When you can feel the earth shake beneath your feet, you know something big is happening. That's exactly what occurred in Milan, Italy the afternoon of Saturday, March 19. It wasn't an earthquake but it was something big. One man who felt the ground shaking likened it to the tremor caused by a passing train. But it wasn't a train either. It was the people of God.
For perhaps the first time in hundreds of years - maybe even the first time ever - nearly 5,000 evangelical believers paraded through the streets of this great city, better known as the fashion capital of the world, to sing praise to the living God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the weeks leading up to the event, 1,500 posters proclaiming the love of God for the people of that city had been prominently displayed and 200,000 pieces of literature had been prepared to invite people to a website where they could find a Bible-believing church close to them.
But no one could have predicted the power of the moment that Saturday afternoon when the procession paused near Duomo, the city's main cathedral, the third largest in the world. CrossWorld worker Nina Schaafsma described it:
Our line-up of thousands had to wait. We were going crazy singing and giving testimony. Then the believers from all over Milan and from as far away as Sicily began to sing "You are King! You are King! You, Jesus, are King!" I cannot describe to you the feeling of wonder to have a crowd like ours giving Jesus the glory as we stood in the shadow of a cathedral that was raised to give glory to [the virgin] Mary. The majesty of this building and her golden statue on the top were small in comparison to the glory that was being given to the Lord in that moment.... People were crying all throughout the day. One young man told us he cried for an hour after going home. Another new believer said he felt a joy like never before.
Things like this don't happen overnight in Italy or the rest of post-Christian Europe where the spiritual soil is some of the hardest in the world. It is the result of the long-term investment of God's truth in the lives of a few who, in turn, learn to reproduce the life of Jesus in others who do the same. That's disciple-making. That's what we're all about. And we couldn't do it without you.
I invite you to take a moment to share in the joy of those Italian believers and to pray that God might shake that city, country and continent for His glory.
Watch footage to see and hear the atmosphere of this moving experience.
You can be a part of God's movement in Milan. Radio Vita was a catalyst in gaining a local presence and breaking ground for preaching the Word of God. Within the Radio Vita broadcast zone, Punto Luce church, a daughter church from Punto Lode, and others, continue to grow.
(reposted from Dale Losch, CrossWorld, June 2011 prayer letter)
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Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Genesis is History, Not Poetry
“Why are you guys so literalistic about Genesis? Don’t you know that it’s just Hebrew poetry? There’s no need to treat it like real history!” This was the smug comment of a young English literature teacher at a recent Christian educators’ conference where the Institute for Creation Research was conducting seminars.
The bottom line is that Genesis is not “Hebrew poetry.” Genesis is Hebrew narrative prose. In other words, Genesis is a record of accurate, true history. Not mysticism. Not mystery. Not myth. Anyone who can read a Bible can prove that Genesis is not Hebrew poetry. And this is not a minor issue, because Paul hung his theology of our salvation in Christ upon the historicity of the Genesis record (Romans 5:12-21).
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Example of Genesis history, exhibiting the format of narrative prose.
There is no poetic parallelism anywhere in Genesis 4, with the possible exception of the wicked “song” of Lamech the polygamist recorded in Genesis 4:23-24. Nor is there any poetic parallelism in Genesis 1, 2, 3, or any other chapter in Genesis. Why? Because Genesis is history. Virtually all of Genesis illustrates what we expect from historical narrative: careful attention to sequenced events (this occurred, then this occurred, then this occurred, etc.), as well as inclusion of time-and-space context information (when such is relevant to the narrative) and a noticeable absence of Hebrew parallelism.1
Conclusion:
Why would anyone even pretend that Genesis 1-11, or any part of Genesis, is Hebrew poetry?
For those who know better, it is intellectual dishonesty to avoid the obvious truth that Genesis is real history. Their most likely motive is a desire to accommodate evolutionary mythology by discounting the real history of our origins, stealing credit from Christ so that a fable called “natural selection” can be credited with “selecting” (and creating) earth’s creatures.
Genesis 1-11 is easy-to-understand narrative prose. Don’t naïvely fall for the misinformation of a so-called scholar who, because he wants to rationalize his own evolutionary mythology, tries to dissuade you from believing Genesis 1-50 is an inerrantly inspired historical narrative—because that’s exactly what it is. And, as they say, “the rest is history.”
(for the complete article, see James J.S. Johnson, Genesis is History, Not Poetry, Acts & Facts, June 2011)
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References (selected)
1.Genesis 1-11, as well as 12-50, also routinely uses the vayyaqtil forms (i.e., conjunction-modified verbs that older Hebrew grammars call waw consecutives or waw conversives), an awkward Hebrew language feature that pervades Hebrew narrative prose but not Hebrew poetry. See, e.g., Practico, G. D. and M. V. Van Pelt. 2001. Basics of Biblical Hebrew Workbook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 125-134.
The bottom line is that Genesis is not “Hebrew poetry.” Genesis is Hebrew narrative prose. In other words, Genesis is a record of accurate, true history. Not mysticism. Not mystery. Not myth. Anyone who can read a Bible can prove that Genesis is not Hebrew poetry. And this is not a minor issue, because Paul hung his theology of our salvation in Christ upon the historicity of the Genesis record (Romans 5:12-21).
And Cain talked to Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. (Genesis 4:8-11)There is no informational parallelism in this passage. What we read is history, a narrative account of the first instance of an unbeliever tragically persecuting a believer, a terrible precedent, a hate crime that preceded millions of later copycat martyrdoms. It’s a sad history (except that Abel went to heaven).
There is no poetic parallelism anywhere in Genesis 4, with the possible exception of the wicked “song” of Lamech the polygamist recorded in Genesis 4:23-24. Nor is there any poetic parallelism in Genesis 1, 2, 3, or any other chapter in Genesis. Why? Because Genesis is history. Virtually all of Genesis illustrates what we expect from historical narrative: careful attention to sequenced events (this occurred, then this occurred, then this occurred, etc.), as well as inclusion of time-and-space context information (when such is relevant to the narrative) and a noticeable absence of Hebrew parallelism.1
Conclusion:
Why would anyone even pretend that Genesis 1-11, or any part of Genesis, is Hebrew poetry?
For those who know better, it is intellectual dishonesty to avoid the obvious truth that Genesis is real history. Their most likely motive is a desire to accommodate evolutionary mythology by discounting the real history of our origins, stealing credit from Christ so that a fable called “natural selection” can be credited with “selecting” (and creating) earth’s creatures.
Genesis 1-11 is easy-to-understand narrative prose. Don’t naïvely fall for the misinformation of a so-called scholar who, because he wants to rationalize his own evolutionary mythology, tries to dissuade you from believing Genesis 1-50 is an inerrantly inspired historical narrative—because that’s exactly what it is. And, as they say, “the rest is history.”
(for the complete article, see James J.S. Johnson, Genesis is History, Not Poetry, Acts & Facts, June 2011)
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References (selected)
1.Genesis 1-11, as well as 12-50, also routinely uses the vayyaqtil forms (i.e., conjunction-modified verbs that older Hebrew grammars call waw consecutives or waw conversives), an awkward Hebrew language feature that pervades Hebrew narrative prose but not Hebrew poetry. See, e.g., Practico, G. D. and M. V. Van Pelt. 2001. Basics of Biblical Hebrew Workbook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 125-134.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Prayer for the pressed
Dear Father,
Today may we meet
the pressures of life
in the power of God.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
- (Dr. Robert A. Cook, "Walk with the King today, and be a blessing!")
Monday, June 20, 2011
Chimp chromosomes got hitched to create Humans? Sorry, nice try...
New research is now seriously undermining the validity of the "chromosome 2 fusion" model and human "evolution" in general. The fusion model is one of the leading arguments for human evolution from a shared common ancestor with apes. This hypothetical model proposes that the end-to-end fusion of two small ape-like chromosomes resulted in the human chromosome 2, which supposedly explains the difference in chromosome numbers between humans and great apes.1 A graphical depiction of the fusion model showing the orientation of telomere and centromere sequence was published in a previous issue of Acts & Facts.2 :
This author (Jeffrey Tomkins) and Professor Dr. Jerry Bergman of Northwest State College, Ohio, analyzed the scientific literature and available DNA sequence and made several exciting findings.
The hypothetical fusion site should exhibit very little degeneracy, compared to standard telomere sequence. Telomere sequences in humans normally consist of thousands of repeats of the standard 6-base sequence “TTAGGG.” We found that the hypothetical fusion region is completely degenerate and vaguely represents anything close to intact and fused telomeres.
An earlier 2002 research report by molecular evolutionists also made note of this extreme sequence degeneracy and the obvious discrepancies it presented for the evolutionary model.2
Despite evolutionists’ insistence that the chromosome 2 fusion model supports a human-chimp common ancestor, the so-called supporting data are not present. All evidence points to man and ape as unique and separate creations.
(for the complete article, see Jeffrey Tomkins, New Research Undermines Key Argument for Human Evolution, Acts & Facts, June 2011)
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References (selected)
1.Yunis, J. J. and O. Prakash. 1982. The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy. Science. 215 (4539): 1525-1530.
2.Tomkins, J. 2011. New Human-Chimp Chromosome 2 Data Challenge Common Ancestry Claims. Acts & Facts. 40 (5): 6.
3.Fan, Y. et al. 2002. Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in 2q13-2q14.1 and Paralogous Regions on Other Human Chromosomes. Genome Research. 12 (11): 1651-1662.
This author (Jeffrey Tomkins) and Professor Dr. Jerry Bergman of Northwest State College, Ohio, analyzed the scientific literature and available DNA sequence and made several exciting findings.
The hypothetical fusion site should exhibit very little degeneracy, compared to standard telomere sequence. Telomere sequences in humans normally consist of thousands of repeats of the standard 6-base sequence “TTAGGG.” We found that the hypothetical fusion region is completely degenerate and vaguely represents anything close to intact and fused telomeres.
An earlier 2002 research report by molecular evolutionists also made note of this extreme sequence degeneracy and the obvious discrepancies it presented for the evolutionary model.2
Despite evolutionists’ insistence that the chromosome 2 fusion model supports a human-chimp common ancestor, the so-called supporting data are not present. All evidence points to man and ape as unique and separate creations.
(for the complete article, see Jeffrey Tomkins, New Research Undermines Key Argument for Human Evolution, Acts & Facts, June 2011)
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References (selected)
1.Yunis, J. J. and O. Prakash. 1982. The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy. Science. 215 (4539): 1525-1530.
2.Tomkins, J. 2011. New Human-Chimp Chromosome 2 Data Challenge Common Ancestry Claims. Acts & Facts. 40 (5): 6.
3.Fan, Y. et al. 2002. Genomic Structure and Evolution of the Ancestral Chromosome Fusion Site in 2q13-2q14.1 and Paralogous Regions on Other Human Chromosomes. Genome Research. 12 (11): 1651-1662.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Israeli missile defense test June 22nd
Israel is preparing for a major war and in the worst case scenario, it could be attacked from all directions. On June 22nd, 2011, there will be a major test of our newest anti-missile protection system and a test of citizenry readiness for a new, this time much bigger, military conflict. We are getting gas masks just in case. Most everyone already has them, but we keep delaying to go to the mask distribution center to get those for the whole family. No one is panicking, but it is clear that things may get worse rather suddenly. All should be well, but we would appreciate your prayers for protection, wisdom, and blessing in regard to this.
(from a Messianic Jewish prayer letter, June 2011)
Here is additional info, from Israel’s Arrow Theater Missile Defense:
In a dawning age of rogue states, ballistic missile defenses are steadily become a widely accepted necessity. Iran is widely believed to be developing nuclear capabilities, and Israeli concerns were heightened after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be “wiped off the map.” Because missile defenses are so important, states like Israel have taken steps to ensure that they have the ability to build many of the key pieces. The Arrow project is a collaboration between Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries to produce the missile interceptors that accompany the required radars, satellites, command and control systems.
On July 27, 2010: The United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense voted to fund Israel’s missile defense programs at $422.7 million for 2011, nearly $96 million above the original White House funding request. This represents a doubling of aid for missile defense from 2010, in the wake of an emerging consensus that the CIA’s 2007 estimate of Iran’s nuclear weapons program was wrong, and underestimated Iranian progress.
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(from a Messianic Jewish prayer letter, June 2011)
In a dawning age of rogue states, ballistic missile defenses are steadily become a widely accepted necessity. Iran is widely believed to be developing nuclear capabilities, and Israeli concerns were heightened after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be “wiped off the map.” Because missile defenses are so important, states like Israel have taken steps to ensure that they have the ability to build many of the key pieces. The Arrow project is a collaboration between Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries to produce the missile interceptors that accompany the required radars, satellites, command and control systems.
On July 27, 2010: The United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense voted to fund Israel’s missile defense programs at $422.7 million for 2011, nearly $96 million above the original White House funding request. This represents a doubling of aid for missile defense from 2010, in the wake of an emerging consensus that the CIA’s 2007 estimate of Iran’s nuclear weapons program was wrong, and underestimated Iranian progress.
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