Deut. 27:24-25 Year Feds fled Reality

Deut 27:24-25 NKJ  `Cursed is the one who attacks his neighbor secretly.' And all the people shall say,`Amen!' 25 `Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to slay an innocent person.' And all the people shall say,`Amen!'

It takes a bit of thought to connect the offenses defined above to the record of Washington in 2013 descried in the article linked and copied below. (And it takes a bit of thought to connect "high crimes and misdemeanors" to "egregious nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance".) But God is not mocked.

Deut 32:35 KJV  To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. [See Jonathan Edward's Enfield message - http://bit.ly/KhutXa ]

The ways in which Washington has fled reality will result in calamities upon the providentially appointed responsible governing authority - Rom 13.1 -, the several sovereign peoples of the several sovereign states and the responsible officials to whom they have delegated authority under their Constitution.

Escape to higher ground - Gen 19.17 -. Hear and your soul shall live - Isaiah 55.1-3 -. Come and drink of the freely given Water of Life -

Rev 22:16-17 NKJ "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star." 17 And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

Tom Coburn: The Year Washington Fled Reality | Wall Street Journal Online | http://on.wsj.com/1d5hRc6

The past year may go down not only as the least productive ever in Washington but as one of the worst for the republic.

In both the executive branch and Congress, Americans witnessed an unwinding of the country's founding principles and of their government's most basic responsibilities. The rule of law gave way to the rule of rulers. And the rule of reality—in which politicians are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts, as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan liked to say—gave way to some politicians' belief that they were entitled to both their own opinions and their own facts. It's no wonder the institutions of government barely function.

On health care, President Obama oversaw a disastrous and, sadly, dishonest launch of his signature achievement. The president gave an exception to employers, but not to individuals, without any legal basis, and made other adjustments according to his whim. Even more troubling was his message over the past three years that if you like your plan, you can keep it, and that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. We now know that the administration was aware that these claims were false, yet Mr. Obama continued to make them, repeatedly.

In 2014, millions of Americans will likely discover that the president's claim that the average family will save $2,500 on health insurance was equally disconnected from reality.

The president apologized in part for his statements, but his actions reveal the extent to which he has conformed to, rather than challenged, the political culture that as a presidential candidate he vowed to reform.

The culture that Mr. Obama campaigned against, the old kind of politics, teaches politicians that repetition and "message discipline"—never straying from using the same slogans and talking points—can create reality, regardless of the facts. Message discipline works if the goal is to win an election or achieve a short-term political goal. But saying that something is true doesn't make it so. When a misleading message ultimately clashes with reality, the result is dissonance and conflict. In a republic, deception is destructive. Without truth there can be no trust. Without trust there can be no consent. And without consent we invite paralysis, if not chaos.

Taking unilateral, extralegal action—like delaying the employer mandate for a year when Mr. Obama realized the trouble it would cause for businesses—is part of a pattern for this administration. Immigration and border-security laws that might displease certain constituencies if enforced? Ignore the laws. Unhappy that a deep-water drilling moratorium was struck down in court? Reimpose it anyway. Internal Revenue Service agents using the power of the state to harass political enemies? Deny and then stonewall. Unhappy with the pace of Senate confirmations for nominees? Ignore the Constitution and appoint people anyway and claim that the Senate is not in session.

The Obama administration hardly has a monopoly on contributing to Washington's dysfunction. Congress more than earned its 6% national approval rating, a historic low.

Congress's most significant action this year was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid 's decision to undo 200 years of precedent that requires a supermajority to change Senate rules. To speed the approval of executive appointments and judicial nominations, Sen. Reid resorted to raw political power, forcing a vote (52-48) that allows the Senate majority to change the rules whenever it wants. In a republic, if majorities can change laws or rules however they please, you're on the road to life with no rules and no laws.

The supermajority safeguard that prevented senators from destroying the institution in which they serve is now largely gone. Gone also are members of the majority who understood the need to protect minority rights. There are no more Robert Byrds to quote Cicero, who said, "In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power."

Instead, we have a majority leader who has appointed himself a Rules Committee of one. Referring to the right of the minority to offer changes to bills under consideration, Mr. Reid said: "The amendment days are over." Like President Obama, Mr. Reid is great at message discipline but weak on the rule of law and reality. His narrative about Republican obstruction of appointees is a diversion from his own war against minority rights. Even before his wrecking of the supermajority tradition, Mr. Reid had already used Senate rules to cut off debate and prevent the minority from offering amendments 78 times—more than all other Senate majority leaders combined.

On the budget, Democrats and Republicans alike are celebrating the avoidance of another nihilistic government shutdown as a great victory. The choice to not commit mass political suicide may be a step toward sanity, but it isn't reform. Solving the problem—fixing entitlements, reforming the tax code and consolidating the government's $200 billion in duplicative spending—would be reform. Yet as my annual Wastebook report showed, even in this year of budget-sequestration anguish, the federal government still managed to fund the study of romance novels, provide military benefits to the Fort Hood shooter and even help the State Department buy itself Facebook FB +1.02% fans.

If Congress wants to get serious, and be taken seriously, it can start by doing its job. It can debate and pass individual appropriations bills—a task that Congress has not completed in eight years. And perhaps Congress can cut some of the stupidity in government spending. The House deserves some credit for trying—it passed four appropriations bills—but the Senate deserves none. Mr. Reid did not pass a single appropriations bill in 2013, thus shielding vulnerable members of his party from having to make tough votes.

How the nation's leaders perform in Washington is a reflection of the country, and culture, they represent. Moral relativism and postmodern disregard of truth has been promoted by academia for decades; sometimes it seems that the best students of that thinking can be found in Washington. We live in a time when laws and rules are defined however the holders of power decree, and "messaging" is paramount, regardless how far the message is from reality.

The coming year presents an opportunity to Americans who hope for better. Despite Washington's dysfunction, "We the People" still call the shots and can demand a course correction. In 2014, here's a message worth considering: If you don't like the rulers you have, you don't have to keep them. - Mr. Coburn, a Republican, is a senator from Oklahoma.

I2C 131231a Deu 27v24to25 Year Feds fled Reality / I2C / 131231 1209 / Deut. 27:24-25 Year Feds fled Reality

Acts 4:29-31 A Christmas past

Acts 4: 29-31 And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

From a Ghost of Christmas Past; On the Fifth Day of Christmas, 1940, London:

Rule of Law » Hitler’s Firestorm and the Christmastime Salvation of St. Paul’s by J. Christian Adams PJ Media  http://bit.ly/KfRlGr

Just four days after Christmas 1940, Hitler turned London into earthly hell. December 29 was London’s longest night, the night Hitler tried to burn London down and incinerate the majestic St. Paul’s Cathedral.

At sunrise the dome of St. Paul’s stood, though surrounded by a smoldering warscape of total destruction. The salvation of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the inferno uplifted British spirits and is a Christmas story worth retelling seventy-three years later.

By December 1940, nearly all the democracies of Europe had fallen to the Nazi menace. Germany itself started the process in 1933 when an enlightened democracy suffered the sudden concentration of power into an ideologically driven central state. Mania followed.  Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands all fell to Hitler.

By Christmastime 1940, Britain stood alone against the evil which had consumed Europe.

Hitler aimed to break England’s will. He wanted England to be content with Nazi control of continental Europe.

On December 29, 1940, fire was his weapon of choice.

The Luftwaffe’s air war over England had raged for months. Londoners had grown accustomed to the wail of air raid sirens and nights sleeping underground in tube stations. The Blitz first focused on military targets, then strategic targets, and then conventional bombings which affected civilian areas.

But on the night of December 29, Hitler attempted to terrorize and eradicate the civilian population of London with a gruesome deliberateness he would also employ against continental Jews.

London was under blackout orders, so Hitler’s first wave of bombers enjoyed the use of two radio beacons beamed from France. When the beams intersected, the bombers were over their targets – the civilian, publishing, and garment industry neighborhoods of East London.

Instead of explosions, Londoners heard the dull thuds of objects hitting rooftops.

No explosions, just thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

These were incendiaries hitting rooftops then igniting. Over the next few hours, waves of German bombers dropped over 10,000 incendiaries and created a firestorm that destroyed London all around St. Paul’s. Waves of bombers followed through the night, dropping conventional bombs and blasting the firemen battling the firestorm the incendiaries started.

London firefighters, including Leonard Rosoman , battled the fires all around St. Paul’s. Rosoman would later paint images of firefighters he knew dying that night, some of which now hang in the Imperial War Museum. [Photos, etc. at linked article.]

But it was futile. The devious Nazis had timed the attack to coincide with low tide on the Thames, limiting the supply of available water. The fire created wind, and the wind created a firestorm.

Realizing that nothing could extinguish the firestorm, Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave the order: “Save St. Paul’s!”

Churchill knew that the Christopher Wren-designed dome of St. Paul’s was a national and religious symbol of pride. Buried in its crypt were English heroes such as John of Gaunt, Admiral Horatio Nelson and Arthur Wellesley, the man who defeated Napoleon and ushered in Catholic emancipation in England.

After Churchill’s order, all firefighting resources were devoted to saving the towering dome of St. Paul’s. Walter Matthews, the dean of St. Paul’s, led bucket brigades on the roof, dousing the hot blowing embers threatening the cathedral.

Film footage from St. Paul's Cathedral roof, December 29, 1940. Film footage from St. Paul’s Cathedral roof, December 29.

Inside the dome, a volunteer scampered over beams to dislodge an incendiary bomb that had landed on the lead-lined dome, burned through it, and threatened to set the wooden internal structure ablaze. Miraculously, it extinguished before igniting the ancient beams.  The battle between Hitler’s firestorm and the church raged all night.

At sunrise, a square mile around St. Paul’s was incinerated. But St. Paul’s stood, surrounded by carnage.

Hitler had failed to destroy St. Paul’s, or the will of the British to fight him and liberate an enslaved continent.

For those celebrating Christmas, the triumphant salvation of St. Paul’s in 1940 fits easily within the Christmas season.

Christmas is about undefeatable good coming to the world in the form of a child. Christmas is about a gift given to man, the ability of man to triumph over evil, to renew the face of the Earth. Love and human dignity would triumph over murder and chaos.

View from St. Paul's, December 30, 1940  View from St. Paul’s, December 30, 1940

St. Paul’s, and eventually all of England, would not be consumed by Hitler’s fires. The flames stopped short of destroying St. Paul’s seventy years ago, this very night, and gave England a Christmastime triumph of good over evil. [/] Merry Christmas.

And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.  – Acts 4: 29-31.

I2C 131230a Act 4v29to31 A Christmas past / I2C / 1312 / Acts 4:29-31 A Christmas past

Gen. 1:27 Feminist defends male virtue

(Gen 1:27 NKJ) So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 

The creation of mankind was not complete until both Adam and Eve had been made. Testimony to the wisdom of this comes from an interesting source:

The Weekend Interview With Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues / Philadelphia / http://on.wsj.com/1dfBNN8

'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation.

When Ms. Paglia, now 66, burst onto the national stage in 1990 with the publishing of "Sexual Personae," she immediately established herself as a feminist who was the scourge of the movement's establishment, a heretic to its orthodoxy. Pick up the 700-page tome, subtitled "Art and Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, " and it's easy to see why. "If civilization had been left in female hands," she wrote, "we would still be living in grass huts."

The fact that the acclaimed book—the first of six; her latest, "Glittering Images," is a survey of Western art—was rejected by seven publishers and five agents before being printed by Yale University Press only added to Ms. Paglia's sense of herself as a provocateur in a class with Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern . But unlike those radio jocks, Ms. Paglia has scholarly chops: Her dissertation adviser at Yale was Harold Bloom, and she is as likely to discuss Freud, Oscar Wilde or early Native American art as to talk about Miley Cyrus.

Ms. Paglia relishes her outsider persona, having previously described herself as an egomaniac and "abrasive, strident and obnoxious." Talking to her is like a mental CrossFit workout. One moment she's praising pop star Rihanna ("a true artist"), then blasting ObamaCare ("a monstrosity," though she voted for the president), global warming ("a religious dogma"), and the idea that all gay people are born gay ("the biggest canard," yet she herself is a lesbian).

But no subject gets her going more than when I ask if she really sees a connection between society's attempts to paper over the biological distinction between men and women and the collapse of Western civilization.

She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. "The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster," she says. "These people don't think in military ways, so there's this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we're just nice and benevolent to everyone they'll be nice too. They literally don't have any sense of evil or criminality."

The results, she says, can be seen in everything from the dysfunction in Washington (where politicians "lack practical skills of analysis and construction") to what women wear. "So many women don't realize how vulnerable they are by what they're doing on the street," she says, referring to women who wear sexy clothes.

When she has made this point in the past, Ms. Paglia—who dresses in androgynous jackets and slacks—has been told that she believes "women are at fault for their own victimization." Nonsense, she says. "I believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters." She calls it "street-smart feminism."

Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten. "Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It's oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys," she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. "They're making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters."

She is not the first to make this argument, as Ms. Paglia readily notes. Fellow feminist Christina Hoff Sommers has written about the "war against boys" for more than a decade. The notion was once met with derision, but now data back it up: Almost one in five high-school-age boys has been diagnosed with ADHD, boys get worse grades than girls and are less likely to go to college.

Ms. Paglia observes this phenomenon up close with her 11-year-old son, Lucien, whom she is raising with her ex-partner, Alison Maddex, an artist and public-school teacher who lives 2 miles away. She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.

By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." The result: Upper-middle-class men who are "intimidated" and "can't say anything. . . . They understand the agenda." In other words: They avoid goring certain sacred cows by "never telling the truth to women" about sex, and by keeping "raunchy" thoughts and sexual fantasies to themselves and their laptops.

Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood," she says. "Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There's nothing left. There's no room for anything manly right now." The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspires me as a writer," she says, adding: "If we had to go to war," the callers "are the men that would save the nation."

And men aren't the only ones suffering from the decline of men. Women, particularly elite upper-middle-class women, have become "clones" condemned to "Pilates for the next 30 years," Ms. Paglia says. "Our culture doesn't allow women to know how to be womanly," adding that online pornography is increasingly the only place where men and women in our sexless culture tap into "primal energy" in a way they can't in real life.

A key part of the remedy, she believes, is a "revalorization" of traditional male trades—the ones that allow women's studies professors to drive to work (roads), take the elevator to their office (construction), read in the library (electricity), and go to gender-neutral restrooms (plumbing).

" Michelle Obama 's going on: 'Everybody must have college.' Why? Why? What is the reason why everyone has to go to college? Especially when college is so utterly meaningless right now, it has no core curriculum" and "people end up saddled with huge debts," says Ms. Paglia. What's driving the push toward universal college is "social snobbery on the part of a lot of upper-middle-class families who want the sticker in the window."

Ms. Paglia, who has been a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia since 1984, sees her own students as examples. "I have woodworking students who, even while they're in class, are already earning money making furniture and so on," she says. "My career has been in art schools cause I don't get along with normal academics."

To hear her tell it, getting along has never been Ms. Paglia's strong suit. As a child, she felt stifled by the expectations of girlhood in the 1950s. She fantasized about being a knight, not a princess. Discovering pioneering female figures as a teenager, most notably Amelia Earhart , transformed Ms. Paglia's understanding of what her future might hold.

These iconoclastic women of the 1930s, like Earhart and Katharine Hepburn, remain her ideal feminist role models: independent, brave, enterprising, capable of competing with men without bashing them. But since at least the late 1960s, she says, fellow feminists in the academy stopped sharing her vision of "equal-opportunity feminism" that demands a level playing field without demanding special quotas or protections for women.

She proudly recounts her battle, while a graduate student at Yale in the late 1960s and early '70s, with the New Haven Women's Liberation Rock Band over the Rolling Stones: Ms. Paglia loved "Under My Thumb," a song the others regarded as chauvinist. Then there was the time she "barely got through the dinner" with a group of women's studies professors at Bennington College, where she had her first teaching job, who insisted that there is no hormonal difference between men and women. "I left before dessert."

In her view, these ideological excesses bear much of the blame for the current cultural decline. She calls out activists like Gloria Steinem, Naomi Wolf and Susan Faludi for pushing a version of feminism that says gender is nothing more than a social construct, and groups like the National Organization for Women for making abortion the singular women's issue.

By denying the role of nature in women's lives, she argues, leading feminists created a "denatured, antiseptic" movement that "protected their bourgeois lifestyle" and falsely promised that women could "have it all." And by impugning women who chose to forgo careers to stay at home with children, feminists turned off many who might have happily joined their ranks.

But Ms. Paglia's criticism shouldn't be mistaken for nostalgia for the socially prescribed roles for men and women before the 1960s. Quite the contrary. "I personally have disobeyed every single item of the gender code," says Ms. Paglia. But men, and especially women, need to be honest about the role biology plays and clear-eyed about the choices they are making.

Sex education, she says, simply focuses on mechanics without conveying the real "facts of life," especially for girls: "I want every 14-year-old girl . . . to be told: You better start thinking what do you want in life. If you just want a career and no children you don't have much to worry about. If, however, you are thinking you'd like to have children some day you should start thinking about when do you want to have them. Early or late? To have them early means you are going to make a career sacrifice, but you're going to have more energy and less risks. Both the pros and the cons should be presented."

For all of Ms. Paglia's barbs about the women's movement, it seems clear that feminism—at least of the equal-opportunity variety—has triumphed in its basic goals. There is surely a lack of women in the C-Suite and Congress, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a man who would admit that he believes women are less capable. To save feminism as a political movement from irrelevance, Ms. Paglia says, the women's movement should return to its roots. That means abandoning the "nanny state" mentality that led to politically correct speech codes and college disciplinary committees that have come to replace courts. The movement can win converts, she says, but it needs to become a big tent, one "open to stay-at-home moms" and "not just the career woman."

More important, Ms. Paglia says, if the women's movement wants to be taken seriously again, it should tackle serious matters, like rape in India and honor killings in the Muslim world, that are "more of an outrage than some woman going on a date on the Brown University campus." - Ms. Weiss is an associate editorial features editor at the [Wall Street] Journal.

I2C 131229d Gen 1v27 Feminist defends male virtue / I2C / 131229 1456 / Gen. 1:27 Feminist defends male virtue

Matt. 23:9 Bishop of Rome

Mat 23:9 NKJ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

The bishops of the Church of England provided us with good guidance in the document which declared their independence from Rome.

They simply stated that the Bishop of Rome was entitled to no more respect within the realm of England than any other foreign bishop.

"That Great City, Mystery, Babylon the Great: The Inhabitants of the Earth Have Been Made Drunk from the Wine of Her Fornication. (Rev. 17:18,5,2)" - In Two Cities web log.

From a forum thread: Me:-  The great city, mystery Babylon, is the international mercantile system.

K:- I am going to disagree only because we see the collapse of the money system in Revelation and then read the fall of Babylon as a separate event.  Also, Babylon is called a city.  It has to be a seat of great power.  Spurgeon said during the time of John's vision that it was believed the Catholic church was the Antichrist.  Now, I doubt I agree with Spurgeon to that extent but I do agree that Babylon is Rome unless someone can show me a better understanding of it.

Me:- Thanks for the prompt and thoughtful response.

The bitter division of Christendom in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation gave rise to a lot of over the top interpretations of scripture and accusations of bad behavior on both sides. These have only recently begun to dissipate.

In Luther's time the de facto authority of the Bishop of Rome was heavy throughout Western Christendom. There was some excuse for connecting the Bishop of Rome with the Scarlet Harlot of Rome. But this was a temporary state, the so called golden age of the papacy when a nation's churches and sacraments could be shut down until its king agreed to be whipped for the instigation of the murder of an archbishop.

The antagonism of the great colonizing nations of Spurgeon's time in regard to missionary activity and an unhealthy mix of religion and politics and state religions sustained the easy but over hasty identification of the Rome of Revelation 17 with the Bishop of Rome and his inordinate claims of authority.

The bishops of the Church of England provided us with good guidance in the document which declared their independence from Rome.

They simply stated that the Bishop of Rome was entitled to no more respect within the realm of England than any other foreign bishop.

(All the bishops signed except John Fisher of Rochester. He was terminated with prejudice and with due process of ecclesiastical and civil law. After an appropriate interval the martyred Fisher was canonized  by the Bishop of Rome in the early 20th century.)

British policy and American colonial policy was much more anti-papal than anti-Roman Catholic. (We would do well today to be anti-mullah rather than anti-Muslim.)

Interestingly, London, in Spurgeon's time was a better candidate for mystery Babylon than Rome. It was the financial center of the world and the international reach of its financial operations was supported by the Empire on which the sun never set and the Navy that ruled the waves of every ocean without a serious rival, as well by their commercial branches in the lesser commercial centers of the nations of the world. The City of London, was and is. a separate jurisdiction. The London City Police are separate from the Metropolitan Police. Much as the U. S. Capital police are separate from the District of Columbia police. An inner city that runs a world or a nation in governmental or financial affairs has its prerogatives. And a financial center with its worldwide outposts and influence is a mystery city.

And the word "mystery" is key. It explains the persistence of mystery Babylon when there was no imperial predecessor of the anti-Christ to carry it. It has been carried by all the commercially interconnected governing powers of the world.

I2C 131228a Mat 23v9 Bishop of Rome / I2C / 131228 1706 / Matt. 23:9 Bishop of Rome

Mark 11:24 Pray for Drudge

Mark 11:24 NKJ "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."

From Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal article reporting on what various celebrities found good about the generally denigrated year 2013:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303345104579282511945668506

Matt Drudge spoke of the personal too. The best thing about 2013? "It's the year I discovered prayer. It changed my life. And I didn't think my life needed changing."

Praise the Lord!

And remember that Billy Graham's ministry attained great national notice when a popular Los Angeles radio commentator was converted during his 1949 crusade there. Graham's schedule was extended by several weeks and Life magazine ran a big spread of photos and commentary. And Billy Graham went on to be the de facto leader of a world evangelism movement in the last half of the last century.

But also remember that a creature made in the image of God has eternal existence, and is more important than all the temporal things associated with present ministries.

Pray that Matt Drudge may have eternal joy and not eternal desolation.

Luke 15:7 NKJ "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

I2C 131229b Mar 11v24 Pray for Drudge / I2C / 131229 1256 / Mark 11:24 Pray for Drudge

Gen. 3:22-23 Perfect gift deferred

Gen 3:22-23 NKJ 'Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever "--  23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.'

"Living forever" in the flesh of sin was not the future that God had designed for them and for those of their children who were to be counted as righteous through the future work of the Seed of the woman. There is often discomfort provided through the flesh of sin in order to bring edification to the spirit oriented life of the believer. But for eternity, something better will be provided. The mortal will but on immortality and Death will be swallowed up in Victory - 1Cor 15:54.

So the tree of life was preserved and protected by the Cherubim in the Garden. After the Flood it was preserved and protected in the heavens. Its fruit will fully enjoyed by the begotten again of all dispensations when their fleshly bodies have been replaced with spiritual bodies. Proverbs and Revelation also speak of trees of life which make available all possible heavenly blessings to the begotten again while they are in fleshly bodies. The One who hung from a tree is the fruit that is enjoyed. He thus became a curse for us. And as the Cross also represents the other tree in the midst of the Garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He also was made sin for us. He became a curse that we might receive the promised blessing through faith - Gal 3:13-14. He was made sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. - 2Cor 5:21.

This post was inspired as I was making a modification to the King James text of James 1:17. I replaced the first occurrence of "gift" with "giving". This change is based on the Greek and is also made by Geneva and by Young. I suddenly realized that the modification is important in conjunction with Genesis 3:22-23  as outlined above.

James 1:17 KJV Every good [giving] and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

In the light of the tree of life and its fruit of love, we may understand that our receiving of every good giving, particularly the giving of every spiritual blessing in heavenly places - Eph 1:3, is made possible by a perfect gift, the gift of eternal life in Christ - Rom 6.23. But the good giving of the complete perfect gift is deferred until the mortal has put on immortality and death is swallowed up in victory - 1Cor 15:54. Then we will perfectly enjoy the perfect gift Rev 2:7. And we will enjoy Him anew in the new heavens and the new earth of the new creation throughout eternity - Rev 21:1.

I2C 131227b Gen 3v22to23 Perfect gift deferred / I2C / 131227 1430 / Gen. 3:22-23 Perfect gift deferred

Rev. 12:5 All born

Rev 12:1-6 KJV 1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

 3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. 6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

The last part of verse 4 and the first part of verse 5 are a little noticed aspect of the birth of our Lord. But this little aspect has been magnificently celebrated by a major metaphysical poet, Robert Southwell. Copies of two of his Christmas poems may be found in recent posts: http://intwocities.blogspot.com/2013/12/luk-2v16-foil-foes-with-joy.html http://intwocities.blogspot.com/2013/12/joh-1v1to18-plus-great-poem.html

Verse 5 presents the presence of Lord on earth, first in His incarnate body, and then in His spiritual Body, the Christian Church. The uninterrupted continuity of this presence is certified in Acts 1:1-2. Luke's gospel is said to contain all that Jesus "began to do and teach". Acts is His continuing to do and teach through the Holy Spirit and His apostles. The epistles and Revelation continue the narrative. The child being "caught up to God" is clearly the future event described in 1st Thes. 4:16-17, as both those dead and those alive in Christ being "caught up together" in the clouds. (The Assembly is still a child at its end on earth. Our maturity is in Eternity.) And the Assembly had its beginning on earth as a babe menaced by Satan.

I2C 131224a Rev 12v5 All born / I2C / 131223 1420 / Rev. 12:5 All born

Isaiah 9:6 ++Cranmer Handel

Isa 9:6 KJV For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

His Grace's Christmas homily: For unto us a child is born

Christmas has become an annual sabbath; almost the only time of the year now when families come together, friends are remembered, and the ghosts of Christmases past are recalled, some with joy, some with sorrow. It is the one time of the year when the church pews are full and thoughts of God enter into many homes. Christmas infuses hope into lives of despair, and light into a world of darkness.

But it doesn't end conflict or cease turmoil.

Politicians win elections by promising heaven on earth – that they will feed the starving, house the homeless, dispel the fear, and restore hope. When, a decade later, the electorate realises that they are still in purgatory, another swathe of disaffected voters scorns the democratic process and declares a plague on all their houses. The government of man is in crisis, and the heart of man is bereft.

But this child, this Jesus, this god-man mystery – some day, the government shall be upon His shoulder.

The deliverer is human; one of us; flesh of our flesh. He is born to rule, born to be King, conceived of the house and lineage of David. His name is Wonderful – a mystery of divinity in humanity; Counsellor – the oracle of wisdom; the mighty God – the Word was not just with God, but was God; the Everlasting Father – not the same person as the Father, but of one substance with the Father; the Prince of Peace – bringing a peace that passes understanding.

His Grace wishes all of his readers, communicants and intermittent guests a joyful, peaceful and blessed Christmas.

Link to His Grace's homily plus video of verse sung by London Symphony with music from Handel's Messiah. http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2013/12/for-unto-us-child-is-born.html

I2C 131225b Isa 9v6 pp Cranmer Handel / I2C / 1312 / Isaiah 9:6 ++Cranmer Handel

John 1:1-18 Plus great poem

John 1:1-18 KJV  1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:1 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

The Nativity of Christ

Behold the father is his daughter's son,
The bird that built the nest is hatched therein,
The old of years an hour hath not outrun,
Eternal life to live doth now begin,
The Word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep,
Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep.

O dying souls, behold your living spring;
O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace;
Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring;
Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace.
From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs
This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs.

Gift better than himself God doth not know;
Gift better than his God no man can see.
This gift doth here the giver given bestow;
Gift to this gift let each receiver be.
God is my gift, himself he freely gave me;
God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me.

Man altered was by sin from man to beast;
Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh.
Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed
As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh.
O happy field wherein that fodder grew,
Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.
- Robert Southwell

Link to poem:  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-nativity-of-christ/

Link to another Christmas poem by Southwell and much information about the poet:

http://intwocities.blogspot.com/2013/12/luk-2v16-foil-foes-with-joy.html

More about Southwell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southwell_(Jesuit)

I2C 131224b Joh 1v1to18 Plus great poem / I2C / 1312 / John 1:1-18 Plus great poem

Luke 2:16 Foil foes with joy

Luke 2:16 KJV And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

Added 131224 1528 { From Rev 12:1-6 KJV (the poets probable inspiration) 4 […] and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: […] }

This little Babe so few days old is come to rifle Satan's fold;

All hell doth at his presence quake, though he himself for cold do shake;

For in this weak unarmèd wise the gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field, his naked breast stands for a shield;

His battering shot are babish cries, his arrows looks of weeping eyes,

His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble Flesh his warrior's steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall, his bulwark but a broken wall;

The crib his trench, haystacks his stakes; of shepherds he his muster makes;

And thus, as sure his foe to wound, the angels' trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight, stick to the tents that he hath pight.

Within his crib is surest ward, this little Babe will be thy guard.

If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

- Robert Southwell, 

Robert Southwell (c. 1561 – 21 February 1595), also Saint Robert Southwell, was an English Roman Catholic priest of the Jesuit Order. He was also a poet and clandestine missionary in post-Reformation England.

After being arrested and tortured by Sir Richard Topcliffe, Southwell was tried and convicted of high treason for his links to the Holy See. On 21 February 1595, Southwell was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

In 1970, he was canonized by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

C. S. Lewis, who wrote the Oxford standard reference on the literature of the period, stated therein that if Southwell had lived longer, he might well have become a major Elizabethan poet.

Added 131224 1528 From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southwell_(Jesuit)

Ben Jonson remarked to Drummond of Hawthornden that “so he had written that piece of [Southwell's], 'The Burning Babe,' he would have been content to destroy many of his.” [15] In fact, there is a strong case to be made for Southwell's influence on his contemporaries and successors, among them Drayton, Lodge, Nashe, Herbert, Crashaw, and especially Shakespeare, who seems to have known his work, both poetry and prose, extremely well.[16]

Metaphysical poetry / Major Poets / John Donne (1572–1631) George Herbert (1593–1633) Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) Robert Southwell (c. 1561–1595) Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649) Thomas Traherne (1636/1637–1674) Henry Vaughan (1622–1695)

"O dying souls, behold your living spring; O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring; Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despair: This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs."—from "The Nativity of Christ"

N.B. Do not miss "The Nativity of Christ" on my next weblog post, Lord willing, or at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-nativity-of-christ/

I2C 131223a Luk 2v16 Foil foes with joy / I2C / 131223 1822 / Luke 2:16 Foil foes with joy

Matt. 2:9 Science of stationary star

(Mat 2:9 NKJ) When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.

An Anglican canon lawyer who blogs as Anglican Curmudgeon uses astronomy and knowledge of the astrology of the magi to explain the very precise accuracy of this verse.

(Part of his argument is that the accepted year of Herod's death is wrong.)

(There are other good arguments for a birth date in late December.)

Long post with embedded videos of scientifically reconstructed night skies.

He explains the whole history of the star, but a key section is:

You are looking southwest of Jerusalem, tracking Jupiter in the night sky, in the constellation of Virgo, the virgin. Each time the frame of the movie refreshes, one day has elapsed. The movie shows the course followed by Jupiter, marking the date intervals every few days. Notice that Jupiter heads steadily lower, toward the horizon, but then comes to a stop, and eventually reverses course. And note the date when it begins to come to a stop -- December 24! For the entire twelve days from December 25, 2 B.C. to January 6, 1 B.C., Jupiter stood still in the night sky, hovering over a point southwest of Jerusalem, as the earth overtook it in its orbit around the sun.

Bethlehem is just five miles southwest of Jerusalem, on the main road. To the magi, it would indeed appear as though the King planet had guided them there. And they would have arrived during the Jewish festival of Hannukah, during which Jews gave each other gifts.

Link: http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/10/star-of-bethlehem-and-nativity.html

I2C 131222a Mat 2v9 Science of stationary star / I2C / 131222 1652 / Matt. 2:9 Science of stationary star

Jer, 17:9 Transformed hearts

From a forum thread: B:-:- [Me quoting K:-] If your body is the temple of God, then what is the altar?  It cannot be your heart because we know the heart is evil.  What do you think is the altar?

B:- One's heart who loves God and follows His commands it not evil, but righteous! The altar is in heaven.

The original question about an altar in the body was posed on another forum. The question may not have been exactly biblical, so any answer may not be biblically exact.

The natural, soulish, flesh of sin, heart is evil. Jer 17.9.

The redemption of the spirit - John 3.5,6-7 - precedes the redemption of the body - 1Cor 15.54.
It is best for us not to be open to the erroneous interpretation that the act of "loving God and following His commands" makes the heart of a sinner "righteous".

It is being begotten again - John 3.3 - that makes it possible for one to choose God from the heart - Rom 6.17 - and to love Him from the heart - Rom 5.5 - and to receive the gift of righteousness - Rom 5.17 - in a crucified heart - Rom 6.6 - through the circumcision of Christ - Col 2.11 - and later in a living heart through the circumcision of the heart - Deut 30.6 - and the replacement of the heart of stone with a heart spiritually of the flesh of our Lord - Ezek 36.26, in the likeness of the flesh of sin - Rom 8.3, yet without sin - Heb 4.15

I2C 131221c Jer 17v9 Transformed hearts / I2C / 131221 / Jer, 17:9 Transformed hearts

Phil. 2:5-7 Card from ++Cranmer

Forwarding an outstanding post from the great blogger who channels the second martyred and first protestant Archbishop of Canterbury:

____________________________

Mild He lays His glory by

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men       (Phil 2:5-7)

It is a curious thing for God to become man; for the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. We are about to celebrate the day when the Son of God was born a baby in Bethlehem; when Christ emptied Himself and laid His glory by; born that man no more may die. He surrendered aspects of His divinity to assume the mantle of humanity: as the ancient creeds remind us, He was fully man and yet fully God.

The Incarnation is complex theology wrapped in an unfathomable mystery, and here is not the place to unpack the nuances of kenotic doctrine. Those who wish to focus on the absurdity of human omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence miss the point: in both His human and divine natures, Jesus was and is perfect love, incomprehensible peace and unadulterated truth.

He spent nine months in Mary's womb, floating around in amniotic fluid. Now why would the only begotten Son God do that? Some say that He wasn't really God, but one who attained a sort of enlightenment, a bit like Buddha. Others are happy to believe that he was a prophet who foretold or forthtold the purposes of God; who showed his followers a better way, a bit like Mohammed. Still others are happy to believe the mystery of divine chimera; Jesus as a sort of Ganesh-like elephant man, strutting his stuff in the pantheon of gods.

But Jesus is also called 'Immanuel', meaning 'God with us'. If He was and is the same yesterday, today and forever, he is not merely enlightened, prophetic or mysterious; he is the Lord, the Creator, the Spirit, for the Three are One and of one substance.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. (John 17:1-11)

God emptied Himself of His glory in order that we might be saved - and all who call on His name will be saved. John Calvin writes: "In order to exhort us to submission by His example, he shows, that when as God he might have displayed to the world the brightness of His glory, he gave up His right, and voluntarily emptied Himself; that he assumed the form of a servant, and, contented with that humble condition, suffered His divinity to be concealed under a veil of flesh."

Mild He lays His glory by, under the veil of flesh: Immanuel, God with us, veiled as a baby in the womb of a young girl called Mary. His creation glory has gone; his salvation suffering has begun; his resurrection glory is yet to come. In a way, Jesus was scourged and crucified in the womb.

God incarnate waiting to be born, waiting to suffer, waiting to die, waiting to be raised.

As we await the birth of the perfect baby boy, the advent of the Promise, let us reflect on the magnitude of the glory He laid by, that we no more may die.

posted byArchbishop Cranmer at 10:57 am Permalink http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2013/12/mild-he-lays-his-glory-by.html

I2C 131221a Phi 2v5to7 Card from ppCranmer / I2C / 131221 1328 / I2C 131221a Phil. 2:5-7 Card from ++Cranmer

Ezek. 36:26 Circumcised heart

From a forum thread: K> [...] If your body is the temple of God, then what is the altar?  It cannot be your heart because we know the heart is evil.  What do you think is the altar?
Me>Great question. Causes searching of scripture. And actual thought. Thanks.

My answer is based on my belief that those millennial promises to Israel which are spiritual are available to begotten again Christians, particularly in post-apostolic times.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek 36:26 NKJ)
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deut 30:6 NKJ)
The two verses seem to be viewing different aspects of the same event. The replacement of stone with flesh accomplishes a separation or circumcision from the flesh in which sin still abides. The flesh of the new heart is most certainly the flesh of our Lord, in the likeness of the flesh of sin, yet without sin. Rom 8.3.
There are two altars associated with the Temple. And three parts of the Temple, the holiest, the holy, and the court may be associated with spirit, soul, and body, respectively.
The heart is the altar where we offer our bodies (Rom 12.1) much like the whole burnt sacrifice and the continual offering of lambs in the court.
The soul is connected with the heart. They may be regarded as the spiritual and bodily aspects of the inner man, respectively.
The soul is the altar for the spiritual sacrifice of praise (Heb 13.15). This is akin to the golden altar of incense which is before the veil but is associated with the holiest.

I2C 131220a Eze 36v26 Circumcised heart / I2C / 131220 1501 / I2C 131220a Ezek. 36:26 Circumcised heart

John 3:20-21 Practice evil vs. do truth

From a forum thread:

Michele3in1> [....]  sometimes the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and i did really awesome wonderful things, but those always took me by surprise. those were things i would have never even thought of, that Jesus just impressed me to do. i call those my accidental righteous deeds, i cant take credit for those things, that was Him.  [...]

Me> I have the same experience. When the old man [Eph 4.22]lets his guard down, the spirit of that life which is in Christ Jesus [Rom 8.2] accomplishes something actually good.

(John 3:20-21 NKJ) "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

We often do not notice the difference between 'practicing' and 'doing' in scripture. 'Doing' may be intermittent behavior. 'Practicing' is consistent continuous behavior, like practicing law or medicine.

It is impossible for the natural, soulish, carnal man to do the truth. His spirit is separated from God. He does not see the truth - John 3.3. He practices evil.

The spiritually begotten again man - John 1.13 - does the truth, rather than practices the truth. He is hampered by the habits and remnants in memory of his prior bondage. Rom 7.29.

And he readily acknowledges past sins and present trespasses because sins have been taken away - 1Jo 1.9, and he is continually cleansed of the remnants of sins by the blood of Jesus - 1Jo 1.7.

I2C  131219a Joh 3v20to21 Practice evil vs do truth / I2C / 131219 1511 / John 3:20-21 Practice evil vs. do truth

Rom. 8:2 The spirit of Christian Life

Romans 8:2 NKJV  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The spiritual character of that Life which is found in receiving Jesus as lord and savior has freed me from the bondage of sin which leads inevitably to death.

Each phrase of the above interpretation of the subject verse is illustrated from scripture below.

The spiritual character

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, (Rom 8:16 NKJ)

But the fruit of the [spiritual walk] is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. (Gal 5:22-23 NKJ)

Of that Life

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4 NKJ)

The life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us- (1Jo 1:2 NKJ)

Which is found in receiving Jesus as lord and savior

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6 NKJ)

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. (John 5:24 NKJ)

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1Jo 5:11-12 NKJ)

Has freed me from the bondage of sin

But God be thanked that though you were [bond servants] of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became [bonded to] righteousness. (Rom 6:17-18 NKJ)

But now having been set free from sin, and having become [bonded to] of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. (Rom 6:22 NKJ)

Which leads inevitably to death.

For when you were [bond servants] of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. (Rom 6:20-21 NKJ)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23 NKJ)

N.B. The bracketed changes to the quoted NKJV text seem justified, mostly by context.

N.B. It is a major error in translation to capitalize "spirit" and insert the definite article without justification. In the majority of cases in our traditional translations "Spirit" does not refer to the Holy Spirit as the Third Person. When the definite article appears before both "holy" and "spirit" in the Greek this seems to invariably indicate that the Spirit is in view as a Person. (This seems to hold also for the Septuagint.) Otherwise, examination of context should precede capitalization, etc.

I2C 131218a Rom 8v2 The spirit of Christian Life / I2C / 131218 1120 / Rom. 8:2 The spirit of Christian Life