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"The title of this piece might raise a question for some of you. How can Christ be our “Passover”? Isn’t Passover a Jewish holiday? Didn’t Jesus do away with those Jewish laws and customs? Didn’t the early Christians observe Easter, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead? Surely, some will say, a Christian should have nothing to do with a Jewish custom?
The truth is, in a few days many Christians will gather to remember the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth for the sins of the world as the Lamb of God. They will gather in a simple but profoundly moving service and take the symbols of the bread and wine in a service directly instituted by Jesus Himself, and later written about by the apostle Paul. I will be one of those Christians.
Notice what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, one which was largely a non-Jewish group of Christians: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
On the night before His death Jesus instituted a new manner of keeping an ancient service of Passover which began with Israel’s exodus from Egyptian bondage. Paul was referring to what Jesus did and what all Christians from that time should do. Neither Paul, nor any other apostle in the first century Church, kept Easter. Easter is a heresy that crept into the Church during the second century and corrupted the faith and practice of the Church.
The story of that controversy is well documented in history books. Ministers and members who faithfully held to the example and teaching of Jesus were eventually pushed out of the Church by those who wanted nothing to do with things “Jewish.” Those who continued keeping the Passover and festivals of God correctly held to the teaching of Jesus but were branded heretics for being behind the times.
Your sincerely held practice in observing Easter is something you should examine next to the teaching from the Bible. Jesus kept a Passover with His disciples. Paul taught Gentile Christians to observe the Passover along with a seven-day festival called the Days of Unleavened Bread.
You can follow the story with the help of our study guide, God’s Holy Day Plan. It will challenge your belief. It will help you understand what many Christians are discovering as they examine world religious traditions in the light of biblical teaching. The two are vastly different.
Jesus Christ is our Passover. How we worship Him does matter. He is worshipped in spirit and in truth. Nothing less." From: Beyond Today. https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today?source=weeklyupdate and: https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/gods-holy-day-plan-the-promise-of-hope-for-all-mankind/are-gods-holy-days-relevant-today
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Equality Act
“We are facing another battle in the moral revolution and our ability to preach the gospel is being challenged.
Transcript of YouTube: https://youtu.be/DOTPF4msqes
[Darris McNeely] “The United States and much of the Western world is in the midst of a complete moral revolution. You know that.
But recently, a piece of legislation passed through Congress, and as I speak is now before the United States Senate called the Equality Act. That is a far-sweeping broad legislative effort to overturn essentially the moral order, not just of America, but of life itself against the created order that God Himself has put in place. The Equality Act is a centerpiece of legislation that the new presidential administration in America under Joseph Biden says they want to publish or to enact within the first 100 days of their administration. As I said, it's before the Senate. Why is this so important to understand? Because it strikes as I've said at the very moral order in legislating for the equality of gender issues under the rubric of the LGBTQ acronym that has become a part of our life and the very fabric of so much in America today. And legislating now, gender issues, sexual identity to where it cannot be discriminated against and it will go so far as to remove freedoms that churches, institutions of faith have in place guaranteed by the Constitution.
Now, with this being enacted, it is going to have the danger of stripping much of this away. Schools and churches, healthcare organizations are now in a sense reclassified as what will be called public accommodations, which means that in the public expression of the faith of a church or a faith-based institution, that will be something that then falls within the purview of this Equality Act, and therefore, then can be legislated against. In other words, a church, a religious college, or other institution will have to hire ministry, workers perform certain actions that are against their faith and people whose lifestyle and actions are contrary to their faith as well. And to even to express that will then be something that can be enacted legally against.
This has been going on for a long time in our culture, academia, entertainment. The Supreme Court has made judgments about same-sex marriage, abortion, and other matters that have gone against the Bible and other churches and religious organizations now for decades. The swing of the pendulum morally and culturally through business, through big tech, has, in effect, happened. And now, this is the movement's final effort, at least to enact legislation that will, in effect, amend the 1965 civil rights law and extend those privileges and equality to gender issues. And now, it will be the law of the land.
This is something that is going to impact every part of America, probably create some kind of a backlash, but it is huge. It is important. It will impact the lives of virtually everyone. This is big. This is a moral revolution that is coming to pass it seems.
What can we do? What can you do? Many have called for certainly prayer that it would not happen, but it is a movement that has been going on for a long time. And in many ways, prophesied biblically to be a part of what the world and nations are a part of close of the age before Christ's return.
And so, for you and I praying thy kingdom come is going to be even more vital and more important, but also being aware watching and understanding what is taking place to understand the impact that's going to have upon our world, our life, and the gospel is very, very important. Something to watch. Something to understand.” From: https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-daily/equality-act
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How Our Gut Bacteria Can Use Eggs to Accelerate Cancer
“The reason egg consumption is associated with elevated cancer risk may be the TMAO, considered the “smoking gun” of microbiome-disease interactions.”
Transcript of: https://youtu.be/Lm0D9HJMS3Y
“We are walking communities comprised not only of a Homo sapiens host, but also of trillions of symbiotic commensal microorganisms within the gut, and on every other surface of our bodies.” There are more bacterial cells in our gut than there are human cells in our entire body. In fact, only about 10% of the DNA in our body is human. The rest is in our microbiome—the microbes that we share with this walking community we call our body. What do they do?
Our “[g]ut microbiota [our gut bacteria microbiome] serve as a filter for our largest environmental exposure—what we eat. Technically speaking, food is a foreign object that we take into our bodies [by the pound] every day.” “And, the microbial community within each of us significantly influences how we experience [those meals].” “Hence, our metabolism and absorption of food occurs through [this] filter of bacteria.”
But, if we eat a lot of meat, poultry, fish, milk, cheese, eggs, we can foster the growth of bacteria that convert the choline and carnitine in these foods into TMA—trimethylamine, which can be oxidized into TMAO, and wreak havoc on our arteries, increasing our risk of heart attack, stroke, and death.
We’ve known about this troublesome transformation from choline into trimethylamine for over 40 years. But, that was way before we learned about the heart disease connection. Why were they concerned back then? Because these methylamines might form “nitrosamines [which] have marked carcinogenic activity”—cancer-causing activity.
So, where is choline found in our diet? Mostly from meat, eggs, dairy, and refined grains. The link between meat and cancer probably wouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, just due to the industrial pollutants alone (like PCBs), children probably shouldn’t eat more than like five servings a month of meats like beef, pork, or chicken, combined. But, what about cancer and eggs?
Studies going back to the 70s hinted at a correlation between eggs and colon cancer. But, that was just based on so-called ecological data, showing that countries that ate more eggs tended to have higher cancer rates. But, that could be due to a million things, right? It needed to be put to the test.
This started in the 80s, and by the 1990s, 15 studies had been published: ten suggesting “a direct association” between egg consumption and colorectal cancer, and five showing “no association.” By 2014, there were dozens more studies published, confirming that eggs may indeed be playing a role in the development of colon cancer—though no relationship was discovered between egg consumption and the development of precancerous polyps, which suggests that “egg[s] might be involved [more] in the promotional [stage of cancer growth—accelerating cancer growth, rather than] initiating [the cancer in the first place].”
Which brings us to 2015. Maybe it’s the TMAO, made from the choline in meat and eggs, that’s promoting cancer growth. And, indeed, in the Women’s Health Initiative study, women with the highest TMAO levels in their blood “had…approximately [three] times greater risk of rectal cancer”—suggesting “TMAO [levels] may serve as a potential predictor of increased colorectal cancer risk.”
Though there may be more evidence for elevated breast cancer risk with egg consumption than prostate cancer risk, the only other study to date on TMAO and cancer looked at prostate cancer, and did, indeed, find a higher risk.
“Diet has long been considered a primary factor in health. However, with the microbiome revolution of the past decade, we have begun to understand how diet can” affect the back-and-forth between us-and-the-rest-of-us inside. And, the whole TMAO story is like “a smoking gun in [gut bacteria]-disease interactions.”
Since “choline…and carnitine are [the] primary sources of…TMAO production, the “logical intervention strategy” might be to reduce meat, dairy, and egg consumption. And, if we eat plant-based for long enough, we can actually change our “gut microbial communities,” such that they may not be able to make TMAO, even if we try. “The theory of “you are what you eat” [is] finally…supported by scientific evidence.”
We may not have to eat healthy for long, though. Soon, we may yet be able to “‘drug the microbiome’” as a way of “promoting cardiovascular health.” From: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-how-our-gut-bacteria-can-use-eggs-to-accelerate-cancer/
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