Now That's a Tree!! Yummy!

In this economy, I would love to have one of these babies in my backyard. Do you think they would grow in our Indiana climate?

The Coffee Wars ~ Starbucks Strikes Back...

...with a sure winner! ;)

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand up?

I came across this vid this morning. I really love this song, it is so beautiful. My favorite lines are:

El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyon na Adonai
Age to Age your still the same
by power of the name
El Shaddai, El Shaddai, Erkamka na Adonai
We will praise and lift you high
El Shaddai

What really touches me is "age to age your still the same". That is so important to me. I am so thankful that I can rely on God's consistency.

However lovely this song is, it is not perfect. While the Word of God is perfect and trustworthy, man is prone to screwing up.
I am talking about the following lyrics:

Though the people failed to see
What Messiah ought to be
Though your word contained the plan
They just could not understand

Can you guess what it is that annoys me about this blurb? Time and again throughout our history the church has to always poke the Jew in the eye. Christian's who tend to do this are acting so arrogant. They are essentially saying "you losers are so stupid and blind, look how favored we are by God. We get it! What's wrong with you!"

Wanna know what's wrong? The church stole their Messiah and anglicized him! How in the world can you expect to repackage a Jewish Messiah into a blond-haired, blue-eyed, pork-eatin, Jew-killin, sabbath-breakin, white guy and wonder what's wrong wit dem dum Joos?

Let me tell ya a little something about what the Jews are expecting of their Messiah. First, He must pass the prophet test. This test is given to them in Deuteronomy.

"You shall follow the Lord you God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him.

But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you."
(Deuteronomy 13:4-5)

What do you think? Does our Jesus pass this test? Does our Jesus lead His followers to walk in the paths of the Torah? We all know the answer to this. The church has come up with a zillion doctrines to try to iron out this glaring inconsistency.

Will the real Jesus please stand up?!

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Torah or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Torah until all is accomplished.

"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:17-19

Thank you, Jesus, for clearing this up. :)

Another thing that I would like to point out, the church likes to go on and on about how the Jews rejected their Messiah, but the Gentiles got it right. I view this as someone who likes to belittle others to make themselves look good. But that is not the point I want to make. The Jews did not really initially completely reject Jesus.

Let's step back in time for a moment. It's first century Judea and we are in Jerusalem for Shavuot (Pentecost).

So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. Acts 2:41

Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Acts 2: 46,47

That wasn't to be the last of it. Jews continued to accept the Messiah in droves.

But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. Acts 4:4

And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Torah; Acts 21:20

The word "thousands" used by James in Acts 21:20 to describe the grand number of believing Jews in Jerusalem in Greek is "murios". Greek is the original language of the New Testament.
James said "murios". That paints quite a bigger picture than the english word "thousands". Murios literally means 1)ten thousand 2)an innumerable multitude, an unlimited number 3)innumerable hosts. WOWSERS, that's a lot of Jews. I wonder what the overall population of Jerusalem was at that time?

The main antagonists against the early Believers were the Sadducees and not so much the Pharisees. The Pharisees actually had much in common and even respect for the piousness of the Jesus-followers. Saul/Paul had to go outside of his pharisaical circle and team up with the Sadducees to persecute the Christians.

A lot of the opposition was not simply theological but political. The Sadducees rejected the notion of resurrection and were the political ruling power (within the Jewish world of Jerusalem). They were smaller in number but were in cahoots with Rome who in turn empowered them. The very fast growing Jesus movement was a major threat to their maintaining of control.

It has become such a habit of the church to malign the UNBELIEVING Jews for rejecting Messiah, that most non-Jews don't even realize they are doing it. Trust me, the Jews notice. My hope is that we can change this shameful trend.