Tag: chronicles

  • Jerusalem – a City Stirred Up

    Jerusalem – a City Stirred Up

    Then the whole city was provoked…

    Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NASB20

    CROWD REACTIONS with violence, retribution and vengeance, WAR between two opposing forces where some claim PEACE while others besiege it with competing claims of war and tolerance…

    Nothing is new under the sun, most especially in Israel !

    Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

    portico of Solomon in Herod's temple

    ~ In the year of our Lord 30

    So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

    Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

    “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

    “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

    Look, your house is left to you desolate.

    Gospel of Matthew 23:37-38 NIV {in context of vs. 31-39}

    JESUS had testified against these same leading trouble-makers.

    Now the Apostle Paul has returned to the same Jerusalem where many years before this up and coming Saul of Tarsus had stood with the leaders of the Temple who then stoned Stephen to death.

    https://talkofjesus.com/stephen-indictment-of-our-founding-fathers
    ~ A.D. 32 – Stephen martyred in Jerusalem

    * ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.

    *approximately A.D. 54-55

    https://talkofjesus.com/mission-to-macedonia-with-more-exhortation

    Paul has also encountered these zealous Jews in many cities throughout the ten years of his three missionary journeys; including in Ephesus of Asia Minor from where the Apostle has just returned. And Jewish opponents of the Gospel have also traveled to Jerusalem for the festival.

    Acts of the Apostles 21:

    ~ A.D. 57

    Photo of door in gate of Jerusalem's wall  from ~A.D. 1900
    shepherds near Damascus Gate of Jerusalem around 1900

    And all the city was disturbed; and the people ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut.

    Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NKJV

    Little doubt that the Apostle Paul, who had seen the Lord Jesus Himself along a road to persecuted Christians in Damascus twenty years ago (in ~A.D. 37) knew the similar intent of these same anti-Christs who had stoned Stephen.

    Yet due to the prophesy of Agabus (Acts 21:20-21) Paul knew of a different outcome the Lord had in store for the Apostle.

    Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.


    Oh, did I mention that JERUSALEM is still UNDER the control and administration of ROME and NOT its appointed Jewish leaders (who incite the mobs to their own political advantage)?

    Just like when Pilate governed JERUSALEM is controlled from beyond its oft-breached walls.

    Roman squad of Legions

    He immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them.

    And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

    Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done.

    Acts of the Apostles 21:33 ESVThe arrest of Paul in Jerusalem
    SOUND FAMILIAR? 

    Will an arrest in JERUSALEM to appease shouting crowds restore a pax Romana?

    21st Century of the Common Era

    Jerusalem a city stirred up - from ACTS of the Apostles 21:30a Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together.

    MAY, 2021 of the Common Era

    Observant readers of Talk of JESUS .com will have noted that the COVER PHOTO of today’s post is contemporary rather than from the time of the Apostle Paul.

    Palestinians protest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 21, 2021. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

    7 October 2023 C.E.

    Most of us recall an initial incursion by militant Islamists into a pax UN of Israel tenuously instituted in 1949 after an A.D. 20th century holocaust of the Jews.

    14 October 2023 of the Common Era a young woman poses before a festival in Israel before she is abducted by Hamas along with many others and killed, a planned provocation of Israel destroying military fortresses throughout Gaza and an extended war against Palestinian Muslims set on destroying Jerusalem and Israel

    Their own atrocities of war and proven provocation of Jerusalem has led to great evil perpetrated by both sides.

    Although I take no side in this divisive war I would ask you to consider current outcomes in light of entrenched positions which have led up to these current events.

    23 May 2021

    THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

    OP-ED
    Losing the war


    2024 C.E.

    Source: BHARAT NEWS 
MAY 14, 2024 CE https://thebharatexpressnews.com/us-doctor-captured-in-gaza-discusses-challeng es-of-treatment-during-war-this-is-an-intentional-disaster/
    "Meanwhile, Israel celebrated the nation’s 76th anniversary on Tuesday." - IMAGE of Gaza (date uncertain) 
    By The Bharat Express News
    May 14, 2024

    ‘What does all this have to do with Paul and ACTS of the Apostles?

    While you consider and compare  A.D. FIRST CENTURY JERUSALEM with a 2024 of the Common Era Jerusalem, Israel let's LOOK BACK at what 1st c. A.D. JEWISH leaders already knew about their City.

    Before Christ

    * ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.
    time line of David ruling israel
    ~1000 Before Christ + David rules a United Israel for 40 years
    model of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem

    Now Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice..

    “However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

    1 Kings 11:9,13 LSB
    • 930 B.C. Solomon dies. The Kingdom (which did not include Philistia & Gaza) had grown since David’s reign to influence all of the world from the Nile to the Euphrates. It now becomes divided between his sons.
    • 721 B.C. Fall of Israel [Samaria] to Assyria
    10 Northern Tribes - Ephraim & Judah's Captivity with map of routes
    Assyria takes Samarian captives 722 BC & Babylon takes Judah’s captives 607-537 BC
    • 661 B.C. on Yom Kippur (the day of atonement)

    Now the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you trespass against the commandments of Yahweh and do not succeed? Because you have forsaken Yahweh, He has also forsaken you.’”

    So they conspired against him and at the command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of Yahweh [the Temple].

    2 Chronicles 24:20-21 LSB
    • AFTER refusing to listen to Prophets sent to them by the LORD Judah also falls.
    • 587 B.C. Jerusalem falls
    esile to babylon
    Flight of the Prisoners, Artist: Tissot, Photographer: John Parnell, Photo © The Jewish Museum, New York

    And Judah was taken away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.

    1 Chronicles 9:1b LSB
    • 559 B.C.

    “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia,

    ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

    Ezra 1:2 LSB

    331 B.C.

    Alexander the Great captures Jerusalem in 331 BC

    After having defeated Tyre, Alexander the Great seizes Jerusalem, Gaza and much of Egypt.

    We'll skip past the Seleucid Empire to the east and Egyptian Empire to the west of Jerusalem, BOTH threats to Judea and ROME, as well as a familiar Jewish political/religious tiff between the Maccabees and Hasmonaeans.

    63 B.C.

    Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus or Pompey the Great captures Jerusalem and creates an alliance with the part-Edomite King of Jerusalem, Herod the Great. – Source

    48 B.C.

    Julius Caesaer
    Julius Caesar (100BC – 44BC)

    Roman Rule (Before & in the years of Christ)

    • Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic – source BBC
    • A civil war broke out, and Caesar’s soldiers were victorious against Pompey.
    • Pompey escaped to Egypt in search of refuge upon losing the battle. Instead, he was assassinated in the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy XIII’s bid to win over Caesar. – source

    August 9, 48 BCBattle of PHARSALUS (in Greece)

    • (Gaius Julius) Caesar went on to become the ruler of Rome, proclaiming himself to be the sole consul and dictator.

    Paul: more than just a Jew

    Returning once more to  Jerusalem in A.D. 57 ... 

    (where those present do NOT know that ROME will completely destroy Jerusalem and its Temple just 13 years from now...)

    Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another.

    And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.

    And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd,

    for the mob of the people followed, crying out,

    “Away with him!”

    Acts of the Apostles 21:36 ESV (vs. 34-36 above)

    Sound familiar?


    NEXT, God-willing, we will continue with Paul’s troubles in Jerusalem

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • Thanks-taking feasts of C.E. humankind

    Thanks-taking feasts of C.E. humankind

    A BIG meal of little thanks in a long season of thanklessness.

    Giving Thanks to the LORD

    1 Chronicles 16: KJV – v.34

    16:34 הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה

    We know the concept well — yāḏâ Yᵊhōvâ, from the Hebrew. This instance from a Psalm of David given to the priest for worship before the Ark of the Covenant. It is sometimes translated as ‘confess‘ (rather than ‘thank‘) the LORD.

    We also find Biblical lessons of thanks where God is involved but the ‘thanks‘ points to another or some provision by God.


    The New English Translation uses a negative application of thanks referring to original sin.

    But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

    Genesis 3:17 NET
    What has fallen away from the grace of God on YOUR account?

    ‘When He had given thanks..’

    Our New Testament images of ‘thanks-giving’ mostly recall meals and feasts.

    Mark 8:6 KJV

    Some will recognize the Greek root from which we derive this:

    εὐχαριστέω – eucharisteō

    from G2170; to be grateful, i.e. (actively) to express gratitude (towards); specially, to say grace at a meal:

    Gospel of Luke 17:19-20 KJV
    Don't miss that feasts of the Lord God (by various names and in every season) ought to glorify God as WE give thanks for His provision, salvation and mercy.

    Recent Thanksgivings of the Common Era

    Scrooge - A Christmas Carol

    Any who have READ my Thanks-giving posts of previous years may observe that occasionally I am haunted by ghosts of holidays past. Indeed most recently I have chosen to neglect Thanksgiving more than Christmas.

    November 26, 2020 of the Common Era
    November 17, 2017 of the Common Era
    the Grinch who first stole then celebrated the 'holidays'

    Dr. Seuss
    Scrooge, Santa & the Grinch in days of sadness

    Thanksgiving toast by the turkey

    “Watch for the coming ‘blitzchris’ of ads and marketing this week leading with holiday headlines of Thanksgiving and Christmas. From television to social media, mega-marketing messages will be unavoidable and ruthlessly relentless.

    Thanksgiving turkey telling off Santa to wait till December

    Thanks-taking

    It all started when the ‘back to school’ specials came off the shelf.

    Guess who I found on my own site when I searched for Santa?

    Thanks-giving in the days of our Lord by the ghosts of our Christmases past were long-ago lured into hurried holidays of Thanks-TAKING easily consumed in a ‘joy OF the world.’


    Taking it all in with OUR own spin

    Christ Jesus (of the former years of our Lord) after all, has no place at the table of sinners here briefly today to give thanks for all of our taking. AND

    Every American at the table this Thanksgiving must seek freedom FROM religion (rather than becoming a Pilgrim fleeing persecution for the faith of our forefathers).

    WE are no Dickens or Spurgeon of the A.D. 19th century observing the hopeless tide of poor children begging blessing just beyond the churches of London.

    WE are no A.D. 18th c. Washington (an Anglican), Adams (a Congregationalist), Witherspoon (a Presbyterian signer of the Declaration of Independence) or Jonathon Edwards, President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) who famously preached “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”

    Source above: The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity

    SINNERS IN THE HANDS
    OF AN ANGRY GOD
    “Their foot shall slide in due time” (Deut. xxxii. 35)


    Shall WE thank God for our Thanksgiving?

    Common Era culture including many 'christians' have eliminated our previous acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus Christ as the center-line of our world's history. 
    
    Before Christ NOW becomes B.C.E. (meaning INSTEAD of Christ). 
    
    Before Thanksgiving became 'Thanks-taking' Before Christmas 
    (Make that: Before the holiday crowds).
    
    Yet B.C.E. perhaps most appropriately refers to the centuries of these last days when Christians could thank God at Thanksgiving, that is:
    + IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD = centuries A.D. 1- A.D. 20.

    A previous Thanksgiving

    You decide from the link above or brief excerpts below.
    • Who does the heathen, the unbeliever, thank?
      • Do you thank yourself for what you have given yourself this past year… for your successes in this brief moment of your mortal time in human flesh? … Why would you have gratitude to any, if you have not gratitude to God?
    • 2 Samuel 22
      • Is there any question who David is thanking for his life – for his deliverance from Saul? David thanks God. David praises the Lord for saving him. David takes refuge in God. Do you?

    “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty,
    The One who is and who was and who is to come,
    Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.

    from the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostle John 11:17 NKJV

    Today, on this Thanks-giving of the Common Era, I praise our Lord God; the Father, Son and Holy Sprit Who IS, and Was and Will BE worthy of our continual THANKS and praise.

    And I thank YOU, dear reader and student of Scripture, for sharing your thanks with others of this Common Era in these Thanks-taking last days of 2023.

    Roger

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • Confidence in Troubled Times – Psalm 94

    Confidence in Troubled Times – Psalm 94

    (from times Before Christ)

    You give them relief from troubled times
    until a pit is dug to capture the wicked.

    Psalm 94:3 New Living Translation

    Confidence in troubled times (even Before Christ)

    WE THE PEOPLE of every nation have heard it before. ‘NO CONFIDENCE’

    Australian Parliament debate in troubled times of COVID
    Today's Short Take on Scripture for ASH WEDNESDAY in the year of our LORD 2022 may help your perception of confidence in these contemporary troubled times.
    
    Our Scriptures from Psalm 94 and another context from history in 2 Chronicles 15 are linked to 5 language translations:
    
    • English: Authorized (King James) Version
    • Псалми Ukrainian Bible
    • Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
    • 诗篇 Revised Chinese Union Version (Simplified Script) Shen Edition
    • Псалтирь New Russian Translation
    from a troubled 2020 election to troubled times: Joe Biden Presidential Oath of Office sworn on Douay-Rheims Bible (1899) of his Roman Catholic faith

    The Heavy Hand of Authority

    Click here for Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (incorrectly linked on link below)

    Psalm 94:

    O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth;
    O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself..

    They break in pieces thy people, O Lord,
    and afflict thine heritage.
    6 They slay the widow and the stranger,
    and murder the fatherless.
    Yet they say, The Lord shall not see..

    2 Chronicles 15:

    Prophesy of Troubled Times:

    And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded:

    Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. But when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.

    During those dark times, it was not safe to travel. Problems troubled the people of every land. Nation fought against nation, and city against city, for God was troubling them with every kind of problem.

    2 Chronicles 15:5-6 New Living Translation

    12 And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.


    BBC News TODAY: Babyn Yar: Anger as Kyiv’s Holocaust memorial is attacked

    Confidence in Christ Jesus

    jerusalem

    “Teacher, look! What wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!”

    Things to Come from the Good News of Mark:

    And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”

    ..

    And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and they will mislead many.

    Mark 13:5b-6 NASB20 [Click for context]

    “And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.
    “Watch out, stay alert; for you do not know when the appointed time is…

    Mark 13:10 & 13;33 – The word of the Lord Jesus..

    What’s your short take on these Scriptures and events of Ash Wednesday,

    in the year of our Lord 2022?

Do you SHARE the Gospel by either email or text?