...EXPOSITORY ESSAY LIFE Life is indeed, so short. And, oddly enough, it is much shorter for those who lives they find meaningful while it is too long for those whose lives they find meaningless. Couldn’t it be that life is what meaning we put into it? Now and then, I also ask what meaning has my life really. Often, I feel like I know but at other times, my thinking looks like a useless mental exercise. Life is just so vast, so full of mysteries that before I can put meaning to my life, part of it is gone and the meaning I try putting on it is already partly exhausted. Life, so it seems, is like dry sand slipping through my fingers. When I try to hold on to it very tightly, as if squeezing it, it slips away faster. But when I try to cast it away, it sticks on my hands. Sometimes, I think, to appreciate life best, one has neither to hold on to it tightly nor to let it go so carelessly. The sand in the hourglass is life. It is better to let it flow freely, although not carelessly. How we take life is often dictated by what priorities we have. And life, being so vast, offers everything which can be a priority to us. A student ever so eager to get out of poverty would say, “Life would be meaningless if I don’t finish my studies.” A terribly-in-love woman would say, “Should I lose him now, life would be meaningless to me.” And an alcoholic, trembling with the urge to drink, would be ready to give anything he has, even his...
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...There are many prophets in the old testament that had a significant impact in spreading the word of God. I will discuss them and the message they provided to the people of their time. The first prophet I will talk about is Elijah. Elijah was an significant prophet who lived during the ninth century B. C. during the reigns of Ahab in the northern kingdom of Israel. Elijah shaped the history of his day and dominated Hebrew thinking for centuries afterward. Elijah's prophetic activities emphasized the unconditional loyalty to God required of the nation of Israel. Elijah had conflicting views and did not accept standards of his day, when belief in many gods was normal. He appears in the role of God's instrument of judgment upon a wayward Israel because of the nation's widespread idolatry. Elisha, whose name in Hebrew means “God is Salvation,” was an Israelite prophet and disciple of Elijah. Elisha is described as a miracle worker, he is known for healing the sick and reviving the dead. Elisha was also involved in politics. Elisha’s message was to those in charge that they should turn back to traditional religious practices and acknowledge God’s absolute power over every aspect of life, personal as well as political. When he healed the sick, it was to demonstrate God’s power over life and death. When he helped in battle, it was to demonstrate God’s power over nations and kingdoms. Elijah had a much friendlier relationship then his mentor when it involved political authorities. ...
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...Banquo A: Banquo is the character I will present. The slogan is what doesn't kill me might make me kill you B: • Banquo was a general in King Duncan's army. Banquo's traits are to act as a contrast to the traits of Macbeth. First trait i choose conscious. In ACT 1 Scene 3. Indeed, unlike Macbeth, Banquo is a conscious man to question the weird sisters and their prophecies, “oftentimes, to win us to their harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray us."(Act 1 Scene 3) He was there to hear the witches’ prophecy, but he was doubt of it. He questioned the witches’ motives, and tried to advice Macbeth against taking what they said to heart, Banquo tells Macbeth to be cautious. But, Macbeth definitely does not possess. • Also, Banquo is both bold and curious, Not every character would confront these three creepy women. In Act 1 Scene 3. When Banquo hears the predictions the witches give to Macbeth, he says, “'Are ye fantastical, or that indeed, Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner. You greet with present grace and great prediction. Of noble having and of royal hope, That, he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time. And say which grain will grow and which will not. Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear. Your favors nor your hate' In this quote, Banquo is confused as to why the witches are predicting Macbeth’s future, which seems to be full of greatness. Banquo wants to know what...
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...and prophets. You can just file this in your mind, many messiahs in the Old Testament. Everyone who was anointed into a mediating of position in the theocratic kingdom of Israel could be called a messiah, with a small m. A messiah is one who has been anointed. He has been chosen for a very high duty in the kingdom A king to rule A priest to intercede and provide sacrifice, and A prophet, to preach the truth and to bring the word of God to man. In a simple manner, King, Priest and Prophets are messiah anointed with OIL. This morning we are talking about THE MESSIAH who is anointed by THE HOLY SPIRIT. The King of Kings The Chief Priest and The Lord Prophet Himself. WE HAVE FOUND HIM! John 1:29-51 Jesus Christ is a prophecy that was prophesied by the prophets by the power of revelation. V: 31. We need a revelation to find Him. And receive Him. For as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. When you find Him and receive Him you will -: 1. Testify : John testified V:32 {Math. 3:13-17} 2. Conviction: Vs 36 and 37. The 2 disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 3. V:33. Divine Direction “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. 4. V: 42. Evangelism: Andrew and Simon Peter began their evangelism Ministries out of overflow of their revelation of “we found him” 5. V43-44. The power of Spirit To Spirit finding...
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...------------------------------------------------- Prophecy in the Last Days Study by: Elder Abraham Juma ------------------------------------------------- True Prophet vs. False Prophet A prophet is anyone who bears the message of God and conveys it to others. The messages of God can never contradict one another. The Spirit that inspired the writers of the Bible inspires every true prophet, and brings to clear view the thoughts of God revealed in the Bible instead of contradicting it. Those who contradict the Bible are under the inspiration of another spirit. We call them false prophets. God’s thoughts in the Bible are complete and clear, without any contradictions. Though the thoughts of God were written in human language by human beings, they show a clear purpose of God’s love. Sometimes they appear to contradict, but if read ‘precept upon precept’ and ‘line upon line’, ‘hare a little and there a little’ all apparent contradiction is dissolved, and a perfect harmony seen. God’s word is perfect. Those who teach principles contradicting the Bible are not better than the Bible; they are actually being inspired by Satan. God cannot contradict His word; see the story of the prophet in 1Kings 13:1-28. God communicates through the Bible. If He must send a prophet, the prophet cannot contradict the Bible. Again I say, if he contradicts the Bible, he is a false prophet. God has not sent Him. Christ has a message to the world, and He puts His Spirit in a person who communicates...
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...I believe the “empirical evidence of the fulfillment of prophecy” is the most convincing argument that the Bible is the Word of God based upon the fact that it has substantial evidence to support its claims. If one were trying to discredit the Bible and research the reasons they should not believe, they would have a hard time trying to discredit the prophecies within the Bible in which have already been fulfilled. However, some say the prophecies were written after the events happened, but as Dr. Towns discusses: “The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls establish a historical date to indicate that these books were written before the events they predicted. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Old Testament (c. 285 BC) that indicates that Daniel correctly predicted the events of Jesus Christ before they transpired. The Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the Hebrew text was written and collected before Christ was born.” (p.5) The prophecies were clearly written well before the events occurred, and not only that but the events occurred exactly as written. Psalms and Isaiah are filled with prophecies based upon the death of Jesus Christ. They clearly depict he would be betrayed (Psalms 41:9), falsely accused (Psalms 35:11), Beaten and Ridiculed (Psalms 22:6-17) and would die with the wicked and be a sacrifice for our sin (Isaiah 53:5-12). These prophecies were then fulfilled and the fulfillment told throughout the chapters of Mark, Luke and John. “When the writers...
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...of the problems readers encounter as they engage this segment of Scripture occur because they do not understand the nature or function of prophecy in ancient Israel. Taking that portion of our reading into consideration, summarize the key aspects of the genre. Be sure to include aspects of their hermeneutical suggestions in your summary thread as well. The Prophets: Enforcing the Covenant in Israel In order to understand prophecy, it is important to realize that prophecy does not pertain to what may occur in our future but that which was to occur in the future of the people of the Old Testament. A Prophet was not one who spoke to God but an individual who presented God’s word to His people. There are two types of prophets; Major and Minor Prophets. The terms do not assert one’s importance over another, they were merely utilized to identify longer books/messages and were often not in any chronological order. The function of prophecy in Israel can be broken down into four basics thought. “1. The prophets were covenant enforcement mediators.” (Stuart, 2003) “2. The prophets’ message was not their own, but God’s.” (Stuart, 2003) “3. The prophets were God’s direct representatives.” (Stuart, 2003) “4. The prophets’ message is unoriginal. The meaning is that of God but the wording and vocabulary is that of the individual presenting the prophecy.” (Stuart, 2003) It can be necessary to utilize outside resources for the exegetical task. These resources include Bible dictionaries...
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...Word Count: 343 “ Prophecies as Proof” After reading the article of Arguments by Dr. Elmer Towns, and also watching his video, in my personal opinion, I am inclined to state that the argument strongest to defend the fact that the Bible is the Word of God, would have to be argument number three, which states that the Bible is the proven Word of God because of its predictions not only about Names, Dates, and Events, but also about the Nations, including Israel. I believe that if it were not for God, who lives outside of the human nature’s time limitations, and understanding, and inability to predict the future, there would be no existence of inerrancy in His Word, especially when it comes to the subject of predictions and prophecies. Dr. Towns notes a very interesting aspect, which I had never stopped to think about. He states on page 49 that “The enemies of Scripture usually do not attack the fact of fulfilled prophecy. They usually try to explain it away. “ The Bible does not only talk of names, such as Cyrus, or Josiah, whom were predicted by their exact names more than one hundred years before their births, but the Bible goes further, to predict the main theme of God’s Word; the Messiah. These prophecies of the Messiah go into enough detail to state the location, the date, and the fact of a supernatural virginal birth. Not only does the Bible speak of Jesus’ birth, but His life on earth, His death, and ultimately, His resurrection (Towns, 49, 50). In conclusion...
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...Summary of Contemporary Theology Western society is in the midst of a vast cultural and intellectual upheaval that is profoundly changing our world. Just as the 16th and 17th centuries were a transition from medieval to modern periods, the late twentieth century is beginning to move us from modernity to a new "postmodern" era. Because we are only at the beginning of this shift, it remains clear that God’s purpose is to: fill the earth with His glory (Numbers 14:21, Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah 60:1-4, Habakkuk 2:14 Matthew 6:13, Colossians 1:27), the consummating third day expression of God to the earth. The purported changes will intensify the glory of God and bring the church to full disclosure of divine mystery and revelation. Contemporary theology is therefore the study of lost truth dating back to the mid 18th and 19th century trends in theological thought by prophets and apostles of both the Old and New Testament including but not limited to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, John, Paul, Peter, with special reference to theological options of the present, third-day Christians. The purpose of contemporary theology is to seek—in language and thought—to reformulate the truths given to us by previous generations, and to articulate and conceive a new vision for the twenty-first century. The overarching thesis of contemporary theology is the need for the revelation of truth by the spirit of God. This truth is the only transforming agent of the New Testament...
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...The lands beyond the human horizon Volume I- The echoes of prophecy… By: V.S. Nilanee Chapter 1:- Twenty one years later The palace was festooned with gold crepe paper and holly. It was Princess Moonshine’s 21st birthday. The huge blowout party was doing little to camouflage the dire mood of the people. They were afraid of the fulfillment of the Doomsday prediction. Moonshine had no idea as to why was the situation so as she was not supposed to be informed about the prediction until her birthday, when she was summoned by her father. She rushed to the throne room and knelt, as was her duty when her father was surrounded with people. She was baffled. Her father rarely called upon her when there were people present. She had made it quite clear long ago that she found it hard to pretend as if she were her own father’s subject. Also, it made the people present there feel quite uncomfortable. Still, she was sure that there was some important matter to be discussed, in the light of her birthday. ‘Father!’ she called, when she was certain that there were no more people left, except the courtiers. King Moonshine turned. He said ‘Sweetheart, there is no need to kneel. This is an entirely personal matter.’ Moonshine shivered. There was something in her father’s voice which did not bode well. It sounded to weary, subuded, not at all his usual hearty, light one. She panicked. ‘Father, is something wrong? Are you ill?’ she shrieked. She ran to his side...
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...EIGHTH CENTURY BCE PROPHETS The eighth century was characterized by rise apogee of the assyrian imperialistic power over the syro palestinian nations including israel and judah.A prophet is aperson who interprets the signs of the times to his or her contemporaries.God continues to reveal Himself in the total historical process through events or signs of the times and people who incarnate and speaks God’s word.The eighth century BCE prophecy is typical as it laid the foundation of te classical period of prophecy that started ith Amos.The eighth century prophets include:Amos,Hosea,Micah,Isiah. AMOS Amos is among the twelve minor prophets and he was a judean who prophesied in the northern kingdom.He was a herdman,dresser of sycamores and also a sheep breeder.He ministered at Bethel in israel during the flourishing ana long reign of Jeroboam II around 760 BCE.For being a judean and not from the company of prophets he exercise his ministry not without persecution and opposition.Priest Amaziah of Bethel accused him of conspiracy and creating uphearl in the community.Eventually Amos was expelled from Bethel but not before predicting the death of Amaziah his family and te whole nation.Neverthless Amos spoke in the name of God who he encountered through a religious experience.Amos has been called the prophet of social justice.He witnessed the injustices against the poor and weak and warned his generation against the destructive consequences...
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...talked mostly about god’s word and his promises. I just didn’t get how such promises could ever come true. I mean it doesn’t seem real. The thought that God will destroy wickedness and everything bad in the world sounds impossible. Charlize: I can definitely see where you are coming from Elise. Have you ever heard of Cyrus? Elise: No I don’t think so. Charlize: Well, he was a ruler in the Persian Empire and lived over 2000 years ago. You might be thinking what’s interesting about this man? He was someone who was mentioned in the bible and was used by god to fulfil a prophecy. Do you know what a prophecy is????? Elise: Isn’t a prophecy something that will happen in the future? Charlize: Yes exactly. So if someone said something about the future and his words always came true, what would you think of that person? Elise: I suppose I would believe everything he said. Charlize: Well the bible is FULL of prophecies that have come true. For example Cyrus. Why don’t we learn a little bit more about him? Let’s have a look at Isaiah 44:26-28. Do you mind reading that? Elise: (READ) Charlize: Notice in verse 26 it talks about the one making the word of his servant come true. So this is talking about Jehovah God, he is saying that what he says about the future will come true. Now in verse 27 it says that the waters will dry up and we learn in history that the king of Persia invaded Babylon. Have you heard of Babylon? Elise: Yeah I am pretty sure I have. Charlize: Babylon was one of...
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...A) Below is the graph of the U.S car & trucks from 1970-2008 B) We predict that there will be 258.19 cars and trucks in the U.S in 2013. C) We double checked our prediction in part b extending the trend line we made in part b. D) We are confident that the prediction we made is correct because we followed the step to step direction in part b and the square value is close to one. We also double checked our prediction in part c by extending our trend line. E) The square value for this graph is less than the previous graph’s square value so we were less confident. The points start to decrease before it reaches the prediction we made also. F) y=3.3152x-6419.2 Y=0 6419.2=3.3152x 6419.2/3.3152 X=1936.29 G ) The first car was invented in 1769. We weren’t accurate because the x value for the answer in part F did not match when the car was actually invented. H) We predict from the following information in the data that there will be 381.96 Million rounding up to 382 cars and trucks in the U.S in 2050. We are pretty confident because we stretched down the cells up to the year 2050. 2)A) We added a trendline to the graph below and included the line and the r-squared value. B) We predict that the coal consumption in the year 2013 is 25.723 rounding up to 26. Below we extended the trendline. c) We used the equation in part b’s graph and predicted that the coal consumption will reach 30 quads in 2027. D) Below is the 1970-2010 coal consumption data...
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...important? The fact that there are several different prophecies that are all linked to this date and year, all reading the same thing, the end of the world. The prophecies are gaining strength and support from all over the world, sooner or later we’ll find out whether or not these prophecies are true or just myths. Let’s begin with the most famous prophecy; it originates from the Maya Empire. This is where the prophecy was first discovered in one of the great Mayan empires in Mexico. The Mayan calendar ends on the leap year of 2012. The Mayan calendar was invented by a civilized tribe from Central America, dating back to 250-900 AD. The Maya empire stretched around most parts of Mexico down to El Salvador and even some parts of Honduras. Mayans had very advanced writing skills and an amazing ability when constructing cities. The Mayans are most famous for their magnificent pyramids which can be found all over South America. The Mayans were obsessed with time keeping; it was a spiritual practice for them. Their calendar was so precise it predicts a lunar eclipse thousands of years before it happens. The prophecy would just be like the Y2K bug though unless it had a good track record of predictions. The calendar predicted the arrival of the Spanish fleet on the day. If this is true which we have no way in proving, than this calendar has the ability to predict the end of the world. This prophecy wouldn’t be so popular if several other predictions...
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... In the world today, many people seek to discredit the Word of God by saying there is no proof of its accuracy or its power, however, as we continue to study the word we see that there are many prophecies that have been, are being, and will be fulfilled. This is a huge point for the believer learning biblical Apologetics. One of the prophecies that we see in scripture is in the book of Daniel. In verses 9-24-28 we learn of a prophecy made by Daniel about about present events that were going on, then future events that historically we can observe, and then coming events that many believe to be the end times. In this prophecy we see direct correlation to the book of Luke and Revelation. There are many who ready the prophecy of Daniel and try to conclude that the prophecy in Daniel is referring not to a series of years but rather weeks. However, after contextual study of the word shabuim, we see that the word is actually referring to years. Ryan Turner, explains that in the nature of historical events, Jeremiah’s Prophecy, and the translation that is found in the Mishna one could assume that Daniel is speaking of years. Harold Hoehner writes, “The term shabuim in Daniel 9 most reasonably refers to a unit of seven years. To make it anything else does not make good sense.” The prophecy is broken up into three different sets of years. The first is seven weeks which are speaking of a period of 49 years. The second set is the largest of the three which consists of a period 62 weeks...
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