What’s the Bible For? Everybody Ought to Know. Sacred Name: Does God Have Only One? Update.

For Scripture Sunday”:  Late again!

What’s the Bible For?

2 Timothy 3:15-17

“And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Holy Scriptures available to Timothy as a child would, of course, have been what we call the Old Testament today. The apostle Paul and the New Testament Church held the Old Testament in high esteem and quoted from it often in sermons and writings. The Old Testament revealed much about Jesus Christ, including both His first and second comings, and the salvation that is available because of His sacrifice.

All Scripture, which Peter later showed included Paul’s writings as well (2 Peter 3:16), was breathed—what we call inspired—by God. What is the Bible useful for?

• Doctrine—teaching us God’s will.
• Reproof—conviction or proof of wrongdoing.
• Correction—setting us straight.
• Instruction in righteousness—disciplining or training.

The Good News Translation puts it this way: All Scripture “is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed” (verses 16-17).

For more about what the Bible can do for us, see “Why Study the Bible?”

________

Everybody Ought to Know

An Amazing Fact: “The Bible contains over 100 different names or titles for Christ. Here is a small sample: Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Great High Priest, Light of the World, Bread of Life, Lord of Glory, Great Shepherd, Advocate, Morning Star, Heir of All Things, Lamb of God, True Vine, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Alpha and Omega, Chief Cornerstone, Prince of Peace.

Jesus’ countrymen often debated about who He was. Although their ministries overlapped, some people believed that He was John the Baptist. Even Herod trembled to think that Jesus might be John the Baptist returned to life after Herod had him executed.

Another thought was that Jesus might be Elijah, the prophet whom Moses had spoken of, or still yet another historical prophet.
When Jesus asked His disciples who they believed He was, Peter spoke with conviction, saying, “You are the Christ.” Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah, something he could not have known unless God had revealed it to him.

For 2,000 years people have argued about who Jesus is. For Christians, there is no doubt and no debate. We have overwhelming evidence, in Scripture and in our own lives, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Righteous One, the Deliverer, the precious Savior of the world.

KEY BIBLE TEXTS
And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. Mark 8:27-29“

_______

Sacred Name: Does God Have Only One? 

“Is there only one sacred name for God, as some believe? Many supporters of this view have been influenced by what is known as the “Sacred Name Movement.” 

Moses asked God an interesting question during the famous burning-bush encounter. “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13).

God said that His name is “I AM,” which probably puzzled Moses initially (Exodus 3:14). This name expresses God’s eternal existence. He wasn’t created by anyone or anything—He’s the “Self-Existent One,” as this name has been properly understood.

Then verse 15 provides the name that the Israelites would use for God, “YHWH” (this is one commonly accepted English transliteration of the four Hebrew consonants). This name is often pronounced “Yahweh,” though, since its vowels are not known, its pronunciation is unknown. God highlighted this name by saying, “This is My name forever.”

These four Hebrew letters are known by scholars as the tetragrammaton—from the Greek “tetra” (four) and “grammaton” (letters). The New King James Version translates this proper name with capital letters, “LORD” and “GOD,” in the Old Testament.

The Sacred Name Movement

The Sacred Name Movement is commonly traced to the early 1930s and the Assembly of Yahweh church organization. Adherents also claim that the only sacred name for Jesus is “Yeshua,” which is how some transliterate Jesus’ name from the Hebrew language of the Old Testament.”

More at: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/who-is-god/names-of-god/sacred-name/

________

Update:

Well quite a bit has been going on.  But not much work in the mini-house.  We installed some doors on the bridge cabinet over the kitchen sink and window. We picked up some 2 x 4’s and we framed up the wall between the living room and bedroom, and ran some of the wiring in that wall.

On Friday morning, my helper Roy changed the back 3 plugs on my minivan as it was misfiring and AutoZone’s computer said that was the problem.  In the afternoon as Roy had two days off and was going to build a deck and ramp for his friend who has two broken legs, I took him there with his tools to the other side of Willis.   But my van nearly didn’t make it back.  It was missing, belching smoke, and just wasn’t running right.

tHE good news this week is that my 9 year old foster cat, Gertrude, was adopted to a very loving home and settled down right away.  My other foster, Puddin’ is very happy here, and she doesn’t want to go back to the Cat Habitat at Petco, for a while.  

On The Sabbath, Saturday, another lady who lives near me picked me up to take me to our church, so I couldn’t take any food, but there was plenty anyway.  The Bible readings were Num. 33:1-36:13, Jer. 2:4-28, 3:4, and James 4:1-12 and the Teaching was about Being a Follower who Brings Special Blessings, and learn to listen to the still small voice. 

After I returned from church, my daughter, Wendy, arrived with her dog “Spock”.  I was to babysit him for the night while she visited some relatives nearby.   He is used to being crated on some occasions, so I borrowed this one and after a couple of barks and howls that didn’t get him free, he settled down and slept through the night.  So I had no worries about him spending a couple of hours in the crate the next day.  I had walked him and he had done what he was supposed to do and happily went back in there.  This was a trial run as I had offered to take care of Spock for a couple of weeks while my daughter went to see relatives in WA state.

My helper Roy had Saturday off as usual, and he was off on Sunday too, because Jay, Hans and I were going to see Perry Stone of Perry Stone Ministries in our little town of Willis, TX at the Faith Family church.   Jay had Hans park sideways over a culvert, it was the only parking space for blocks.  We were kinda disappointed with the whole thing at that church.  The foyer was like a concession stand at a movie theatre with coffee, lattes, other drinks and things for sale. Then a great long table of books and stuff, with crowds of people buying them.   Then 40 minutes of very loud live rock and rap type music, religious topics I think, but the words were not clear.  They must have known they were going to be loud as earplugs were offered!  Then a video of Perry Stone offering CD’s and DVD’s for sale.  This all went against the grain for me, as The Church of God never sells any of their literature, it is all absolutely free.  Jesus said “Freely you have received, freely give”.  

One point that Perry made, stuck with me.  Atheists have to acknowledge the birth of Jesus every time they write the date!  2017 AD!  Then Perry talked about Logos and Rhema. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhema  but he was talking so fast that I could hardly understand him.  Then he went on about how he met his wife, prancing back and forth on that stage.  We wanted to leave before the exiting rush as we wanted to make sure that Hans didn’t run off into the culvert getting un-parked. 

Back in our subdivision, they dropped me off first so that I could take care of Spock and my little kittens.  But Spock had busted the catch on the crate, got out and torn up a lot of things in my house.  I didn’t say a word, but just took him out to pee, and then tended to my kittens.  Wendy arrived and cleaned up the debris.  So I won’t be babysitting him again!

One of my little foster kittens was getting weak and skinny, so I had him in a different cage and tried to feed him special food to help him gain strength, but on Monday my SPCA boss said that he should be seen by the vet.  So, with no running van, my dear helpful neighbor, Chris, another SPCA fostermom, took me and the little kitten into Conroe. The Vet did several tests, one came up negative for FIV and Felv, thank goodness, but a fecal showed he had an intestinal parasite that it already had when I got the kittens.  The vet prescribed meds for it and the other three kittens, even though they are fine.

Then on Monday Roy just didn’t show up or call and later told me that he had been asleep all Monday.  Then on Tuesday his daughter brought him all groggy and tired.  He did manage to slowly work a bit, had lunch and then plopped down and sprawled fast asleep on my couch as he has done so many times before.   I had agreed as part of his pay to feed him lunch, but he would fall asleep after eating it, and would be really grumpy when I tried to awaken him.

Today, Wednesday I had had enough.  This morning he flopped on my couch and he said he didn’t have to work today as I was taking my van to be repaired so he would stay there and sleep.  He said that he was sleepy because he had eaten too much sugar, but I am not stupid and made other assumptions.  He had promised that he wouldn’t lollop (British: to loll) on my couch any more and have those nasty moods, so I asked him to go decorate someone else’s couch.  He said that he would get up and sort out his tools that he had left lying around, but he hadn’t moved by the time I had to leave. 

One of the great guys, Gary, and his wife from our church came and they followed my van to a mechanic in Conroe.  And there my van sits until they have time to look at it.  But when they drove me home a couple of hours later, Roy was still fast asleep, draped on my couch, so Gary told him to leave and not treat me like that.  So Roy left on his bicycle.  I know he is a good retired contractor and does good work, but I was so tired of him and his scruffy friends dropping by here.  I don’t care if my mini-house isn’t done yet, it was not worth the stress.

So where do you find good help these days?