This installment started with the idea of asking did Moses write the first 5 books of the Bible. The real question that needs to be answered is when does the evidence point to the phonetical alphabet beginning and is it possible for Moses and the children of Israel to have known it. With illiteracy being almost global, it is unlikely in the minds of many scholars that the Jews as slaves would be able to read or write.
Read MoreThroughout the month of May we are looking in the evenings at some of the great sermons from the first century church to modern America. We are looking for a few specific details of these sermons. First, we are looking at what sermons looked like throughout world history. How was a sermon in the 2 century different from one from the middle ages or the Reformation preachers? Last night, we got to look at one of England's most note worthy preachers from the early middle ages. The Venerable Bede was one of England's greatest minds and later wrote the definitive work on early English history. He was moved to a monastery at age seven and lived in the same monastery from age 9 to his death.
Read MoreThe month of Easter, we like to celebrate the cross and the glorious Resurrection. This year, we looked at some of the unusual perspectives gained from the event of the crucifixion. If you ask two people about an event, concert, trip, or other note-worthy occurrence in both of their lives, you will get two different sets of details. Sure the basic timeline will match and the big bullet points of events will be in common, but the finer details and less significant details will be unique to their perspective. It really was no different at the cross. There were several groups of people and individuals who saw the cross in a way we most likely never have. Let me give you some of those people.
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Think about Peter's day in Luke 5. It actually started the night before as he got ready to go to work. Overnight fishing trips were the normal routine for this commercial fisherman. Two boats and at least four men would set out from home as their families were heading to bed. This had been their pattern for years. Cold weather, rain storms, hot and humid nights, none of these were unusual for these fishermen. After securing their catches in the morning as the sun rose there would still be much work.
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The new theme for our church in 2018 is going to center on the phrase "The Best Is Yet To Come". The Bible is filled with illustrations of the lives of people who could have given up. There situations and circumstances were grim and the thought that there was no hope for the future could easily have overcome them.
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