Many Chris­tians are curi­ous about this mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure called Melchizedek. What was the reli­gion in Jerusalem before Abra­ham was called? How could he be the high Priest of the Most High when the office of the High Priest was only defined in the Law? Some­how this doesn’t fit into the pic­ture, at least, of tra­di­tional theology.

Gen 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. (more…)

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Jesus said the fol­low­ing in Matthew:

Matthew 22:32 “I am the God of Abra­ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, BUT OF THE LIVING”.

Did he mean that they were alive? To under­stand what he said, we need to con­sider Jew­ish thought. (more…)

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In the pre­vi­ous post we men­tioned that in a for­eign land there was no need for sac­ri­fices. One could sim­ply repent and pray towards Jerusalem and the Tem­ple. But what if the Tem­ple no longer existed? Was repen­tance and prayer still accepted by God?

This is the pas­sage in ques­tion, Solomon’s prayer at the ded­i­ca­tion of the Temple:

2 Chron­i­cles 6:
34 “When Your peo­ple go out to bat­tle against their ene­mies, by what­ever way You shall send them, and they pray to You toward this city which You have cho­sen and the house which I have built for Your name,
35 then hear from heaven their prayer and their sup­pli­ca­tion, and main­tain their cause.
36 “When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that they take them away cap­tive to a land far off or near,
37 if they take thought in the land where they are taken cap­tive, and repent and make sup­pli­ca­tion to You in the land of their cap­tiv­ity, say­ing, ‘We have sinned, we have com­mit­ted iniq­uity and have acted wickedly’;
38 if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their cap­tiv­ity, where they have been taken cap­tive, and pray toward their land which You have given to their fathers and the city which You have cho­sen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name,
39 then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, their prayer and sup­pli­ca­tions, and main­tain their cause and for­give Your peo­ple who have sinned against You.

This is all good, but what could be done if there was no Tem­ple and no sac­ri­fices, like dur­ing the Baby­lon­ian cap­tiv­ity? (more…)

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I have decided to write about this topic as mis­ap­ply­ing Hosea has been caus­ing harm to many Chris­t­ian men. I will not give an expo­si­tion on the pas­sage, it is quite sim­ple. Read it for yourselves.

Many churches and bible col­leges teach that once a wife cheats and leaves the hus­band the man shall never remarry but wait for his wife to return to him. Even if she mar­ries another man, this poor guy must wait with the hope that she divorces him, or per­haps one day her hus­band dies, and she might return to her right­ful husband.

I am aware of a man who was indoc­tri­nated with this doc­trine, after divorce lived alone all his life and on his deathbed regret­ted it. There are many oth­ers who are in the same posi­tion, so please take note and help them if you meet them. (more…)

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Did Jesus declare his deity when he claimed he could quench thirst on the last day of the Feast of Taber­na­cles? We read the following:

Jn. 7:37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and pro­claimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. 38 He who believes in me, as the scrip­ture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of liv­ing water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glo­ri­fied. (more…)

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