel saw a car come towards him and stop. Chaim Yankel realized that Hashem must have answered his prayers so without thinking about it, Chaim Yankel got in the car and closed the door only to realize that nobody was behind the wheel. The car started slowly. Chaim Yankel looked at the road and saw a curve coming his way. Scared, he started praying again, and begged Hashem for his life. He hadn't come out of shock, when just before he hit the curve, a hand appeared through the window and moved the wheel. Chaim Yankel, paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appeared every time before a curve. Chaim Yankel gathered strength, got out of the car and ran to the nearest town. Wet and in shock, he ran into a bar and started telling everybody about the frightening experience he went through. A silence enveloped everybody when they realized Chaim Yankel was crying and wasn't drunk. About half an hour later, two guys walked into the same bar, and one said to the other. "Look, that's the joker who climbed into the car we were pushing!"

An El Al passenger jet from New York to Tel Aviv was suffering through a severe thunderstorm. As the passengers were being bounced around by the turbulence, a woman turned to a rabbi sitting next to her and with a nervous laugh asked, "Rabbi, you're a man of God. Can't you do something about this storm?" To which he replied, "Sorry, I'm in sales, not management."

Yes - I believe that "Christians" would do well to celebrate/commemorate the LORD's "appointed times" during this era between the LORD's death and His glorious return. It appears the redeemed will do so in the kingdom of God restored on the earth. "All flesh" will go up to worship the LORD at the New Jerusalem. When would they "go up" except at "the LORD's appointed times" ? During this era, we don't "go up" to Jerusalem, because there's nothing there. The "House" is left desolate. The LORD is not there. There is no Temple, and there are no priests. It's like during the Babylonian captivity. During the 40 years between Christ's death, and the destruction of the Temple, many Jews who believed in Christ DID go to the Temple, and DID continue to offer animal sacrifices. (Gentiles would not have been allowed to enter there without being circumcised, which required 2 years instruction, and a vow to keep all the Torah as well as the Oral Torah.) Matthew 23:38 "Look, your house is left to you desolate" (NIV). If the believing Jews had understood clearly that the priesthood had been "changed", and their "house" had been left "desolate" (without the presence of the LORD), I wonder how many of them would have continued to go there. I personally believe that was the main reason for the Letter to the Hebrews - to tell them that no one is justified through animal blood, and one does not have to offer animal blood to be justified through Christ Jesus. Yes, I know that Paul went there, after Christ warned him at least three times what would happen if he did. Paul was determined to reach Jews. "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;" Though he said clearly that he himself was "not under the law." Whether Paul's decision to go to Jerusalem (after 14 years absence) was a mistake, only Jesus can tell us. He was arrested, and ultimately was beheaded.

Does God's Law of Moses require anyone living outside the promised land to go to Jerusalem three times a year for the feasts? The prophet Daniel didn't make that journey from Babylon.

The passages you listed do not actually say that anything in books of Moses had passed away. People need to understand the Jewish context of those passages before they can understand what the issues were about. Very briefly, the "problem" in Acts 15 started when men from Judea were teaching the Gentile brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." Is that statement found in God's Law? No. Circumcision was never given by God as a method to become "saved". What was the "custom of Moses" regarding circumcision and how was it different than the kind of circumcision that Abraham received? We know a bit about what the Pharisees of that time required of Gentile converts. Gentiles who went through the Pharisee proselyte program were required to do many things that are not found in God's Law of Moses, including learning the man-made oral traditions of the Jewish sages and vowing to observe those traditions, before they could be circumcised. And when the program culminated with circumcision, it wasn't the kind of simple circumcision that Abraham was given. The Gentile convert had to comply with additional man-made requirements or else his circumcision was not considered valid by the Pharisees and the convert would not be accepted into the community. Acts 15 specifies that the believers who said "It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses" were indeed Pharisees, so the issues discussed in Acts 15 would be the issues that separated the believing Pharisees from the other Jewish believers. It was not the written Scriptures that separated the various sects of Jews, including the Nazarenes. It was all the man-made traditions that were the issues. Ephesians 2:15 says, "it was the "law of commandments expressed in ordinances" that was abolished. The Greek word for "ordinances" is dogmasin, which is never used in any of it's forms to refer to any of God's laws or instructions in the Greek Scriptures that Greek-speaking people were using in those days. If Paul was referring to God's laws he could have used one of the several Greek words that did refer to God's laws. Instead Paul chose a word that only referred to man-made decrees and rulings, usually made by pagan ruler. We can confirm that Paul was referring to man-made ordinances by searching through God's Law of Moses to try to find any of God's instructions that created a "wall of separation" between godly Gentiles and the Israelites. That separation was caused by man-made traditions. That same word dogmasin is also used in Galatians 2:14, where it says that handwritten dogmasin were "nailed to the cross". The only thing handwritten that was nailed to the cross was the placard written by a pagan ruler that listed the "crimes" of Jesus in three languages. In Galatians 2:14 Peter had been influenced to revert back to following the man-made traditions that prohibited Jews from eating with Gentiles. Those prohibitions are not found in God's Law of Moses. Paul did not rebuke Peter for doing anything that is commanded in God's Law of Moses. The apostle Paul himself testified that he believed everything that agrees with the Law and is written in the Prophets (Acts 24:14), so apparently those who believe that parts of the Law have passed away are believing a different gospel than Paul believed.

Gustave, I can't find where you actually answered the question. Here was the question: The Bible does speak about some things that can be learned from nature or from the fragments of truth that have been handed down through human societies from our forefathers Adam and Noah. That wasn't the question. The question requests information from the Bible that shows that the "natural" laws remain valid after the explicit instructions given by God have supposedly expired.

Hi Gustave, The above statement from the Catechism of Trent makes it sound like the authors attribute more authority to what they call "nature" than they do to the Bible.

What I believe is not of much importance compared to what God's Word says. Many times I have believed things that were wrong. 1) If, as slaves in Egypt, the Israelites had the freedom to perform circumcisions on male infants that Pharaoh had ordered to be thrown in to the Nile, then Moses was probably circumcised because he was older than 8 days. This is merely speculation because we are not told whether Moses was circumcised already. We do know that Moses himself did not circumcise at least one of his own sons on the eighth day (Exodus 4:24) And we know that while Moses was leading the Israelites in the wilderness the Israelite males born in the wilderness had not been circumcised (Joshua 5:5). 2) How do you define "easier" in your question? When Moses was reviewing the Law with the Israelites, he told them that what he was commanding was "not too difficult or beyond your reach". God told Isaac, "Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws," so Abraham apparently knew quite a bit about what would please God. Was it "easy" for Abraham? Was it easy for Abraham to take his promised son to Moriah to offer as a burnt offering? Was it "easy" to chase after the kings who captured Lot and to give a tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek? The Scriptures don't speak much about "easy" or "easier", so I haven't formulated a personal belief about that. However, we do know that it was not "impossible" for the Israelites to keep the Law of Moses because one of the very first things that Luke tells us in his gospel account was that the parents of John the immerser "were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord." (Luke 1:6)

I'm enjoying the discourse here. In my read of the NT, it seems like there are very few requirements put on new believers: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. (Acts 15:28-29) Yet, as believers matured in Christ, they may become subject to the rest of the Law. The epistles of James and John - which were written to more mature audiences (likely Jews who accepted Christ) seem to encourage compliance with the whole law. But it does seem that some of the law (e.g., circumcision, ceremonial cleanliness) were done away with. At the time these words were written, Christianity was considered another Jewish sect; so new believers would be keeping the Sabbath (at least go to the "Christian" synagogue - if there was such a thing) for fellowship and public worship. There was and is so much of Jewish (and Christian) man-made tradition going on for so long that the average nominal believer had (and still has) a hard time discerning between the Laws of God and the traditions of man - be it in the SDA or Catholic or any other denomination.

Harmless as doves ? Matthew 10:16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Thanks Gustave. You always have a way of stratifying things, to make me think more clearly. Or at least to express myself more clearly. There were specified animal sacrifices that were to be offered on the 7th Day Sabbath, and others sacrifices offered at the special "moed". I'm saying the animal sacrifices ended with the death of Christ - the "one true sacrifice". If you "change" the priesthood, you also change the system of sacrifices, because the law specified that every sacrifice had to be brought to an Aaronic priest at "the place where the LORD your God chooses to put His name" (Deuteronomy 12:11-14). Without the Aaronic priests, there is nowhere to take an animal sacrifice, rather no one to take a sacrifice to. We now offer up "spiritual sacrifices" which Jesus then presents to His Father in Heaven ("the true Tabernacle" "which the LORD pitched and not man").

Gustave said in the quote below: Agree. I expect that there are other planets with intelligent life. But, I would expect different solar systems. No reason to think the same as ours.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Lehman Brothers On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about Lehman Brothers…. The Investment Company Had Been in Business 158 Years Before their bankruptcy, Lehman Brothers was one of the largest investment banks in the country. It had been in business for 158 years since its founding in 1850. At the time Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the company had around 25,000 employees nationwide, which shows that no company is too big to fail. The Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Was the Largest in U.S. History Lehman Brothers had picked up five different mortgage lenders by 2004, which included BNC, which made subprime loans. The company was heavily invested in mortgages, much more than other investment firms. Because of this focus, it was especially vulnerable when the housing market crashed and did not have the capital to handle its losses, which led to the company filing for bankruptcy. A German Immigrant Founded the Company Henry Lehman, a German immigrant who lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and ran a dry-goods business in 1844, transformed into Lehman Brothers after the addition of his own brothers Mayer and Emanuel in 1850. American Express owned the company for about ten years when it was spun off and offered shares to the public while showing $3.3 billion in assets. The company’s services continued to expand by combining investment and commercial banking, and this wide expansion may have helped contribute to its collapse. Shares in the Company Fell 48 Percent in One Day Shares in Lehman Brothers dropped like a rock in March 2008 because Bear Stearns had almost collapsed, and it was one of the largest underwriters of securities that were mortgage-backed. The view among those on Wall Street was that Lehman would be next, so investors started dumping their stock, and it turned out that the predictions were right. The Collapse of Lehman Brothers Triggered the Recession Economic turmoil between December 2007 and June 2009 resulted in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and a heavy contributor was the poor decision to offer subprime mortgages, which allowed borrowers with low credit ratings to purchase homes at high rates of interest. As home prices started dropping in 2007 and the number of purchasers dropped dramatically, it placed the country in a severe economic downturn. Unemployment jumped by 10 percent, millions of jobs disappeared, and Dow Jones dropped by 5,000 points.

I confounded it with Ellen's account of her visit to an alien planet, you're right. I just found what I think I was referencing (Early Writing by EGW). The alien world Ellen describes that "she flew too" allegedly has a "Tree of Life" & "commandments of God" . After Ellen says she went to another planet that had seven moons and ran into "good old Enoch", who claimed to be there on holiday. "The Lord has given me a view of other worlds. Wings were given me, and an angel attended me from the city to a place that was bright and glorious. The grass of the place was living green, and the birds there warbled a sweet song. The inhabitants of the place were of all sizes; they were noble, majestic, and lovely. They bore the express image of Jesus, and their countenances beamed with holy joy, expressive of the freedom and happiness of the place. I asked one of them why they were so much more lovely than those on the earth. The reply was, "We have lived in strict obedience to the commandments of God, and have not fallen by disobedience, like those on the earth." Then I saw two trees, one looked much like the tree of life in the city. The fruit of both looked beautiful, but of one they could not eat. They had power to eat of both, but were forbidden to eat of one. Then my attending angel said to me, "None in this place have tasted of the forbidden tree; but if they should eat, they would fall." Then I was taken to a world which had seven moons. There I saw good old Enoch, who had been translated. On his right arm he bore a glorious palm, and on each leaf was written "Victory." Around his head was a dazzling white wreath, and leaves on the wreath, and in the middle of each leaf was written "Purity," and around the wreath were stones of various colors, that shone brighter than the stars, and cast a reflection upon the letters and magnified them. On the back part of his head was a bow that confined the wreath, and upon the bow was written "Holiness." Above the wreath was a lovely crown that shone brighter than the sun. I asked him if this was the place he was taken to from the earth. He said, "It is not; the city is my home, and I have come to visit this place." He moved about the place as if perfectly at home. I begged of my attending angel to let me remain in that place. I could not bear the thought of coming back to this dark world again. Then the angel said, "You must go back, and if you are faithful, you, with the 144,000, shall have the privilege of visiting all the worlds and viewing the handiwork of God."

Try Spiritual Gifts Volume I page 164. She is describing Jesus in the Most Holy Place. "Jesus raised the cover of the ark, and behold ! the tables of stone, with the ten commandments written upon them . . . . the fourth commandment living among the ten holy precepts, while a brighter light shines upon it than upon the other nine, and a halo of glory is all around it."

Didn't abrogate the Sabbath. And yes - month by month at the New Moon, and week by week - we will go up to the New Jerusalem, to worship the LORD.

Lou: I’m intrigued by the Maxwell version of Romans 3:25-26 that you gave earlier. Why do so many versions translate this gospel passage as a revelation of God’s activity in salvation rather than a revelation of God’s character, or the kind of person God is? Is the gospel the truth about God’s character or the […] The post Questions and Answers (16:11) appeared first on Jon Paulien's Blog. View the full article

Gustave: In an earlier post, you said the following that I have quoted below: I thought it might be of interest to some people reading this thread for me to comment on your statement. * Seventh-day Adventists do not have an official statement of belief on this subject. * However, SDAs do commonly believe that there are other (probably many) planets in the cosmos on which there is living, intelligent life. * They would commonly believe that the planet Earth is the only planet in the universe on which those living beings sinned. Therefore, salvation is unique to the Earth, and life on those planets exists in perfection as God had planed it. * SDAs would see the weekly Sabbath as a special time in which humans could fellowship with God. This is not a denial of prayer and other such means of relating to God. Rather it is simply a special time for spiritual enrichment and spiritual growth. * There is a sense in which the weekly Sabbath is unique to the Earth. This is not a denial of a similar time on the other planets that have intelligent life. Rather it is simply an acknowledgement that any such Sabbath on other planets is beyond our specific knowledge. We simply do not know how that Sabbath might be constituted. * As SDAs believe in a 7-day creation of the Earth, with a Sabbath related to that creation, so also those other planets could have a Sabbath related to their creation. But, we are not informed as to anything about their creation, except that God created all and God's creation, as God created, was perfect and good.

Wise as serpents ? Matthew 10:16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

You still haven't heard it from an SDA . His moniker is "Not an SDA". I believe Ron is either Messianic Jew or Hebrew Roots. Nothing wrong with that - I really appreciate Ron's input here.

5 Things You Didn't Know About the Star-Spangled Banner_2 On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was later adopted as the U.S. National Anthem. Find out these 5 surprising things you never knew about this song and its namesake... The Melody Is From an Old Drinking Song A social club in London named the Anacreontic Society had an official drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heav’n,” which is the same tune as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” John Adams, while he was running a campaign for reelection against Thomas Jefferson, borrowed the tune to set to a poem titled “Adams and Liberty.” It warned against involvement by foreigners and mercantilism as opposed to Thomas Jefferson’s sympathies toward the French. While Jefferson won the election as president, the old English drinking song set to Adams’ poem may have endeared the tune to Americans who heard it. A Different Flag Was Flying When Key Wrote His Poem During the Battle of Baltimore at Fort McHenry, it was not only raining heavily all night but bombs were showering down. The woolen garrison flag flying over Fort McHenry was 30 feet by 42 feet, which made it so heavy that 11 men were required to raise it even when it was dry. Wet, it might have weighed up to 500 pounds, which would have broken the flagpole, so the 17 by 15-foot storm flag was flying in its place the night of the bombardment and replaced by the garrison flag the next morning, which was when Key must have seen it. The Song Was Adopted as the National Anthem in 1931 Robert Ripley, the entertaining owner of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” pointed out in 1929 that the U.S. lacked a national anthem. He received many letters from the public, which he responded to by saying they should write their congressmen. As a result, Congress was presented with a petition holding five million signatures, and the “Star-Spangled Banner” became officially the national anthem in 1931. It’s the Name of a Famous Flag The Star-Spangled Banner is also the name of the larger flag that was flown at Fort McHenry, and was made by a woman in Baltimore named Mary Pickersgill in 1813. It was Pickersgill who sewed both of the flags destined for Fort McHenry. The smaller one was designed to weather the elements, no matter how bad the weather was, which would save wear on the bigger flag. The Flag Was Hidden During World War II The flag that flew over Fort McHenry and dubbed the Star-Spangled Banner was sent to the Smithsonian Museum in 1907 for preservation and has only been removed once since it was donated in 1914 by Eben Appleton. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt feared an attack on the National Mall, so the flag was sent to Luray, Virginia, to the Shenandoah National Park to keep it safe along with other items of historical importance. The flag that was the inspiration for America’s National Anthem is on display at the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Hershey's_2 On September 13, 1857, Milton Hershey was born -- to the future delight of chocolate lovers. Here are five things you probably didn't know about the man that popularized chocolate candy throughout much of the world... The Hershey Company Could Have Sunk Early On Hershey developed his own recipe for milk chocolate, which was followed by delights such as Hershey’s Kisses in 1907, but he might not have been around long enough to enjoy the long-term success the company has experienced. Hershey and his wife Kitty were planning to go on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and had bought first-class tickets. However, they changed their minds about going. Whether it was business or illness, it shows that their decision to cancel their trip was a lucky one. A Town Was Built for the Company’s Employees Derry Township was the original name of the small town where Hershey grew up and started his business. Deciding to build his chocolate business there, he realized the importance of happy employees, so he constructed a model community, complete with brick homes, lawns and light poles topped with a Hershey Kiss. Hersheypark was added in 1906 and has remained a favorite attraction for visiting families and locals ever since. M&Ms Have a Relationship With the Hershey Family Hershey controlled the chocolate that was rationed during World War II, and the son of Frank Mars, founder of Mars Candy Company, wanted to invent a chocolate pellet with a candy coating but he needed help. He partnered with Bruce Murrie, whose father was the president of Hershey’s, for 20 percent of the new company that was making the candy. The company was named M&M Limited, which stands for Mars and Murrie. Hershey Established a School for Orphans The Hersheys were childless but must have loved children, so in 1909, the Milton Hershey School was founded to help lower-income families. Hershey left the school around $60 million when he died and arranged that it would receive 30 percent of the profits from Hershey’s in the future. The school provides free education, board, counseling and health care to around 2,000 students. Where the Name Came for Hershey’s Kisses Is a Mystery Chocolate aficionados have been enjoying Hershey’s Kisses since 1907, but only Milton Hershey knows why they were named that, and he isn’t around anymore. One theory is that the sound made by the candy machine when the chocolates plop out sounds something like a kiss, and maybe that’s the reason for the name.