自強之路

21:13 Concubine's son will also be blessed.
21:25 The beginning of conflicts in middle-east.
22:8 "God will see to it." A typical words of faith representing Abraham's loyalty. What great faith!
23:9-11 Witness is the proof; a verbal contract is valid.

Genesis
1:1-31 Creation during six days: 1. light and darkness 2. seperation from water and air (sky), water and vapor 3. seperation from water and continents, creation of plants 4. creation of two major lights and the stars in charge of lightening day and night, marking seasons, days, and years Notice that the Sun and the Moon didn't appear until the "Day" 4; how come there was a concept of "day" since the Sun didn't exist then? So it is only a description for a certain period of time counting, not the exact meaning of "day" as we today are used to recognize. 5. sea life in the waters and birds 6. animals, reptiles, bugs (insects), and the last, GODLIKE HUMANS, reflectiing God's nature and taking charging in Earth.
1:29 All the plants, fruits, and vegis were food for humans. Yet God didn't mention that animals were edible.
Chapter 2 may be a brief summary and guideline on human's creation. Therefore the details of creation may be not here to be emphasized.

Romans

1:1 Paul held himself as "a devoted slave of Jesus Christ" and was authorized to proclaim God's words. Words under his pen are from God's. He referred these writings as "sacred". (1:7)
1:5 "Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the URGENT task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus." Indeed, the task is urgent!

    Issues and Commentaries on Tuesday's Bible Study 

Matthew

十架七言

主耶穌復活之前，先經歷死亡，被人無辜的釘在十字架上而死。
十字架乃是古羅馬帝國對囚犯最殘忍的一種刑罰。

You can see the darkest, the most disappointed, as well as the most discouraged facts here in chapter 26 of Matthew, the Message, where Lord has revealed how distrustful and unreliable, or, let me put it this way, weak and feeble humans would be. I am so frustrated to admit that for I'm also one of beings. 
In verses 34 and 35, you will definately think to yourselves: "Is that the same old story recurring over and over again between couples, friends, families, and right among us?" Indeed, the Book has since long displayed the weakness and the disability of humans in the light of "promises". Something we have to be quite aware of is that: The Book was not written to condemn humans, rather to make humans well recognized about what we really are, and offer us the way, the only way through Jesus to receivethe remission due to our weakness and sins.

^31-32Then Jesus told them, "Before the night's over, you're going to fall to pieces 

Why was "The Message" written? The best answer to that question comes from Eugene Peterson himself: "While I was teaching a class on Galatians, I began to realize that the adults in my class weren't feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Testament in its original Greek. Writing straight from the original text, I began to attempt to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original language. I knew that the early readers of the New Testament were captured and engaged by these writings and I wanted my congregation to be impacted in the same way. I hoped to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn't read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become 'old hat.'"

Peterson's parishioners simply weren't connecting with the real meaning of the words and the relevance of the New Testament for their own lives. So he began to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original ancient Greek—writing straight out of the Greek text without looking at other English translations. As he shared his version of Galatians with them, they quit stirring their coffee and started catching Paul's passion and excitement as he wrote to a group of Christians whom he was guiding in the ways of Jesus Christ. For more than two years, Peterson devoted all his efforts to "The Message New Testament". His primary goal was to capture the tone of the text and the original conversational feel of the Greek, in contemporary English.

The Jesus Family Tomb

 Fact or Fiction?  

Jesus' Bones Discovered?  

1. Why don’t Cameron and Jacobovici cite scholars who disagree with their conclusions? For example, in 1996, when the British Broadcasting Corp. aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. In fact, the vast majority of archaeologists dispute their claim.  

2. Since the custom was to bury the dead in their home town, why would Mary and Joseph’s family tomb be in Jerusalem instead of Nazareth? Middle East researcher and biblical anthropologist Joe Zias states, "It has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus, he was known as Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Jerusalem, and if the family was wealthy enough to afford a tomb, which they probably weren't, it would have been in Nazareth, not here in Jerusalem.” Zias dismisses Cameron's claims as "dishonest".  

3. Why didn’t Jesus’ enemies, the Jewish leaders, expose the tomb? They searched unsuccessfully throughout Jerusalem for any evidence of Jesus’ body, claiming that Jesus’ disciples had stolen it. They hated Jesus enough to want him crucified, and would have been elated to discover his tomb, if it indeed existed.  

4. Why didn’t the Romans expose the inscriptions as belonging to Jesus? Roman soldiers controlled the entire city of Jerusalem, and they knew his body was missing from a tomb they had been guarding.  

以下只用一句話，列出新約各卷書的主題： 

馬太福音：耶穌是彌賽亞(君王)
馬可福音：耶穌是神的僕人

Oh yeah! I found the machenism of interaction between God and me, and I think that will be also availible between you and Him. All my friends should read this.

As rpgs is being taken on with passion, I hurt my knee back to back. Having nothing to do but stretch myself out lazily on the sofas, I wonder the hidden incentive for this coincedence till I found this sentence from Paul about Paul's words in Romans 8:25, "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Sometimes the environment asks me if  I really want something, well, as for what is really "real", you may go to Patrick Chen to see what has happened to him and how he reacted in response, then you will find what is "real wanting"; but I doubt this will last long if he names himself to be the commander of life, well, I sincerelly hope he won't.

In God's version, He reveals His opinion about how or what  we did or will do in a more gentle way. He lets us know what we really want slowly, step by step, if we do ask Him of that. Pay attention here; when I say "if we do ask Him", I mean it! He will only reveal us His order if we do ask Him of this. He allows us to suspect, to err, to try, to be compliant to ourselves' wills rather than obeying His, or to turn around to Him and ask for a second chance. He is the real captain of our lives. It would be totally reliable and secure to pass Him the sovereignty of your life. Let Him be your captain, and He will show you the way home. If a voyage of a fisherman comes back with full capturing, then there couldn't be two captains on his ship. You couldn't listen to the captain and listen to you at the same time.

This is, however, not the main issue I want to share with you today. I will focus on the management this time. Since we get the message from Lord, knowing what His expectation upon us is, we then come into the next phase of learning, the executive power. He is relatively more patient to educate us to learn this lesson about how to manage the will of executiveness,much more patient, more than you could ever expect. We could have plenty of time to ponder, yet the reward of afterlife is closely related to the proper deeds we practiced on earth, namely, in behalf of Lord's harvest, how we managed the executive power decides how much we reap! We should ask Him to grant us the wisdom and resolution to execute His will thoroughly! How much do we believe in Him? How do we worship ourselves, egoistically, lustly, or stubbornly? As Dr. Sun Yet-sen said, "Strength comes from Faith." We should always keep an eye on where our faith lies because it is exactly where our strength comes from! Be always alert!