Hail the Lord JEHOVAH! The invincible God!Psalms68 NWT(2013 Edition)

 To the director. Of David. A melody. A song.

68 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered,

And let those who hate him flee from before him.+

 2 As smoke is driven away, may you drive them away;

As wax melts before the fire,

So let the wicked perish before God.+

 3 But let the righteous rejoice;+

May they be overjoyed before God;

May they exult with rejoicing.

 4 Sing to God; sing praises* to his name.+

Sing to the One riding through the desert plains.*

Jah* is his name!+ Rejoice before him!

 5 A father of the fatherless and a protector* of widows+

Is God in his holy dwelling.+

 6 God gives those who are alone a home to dwell in;+

He leads prisoners out into prosperity.+

But the stubborn* must live in a parched land.+

 7 O God, when you led* your people,+

When you marched through the desert, (Selah)

 8 The earth quaked;+

Heaven poured down rain* because of God;

This Si′nai quaked because of God, the God of Israel.+

 9 You made it rain in abundance, O God;

You reinvigorated your exhausted people.*

10 They dwelled in your tent community;+

In your goodness, you provided for the poor, O God.

11 Jehovah gives the command;

The women proclaiming the good news are a large army.+

12 The kings of armies flee,+ they flee!

She who remains at home shares in the spoil.+

13 Although you men were lying among the campfires,*

There will be the wings of a dove covered with silver,

With pinions of fine* gold.

14 When the Almighty One scattered its kings,+

Snow fell in Zal′mon.*

15 The mountain of Ba′shan+ is a mountain of God;*

The mountain of Ba′shan is a mountain of peaks.

16 Why do you look with envy, you mountains of peaks,

Toward the mountain that God has chosen* as his dwelling?+

Indeed, Jehovah will reside there forever.+

17 The war chariots of God are tens of thousands, thousands upon thousands.+

Jehovah has come from Si′nai into the holy place.+

18 You ascended on high;+

You carried away captives;

You took gifts in the form of men,+

Yes, even stubborn ones,+ to reside among them, O Jah God.

19 May Jehovah be praised, who daily carries our load,+

The true God of our salvation. (Selah)

20 The true God is for us a God who saves;+

And Jehovah the Sovereign Lord provides escape from death.+

21 Yes, God will smash the heads of his enemies,

The hairy crown of the head of anyone who continues* in his guilt.+

22 Jehovah has said: “I will bring them back from Ba′shan;+

I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,

23 So that your foot may be awash in blood+

And the tongue of your dogs may have its portion from the enemies.”

24 They see your processions, O God,

The processions of my God, my King, into the holy place.+

25 The singers walk in front, the musicians playing stringed instruments after them;+

In between are the young women playing tambourines.+

26 In congregated throngs,* praise God;

Praise Jehovah, you who are from the Source of Israel.+

27 There Benjamin,+ the youngest, is subduing them,

Also the princes of Judah with their noisy crowd,

The princes of Zeb′u·lun, the princes of Naph′ta·li.

28 Your God has decreed that you will be strong.

Show your strength, O God, you who have acted in our behalf.+

29 Because of your temple at Jerusalem,+

Kings will bring gifts to you.+

30 Rebuke the wild beasts of the reeds,

The assembly of bulls+ and their calves,

Until the peoples bow down bringing* pieces of silver.

But he scatters the peoples who delight in war.

31 Bronze articles will be brought* out of Egypt;+

Cush will hasten to offer gifts to God.

32 O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God,+

Sing praises* to Jehovah, (Selah)

33 To the one who rides the ancient heaven of heavens.+

Look! He thunders with his voice, his mighty voice.

34 Acknowledge God’s strength.+

His majesty is over Israel,

And his strength is in the skies.*

35 God is awe-inspiring from his* grand sanctuary.+

He is the God of Israel,

Who gives strength and power to the people.+

Praise to God.

On the validity of the God hypothesis.

 

An interlude XXIV

 

On the epistle Barnabas and claims of a first century origin for the trinity.

 

More tales of iconoclast and zombie hunter Jonathan Wells.

 

If you are loosing on every sale no amount of market share will help you.

 

 Natural Selection Subtracts, It Doesn’t Add — And That Matters

In  my previous post (“A New Look at Natural Selection”), I said that “natural selection” was Charles Darwin’s crowning intellectual achievement, for it created what appeared to be a naturalistic and mechanistic explanation for how organisms evolved. I also noted that evolution itself was already considered to have been well demonstrated in the fossil record by Lamarck and others some fifty years before Darwin. 

In the 20th century, natural selection has been almost uniformly adopted by biologists as the explanatory agency for evolution. What appeals to naturalists is that it provides an explanation for the appearance of design in organisms, without an actual designer. Moreover, Darwin had invoked the presence of heritable changes between generations that provided the variety among organisms upon which natural selection could operate. Half a century later, genetics came into focus, seeming to provide the biochemical foundation for Darwin’s intuition as to the cause of heritable variance among species.

Real but Not as Envisioned

Natural selection, we saw, is indeed quite real, but by no means in the way that Darwin envisioned. There can be no doubt that the natural environment establishes severe constraints and requirements upon organisms. In the wild, all organisms must live within their niche. There are no wild polar bears in Arizona, and no iguanas in Alaska. To be sure, the single most incredible fact of the biosphere is the fastidiously precise formation of creatures whose physiology so exquisitely fits their environment. The wonder of this goes far beyond the fact that cetaceans do not breathe through their mouths. Their very existence depends on echolocation, but the funny thing is, it is difficult to hear underwater. Difficult, that is, unless you have a middle ear unique to cetaceans among mammals, making their underwater existence and communication possible. And it’s not just that penguins, who are birds, have bones of greater density than elephants, quite unlike their hollow-boned flying ancestors. They need those iron-dense bones in order to be able to dive for fish, because the rest of their body is composed of fat and feathers, both lighter than water, yet necessary for insulation. 

I have further pointed out that the natural environment, which does passively exert selection on living creatures in all of the varying environments, was consciously designed, making the reality of the ecological niche possible.

In Keeping with the Times

History teaches that ideas and inventions comport with the times. Petroleum until 1900 was only used for kerosene, while gasoline was discarded. Now it is the reverse. We do not see any steam engine locomotives in operation anymore. We are actually on the precipice of eliminating internal combustion even for cars. In the same way, ideas from 150 years ago may have been suitable for their time, but very few scientific ideas last forever. When Darwin thought of natural selection, it seemed to make sense in an incredibly oversimplified version of how life actually operates. We are at least fifty years beyond that now. The examples I gave above about exquisite adaptability to unique environments for whales and penguins are utterly trivial compared to the intracellular and inter-organ physiology and biochemistry of every living thing. There really is no reasonable way to believe that all of those trillions and trillions of modifications occurred randomly and without a designer.

It has been said many times before but it is certainly worth repeating: Natural selection creates nothing. It only subtracts. The big question is, how does the uniqueness of form and function among organisms actually originate? That will be the subject of upcoming posts.

Already ruling as kings?

   1Corinthians4:8NWT2013"Are you already satisfied? Have you begun ruling as kings  us? I really wish that you had begun ruling as kings, so that we might begin ruling as kings." 

The true church is pursuing no 'dominion' over the present civilisation.

1Corinthians6:2,3NWT2013"Or do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you,are you not competent to try very trivial matters? Do you not know that we will judge angels..."

It is clear that some have allowed ambition to color their interpretation of this text. The context clearly indicates that this is referring to the millenium when the true church is united with her Lord in heaven, it is then that we receive dominion over angels and men(see revelation20:1-3). From the earlier cited text it is clear that our brother Paul ,and those of like mind did not consider themselves as being entitled to any dominion in the present age.

Galatians6:14NIV"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,through which the world has been crucified to me,and I to the world."

Through the sacrifice of our Lord the true Christian is dead to the present civilisation ,i.e he is of no value to its ambitions, just as it is of no concern to him. Thus when it comes to its corrupt and corrupting politics,less is more.

1John2:17NIV"The world and its desires pass away,but whoever does the will of God lives forever"

The present civilisation is doomed by divine decree. That being the case how could the Christian make common cause with human attempts to ,in effect, frustrate the divine will. For lovers of righteousness the removal of the present failed civilisation to make way for Jehovah's kingdom is the very best news see Daniel 2:44.

Jeremiah7:16NIV"So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them;do not plead with me,for I will not be listening to you."

The true church has not been set up to give any aid or comfort to doomed attempts at patching up the present civilisation. Indeed it would be cruelty of the worst sort to participate in such deception, rather we urge men to abandon such false hopes and turn to the JEHOVAH the one true hope see revelation14:6,7.

Genesis19:14NIV"So Lot went out and spoke to his sons in law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said"hurry and get out of this place,because the LORD is about to destroy the city. But his sons in law thought he was Joking."

For more than a century now the brothers have been warning Christendom that her political ambitions are going to be her doom (see Revelation17:16,17). Like Lot's sons in law Christendom as a class has chosen to take lightly the warning of Jehovah's servant ,and are thus setting themselves up for a similar outcome.

On Christ's Resurrection body:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

 After Jesus’ Resurrection, Was His Body Flesh or Spirit?

The Bible’s answer

The Bible says that Jesus “was put to death in the flesh but made alive [resurrected] in the spirit.”—1 Peter 3:18; Acts 13:34; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 5:16.

Jesus’ own words showed that he would not be resurrected with his flesh-and-blood body. He said that he would give his “flesh in behalf of the life of the world,” as a ransom for mankind. (John 6:51; Matthew 20:28) If he had taken back his flesh when he was resurrected, he would have canceled that ransom sacrifice. This could not have happened, though, for the Bible says that he sacrificed his flesh and blood “once for all time.”—Hebrews 9:11, 12.

If Jesus was raised up with a spirit body, how could his disciples see him?

Spirit creatures can take on human form. For example, angels who did this in the past even ate and drank with humans. (Genesis 18:1-8; 19:1-3) However, they still were spirit creatures and could leave the physical realm.—Judges 13:15-21.
After his resurrection, Jesus also assumed human form temporarily, just as angels had previously done. As a spirit creature, though, he was able to appear and disappear suddenly. (Luke 24:31; John 20:19, 26) The fleshly bodies that he materialized were not identical from one appearance to the next. Thus, even Jesus’ close friends recognized him only by what he said or did.—Luke 24:30, 31, 35; John 20:14-16; 21:6, 7.

When Jesus appeared to the apostle Thomas, he took on a body with wound marks. He did this to bolster Thomas’ faith, since Thomas doubted that Jesus had been raised up.—John 20:24-29.

On saving it for Marriage III:The gold standard

 Benefits in Delaying Sex Until Marriage

Happier Marriages, More Satisfying Sex Among the Perks, Study Finds
By Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
WebMD News Archive

What’s more, couples who delay sex until their wedding night have more stable and happier marriages than couples who have premarital sex, according to the study, which appears in the Journal of Family Psychology.

The study involved 2,035 married participants in an online assessment of marriage called “RELATE.” According to the study, people who waited until marriage:

rated sexual quality 15% higher than people who had premarital sex
rated relationship stability as 22% higher
rated satisfaction with their relationships 20% higher

The benefits were about half as strong for couples who became sexually active later in their relationships but before marriage.

Developing Relationship Skills

“Most research on the topic is focused on individuals’ experiences and not the timing within a relationship,” study author Dean Busby, PhD, a professor in Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life, says in a news release. “There’s more to a relationship than sex, but we did find that those who waited longer were happier with the sexual aspects of their relationship.”

It may be that couples report greater satisfaction and sexual quality if they’ve waited because the extra time gives them longer to learn about each other and develop the skills necessary for good relationships, Busby says.

About 92% of the respondents had attended college, 32% completed some college, 24% obtained a bachelor’s degree, and the average age was 36. The majority of the couples had sex within two months of starting to date, while 16% delayed intercourse until marriage.

Prioritizing Sex at Start of Relationship May Not Be Optimal

Mark Regnerus, PhD, of the University of Texas, who wasn’t involved with the study, says it suggests to him that couples who “prioritize sex promptly at the outset of a relationship often find their relationships underdeveloped when it comes to the qualities that make relationships stable and spouses reliable and trustworthy.”He is the author of a forthcoming book titled “Premarital Sex in America,” being published by Oxford University Press.

Busby and colleagues controlled for the influence of religious involvement in their analysis because it often plays a role on when couples choose to initiate sex. “Regardless of religiosity, waiting helps the relationship form better communication processes, and these help improve long-term stability and relationship satisfaction,” Busby says.

The study says 21% of respondents were Catholic, 39% Protestant, 6% Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), 17% members of “another religion,” and 17% who indicated no religious affiliation. The authors write that sexual intimacy in the early stages of dating is sometimes viewed as an important part of testing compatibility, and determining whether a relationship would work later on.

But the researchers say their findings are clear, that “the longer a couple waited to become sexually involved, the better that sexual quality, relationship communication, relationship satisfaction and perceived relationship stability was in marriage ...”