Newsletter: 2006-14 National Bible Week

Greetings from HomeWorship 101™

“I am the LORD, I do not change!”
The word of the LORD endures forever.” - Mal 3:61; Pet 1:25

National Bible Week starts today. Although it is the textbook that America was founded on you probably won't hear about it in the media. National Bible Week is celebrated each year from Sunday to Sunday of the Thanksgiving week, beginning this year on November 19-26, 2006, and it encourages everyone to read the Bible.

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible
is worth more then a college education.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

Bible Week is a good time to pause and consider, as a nation how are the Bible studies going. The Bible is still the best selling book, but the question is are people reading it, or are they just using it as a decoration for a table or shelf? Is it that the laity does not want to learn, or is it that the religionists do not want to teach?

One of my Bible pet peeves is that Christianity has taken the Bible hostage. When I register my website with Internet search engines it is usually in the Bible studies, or Bible history, which is a sub-category under Christianity. Regular readers of my work know I do not teach standard Christianity, nor is it standard Hebraic or Messianic Judaism. That is why I have a hard time with my ministry because it is mostly churches – Messianic or Christian - that hold Bible study classes with a predetermined agenda, and they do not want independent free-thinking teachers. (The spiritual – new age – groups do not care to hear me either.) In my strange way of seeing it, the Bible should be it’s own main category and the religions should be subcategories under it because the Bible spawns the various religions, not the other way around.

It may upset some folks when I say the Bible is not a religious book. If it is then which religion does it teach? Not Christianity, as I have said before, what is called today’s radical right in nothing but a bunch of New Testament liberals. Today, the Bible-based men that founded our country would be considered a bunch of Bible zealots and would be run out of town. The New Testament does not teach today’s Christianity anymore then the Old Testament teaches Judaism. The Bible is the textbook of spiritual warfare. The Bible is a library of books: It is a history book. It is a book of healthful living. It is a philosophy book. It is the Book of the Covenants. It is a Book of Prophecy. It is the Book of our CREATOR’S plan for humanity. It is not a religious book, and I get some strange looks when I call my book and website a “non-religious” Bible teaching website, it seems I’m the lone fish swimming against the current. I teach at the grass roots level, using simple language, with a no-BS ethic of an engineer, more concerned with education rather than indoctrination. That is why the religionists run into problems with teaching the Bible in public schools, instead of teaching the Bible in an unbiased manner, they use the Bible for religious indoctrination - woe the mishegoss of religion.

“So the hammers of infidels have been
pecking away at this Book for ages,
but the hammers are worn out,
and the anvil still endures.
If this book had not been the book of GOD,
men would have destroyed it long ago.
Emperors and popes, kings and priests, princes and rulers,
have all tried their hand at it;
they die and the Book still lives.”
- H.L. Hastings

Unfortunately, the Bible is also a study in one of humanities’ greatest paradoxes. In centuries past, Biblical debates have imploded ecumenical councils, confounded theologians, and touched off wars that raged on for decades sometimes centuries, over a book that basically teaches peace.

Want to prove a spiritual truth research how much bloodshed there was in order to suppress the information. Read through Foxes Book of the Martyrs and learn the horror stories of those who died to further the Word of GOD. They were merciless tortured and murdered not because they had a sword in their hands, but because they were armed with a simple book, or in ancient times a scroll, which is just words on paper. Today in many parts of the world people are still being beheaded, tortured, and killed for simply wanting to study Scriptures.

What mere mortal has the authority to change YHWH’s words? The Bible contains inconvenient truths that many Bible teachers simply ignore. For example: some religious groups dislike music and dance in their churches. My response when I am talking to them would be to open my Bible to Psalm 149 and 150 and say, “here tear these pages from my Bible. When you have done that then which other passages do you have a problem with, lets go there and tear those pages out, then the next, and the next.” There are some Bible dullards still to this day who think they can rewrite the Bible. Log on for an article on the latest rewrite from the Western Bible Foundation. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes (Isa.5:20).

“When I pray, I talk to GOD;
when I study Scriptures, GOD talks to me.”

Learning spiritual truths begins with critical thinking and it is done with diplomacy. When hearing Bible teachers, first listen with your heart, when something doesn’t feel right, then politely say, “please excuse my cynical reaction, but....” When interpretation of spiritual matters gets so confusing, then it is time to return to the original source, the Bible. Sometimes in Biblical research we must even return to the original Hebrew source for a more precise and clearer meaning.

Owning a Bible is a responsibility to be respected,
and it is read with sophistication.

Reading with sophistication means do not interpret verses singularly (2Pet.1:20). It has been said that: “Divine knowledge humbles great men, astonishes the common man, and puffs up the little man,“ and “a half truth is the worst kind of lie.” Through the ages, and up to the present time, there always have been the petty, the manipulative or misguided religious troubadours, who are guided solely by their own narrow-minded prejudices to become very skillful in taking Bible verses out of context to support their limited point of view – the little men. My purpose is the illumination of some spiritual truths that are rarely taught. Although I quote certain verses, space does not allow me to use the complete context in which the verse is used. I encourage all readers to refer to their own Bibles, read with sophistication, and consider the complete historical context in which the verse was quoted from. For greater in-depth study, excellent research helps are “study Bibles” which provide more background information and help in understanding the historical circumstances in which the chapter and verse were written.

It’s a good time to be a Bible believer!

Dig the Bible! When discussing the Bible, many times people will tell me that you cannot trust the Bible translations, because some translators made changes to it, either from ignorance, Hebrew prejudice, honest mistake, or for the purposes of deception. Sixty years ago it was a good argument, but today Biblical archeology has been flourishing since the nation of Israel has been reborn, and nothing has been found that contradicts the Bible. Many archaeological discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls do more to prove the general integrity of the Bible, then to disprove it, and it’s causing some nervous hand ringing around the tables of the Bible critics. (Learn more log on: http://www.homeworship101.com/links.htm - Biblical Archaeology )

Computers are also being used to dig the Bible. The Torah, or Books of Moses, had long been assumed by skeptics to be the work of multiple authors. Scripture scholar Moshe Katz, and computer expert Menachem Wiener of the Israel Institute of Technology, analyzed the Masoretic text through sophisticated computer analysis, and discovered an intricate pattern of significant words concealed in the canon, spelled by letters separated at fixed intervals. Such recent discoveries called codes in the Hebrew Bible contain coded messages are proving its Divine authorship. So don’t only just read your Bible in the shadows, but log on to my website and teach your family, friends, and critics, to see it in a renewed light. Remember the believers are the salt of the Earth, and it only takes a little bit of salt to purify.

“…For the LORD giveth wisdom:
out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.”
- Proverbs 2:1-6
Enjoy the journey of learning.
Peace and blessings, Errol.
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Errol Mueller, chronicler extraordinaire
e-mail: errol@homeworship101.com
website: www.homeworship101.com
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Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible.
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#WSC Newsletter 2006-14, posted 11/19/06.
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