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Our Daily Thread 9-16-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1400 Owain Glyndwr was proclaimed Prince of Wales after rebelling against English rule. He was the last Welsh-born Prince of Wales. 

In 1620 the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England.  

In 1940 President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history. 

And in 1976 the Episcopal Church formally approved women to be ordained as priests and bishops. 

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Quote of the Day

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.”

Lewis Hine

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 Today is Charlie Byrd’s birthday, so classical guitar to start off.

And it’s also B.B. King’s, so blues guitar, with Eric Clapton to finish up.

And that’s how it’s done folks. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD?

54 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-16-14”

  3. It’s a good thing I went to bed early last night. I don’t understand nothing about what went on. especially that “Midnight Sun” clip. Also, Bob Buckles question to me: Chas: Are you seeing the End Times again? At least it will get much worse before Jesus comes again.

    There was some discussion about the rapture. We can follow up on that later, if you like. but I would suggest not including the “Left Behind” books as serious scripture commentary. It isn’t.
    It’s predicated on an assumption of a pre-tribulation rapture. I don’t believe the Bible supports that theory. In fact. I think just the opposite. I believe in a mid-trib, or, more likely, Pre-Wrath rapture.
    It’s hard to explain it on a blog because it’s long and messy.

    See you guys later. 🙂

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  6. Chas, I believe in a post-tribulational rapture simply because I don’t believe there is a future tribulation, but that the tribulation has already happened. The mentions to it really don’t seem to be suggesting something far in the future, but something for the first generation of Christians–70 AD.

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  8. So since I seemed to have started some of this I will give you highlights from Chapter 1 of Surprised by Hope Bible Study.
    1. How we view heaven effects how we live our life.
    2. We are moving toward heaven every day of our life.
    3. If there is no heaven and hell then (what meaning is our life here on earth?) My take away from that was that if there is no God and no heaven we may as well sit down and slit our wrists but I am really not sure that is what anyone else got out of it.

    One guy in the group grew up Southern Baptist where the emphasis was on getting saved so you would go to heaven. In his memory that was all there was to it and no thought given to what you did in the mean time.
    Another man grew up Roman Catholic so the emphasis was on the soul and that the soul went to heaven.
    Two men discussed that Jesus’ death on the cross took away the “sting” of death. Most “stings” contain some sort of venom which can literally kill us.
    I circled us back to Genesis and the Garden of Eden and that death began in the garden when the Serpent manipulated Eve into eating the “poisoned” fruit.
    I think the conclusion was drawn that God created us for company for Him and He wasn’t going to just give up on us.
    Two women argued a little over estate sales. One looking at them as a puzzle of someone’s life and the other thinking it was terribly sad that no one wanted a loved one’s things.
    One woman is intense about this study as she had a child die at an early age and she has always held on to the hope of seeing her child again.

    Needless to say, it is all very confusing and I feel like the dumbest person in the room.

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  9. The destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. could not have been the prophesied tribulation. There was no “abomination” like the abomination of Antiochus Epiphanies. It was just a destruction. The Jews were not driven out if Judea at the time. It was the Bar Kokaba revolt from 132-135 A.D. that was the final solution. Hadrian had them driven into the far countries of the world. That didn’t happen in 70 A.D. (I went through that in my lessons on Daniel.) Too much has been made of the 70 A.D. event.
    And Jesus said:

    Matthew 24: 15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. (Boldface mine.)
    This has not yet been fulfilled. My teachers at SWBS were basically Non Millenialists and believed that the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was the fulfillment of this prophesy. But they believed that there was no unfulfilled prophesy left in the Bible, except for the return of Christ. If you are non-millenial, you believe, as Dr. Robert Naylor said, “Someday Jesus will return. To bring a judgment.” That is: the world goes on until the return of Christ and the Great White Throne. That’s it.
    But not the way I see it.
    I told you it was messy. All this on just one issue.. 🙂

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  10. Kim, unfortunately, it is possible to go to church and SS all your life and never get into any depth of our salvation experience. I was talking to the pastor once at a church dinner. I happened to mention, in passing, “We don’t study the Bible in Sunday School”. He didn’t like that. He said, “What do we study?” I said, “Topics” The series on Daniel was the first time in all these 52 years of teaching, that I have covered that. And only two lessons on the burden of the book.
    This summer, we had a series where we taught 70+ year old men to stop running around with loose women, stop your drinking and carousing, quit goofing off on the job, etc.
    In the past, it didn’t matter what your millennial position was. It may not today, as long as you are ready to have your head cut off, see your children starve to death, your daughters captured and used as sex slaves.
    You say, “It can’t happen here”?
    Don’t bet on it.

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  11. Chas, I know the topics are suppose to be teaching life application of scripture which is valuable. But so many do not really see the whole picture of the Bible, that they really lose out on just the topical study. People need both. I think first they need the basic Bible study, all the way through. That is why I pushed for using the Gospel Project lessons for our class. It takes the children through the Bible, chronologically, except for making room for Christmas and Easter special lessons. Life application can be brought in as discussion occurs. Adults who are new believers need this, too.

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  12. I just finished watching the episode of “The Kelly File” that I recorded last night. It was the interview with Mariam Ibraheem, the lady who was imprisoned for her faith. They wouldn’t even allow her a hospital visit to have a baby. She had a baby while chained to her cell. The U.S. government did practically nothing to help her. She applied to our embassy in Khartoum, but got no help. It was international outrage that eventually did it. It seems the Pope had something to do with it because she visited the Pope when she left on her way to America. Her husband and son are U.S. citizens. They live in New Hampshire now.
    The impact of the interview was reduced by the necessity for interpretation.

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  13. Sorry I have to cut out of the end-times discussion right after I asked a question about it. (It looks like some of you have shared more thoughts, but I only had time to skim here just now.)

    Personal and family circumstances necessitate my cutting out of here again. (The things I brought up on yesterday’s prayer thread offer a partial explanation.)

    Take care, everybody.

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  14. Chas, Josephus, the eyewitness historian to the destruction of Jerusalem, would disagree with you. I have just been reading his account to my parents, and he talks about how the temple was contaminated with the dead bodies in the civil conflict between the Jewish zealots and Sicarii and how those warring factions willfully inflicted so much suffering on the people by murdering, raping, and causing famine by destroying the city’s grain stores in their fighting:
    “I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: That neither did any other city ever allow such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.” Book 5, Chapter 10

    Then, when the city was taken [before besieging Jerusalem, the Romans first went over Galilee and Judea, destroying those cities which would not surrender], he relates how the Romans went into the temple itself, violating Holy of Holies before it was burned to the ground. He counted the number of those killed to be over a million, while those taken captive were only about a hundred thousand – many of those were then killed in gladiatorial shows or sent to die in the salt mines. He was a practicing Jew, not a Christian, but he says more than once when talking of the miseries of those in Jerusalem, that it was the most terrible event in history:
    “Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destruction that either men or God ever brought upon the world;” Book 6, Chapter 9

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  15. Also, Christ’s prophecy that there should not be one stone left upon another in the temple was fulfilled in 70 A.D.
    “Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple… it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came there believe it had ever been inhabited.” Book 7, Chapter 1

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  16. But, because of the diaspora, many of the Jewish Christians were no longer in Jerusalem, which hastened the spread of the Gospel.

    My husband pointed out that even the Romans were astonished at the ferocity and horror of the Jews killing each other. 😦

    Lutheran Church Missouri Synod teaches that we are in that millenial reign now–and there will be only one more resurrection, when Jesus returns.

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  17. Good Morning, Y’all!
    Lots of interesting arguments.

    I believe in a pre tribulation rapture. I think it can be supported with scripture in several ways.

    But I do not wish to get into an argument with any of my dear WV family…so I will leave it at that.

    Sometimes, the differences in doctrine or theology on this blog are the reason I love it so…

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  19. I see there’s a couple posts that need deletin’. 🙂

    Yes, the division is yours. Enjoy it. 🙂

    Then lose in the first series and go home. 😆

    And I been telling folks Davis should have been tested. He’s not that good. I knew he was usin’ something. 😯

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  21. In Matt. 24, the disciples mentioned the beautiful temple. Jesus said, “not one stone left on another”. The disciples then asked three questions, though they didn’t sort them out.

    1. When will this happen?
    2. What will be the sign of your coming?
    3. And of the end of the age.
    Three different issues.
    Jesus answered all three. “Not a stone left on another”. That happened in 70 A.D.
    There was much turmoil and bloodshed but it doesn’t fit the “great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now- and never to be equaled again. They were indeed destroyed, but no more than Hiroshima, Warsaw and Stalingrad. The Jews were not dispersed into the nations until 135 A.D.
    I wrote a paper on this in my senior year in college. I looked in my files, but couldn’t find it. I did find to similar papers called “There is No Peace” written for a Psych 116 class and a “Fullness of Time” paper on another occasion. Unfortunately, the print in my Josephus has shrunk so it’s hardly readable anymore. 😦

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  22. Jesus returns once for the judgement at the end of history. Whoever’s there will be there. 🙂

    About the clip I posted last night, The Midnight Sun was a wonderful Twilight Zone episode where the earth was getting closer and closer to the sun and would eventually burn up.

    It was the worst heat wave ever. The lead character, an artist, watched as the paint literally melted & rolled off her easel.

    Ah, but this was in the twilight zone.

    Soooo, it was really just all a dream.

    When she awoke (she thought she’d died it was so hot), the opposite was true — the earth was getting farther and farther away from the sun. Everyone was slowly freezing to death.

    On to another day of the #LAHeatWave for us. I have to go to a local Wienerschnitzel fast food joint for a story today, it was the first one ever built in the nation back in 1961 when the chain got started and the city of LA is honoring it as one of their historic landmarks.

    We love our tacky history out here. 😀

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  23. I was hoping our heat wave might have been a bad dream and I would wake up to find it !! snowing. !! 🙂 ????

    But, alas, it was 80-something in my house all night long, no relief. And now I feel almost sick from this heat.

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  24. I heard the Megyn Kelly interview on the car radio coming home last night, thanks for the heads up Chas.

    Later I caught part of Greta Van Sustren’s show where she interviewed Foley’s parents, they were critical of the government but spoke carefully. Asked about their reaction to the president’s going golfing right after announcing their son’s death, the mom would only politely say “We could do better in this country,” or something to that effect. But you got her point.

    The art of understatement.

    I still can’t believe he did that — or, at the very least, that his aides let him do that.

    You’d like to think that after the release of such a horrific video of one of your citizens that you just wouldn’t *feel* much like yukking it up on the links.

    Something’s deeply wrong with all of this.

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  25. Michelle, Josephus wrote about how horrified the Romans were, which is saying a lot, considering how battle hardened Romans were – pleading with the Jews to surrender before they were wholly destroyed. His conclusion was that the Jews were destined for destruction by God – according to Josephus, who was a member of the priesthood, the burning of the temple was the same day Nebuchadnezzar burned Solomon’s temple.

    Also, earlier in the rebellion – a Roman general, Cestius, had actually surrounded Jerusalem, almost forcing the temple gate, but then withdrew for no apparent reason. Apparently, from other sources, that was when those Christians that were in Jerusalem took warning and got out. Titus did not begin the siege of Jerusalem until Galilee and Judea were conquered, about two years later.

    It is worth noting, that when Josephus counts over a million dead, he is speaking only of Jerusalem. There were many more than that killed in other sieges like Gamala and Gadara – Josephus also witnessed those sieges (he was actually the defending Jewish general at Jotapata, where he was taken prisoner) and he describes similar scenes of wholesale slaughter. Also, in places like Alexandria and Antioch, the Jews were attacked and killed because the other citizens were afraid that they would cause trouble.

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  26. I’ve just been taking some photos AJ would like, although I didn’t have a good angle out the window for a bunch of them. (Taking photos of flowers to the right side of my deck, from the library, usually results in slightly fuzzy photos since I’m shooting at an angle to the glass.)

    Goldfinches came after the seeds of our purple coneflowers in large numbers in two big waves. I’m not sure how many birds there were in all, or even how many we had at any one time, but certainly we had crowds of at least a dozen. I got photos of up to three males (those were, unfortunately, the side ones) and up to five birds (one male and four juveniles), but they were flying from one stand to another, to the deck, to the tree, to the electric wire, and back to the flowers. The second wave of them was all females and juveniles. Unfortunately the coneflowers only “advertise” when they want butterflies and bees coming for nectar; once they have seeds they are no longer pretty, and the goldfinches are losing their summer color too. But it was still pretty fun to sit back and watch a goldfinch party.

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  27. I see from catching up on last night’s chatter that Kevin B had a birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday, though late, Kevin. And don’t let that older sister of yours be a pest bout your birthday crowding hers. At least she was mature and didn’t make a big deal about getting #75 yesterday.

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  28. It is amazing to me that I am not better in math than I am because I do enjoy patterns. I have always enjoyed the patter of those born in 02 graduate in 20. 13 in 31. 24 in 42, 35 in 53, 46 in 64, 57 in 75, 68 in 86. 79 in 97,

    Guess there really isn’t any applicable use for that.

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  29. Kim, on the Heaven book study – the three points you list are quite Biblical, as is your summary that if it isn’t real, we all might as well slit our wrists – but, substitute Heaven with the resurrection of the dead. In I Corinthians 15, Paul argues against those who deny the resurrection, using all those points: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” I think we confuse Heaven, which is the unseen but ever present habitation of God and His angels, with the resurrection of the dead, which is the future hope of all those who trust Christ and the future judgement of those who reject Him (Revelation 20:4, 11-15 and 21:1-4).

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  37. Chas, I could attempt to speak Southern, but I couldn’t spell it authentically, and I might offend some of you Sathurners ( that’s the way we would pronounce Southerner with a fake accent).

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  39. That’s right roscuro, Southern in a man isn’t particularly appealing. In a woman, it can be delightful. But when a woman tries to fake it, it always turns out bad.

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  41. Just for the thrill of name dropping, Obama is over at the CDC, only a few miles from where I am. I knew you all would be thoroughly impressed. Welluh, ain’t y’all? I know dat’s right!

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  43. Chas I was thinking that my parents would be too. My dad gave me a black eye once. He had me over his lap spanking me. He was a big man with big hands. I twisted around and he accidentally hit my face instead of my behind.

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  45. Someone I know had to take her oldest child to the doctor a couple of times for an injury that is common for some children, and if I recall correctly especially thin children. (It’s something in the arm popping out of its socket.) The second time she took him, she and her husband were out of state, so they went to a doctor they didn’t know. She said he looked at her son and without asking any questions about how it happened, decided to try to see if he could frighten her into admitting child abuse. He looked right at her (in front of her three-year-old) and asked angrily, “What did you do to him?” She said later, “If you want to accuse me of abuse, at least have the courtesy not to do it in front of my child!” It really angered her that he started there, with no evidence and no reason for suspicion, and that he did so in front of a young child.

    The whole idea that the state knows best how to treat a child (including mandatory nutrition ideas in lunches you send with your child to school) is as frightening as anything else. God gave parents the responsibility to care for children. The state has the responsibility to punish crime, which would include crimes against children. But that doesn’t give it permission to interfere in every decision.

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  47. The stories I could tell . . . it makes it almost frightening to be a parent–because someone might decide they know more than you do, without even knowing you, your child, or your circumstances. More than one friend has been afraid to take their child to the doctor because of what might happen. 😦

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  49. Janice, the president comes out here frequently for Hollywood-style fundraisers. And that invariably causes traffic jams on our already-crowded local freeways. It’s become so common they’re called Obamajams. 🙂

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  53. And more to come next month ….

    LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — President Barack Obama will be back in Los Angeles in October for a fundraiser at the home of actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

    Tickets for the Oct. 9 event will cost up to $32,400, and the evening will include an intimate dinner with Obama fielding questions from supporters, according to an invitation sent by the Democratic National Committee.

    http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/09/12/president-obama-returning-to-los-angeles-for-fundraiser-at-gwyneth-paltrows-home/

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