Helen

The explanation of Jesus to two disciples on the way to Emmaus must have been a wonderful explanation of who Jesus is and what is His purpose on the earth. In Luke 4:18-21 where Jesus began to preach in the synagogue, clearly identifying Himself as the suffering servant, and showing the scriptures which, during the ensuing years, He fulfilled completely.

He was cut off for the transgression of "My people". In the old testament this meant Israel, but Paul appropriated it for the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans etc. Peter was clearly shown that gentiles were included in salvation when he dreamed of the sheet and all the animals. So all nations are included - salvation is available for everyone. The size of the group is inferred by the word "many". Many are saved but not all. All nations are included, but not all people of all nations. As many as received Him........became the sons of God. God would not have anyone die to salvation. However, we have a part too. We must believe and receive Him. Then we can be justified in the substituting of the man Jesus to bear the punishment for our sin. There will be those who do not receive Him, and do not avail themselves of Jesus' sacrifice. Tragically.

I actually answered a lot of this in the last question. Basically the blood is the life of an animal. When Adam sinned he lost his Life, as represented by the pouring out of the blood of the sacrificed animal. No animal can really represent a man, so animal sacrifice is only to teach the reality of death as a consequence of sin. Christ, our Redeemer, is sacrificed for us. Holiness is represented by the unblemished lamb. Humanity is blemished and no man can satisfy the requirements of God. Therefore God is unsatisfied until we offer the living sacrifice of Jesus, the second Adam, for our sin offering. In other words we come under the covering of the blood of Jesus. God's nature is uncompromising holiness, and uncompromising Love (in that He provided everything needed for our reconciliation, as He did for Abraham who was ready to sacrifice Isaac). All we have to do is love and honour Him in spirit and in truth.

The law is described biblically as a teacher. It's purpose was to bring consciousness of sin to the people. Then the people could understand that they would never be able to satisfy the demands of perfection, the standards of a righteous God, but that they would always fall short. The animal sacrifice shows that when God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest they die, (and they had believed satan that they would not die!)that this was reality! Sin involves death, and therefore death must be involved in the reconciliation with God. Therefore God instituted the animal sacrifice to identify disobedience with death. As the blood is poured out of the animal, so through sin, the Life is poured out of a person. It was not that God was pleased with animal sacrifice, especially when consciousnes of sin was not real, and love was not understood (eg the care of aged parents dismissed in favour of giving the money to God). It (animal sacrifice) was a pointer to Jesus as being our only means of reconciliation with God. Since those days the temple has not been available for animal sacrifice, which is a major means of conversion of Jewish people, seeing that The sacrifice for all time has been completed.

The sin offering is to be without blemish, the laying on of hands (to pass the sin onto the lamb?), the killing, the collection and pouring of the blood, the removal of fat, the burning, and the eating by priests together with the confession of sin. All of these, in some sense, are still necessary, although the death of an animal is not required. However, The lamb of God - Jesus - was unblemished by the sin of this world. We have to connect or identify with the sacrifice that He made (cf laying on of hands). Jesus, our sacrifice, was killed, and we have to put our carnal nature to death. His blood was offered to God as His sacrifice for our sin. The burning could be the cleansing of the Holy Spirit, who first came in tongues of fire. The eating by priests compares with our taking of the body and the blood in communion, thus identifying with the death of Jesus, and dying to the world and its temptations. Jesus is our high priest, and we are a royal priesthood. I need to understand the meaning of the removal of fat, but I'm sure it was not fortuitous. Conscience and confession of sin are still essential.

Anger is needed to identify and injustice (or sin). Anger is not to overtake us, but to initiate action to restore the situation between people. Uncontrolled anger puts the owner in bondage. It is a sin in itself because it produces no reconciliation. The angry person has achieved nothing, but himself is caught in a chain of resentment, bitterness, hate, and revenge, all of which are related to the sin of murder. Anger that brings about justice, once the job is complete, can be let go. It has no permanence, but brings about the restoration of relationship and peace. This is what God has done in Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist stated that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Lambs were always the sacrifice for sin (even though inadequate to remove sin!) "The sins of the world" was a radical idea because prior to this, the ony thought was to remove the sins of the Jews. The world was a big place! .

To become a Christian we ask God to come into our lives. He then comes and lives in us. It's like we begin again where God breathed Life into Adam (as in - something the animals did not have!) He put eternity into our minds! Being born again gives us a whole new dimension we can experience no other way. We have LIFE We are able to concieve of God, and relate to Him intimately! It is the gift of God and cannot be earned or achieved! His Spirit can now drive us, rather than our own carnal nature, our minds can become like the mind of Christ. Everything that God "breathes on" (namely scripture) is united with the Spirit we have in us! We have the capacity to become sons of God, born of the Spirit and therefore one with God, His Spirit dwelling in us. The scripture is written by the Spirit of God, through various people such as Moses, Paul etc. who love God and allow this to happen. Without the Spirit we can never understand scripture because the unity is missing!

A person speaking God's thoughts is speaking for God. So it can be said that God is speaking through the person - the person speaks, and God speaks too. As the wind carries the ship, so the Holy Spirit carries the one who speaks God's words to the world.

What a fab question! I could do a whole thesis on it with great joy! John 1:4,5 says "In Him was Life, and the Life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." In our lives there is a lot of darkness, even though we are , and have been for a long time, Christians. Always there is something the Holy Spirit is trying to show us, say to us, make clear to us. Often it involves healing a past trauma which has resulted in our believing something that is not of God, not true! For example, we believed what an early grade teacher said, that we will never make it! It has sunk into our heart as if it were the truth, and it defines our approach to life, changes our attitudes. We don't know why we experience depression, or cannot ever seem to perform consistently at our best, or experience great motivation: but there it is, operating as our driving force, the lie we have believed, and made true for us, that "I'll never make it". We can't seem to change, get motivated, become consistent, no matter what we do - because there is that hidden lie underlying all we do. Theophostic prayer enables one to ask Jesus to pour His light on the darkness that is being experienced (via the emotions, eg depression, unmotivated, inadequate, guilty etc). He shows up the origin of this stress, in a (probably) childhood scenario, and brings His Truth to bear on the situation. It may be something like "All things are possible with Me". When He brings light to the dark place by replacing the lie with His truth, the lie has no more power to destroy us. His truth goes right into our bones and strengthens them! We begin to operate from the Truth, We are healed, and everything has changed! His light has shone in the dark place, and guess what! THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDETH IT NOT! The lie has no more power to direct our activities! The father of lies has lost his grip! Darkness represents what satan, the father of lies, would have us believe, what grounds he has taken in our lives, and, yes, what authority we have (unwittingly mostly) given over to him. Jesus is the Light of Men, who shines in the (very specific) darkness, and restores Life to us. He delivers us from evil, be it sin, disease or demonic influence. HALLELUJAH!

When our culture talks about death it is usually in reference to the newspaper reports of murder, or someone's suicide, or accidental death. Death cannot be discussed with any hope, joy or peace unless we are Christian. It reminds people of their mortality. It's the end of the aging process, and we prefer to talk about looking younger these days, including facelifts and more along those lines. Our culture revolves around youth, unfortunately for the young, who seem to think they have it all together and take no advice from their elders. If we do talk about it, it is in terms of skulls and demonic signs grafitied all around the town. In death there is nothing to talk about, because it is considered the end. However, for the Christian it is the beginning, for us of eternity with Jesus our wonderful Lord and King and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb; for others of eternal death. We need to consider the consequences of eternal death, and do all we can to grasp other people out of its terrifying clutches. The tent concept is delightful because it looks forward to a greater way of living, free of sin and the agonies of this world, in company with those saints who have gone before, for eternity with joy and no tears. After all we may have around seventy - 100 years here, but that is nothing to what we have with Father God - "When we've been there 10,000 years ..... We've no less days to sing God's praise that when we first begun". Considering death as a "departure" or "exodus" , or even as a graduation! is so different from the way the world seed death. We have joy in someone's passing because of what they have to look forward to, and give thanks for all they have been to us and done here. There is some grief because we miss them, but Joy overcomes the grief, because they are far better off! People in the world have no more hope that to remember and maybe memorialise their ancestors, sometimes to revere or worship them (as if they can help now!) We will see our loved ones again; but they, never. We can look forward with great anticipation, but they cannot.

Being saved is only the beginning of a process which does not end until we die physically. It's like getting on a ship. If we jump off before reaching the destination we don't make it! If we stop practising music before we get to the concert platform we don't make it. That probably doesn't matter too much and there are other options for making one's way on earth. However there are no other options for reaching Heaven. Either we get on board and stay on board or we don't get there. Lot's wife left the doomed city, but she changed her mind, and didn't make it out. It can be like that with salvation. It is not something we can take for granted. It's a very precious gift to be nurtured and constantly developed. That's what we are here for! God is not mocked, and there is a sense in which we need to fear God, and be found in the right place at the right time. It's not a game we play at will - it's a life and death issue. God gives us a talent and we are supposed to use that to do business and produce other talents for Him. If we bury the talent, we know we have a hard task-master who will not admit us into His kingdom. However, if we pay attention to that talent and build it into fruitfulness - more talents, (if we can be trusted with the little) we will be trusted with more in His kingdom. Paul was most concerned that he should fulfil all that God expected of him, lest having taught everyone else, he should be found lacking. We need to have that same concern.

I guess we think of God's love as a wonderful experience which we equate to agape love. However, experiencing that love is not entering into the practice of it. That takes the power of God and the gentle correction of His Spirit. We are made the sons of God through the blood of Jesus. His divine power has given us all that pertains to Life and godliness. We are to use this magnificent gift, and to build a loving heart as described in 1 Cor 13. A heart like the heart of God loves under all conditions, even conditions of personal hurt. Jesus said "Father, forgive them for they know not what to do", and we are to love people even in their ignorance of what they do, who they hurt etc. We are to pray for those who despitefullly use us, and do good to those who mistreat us. This is to have the mind of Christ, or in old testament terms, like King David, to have a heart after God's own heart, forgiving and perpetually loving. This is not easy or "natural" to us. We need to desire to love like this, and to ask Father in Jesus' Name to help us do it. We need to use the shield of faith to deflect personal fiery darts, and not receive them, or respond to them in any way, seeking only the good of the one who fires them! We need to have a vision of living for love, and not for self. And just when you think you have it licked, something will happen that sends you straight back to God, asking again for the power to love. After having been able to use the shield of faith reasonably well, I found this week that I needed again to ask Father again for the power to forgive and to love. He did just that! How mighty and faithful is our God! This said, there is no possibility that we would not come to church because someone said the wrong thing, or may not say the right thing. There is only the possibility that we will love them whatever they say or said, by the grace of Almighty God. We come to church to worship and adore our beloved Jesus. That has nothing to do with anyone else. If we put Him first, He will help us get our relationships right with every person. That is the order! In fact we are to do that before we consider taking communion, lest we drink damnation to ourselves. Our God is a god of reconciliation. Let us fear God, and love one another at all costs!

"All things pertaining to life and godliness are made available to us through the knowledge of God who called us by glory and virtue". The knowledge of God only comes with commitment, time, study, self discipline to learn all these things. Without that effective commitment we will not "walk in the good works that He has prepared for us to walk in", namely prophecy, miracles, love and the other fruits of the spirit. God gave us a mind and we are supposed to use it towards Him. If I neglect this time with God I get out of touch. Imagine a doctor out of touch with his profession! Christ is our profession! Profession above all professions! I represent Him. Imagine an ambassador for a country getting out of touch with his own country! In fact I more than represent Him - He is in me- I am His hands and feet on this earth by the Holy Spirit - I am one with Him. You don't neglect so great a relationship unless you are very foolish. I have been very, very foolish in my life, and do not want to be again! It costs too much. God is my hope and strength. He is Life. Jesus is everything. Without Him there is nothing. I have too much to lose to neglect my time with Him. I do this online Bible study. As I go to sleep I try to learn some scripture by heart. I need time each day just to be with Him, in praise and thanksgiving. As people and issues, come to mind during the day I pray. At times I take a bigger block of time over specific things. Occasionally I fast with prayer. I note His answers to my prayers and testify of that. Sometimes I pray a passage of scripture. There are many and creative ways to be with God and we are not totally fixed, but able to follow the spirit, and bring our hearts to God. Isn't that wonderful?

Our God is a righteous God, and we are to "have the mind of Christ". Therefore we will be angry at sin. However, this does not mean going off the top about it, which achieves nothing and tells everyone that I am out of control - a most unattractive characteristic! Yet anger has achieved most of the victories against injustice, eg apartheid, Martin Luther King, slavery, poverty etc. So we are to respond to injustice by setting about changing the unjust system, with a good plan involving determined but harmless (loving) action on behalf of those victimised. Let us do it prayerfully though, and not get carried away with other than godly righteousness!

I always thought I was good at self control, but lately I see there is always difficulty in submitting my latest "thing" to God. I really spend more time that I should on the computer. (No, I'm not talking about this Bible study). It seems there is always another distraction to overcome! As for the hardest thing, they are all hard if you take them to the ultimate degree. There is always fine-tuning to be done in respect of all these wonderful things. Perseverance in overcoming the blindspots is probably the hardest to achieve on the way to godliness - but it's so good when you do!

Strong desires come from strong emotions that are built into our physical bodies. They are overpowering because our spirit died with Adam's sin. Placing the strong desires of our bodies before the call of God on our lives demonstrates an eroded faith, and the fruit of that is corruption and all that involves, like lack of discernment, knowledge etc. Strong desires to have the mind of Christ, to be renewed in the spirit, to serve the living God etc can rebuild our faith. As a strong desire to learn music is prerequisite to becoming a musician, so the strong desire for God is prerequisite to learning about Him, drawing close to Him. God's promises are to the ones who remain in covenant with God, through the blood of Jesus. Those who dismiss the covenant in favour of personal or evil desires are not covered by the promises of God. The covenant is one of love and obliges the disciple to follow (obey) Jesus in whose word we place our faith and confidence. (If one did not have enough faith in one's music teacher to spend time with him/her, and practice the given exercises, one would not get very far in music. So it is with God!) Thus faith in God and His promises (rewards) builds faith, as one becomes more and more conversant with His ways. However evil desires will cancel that by causing one to put their time and energy in another place, and the production of evil fruit.

Thank you Pastor Ralph. I love thinking about these wonderful questions of yours, and this one's a beauty. They really help to crystallise my faith. Moses was attracted by God's presence in a burning bush. Saul/Paul was stunned by a light which threw him to the ground. The disciples were attracted by Jesus and wanted to know "Where He lived". God's glory is extremely attractive! When I first became a Christian it was the glory of his love, and the possibility of living life in the realm of His Love that excited me and drew me to Him - it still does - it was the light I needed in my darkness at the time. Nowadays His glory and awesome presence are the most exciting event there is for me. I rejoice at the healing of the sick, at the redeeming of a life from addiction, prostitution, or just plain depression and lack of hope. I delight in the developing of a new Christian into a stable, joyful, fruitful example of wisdom and peace. I love to feel the presence of God as I enter my church, and think "I wonder what He will do today", or to wake up in the morning and ask, "What's it going to be today Lord?" knowing the unexpected will happen and be wonderful, knowing that I personally am involved in all that God does on the earth. It feels like I am in the glorymyself, inheriting a taste of Heaven in the here and now, even though there are other, lesser tastes about the place too! His goodness is the backbone of the possibilities that He constantly offers us. It is shown in His faithfulness to heal, to love, to renew, and a hundred other ways in which He blesses us. It's constancy is our peace and joy. His moral excellence is the outworking of His constant love, for He has designed everything as a constant, so that we are always certain of Him, need not fear His changing toward us, know that He is the same yesterday, today and forever, can build our lives on a firm foundation that does not shift with the tide or the rain. How mighty and wonderful is our God and Father, how worthy of all praise and glory!

Life, when referred to in Scripture, means Life as God would have us live it. Therefore it is abundant, blessed, victorious, creative, noble, pure, fresh, beautiful, well reported, (see Phil4:20). It glorifies God as Jesus did in His days on the earth. It is powerful, righteous, loving, truthful, healing, instructive, demonstrative, uplifting, encouraging. It blesses other people and is fruitful in the gifts of the spirit for the benefit of mankind, unselfish and altogether remarkable. The scope of this life covers every situation abundantly, with the glory of the Lord, for nothing is impossible with God in the Name of Jesus. There are no boundaries for the repentant, forgiving child of God who is effectively living this life, except those imposed by the incomplete learning process of the individual. God has not placed boundaries on it. Knowing God, or knowledge, has everything to do with it. Jesus dying prayer on the cross was that His Father should forgive us because we don't know what we do. Our ignorance (of God) is the limiting factor in life or Life. Therefore we need to do every conceivable thing to "study to show ourselves approved", not only in the sense of knowing Scripture back to front, but also in the translation of that knowledge into the power source for our own lives, by knowing God Himself, in person and having that intimate relationship with Him that never ceases to grow and amaze us, being filled with the Holy Ghost, being a person "after God's own heart" like king David.

"Received a faith as precious as ours" means that the faith is something given by God, and is the very same faith as that given to the first appostles, with the very same potential for development. Our faith compares in seed as equal with Peter's faith. It must go through similar processes in order to become as powerful as his was: this involves trial by fire, probably on various occasions. In this sense we may not have developed our faith to the same extent that Peter did, and may therefore seem lesser in quality and quantity. Every person's journey is unique, and in a sense incomparable with others. The discrepancy could be due to 1. The unique character of each person's journey. 2. The stage to which the initial seed of faith has been allowed to develop. 3. Each person has different but special giftings, so the development of their faith will have different outcomes, and therefore cannot be compared with the faith of others. Not all are called to be apostles. Other giftings may seem to be the result of lesser faith. Other giftings may be the result of lesser faith!

I think the people regard Gideon highly as leader, although since he, rightly, will not take the authority of king, he falls into the background of their thinking a bit over the years. But they are, for the time being, committed to honour his standards. As a judge, he lifts the standards of justice, and keeps the people from Canaanite and other religions and idolatries. Not themselves prayerfully aware, they allow the idolatrous ephod, and become ready to descend into ungodliness as soon as he is off the scene, so much so in fact, that they have no thought for his descendants at all.

God is the one and only object of our worship, as a spouse is the life partner appointed to us. As playng sexual games outside a marriage is adultery, so is changing the one rightful subject of our worship and adoration. God's relationship with His people involves total commitment, and without that from Him we would not exist, let alone thrive! We can thrive in every way by total devotion to our God, and to deviate breaks that relationship and sets apart from Him so that He cannot protect us, as a husband protects the faithful wife. I personally need the discipline to spend time daily with God in intimacy, with no rush. I find things wonderful when I'm in obedience to that. I need constantly to give Him the glory, to obey and submit to Him, and not have things intrude on this time. There is no substitute for this. I need to pray without ceasing - my whole life needs to be a prayer. I need to acknowledge Him in conversations, because He is my first love. I need to study to show myself approved, to know how to please my Jesus in little everyday things, as lovers do. I need to be one with His spirit of LOVE for people, because without deep, passionate, active love, nothing has any value or meaning.

A snare is a hidden trap to catch the unprepared by surprise. Gideon's Ephod was set up to commemorate the victory over the Midianites. However it became an object of worship in itself, and thus distracted the attention of the Israelites from their God and true King. Just because we do not see something as a sin does not mean it is innocent. We can be blind, and indeed we all have blind spots that we need to ask God to identify in us, so that we do not sin. They used the ephod as something to remind them of the great victory of Gideon, and it was given the position of "item of joy" and took the glory decidedly from God, who had distinctly led their progress in battle. The Israelites sinned in not having the desire within themselves to get to know God personally, and wanting some lesser item to hang onto and glorify, and energise them. Maybe there is a laziness there as knowing God requires energy, commitment, etc. The essence of Gideon's sin was in creating, not a golden calf, like Aaron, but something that reminded the Israelites of their earlier lives and habits, with physical gods to worship, and drew that response from them. Obviously Gideon did not see what was happening and withdraw the idol, as he had done before in obedience to God. Did he lose touch with God, little by little, after the victory, when life returned to normal?

An Ephod is the top short garment worn by the High Priest. Attached to it are the (two discs? called) the urim and the thumim, which were used in those days to ask God which way to go. It is suggested the gold ephod may have taken the shape of a man.

Gideon asked for the gold earrings as his reward. This in itself was not a wrong request, as soldiers were entitled to take from the battlefield when they had conquered an army. The sin began with making an image (in the form of an ephod, having religious significance, being the item used to point them in the right direction and victory) and using it as a point of worship (and monetary gain). It took God's place, even though Gideon would not have himself made king! They had been clearly told, in the Ten Commandments not to make any images..... and not to worship them (in any way). Gideon had obeyed the Lord in taking down Canaanite idols, and probably didn't realise he was creating one of his own.