We would all be better off without some people!

[tbn.al]

I am an insurance agent. Today is the Monday after a long holiday weekend. I have had 3 disturbing calls this morning concerning unfortunate/criminal events at church services over the past few days. One client had his bumper nearly torn off by a hit and run driver in the church parking lot at the Christmas Eve midnight service. Another was broken into in another church parking lot. The third was painted with graffiti along with a dozen others during Sunday services. Makes you wonder?

[MartyNeilan]

I am an insurance agent. Today is the Monday after a long holiday weekend. I have had 3 disturbing calls this morning concerning unfortunate/criminal events at church services over the past few days. One client had his bumper nearly torn off by a hit and run driver in the church parking lot at the Christmas Eve midnight service. Another was broken into in another church parking lot. The third was painted with graffiti along with a dozen others during Sunday services. Makes you wonder?

A lot of pastors have been getting testy these days due to people cutting back on their tithing.

[The Big Ben]

Not sure if I'd put a religious spin on it.

Some people are just jackasses.

[ken k]

Yes there are many people out there who are very similar to slinkies:
They generally are not good for anything but they can bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs....

[Dylan King]

Totally setting the first five commandments (those regarding one's personal relationship with God & family) those who deeply resent these rules:

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

also tend to deeply resent the messengers.

Curiously, these five are currently being overshadowed in some of the more progressive congregations by new, far more important, sins. Recently, I played at a service where one of the most horrible sins for which they were asking God forgiveness was "thoughtlessly wasting resources".

Interesting observation, my friend and talented tubist and inventor, Mr. Bloke. The last Six Commandments are an order from the Ever Living God telling us how to treat our neighbors...

Jesus Christ summarized these six Commandments when He said, "And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt 22:39)

Notice an important fact here. The last six Commandments are referred to by Christ Himself as the "Second" greatest Commandments. If there is a second greatest, then what is the First?

Matt 22:37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."

Yes, the first great Commandment of God is a summary of the first four of the Ten Commandments. To be blessed and protected, and to even be able to follow the last six, one MUST take heed to the first four. Take special note of the Second and Fourth Commandment (below)...

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
8 “ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

The third was painted with graffiti along with a dozen others during Sunday services. Makes you wonder?

Wonder no more. Here is the truth!

God rested on the seventh day. Saturday.

Also think about the First and Second Commandment, listed above from Exodus 20. Is observing Christmas REALLY obeying the word of our Eternal God and Jesus Christ? Can you find Christmas in the Bible? Can you find Easter? I look outside my front door here in NC, and see idols EVERYWHERE (lights, crosses, trees, likenesses, etc.). Is that what our God really wants?

Think about it, by beloved, tuba playing friends. What does the Bible REALLY say?

Jeremiah 10
Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel.
2 Thus says the LORD:
“ Do not learn the way of the Gentiles;
Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven,
For the Gentiles are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the peoples are futile;
For one cuts a tree from the forest,
The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.
4 They decorate it with silver and gold;
They fasten it with nails and hammers
So that it will not topple.
5 They are upright, like a palm tree,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot go by themselves.
Do not be afraid of them,
For they cannot do evil,
Nor can they do any good.”
6 Inasmuch as there is none like You, O LORD
(You are great, and Your name is great in might),
7 Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?
For this is Your rightful due.
For among all the wise men of the nations,
And in all their kingdoms,
There is none like You.
8 But they are altogether dull-hearted and foolish;
A wooden idol is a worthless doctrine.

I give you this knowledge out of love. I do not intend to offend anyone, as you are all made in the image of our great God. May you all seek understanding. To be blessed, one must look to answers -- from the truth -- answers that are plain and simple, and that are actually in the Bible.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

[iiipopes]

You're right. God did rest on the 7th day, whatever and however God defined his 7th day to be. And everything else quoted above is the way it is.

However, the reason Christians go to church on Sunday is in observance and celebration of the resurrection, which is clearly stated to have occurred on the first day of the week, well after the sabbath was over. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1. The sabbath ended at sundown on the 7th day of the week.

This is what is most completely misunderstood, even by most Christians. Christian worship on a Sunday is not an observance of the Jewish sabbath or an attempt to change, transfer, or shoehorn in a different "day of rest." Quite the opposite. It is a celebration, feast and party of the Risen Lord. What do most people do when they get ready to go to a party, religious, secular or otherwise? They dress up, they set a big table, they get together, express concern for those who couldn't make it, have appropriate fun in the appropriate context, and eat good food together. What is traditionally done on a Sunday (or at least used to)? People dress up, set a big table, get together, have fun (in the form of corporate hymns, songs and prayers), express concern for those that can't be there, and eat a fine meal afterwards.

As far as some of the traditions and trappings of observances, everyone has different items of observance. I would only state it as a question: are these trappings being used as reminders of where the focus should be, or are the trappings being worshipped in and of themselves? Or put another way, do the trappings of observances encourage people to go out and do what they are commanded to do, or lure them into some sort of insular complacency? I have a desk calendar. I use it to make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing when I'm supposed to be doing it. I don't just sit around with it like a word puzzle trying to see what I can fit in where just for the sake of fitting things in. So for me my desk calendar is good as it aids me to fulfill my obligations. But otherwise it would be a hinderance. So it goes with particular traditions and elements of observances.

And regarding the insurance claims, unfortunately, people are people, and a church or church grounds is no more immune to the failings of persons than any other place. By definition, it may even be more susceptible to such due to the inherent nature of the purposes of a church.

[Dylan King]

God rested on the seventh day. Saturday.

I'm not terribly sure that we know which day of the week was which during creation.

For instance, on which day did God truly create Saturn? Was it actually the seventh day? I suppose he did create the Sun on the first day, but how do we REALLY know that weeks to not actually begin on Thor's Day...??...and on which day did God create the god of thunder...?? I've read Genesis several times, and cannot find these answers. Perhaps that bumbling idiot back in Constantinople threw away the Book that gives us these Answers...??

bloke "an ardent believer, but not one to do one-handed handstands in order to create science from instructive prose"

Respected historian Paul Johnson has observed the following regarding Constantine’s religious views:

"There is some doubt about the magnitude of Constantine’s change of ideas.... He himself appears to have been a sun-worshipper, one of a number of late-pagan cults which had observances in common with the Christians. Thus the followers of Isis adored a madonna nursing her holy child; the cult of Attis and Cybele celebrated a day of blood and fasting, followed by the Hilaria resurrection-feast, a day of joy, on 25 March; the elitist Mithraics, many of whom were senior army officers, ate a sacred meal. Constantine was almost certainly a Mithraic, and his triumphal arch, built after his ‘conversion,’ testifies to the Sun-god, or ‘unconquered sun.’ Many Christians did not make a clear distinction between this sun-cult and their own. They referred to Christ ‘driving his chariot across the sky,’ they held their services on Sunday, knelt towards the East and had their nativity-feast on 25 December, the birthday of the sun at the winter solstice. During the later pagan revival under the Emperor Julian many Christians found it easy to apostatize because of this confusion; the Bishop of Troy told Julian he had always prayed secretly to the sun. Constantine never abandoned sun-worship and kept the sun on his coins. He made Sunday into a day of rest...." (A History of Christianity, Johnson, 1976, pp. 67–69; emphasis ours).
As Jesse Lyman Hurlbut states in The Story of the Christian Church: "As long as the church was mainly Jewish, the Hebrew sabbath was kept; but as it became increasingly Gentile the first day gradually took the place of the seventh day" (p. 4; emphasis ours).

[iiipopes]

...so it is far better to worship a planet than it is to worship a star...??

Keeping in mind the etymological origin of the word "planet," which means "wandering star," it is one and the same. The star is merely the guide to point to what is to be worshipped.

[The Big Ben]

To be blessed, one must look to answers -- from the truth -- answers that are plain and simple, and that are actually in the Bible.

Last time I was in a bookstore, there were four or five different versions of the Bible. Which one has The Truth in it?

[iiipopes]

To be blessed, one must look to answers -- from the truth -- answers that are plain and simple, and that are actually in the Bible.

Last time I was in a bookstore, there were four or five different versions of the Bible. Which one has The Truth in it?

Indeed: http://www.bible-researcher.com/" target="_blank

Especially since what most people think of as the "King James" version of the bible is not the original 1611 text, but the "standardized text" of the 1769 Oxford edition, edited by Benjamin Blayney, which was later rendered into the then-newest technology in printing, the stereotype plate, of which a complete set was sent to the Pennsylvania Bible Society and mass printed, effectively becoming the "standard text" in the USA for well over a century, even a century and a half, and even with other translations and editions circulating throughout the same time periods, until the rise of the Revised Standard Version and others:

http://www.pabible.org/1812bible.html" target="_blank

[Chuck Jackson]

The sun orbits the Earth once each day.

And it's flat, too.