Biblical apocrypha

mother suffering while giving birth. The author is symbolically showing us the agony of death and birth are the same. Also, “this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death”(38-39) could mean Christ birth and sufferings death as the biblical passage convey to us. This poem help us understand from a different point of view of a journey taken by three kings east to witness the birth of…

This article deals with various intervention strategies that incorporate Scripture in psychotherapy, providing examples of a fictional client, George. This article is written to increase Christian counselors’ awareness of diverse Scripture interventions and to stimulate “divinely inspired creativity” in the further development of strategies (Garzon, 2005). At the beginning of the article, the author introduces the case of George and mentions ethical issues. He highlights the importance of…

wrote this letter in an attempt to clarify the true writings that defined the true message to the Christians of his period. Other Christian schools and sects followed different ideas of what the teachings of Christ meant. Athanasius’ list defining biblical canon did not appear suddenly. Rather, the list was the result of the deliberations of the Church that occurred over a couple hundred years. Various individuals and…

Essay: Interpretation of Text – Week Four Divine Presence Amid Violence Lynn Wilson Reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is very challenging due to stories that are deeply enmeshed in violence. This violence completely contradicts my modern day interpretation of the compassionate Christ that I learned about while singing, Jesus, Loves Me. The Hebrew Bible presents some extremely violent text and when taken out of context it becomes difficult to find a connection between the…

Reading Ehud became an example of the Israelites’ lead to exile. With the process of disobedience, the story is not surprising as I predicted that the Israelites would expose themselves to wrong influences, leading themselves to disregard God’s commandments and to live how they want to live. While it is true that humans have fallen short of sin, it never gives them or us the excuse to commit sins. Despite what God says to them, the Israelites have become an example of the disobedience of God’s…

6 Thinking Hats Personal Narrative “GOD’S NOT DEAD HE’S SURELY ALIVE!”, I sing along with my church. I go to Mission Community Church where we say, “Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly,” based off of Micah 6:8 in the Bible. I have been at Mission for 2.5 years. The current Pastor, Joel Thomas, is not teaching straight from the Bible and is not clear on his teachings. He also focuses too much on grace. My family is contemplating whether or not to stay at Mission. I will be using the…

adults. Therefore, the lessons are more focused on discussion question and application rather than lecture and scripture memorization. Another strength of my lessons is that it not only outlines the passages, but it also seeks to emphasize important biblical principles such as: humility, service, salvation, forgiveness, faith, prayer, contentment and…

Introduction The struggle is real, in the” Journey of the Magi,” by T. S. Elliot, written in 1927. Elliot expresses the long journey through the dessert. He conveys how the journey of mankind in the natural is similar to that of a man who decides to leave his sinful lusts, lays down his life and picks up his cross to follow Jesus Christ. Although, the death of the old man is a struggle, laborious, and painful, it opens to a birth of a new creation, it is that death to the flesh which brings new…

My wife and I, like most other people living in America, received a knock on our door by some Jehovah’s Witnesses. They had their material at “the ready” and started, as they often do, asking us about “paradise earth”. I invited them into our home. At the end of the discussion, we arranged a time for a follow-up visit. On their second visit, my wife and I were prepared with coffee (yes, they do drink coffee) and snacks. I also had some time to brush up on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ beliefs. The…

After studying a passage of Scripture, it’s important that we connect what we learned to the rest of Scripture. Which is when the correlation study comes in. This is an important step when you are studying a specific passage of the bible. There are 66 books in the Bible and over 30 different authors all writing about the same scenario . Because of this there is bound to be some overlap in content. Sometimes there are entire sections that are repeated in different places, and other times there…