Angel shot down by Iraqis ?

'Where there's suspicion in the wind, [Willow], it's going to be a dry summer."        (--Burt Lancaster, in The Rainmaker)

   

Seriously, I believe the term 'angel(s)' generally in the bible is used interchangeably with words 'the Lord'.  I believe it is this way in Acts, and in the OT, as in Genesis, in the visit to Abraham, by two or three angels, immediately b4 the destruction of Sodom.

It's not always totally clear whether such references therefore are literal beings, or the Spirit moving in someone's awareness, as in Peter's liberation from jail, by the angel, in Acts, which then becomes a 'vision' - nevertheless he is quite literally rescued from Herod's jailers - who subsequently are then put to death, with then Herod himself delivering his famous oratory, to then himself be eaten by worms.

There is a constant shifting from angel to Lord, in such passages, as with, also, i believe, Moses' witness of the burning bush, so the 'takeaway' effect is only an ethereal, slippery 'moving target' difficult to nail down precisely - tho that quite realistically is what happened to our Lord.  They were very precise in nailing Him down.  

 

Genesis 5:21-24    When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah.  Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.  Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.  


Willowburch:    Another question: when Paul informs Timothy that all scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking correcting and training in righteousness...this statement was made before Enoch (and the apocrypha) had been filtered out of our Bible;
and I find it interesting that Jude puts a quote from Enoch to work in precisely the manner scripture is meant to be used.

Symphony:   so then the q. becomes what is *all scripture*?

Now there's the question of the millineum:  What is 'all' scripture.  Hehe.  Does that include comic books?  Theatre plays?  Artistic performances?  Judicial proceedings from secular courts?  Personal diaries or journals of the rich and famous?  Personal diaries of anybody at all?  Famous literary works - Shakespeare, John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, etc.?

Hehe.  How do you define 'all scripture'.

In any event, so then the book of Enoch was useful for training and correction, and perhaps other apocrophyl books, until the canon 'filtered' them out.

The scripture I'm referring to is the riot you cite in Acts 19:23-31.  Yes, I have continued to read the chapter.  No, Paul, as you say, did not participate in the riot.

Paul, however, is very much the topic of Demetrius' little soliloquy (vs. 26) and, thereby, the 'cause' of this uprising.  Just prior, earlier in the chapter, many things are happening there in Ephesis, such that, by the time we reach the  passage in our discussion here, it is clearly prefaced with, in vs. 23, '...there arose no little stir concerning the Way.'

You say that 'Paul did not cause the riot'.

Harumph!!  That's the whole point of this chapter, beginning in vs. 1, when he's first coming to Ephesus.  No, not intentionally causing a riot or, in legal terms, "inciting a riot'", etc.  But just by his presence, and his preaching, and that of the others, too.

Demetrius is quite clear in his reference to Paul in vs. 26.

But if technically, okay, Demetrius 'caused' it.  

But I dare say that Christians, by their mere presence, are by definition the cause of much contradcition or, confrontation.  It can't be otherwise, unless we are renegging on the truth.  I can't stand by and let my community go homosexual without my contradiction.

But as you say, with much love, and 'charity'.

But Jesus points out too that we will be the cause of much strife.

But not that we deliberately cause it and, that is the slippery slope you point out, and I wholeheartedly agree.  You say it much better than I can.

I don't think we can maintain only and ever only just a 'diplomatic' approach to spreading the Gospel message.  This was the main issue for the churches, both Catholic and protestant, in the Nazi rise to power, in the 1930s, in Germany.  Should we 'confront', or should we not.

And even there the 'peaceable' ones were rounded up.  One group, named the 'The White Rose' for peaceable resistance, painted signs in downtown Munich, 'Hitler is a Mass Murderer', and passed out pamphlets.  February of 1943, they were rounded up, about a dozen of them, and on the same day as their arrest, beheaded.

Not to 'say something', is to risk complicity.  Especially when things are as far advanced as they seem to be now.

Not to say something about the gay thing, now, is to risk endorsement.

At some point you have to disagree with 'the law'?  Otherwise you risk becoming, in the above example, a Nazi oneself?

And wouldn't we all agree that 'Hitler was indeed a mass murderer'?

Those college students took the bull by the horns, and they paid dearly for it.

But yes, it may mean I end up getting associated with 'the undesirables' who use methods I neither endorse nor use myself.

[charity]

Thank you, M.

Well, I centainly agree with you wholeheartedly about many things that you say above:

  It is a very difficult situation to attempt to witness to some types of people.  It requires bravery, preparation and prayer.  It is charity to approach such people with the Good News of our Lord.  We do not wish for any souls to be condemned to Hell.  It is only because of love and concern that someone should want to preach the Gospel to these people, not anger.

Very well said, M.  I can't improve on that at all.  Thank you.

I am quite grieved by Christians who approach sinners with anger.  While God has righteous anger over sin, we can seek the Holy Spirit to find a good and effective way to bring the message to sinners.  If I can not approach a sinner with love and not anger, it is best for me to stop and pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance.

And that too.

My great concern is when some Christians lead others to break the law.  They trust these people and unknowingly break the law during a demonstation.  Some people get involved in what they believe is a peaceful demonstration and it ends up with people fighting with the police.  Some people have even taken to terrorism for their causes.  Other people, who have no interest in the cause, will show up at a demonstation looking for a fight.  For this reason, I am hesitant to attend public demonstrations.  I prefer to pray and use one-to-one communication, tracts and non-confrontational methods.  

Yes, and some very good points, here.

Thanks, cris/ yoyo.

It's a pretty quick read, cris - hard to put down.  There's an online version, at Berkeley; not sure of the website; but i notice a very interesting edit: It doesn't seem to include the short Appendix, where Douglass is careful to distinguish his ealier criticism of American Christianity from that of Jesus.  I'm wondering if this was deliberate, since Civil Rights advocates at, like, Berkeley, etc., would be reluctant to champion historical figures like Douglass who include such a wonderful thanksgiving to Jesus.  Even just the short Appendix is a very interesting read.

The business owners in the area like the event since it brings them more revenue.  

but isn't this exactly what was happening in Paul's case, with the artisans and their "...great is Artimus of the Ephesians" chant; they almost killed Paul, for saying that God was not an image made with hands, since the sales of these hand-held gods brought them their livlihood?

I don't think many people will be saved at these events by someone trying to give them a tract or by a t-shirt.

...how will anyone know unless someone preaches? says Paul, elsewhere - and if 'preaching' includes tracts and shirts, surely?

M, these are people who 're quite literaly taking of their own time and resources to challenge a trend while it's still in infancy.

Do we wait until they've surrounded our homes(Genesis 19:4), before we should ever say anything?

Should we ever say anything?

While prayer is certainly critical - thank you - does that absolve us from all or any other action?

Unless i'm misinterpreting you, M, your rhetoric if taken literally is a virtual slap in the face to all those who have taken the bull by the horns - from Moses, to the major and minor Prophets, some who were skinned alive, or sawn asunder, to our Saviour who quite literally confronted the Jewish tradiationalism at it's very heart and soul - the Sanhedrin - and to all those who came immediately after Jesus, from Stephen onward - who confronted in very real terms the apostasy about them - and paid dearly for it with their lives.

Yes, i disagree with militant confrontation, but that doesn't mean we don't confront.  We have a mandate to do so.  Yes, through much prayer, and fasting.  But does prayer and even fasting absolve us from any action in real terms?

The Christian example we have from both Old and New Testament - with much love - is quite the contrary.

*bump*


   

thank you duain.

I've heard barely anything about this.  I listen to some talk radio regularly.

It's possible the police there are gay themselves, if not at least sympathetic to the gay cause.  Philadelphia seems to have a growing sympathy generally, to the gay cause.

Of course, it is known as the 'city of brotherly love'.  


The recently elected Sheriff of Dallas/Fort Worth, is openly lesbian, as i understand it.


I'm sorry to see all of this.

I'm still wanting to do the shirt idea, i've discussed here, separately, under a different thread, here.

What a book.   Not even 150 pages.  I just finished it.

Composed and written shortly after his escape from Maryland, where he'd worked on a plantation, to Boston - a four hundred mile trek he mentions only delicately, to protect those who assisted in his passage - and himself from those who would apprehend him.  Slavetraders had agents in the North.

Agents would deliberately befriend and encourage slaves to escape, then turn them in to collect the reward.

He tells of learning in the Baltimore shipyards the trade of calking(caulking) in the late 1830s, working frantically for the yard's contract to build two men-of-war (ships), for the Mexican Navy, and advancing in skill over the period of one year, until he was able to command, as he puts it, the highest wages for that trade, $1.50/day, or $9.00/week(for a six day workweek); that come Saturday evening, his master would receive him, receiving all the nine dollars, and always asking, to make sure, "Is that all"? And then him giving back maybe five or six cents.  And his fellow shipbuilders, some 50 white workmen or so, surrounding him, and beating him to a pulp, out of apparent jealousy of his acquired skill, and a subsequent lawyer ("esquire", in the book), responding to his master's query that there was nothing they could do about it, since none of the (white) witnesses would testify against their fellows, and black testimony would not be accepted in a court of law.

The appendix, 5 or 6 pages, at the end, particularly incisive,  on American 'Christianity', not being the 'Christianity of Jesus', as Douglass states it:  Slaveholders actively beating and lashing slaves, including women slaves, until the blood flowed, those same masters then holding church revivals on the weekends - preachers, ministers.

.

I'm reading a A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Himself.

My edition is c. 1963; with a frontispiece dated 1845.

--Interesting autobiography, of the former slave turned politcal and influential activist; escaped to the North, in about 1841...

Well I guess, I am going to have to send her a letter. via. snail mail, since she won't/can't answer an e-mail.

...she's not even answering email, huh


   

     

     

John 21:9, actually:

"When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread."    


...and...

John 21:12:  

"Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast.'"