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| EDEN |
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| ARK OF COVENANT |
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| JESUS CHRIST TEACHING THE KINGDOM OF GOD |
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In the beginning
long ago God created the heavens where all the stars are and also the earth where we now live. It
says this at Genesis 1:1.
Who, though, is God? The Bible says He is a Spirit who made all things and who lives forever.
Spirit or a spirit is not solid but a lot like what people now also call energy.
God’s creating the heavens and our planet Earth was done during six periods
of time which the Bible calls “yohm.” That’s the word for day or days in the old Hebrew
language that much of the Bible was first written in. Sometimes
in English “yohm” can mean day or a long period of time as when we speak about “in my grandfather’s
day,” “in Napoleon’s day,” or “in the Day of the Dinosaurs.”
God first caused light to shine, and then He also created
the stars, sun and moon, all the earth, its atmosphere, made the sun and moon appear, separated the wet atmosphere from the
waters of the seas, caused plants and animals to come upon dry land. Each time God looked at what
He had done and said it was “very good.” Finally he created
the first man Adam, then later He used part of Adam’s rib to create the first woman Eve, a process remindful of what
modern scientists do when they clone animals. God rested from the creative process during our own time
period of time which the Bible calls the seventh day.
God told Adam
and Eve they could eat fruit from trees in the lovely fertile Garden of Eden where they were, but He also lovingly warned
that if they ate from the deadly tree of knowledge of good and bad then they would die in that “yohm,” again,
meaning day or period of time. He said they must not eat from that dangerous tree! The garden area had
a second tree called The Tree of Life. If they obeyed God, then He would let them eat fruit from this other
tree and it would let them stay alive instead of die. A serpent creature or snake talked Eve into eating from the dangerous
tree of knowledge and then she went to talk Adam into it too. Adam knew better than to disobey God, but,
you know what, he did so anyway!
No,
we don’t know much about the serpent. Some people say maybe it was a type of smart creature no longer alive on
earth instead of one of the small snakes living now. Others say it was probably a regular snake. Still others
say it was a snake but it only seemed to speak because the wicked spirit called Satan or the devil made it seem to speak while
he was doing the real speaking.
Well,
in any case, as said, God had also told Adam and Eve what would happen if they ate of the bad tree. They had now lost
the opportunity to live forever in the paradise-like area on earth. So He sent good spirits called angels who drove
the two out of the Garden of Eden.
Of course this also kept the two from being able to eat from the tree in the garden called the Tree of Life. That’s
a lot like how if we eat our green vegetables those can help us live longer! Maybe the Tree of Life had powerful things
in it like what we now call antioxidants. Adam and Eve now
knew that they would die. The serpent had said they would not die and they did not die in the sense of
dying within a day of twenty-four hours. Those hours passed, but they were still going to die within a
day, even as God had warned. However, it would be a day in the other sense of the Hebrew word yohm, that
is, a longer period of time. Since they could not return to Eden, due to the angels keeping them out, life became more difficult.
The land outside the garden was really hard for them to farm the soil. Adam and Eve had
children. The children included two boys named Cain and Abel.
Abel happily offered
his best sheep to God and this really pleased God. Cain offered fruit to God but this did not please God
because He said Cain had a really bad attitude. Cain got angry that God liked Abel’s gift better than his own gift.
He was so angry that he killed his brother Abel. Then Cain had to flee, to run away to stay alive. The Earth’s
atmosphere had unpolluted air and clean water. There were many foods that Adam and Eve and their children
and grandchildren could eat. So they lived many years but finally died within exactly one day, not a day
of twenty-four hours, but the long day or time period (yohm) even as God had warned.
The
serpent or Satan had lied to Adam and Eve. They did not get to live forever in paradise on Earth.
Nor, despite what others may also claim, can people today live forever in paradise on earth since Paul says we all
sin so we all pay for it by dying. (1 Cor 15:22) Instead the hope after Christ came has been for us to be resurrected
from death to life in heaven. Both the Bible and science agree Earth will pass away someday, but the Bible
also says there will be a new heavens and a new earth. (Matthew 24:35, Luke 21:33, Revelation 21:1) So although Earth
will end, in the long run it will also remain forever even as Ecclesiastes 1:4 declares. Today too we need
to treat our fellow humans, other creatures great and small as well as the planet itself as gifts from God. From
Adam and Eve to now God has only wanted us to enjoy happiness and His many gifts such as Earth.
Even though Adam
and Eve passed away, their descendants kept multiplying and spreading. Eventually God spoke to one
of them, who was a good man named Noah. God told Noah that humans on earth had become too evil. The
Hebrew word for Earth or earth is erets. (Eh-rehts) It can mean either our whole planet or just the
land of the Middle East. In any case, because people had become so evil God was going to destroy them with
a great flood. He told Noah to build an ark, an enormous box-like ship, so that Noah, his wife, his sons
and their wives - eight humans in total - could stay safe aboard it during the coming flood along with various land animals
which also went aboard the ark.
It rained forty
days and nights. Then Noah saw a bird and the ark followed its direction to dry land among the mountains
of the area called Ararat. Ham, Shem and Japheth were descendants of Noah. They multiplied, meaning
had a lot of kids of their own, and they migrated or moved to other lands and islands with their different languages, yes,
the Bible says “each according to its language.” As with Adam and Eve some lived
many years. The oldest human ever was Methusaleh (Meh-thooh-zuh-luh). He lived to be
almost one thousand years old.
Who knows,
as said maybe he lived so long because the atmosphere and foods back then were unpolluted, that is really clean.
Also maybe the atmosphere was then able to screen out even radiation that makes humans age or get older faster.
That would have helped them live longer. Some of Noah’s descendants settled where the nation called Iraq is today on what
is called the Plain of Shinar. There they built a city called Babel. They also started
to build a high tower there to bring fame to themselves and keep themselves from scattering about too much. God and His angels
were watching. God did not like Noah’s descendants working together, building the tower of Babel.
Possibly He may have been concerned that their staying in one area would give them too much power or cause too many
other problems.
He said
“Let’s go down and confuse their language.” This was done and so instead of having one
language they started babbling different language and so the people of what we now call the Middle East or the Holy
Land became divided into many languages. That’s how it still is there. Some people in
the Holy Land speak Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Farsi or Persian, etc. Meanwhile one human in particular caught
God’s attention. He was Abram, later renamed Abraham, who lived at the city of Ur. Abram
and who was married to Sarai, later renamed Sarah. God told the two humans to move to what is now Israel
and dwell there in a tent and raise sheep. Later God asked Abraham to sacrifice, meaning kill for Him, Abraham’s
own son Isaac. Well, that sounds terrible but Abraham believed God could later bring Isaac back to life.
He was just about to kill Isaac with a knife. But God’s main characteristic is love.
He did not want Abraham to kill Isaac.
God stopped
Abraham and said that due to his loyalty Abraham’s descendants would eventually inherit the land and become a nation
of many people even as there are a lot of stars. Isaac was a good little boy who, when he grew up, continued to love God. He
married a woman named Rebecca, and one of their sons also loved God a whole lot. This was Jacob. Jacob was younger
than his brother named Esau (Ee-sow). Esau was hairier and liked to hunt and eat more than get a blessing.
A blessing is where a person asks God to do something nice for you. In ancient times a father said a
blessing for his oldest son. That normally would have been Esau. One day Esau came
home from hunting and was really hungry. Jacob told him something like “I’ll give you a bowl of stew
to eat if you’ll let dad give me his blessing.” Esau agreed to this idea, so their dad blessed
Jacob instead of his older brother.
Also, Esau's
wives from a nation called the Hittites bothered Isaac and Rebecca. Maybe Isaac and Rebecca didn’t
like them because they did not worship the true God or maybe it was because they were too mean. Anyway, when older, Jacob traveled
east where he started working for a man named Laban so that he was able to marry two of Laban’s daughters, first Leah
and then Rachel. Back at that time it was permitted by law to have more than one wife.
Eventually as the years passed Jacob had twelve sons, the youngest being named Joseph. Jacob’s older
boys did not like Joseph because sometimes he told them his dreams which indicated someday he would be more important than
them. Also their dad gave Joseph a beautiful coat of many colors. That also made them
jealous. One day those jealous brothers threw Joseph into a pit in the ground and sold him to some men.
They took him onwards to the land of Egypt and sold him there again as a slave. Joseph’s brothers
then showed the rainbow coat with blood on it to Jacob their father who from then on mourned the loss of Joseph.
Yes, he thought Joseph was dead!
But Joseph
was still alive. He was unusually intelligent and very hard-working. Although a slave
he became well-respected and was given much responsibility by his Egyptian owner Potipher (Pah-tih-fuhr).
Then one day his master Potipher’s wife told him to come
lie down with her. Joseph ran away from her, crying out something like “That isn’t right!
It’s against the law for me to lie down with the wife of another man, and God doesn’t want it!”
She was scared Joseph would tell
her husband on her. So she lied to Potipher. She told him that Joseph had attacked her.
That upset Potipher who may have yelled, “Joseph’s going to prison for this!”
While in prison Joseph interpreted dreams for people.
Eventually they told Egypt’s king called the Pharaoh of what Joseph could do. Pharaoh
ordered him brought before him. He looked at Joseph and basically told him, “Interpret a strange
dream I had about some cows. Some were skinny and later they were fat!”
Joseph answered the Pharaoh, “Your
dream was from God. It means in the future God will send seven years of plentiful crops to Egypt.
But later He will send seven years of deadly drought.”
Pharaoh was impressed.
That was a very logical interpretation. “Well, then Joseph. What shall I do about this dream from God?”
Joseph answered “You
need to build huge storage buildings and put grain in them during the years of plenty to have for the years of drought.”
This pleased Pharaoh.
“Good idea, Joseph! I will put you in charge of this project and give you power greater than anyone in all of
Egypt, except myself, of course.” Guess what! The years of plenty followed by drought came just as Joseph had predicted. After the long dry
drought came, Joseph’s family back east of Egypt became so hungry that the father Jacob sent his older sons to Egypt
to see if they could buy some grain. Years had come and gone. When the brothers came there they did not know Joseph was
the powerful man before them who was second in Egypt only to Pharaoh, but Joseph remembered them and he greatly missed his
father.
Joseph
talked with the unsuspecting men, at first acting as if he wondered if they were spies. By asking questions
he learned that their dad Jacob now had another even younger son named Benjamin.
He gave them the grain they needed. They
paid for it then they all left Egypt except for Simeon whom Joseph kept Simeon with him.
When the brothers returned to
Israel or Jacob their father, they told him what happened, but he said. “No! I
don’t want Benjamin to go back with you. If I lost him as I did Joseph, I would die.”
But later they
needed more food and Simeon was still in Egypt. So they returned to Egypt and had to bring along Benjamin.
Joseph sold them some more food, then they left. But what they didn’t know it was that this time Joseph
had hidden a silver cup in a sack belonging to Benjamin.
Suddenly men from Joseph came and stopped them.
They searched and found the silver cup. Now Joseph called them thieves, and they feared for their lives. “All
of you men go back to your father except for your brother Benjamin here so that I know you will come back with your father,
too.”
The brother named Judah responded on behalf of them all, “Sir, you can keep us all for your slaves
but please let Benjamin go or our father will die. We are terribly ashamed of ourselves! Benjamin would be our
second brother whom our father has lost because of us and our father would die from it!”
Seeing their genuine
sorrow for what they had done to him long ago, Joseph broke down in tears and told them who he really was. “I’m
Joseph, your brother, still alive!” They were amazed and then excited. Joseph’s
brothers returned for their father, then as Joseph had told them to do, they all came back to Egypt in wagons with their many
sheep. Pharaoh was happy to have Joseph’s family in Egypt. He gave them homes and
land in an area called Goshen in the delta or top part of the Nile River. Their name as a group was the Israelites
or, although people have also called them the Hebrews after their language which is Hebrew. The early Israelites
or Hebrews had many children and those had many children and so forth.
In Egypt
Joseph had married Asenath. (Ge 41:45) She a daughter of the priest of On (Ohn) or Beth Shemesh. (Behth Sheh-mehsh)
The name means House of the Sun and it was used because of sun worship that was done there. Asenath gave birth to Mannaseh and
Ephraim (Ee-fruhm) from whom came two of Israel’s tribes. (Genesis 41:50-52; 46:20) Eventually all the descendants of
Jacob in Egypt were so many that years later a different Pharaoh or king of Egypt became scared of them. He made them
into slaves and ordered them to do hard work making bricks for buildings in the kingdom. Pharaoh also decided
to kill all the newborn Hebrew children. One of the slave women gave her baby later called Moses to her daughter Miriam.
“Miriam, go put him on some reeds to float to the area where Pharaoh’s daughter does her bathing!”
There Pharaoh’s
daughter found the little baby and adopted him. When Moses grew older he was a member of the powerful household of Egypt’s
Pharaoh until one day when he saw a task-master beating one of his fellow Hebrews. Angry, he struck and killed that
task-master. Having killed
a man, Moses had to flee east of Egypt to an area called Midian. There he met, helped and married Zipporah. She
was one of the seven daughters of a sheepherder named Jethro or Reul (Ray-oohl). Eventually Zipporah gave birth to Gershom
and Eliezer (Ex 2:16-12, 18:2-4). Her father Jethro was an Arabic priest, not of the true God at that time, though later
he admitted Moses’ God was greater than all the other gods. (Ex 18:10) Moses worked for Jethro by herding
his sheep. One day when Moses was looking for a sheep at Mount Horeb, also called Mount Sinai, Moses suddenly
saw a bush which had fire on it and yet never burnt. Curious, he went closer to the bush and heard the voice of God
command him to return to Egypt. Although now a very meek and mild man, Moses must go tell Pharaoh to let all the Hebrews
leave and go to the land that God had long ago promised would belong to the descendants of Abraham. Moses did as directed. While
back in Egypt saw his brother Aaron who also went with him before Pharaoh and spoke for him, saying “Pharaoh, you must
release the slaves!”
Well, Pharaoh
was proud and stubborn. “Just who do you think you are. You’re lucky I don’t
kill you on the spot. Now get out of here, and, no, I refuse to let my slaves go!” In response to this
stubbornness God sent one plague after another against Egypt. For example God sent insects which caused
hunger, water turned to blood or red like it, and finally at the tenth plague Pharaoh was told “If you don’t release
the slaves, your babies are going to die!” Did Pharaoh let the slaves go away with Moses and Aaron?
No, Pharaoh still refused. So Moses ordered the Israelites or Hebrews to cross-marked some blood
on their doors. That night the angel of death entered all the houses in Egypt and killed all the newborns,
but it passed over those houses of the Hebrews which had the marking of blood. Just imagine all the crying and
tears in Egypt! This happened because Pharaoh was a tyrant too cruel and stubborn to do what God had said. He had had enough.
He ordered them to get out of Egypt as fast as possible.
They and a lot
of people who were not Israelite but friends now gathered together. They marched toward what is believed
to be the Red Sea or possibly a branch of it near the head or top part of Egypt’s delta area. Suddenly Pharaoh
had second thoughts about letting so many slaves go. He and his army got into war chariots and quickly
drove after the escaping slaves and Moses! As the army approached Moses prayed and God caused the sea to divide
down its middle so that the Israelites were able to go across the sand which had just been under the water. Once they were on
the other side, Pharaoh and his men arrived and kept coming after them. When the army got down on the sea
bed, the waters suddenly closed back over them, drowning them.
Now the Israelites
and those with them were truly free. They celebrated and marched on to a high mountain called Mount Sinai.
There they camped and built an altar of boulders to honor God Almighty. Moses went up to the mountain top
to speak with God there. He wanted to see God but God said this was not possible except in an indirect
way. God explained “if any human looks directly at me, then they die!” Why?
Because God is the Creator of all the fiery stars and the universe, and if we got up too close even to the sun, we
too would die for heat or radiation. So it’s more merciful and kind we can’t directly see God
but yet know He exists. We know this because we can see what He has done the same as we know electricity,
gravity and the wind exist even though we don’t normally see those directly either. There on Mount Sinai,
God gave Moses a stone tablet with ten commandments on it for the Israelites. It said for example to observe
a Sabbath or day of rest, also to not murder and not steal. Keeping these and all the other rules
called the Laws of Moses would be fulfilled perfectly only many many years later when Jesus Christ, who was perfect, was born.
The Ten Commandments and the Laws of Moses are called the First Covenant or the Old Covenant.
Well, as Moses
was returning down the mountain, he heard the people below worshipping statues of golden calves. This really
angered him and he smashed the tablet in disgust at what they were doing. So, although very meek, Moses did
sometimes have a temper. In fact, at another time when angry at the people with him, he smashed his cane
against a boulder to release water from it then wrongly claimed that he himself with his brother Aaron had given the people
water, when in fact credit for the water belonged to God!
At
God’s direction Moses also began a priesthood, that is a group of priests, called the Levites. He told the people
to construct the Ark of Covenant which was a kind of portable temple. Many very skillful men built it and made it beautiful.
As the tribes of Israel traveled on
toward the Promised Land, they knew God had told them they must not use idols. (Ex 20:4) Other nations at that time
carried small idols of their gods held up high on poles for example when in battle.
So, to be different and show respect for the will of God, the tribes instead
used banners or flags. The Bible says many beautiful things about banners or flags. (Psalm 20:5; Canticles or
Song of Solomon 2:4; 6:4, 10) They were not items of worship.
When the people in the tribes starved God sent quail, a kind of bird, for them to eat.
He also sent them tasty frost-like manna to eat. Often they complained anyway, and sometimes they even tried to rebel
against God. In fact they were so bad at times that God once caused an earthquake to swallow up a group of them with
a leader named Korah. Some also died when bitten by snakes! When the tribes were
finally about to enter the Promised Land, Moses sent out twelve spies. Ten of those spies brought back reports that
terrifying giants were there who would definitely defeat them. Two, though, named Joshua and Caleb, reported that the land was one of
“milk and honey” with enormous grapes and other good food. They added, “God will surely give us victory!” God was not happy
that ten of the spies had given false reports. He decided that the Israelites, who numbered twelve large tribes, must
continue to wander through the desert areas of the Middle East a total of forty years. However, after all that time they
again came near the Promised Land at the Jordan River. There God talked to Moses: “Although you have done many
good things for me, you can’t cross the river with the people. For example when you had that fit of anger and
hit the rock to get water, you lied that you and Aaron provided the water for the people to stay alive.”
Instead Moses
quietly died upon Mount Nebo, and Joshua who along with Caleb had given truthful reports before, now led the people over the
Jordan River. God had them to march seven times around a city called Jericho then loudly blow on horns. Immediately the city
walls collapsed! The Israelites entered the city in triumph. Next the tribes of Israel had a series of battles with the different
nations already in the land. They were extremely successful. In fact instead of fighting against
the Israelites some cities or city-kingdoms made peace alliances and agreed to be their slaves. So the twelve tribes
of Israel got to divide much of the land among themselves.
Also, when the Israelite
tribes came into the land, God told them to not marry members of seven nations that existed there. He said
this because He did not want them to be turned to worshipping the other peoples’ false idols or gods, some of which
required human sacrifices or the murdering of babies. (Deuteronomy 7:1-3)
However, God knew some Israelites would marry women of the land anyway.
Therefore, at Deuteronomy 21:19-14, He said that an Israelite man could marry a foreign woman captured in battle if
the man first let her mourn a month about having lost her parents.
God also began the annual or yearly autumn harvest Festival of Booths or Festival of Ingathering for Israel’s
tribes. (Leviticus 23:33, Deuteronomy 16:13) They
used tree parts to build booths which look a lot like tiny houses and those had displays of their crops.
This was a fun time of Thanksgiving. It showed
the people truly thanked God for all He had done for them and continued to do.
For about 400 years the tribes of Israel resided as victors in
the land without any king being needed. Instead, whenever enemy nations caused them too many problems and
danger, God inspired a man or sometimes a woman among the Israelites to deliver or save them.
Such persons were called Judges, and one was Samson who was amazingly
strong and killed many enemies who as a nation called the Philistines. Samson was so strong he could kill
a lion with his hands. A woman named
Delilah found out from Samson that the secret to his strength was his hair, so to help his enemies the Philistines (Fihl-ih-steenz)
she cut his hair off while he was asleep. The Philistines then captured him and put out his eyes.
One day the Philistines were celebrating their defeat of Samson at a temple. Samson prayed to God to return his strength.
God did so, and Samson suddenly pulled down the temple’s main pillars. This made the temple collapse, and that
killed his enemies under it along with himself.
Two women also served as Judges who saved the Israelites.
They were named Deborah and Hulda. As said, because there was no king but only Judges, the people in the twelve tribes
kept enjoying great freedom, but then after 400 years they decided that they wanted a king the same as all the other nations
had one.
Well, this displeased God. Yes, He was very unhappy about that because He warned that
they were rejecting Himself and their human kings would almost all be tyrannical oppressors over them.
However,
God Himself is not a dictator but allows people to try things their own way sometimes to learn a lesson. So He allowed
the priest Samuel to appoint a king for the tribes of Israel.
King Saul, the first king of Israel, started out
as a very humble man, but in time he became a tyrant, so next God said a shepherd boy named David would become the king.
When David first went from Bethlehem to the royal court of King Saul, he went as a musician. Soon, though, he also became
a valiant soldier, and he was very popular with the people.
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For example David
was so brave that even when a young boy he had slain a giant enemy warrior named Goliath using just a slingshot.
Such exploits or powerful deeds made Saul really jealous. However, Saul’s son Jonathan liked
David a lot, and in fact Jonathan was his best friend. One day Saul’s army was in a major
battle with Israel’s enemies and Saul’s men began to starve to death. It was normally against
the Law of Moses to eat blood, but the men killed livestock and ate the meat with the blood. When Saul heard of
this he built an altar to show remorse or sorrow, and God forgave those men who had eaten blood due to the emergency need
to stay alive. You see, it was also against the Law of Moses to murder themselves from starving.
(1 Samuel 14:32-34) Saul did not want Jonathan or other people to have anything to do with David. This
is what is called being shunned or disfellowshipped, but Jonathan visited with David, warned and protected him anyway.
Finally, though, David knew he had to flee for his life. He went to live in harsh parts of
the land with a band of friends. Once King Saul, while seeking David, fell asleep in a cave.
When David found him there alone, instead of killing him, he merely cut off a piece of his robe. Still Saul kept trying
to kill David. He had been anointed as king of Israel with God’s permission, but he was very evil.
Eventually he died in a battle with other enemies.
Then David finally
became Israel’s king. Mostly King David ruled outstandingly well and was fair to the people.
However one time while on top a building he saw a beautiful woman named Bathsheba (Bath-shee-bah) taking a bath.
It was wrong for him to look at her, and he wanted her really badly for one of his own wives. In fact, since she was already married,
King David sent her brave husband Uriah (Yooh-reye-ah) into the front line of an army attacking a city. He
deliberately wanted Uriah to die, and that happened. David then married Bathsheba and they had a child, but God took away
that child’s life although we can expect God will resurrect it. Why did God take the child’s
life? It was because of what David had done to have Uriah killed. God also said that from then on
David would have problems with his own family. This in particular happened when David’s handsome
son Absalom tried to forcibly take the throne but was killed.
However, David
was mostly a good king, and when he finally died, his son Solomon ruled Israel. One night God asked Solomon in a
dream, “What do you want most of all?” Solomon said “I want wisdom.” Wisdom is the
ability to use intelligence in positive ways. This pleased God, so He granted Solomon more wisdom than any other human had ever had.
He also blessed the king with peace, great power and commercial or business wealth. In fact there was so much wealth
that the Queen of Sheba once came to visit to see it first-hand. Because Solomon was a man of peace,
God also allowed Solomon to build a huge beautiful temple in the capital city of Jerusalem. Solomon’s friend,
the king of Lebanon, a nation just north of Israel, sent him giant fir trees for beams in the temple. Solomon wrote down
many wise sayings called Proverbs, the name of the book in the middle part of the Bible. A few of these are: Go to the
ant, lazy person. Watch and become wise... Pride goes before a fall, arrogance before stumbling... Like golden apples
in silver carvings is a word at the right time.
Beautiful poems and songs called the Psalms were also written by Solomon and others. Probably Psalm 23 is the most
famous. It says
“1 The LORD
is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your
staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint
my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell
in the house of the LORD forever.”
However, although
wiser than anyone Solomon was unwise when he ignored God’s telling him to not have multiple wives. Some
of those wives worshipped idols and Solomon allowed them to also worship idols when they moved to Israel from lands such as
Egypt. This caused him to lose God’s favor and after Solomon died, God let the ten northern tribes
of Israel secede and have their own ruler, a man named Jeroboam. The southern tribes of Judah and
Benjamin stayed loyal to David’s descendants. This southern kingdom was then known as simply Judah
and it had the capital of Jerusalem where Solomon’s temple was located. The ten northern tribes led
by Jeroboam (Jihr-oh-boh-uhm) were known as Israel, and they worshipped God in their own nation far away from Jerusalem.
Among the bad
kings of Judah was a man named Ahab who had a wicked wife named Jezebel, a strong worshipper of the idol god called Baal.
She hated Elijah, who was a prophet or person who spoke up for God. In fact, she wanted him killed. Instead eventually
she herself was killed after Ahab had died, and the dogs licked her blood in the street! That sounds terrible doesn’t
it? But she was extra wicked!! Now, the prophet Elijah performed many miracles and after he died his assistant Elisha,
who was also a prophet, performed many miracles. For example both prophets were able to resurrect people, meaning bring
them back to life. One of many interesting stories about Elijah is about a time when he came out of hiding and had a contest
against the priests of Baal. He put a sacrifice of meat on an altar surrounded by water. He told the Baal priests,
“Show everybody how powerful your god, Baal, is. Have Baal burn this sacrifice!” The Baal priests
danced about praying while trying to get Baal’s attention by cutting their own bodies. Elijah just laughed at them.
Then he prayed to God Almighty who at once sent fire down from the sky. It burnt up the sacrifice, then Elijah had the
people who had been watching kill all the wicked priests of Baal.
On another occasion
Elijah was walking on a road when some children threw rocks at him and called him an old bald man. “Get
up the road, you old bald-headed man! Get up the road!” They mocked.
That was disrespectful! God sent bears that ate up those bad children. On still another
occasion God let Elijah’s assistant, Elisha, see Elijah go away up into the sky in a chariot of fire. As
said, Elisha also did many marvelous things. Well, the nations of Judah and Israel existed next to each other for
about another 200 years. Then about 700 years before Christ was born or 2,700 years before our own lives,
the northern nation of Israel was defeated by the larger, powerful nation of Assyria (Ah-sihr-ee-ah). No one knows for
sure what happened to the ten tribes of Israel. Maybe they just become members of the other nations. The nation of Judah
continued to exist until about 600 years before Christ when the nation of Babylon defeated Judah then marched its people away
into exile. From that time on they were called the Jews. When they were in Babylon the King there,
named Nebuchaddnezer (Neh-byoo-chad-neh-zahr), decided to discover the brightest boys in his kingdom and make them into helpful
officials for his government. Among the selected boys were the Jews Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and
Daniel. These boys ate healthy foods, just as we all should, instead of the wine and fancy foods given the
other boys and when tested they proved to be the healthiest and wisest boys in the Assyrian Empire. Daniel
interpreted a dream for the king about how God would conquer all other kingdoms. This pleased the king
who then made Daniel and his friends even more powerful.
 Another time
enemies reported to King Darius that not Daniel but his three friends Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego had refused to bow on
the plain of Dura to a tall idol which the king had had his men make out of gold. The king shouted, “I’ll
throw you into a fiery furnace for this!” But an angel kept the four safe. On another occasion Nebuchadnezzar
told Daniel a dream. Daniel said, “Oh, King, I’m sorry to have to say this but your dream means God is going
to make you temporarily lose your kingdom. You will become insane, eating vegetation in the field a long time just as
an animal does!” About a year later as the king was walking about bragging to himself how powerful he was, when suddenly
the dream came true. After seven years, though, his sanity and kingdom were finally restored. He now humbly admitted
that he owed all things to the God of Daniel instead of to himself. When Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar was the new king of Babylon,
Belshazzar knew what had happened to his father. However, he was also proud instead of humble. One night he called
Daniel to the palace. He said “A mysterious hand appeared while I and others were eating and it wrote on the wall
the words “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin. What does that mean?” Daniel interpreted this. “Oh,
King, it means this Kingdom of Babylon is going to fall to the Medes and Persians!”  And, yes,
that very same night Babylon was defeated. Warriors from Persia and the land of the Medes entered a tunnel under the
capital’s moat, which is kind of like a ditch or canal, and its really high walls. They killed Belshazzar and
after that time Darius the king of the Medes began to rule.
King Darius also liked Daniel a lot and so jealous enemies of Daniel talked Darius into making
a law saying that everyone must pray to the king’s gods or be thrown into a den of lions.
After the king made this law, the enemies told him that Daniel
had refused to pray to his gods. So the king had to have Daniel thrown into the lions’ den.
However, an angel from God made the lions stay gentle. The
next morning the king came to look. He was amazed and happy. “Men, take Daniel out of that lions’
den,” he ordered. Then he also ordered them to feed Daniel’s enemies to the lions.
Daniel had other dreams or visions about the future. One
dream that he had showed him that the Jews would get to return to their homeland from Persia after seventy years.
But meanwhile, during the time the Jews were in Persia an evil
man named Haman (Hay-mahn) decided to destroy all of them. However, God did not want Haman to succeed. The Jews
were an imperfect and conquered people living among pagan worshipper of gods in a land ruled by a pagan king, but the true
God of the heavens had not totally left them! So the hand of
God worked out that King Ahasureus (Ay-ha-soohr-ee-uhs) of Persia was inspired to marry a beautiful Jewish woman named Esther.
She later convinced the king to let her people defend themselves from attacks by Haman and his supporters so that the
Jews were able to destroy them and survive. Then, finally after 70 years, as Daniel had known and written, the Jews
were permitted to return to rebuilt Jerusalem and live in the land there. Now, God is not partial, meaning that
He loves good people of all races, nations and languages although most of the Bible does talk about the Israelites or Jewish
people. So the Bible also tells us of an unusually good non-Jewish man much loved by God who lived in another
land to the east and who was named Job. Job was not only a kind man but also very wealthy. He loved his children
and each of them had parties on his or her own day, these days being what Job 3:3 explains were their days of birth.
We would probably say they were their birthdays. Anyway, one day when the angels went
before God, Satan the devil also came to discuss Job. He told God this: “Job is faithful only because
he’s been given wealth and happiness. Let me strike Job with sickness and other severe disasters
then Job will curse You!”
So God let Satan
try this so that Satan and the other angels would know if Satan had told the truth. Not God but Satan made Job suffer from
boils, killed his children and did other terrible things.
Still, Job refused to curse or blame God.
In fact, because he was so faithful, after letting Satan do his worst, God blessed Job with all the more wealth and also gave
him more children. He will remember the others for resurrection.
We do not know a lot from the Bible about
what all happened with the Jews from the time of Job until up to the birth of Jesus Christ, but from history we know that
other nations later also conquered them.
For example a king from Macedonia, now known as Alexander the Great,
conquered the Greeks west of Israel in Europe, and then his army of Greeks conquered many other lands east of Greece including
the land of the Jews but also Egypt, Persia or Iran, and what are now Afghanistan and much of India.
Another
such nation or empire was called the Seleucids (Sehl-yoo-sihdz) who also had much Greek culture or things like art and literature
or writings. Also a Jewish family called the Maccabees led a rebellion and regained Jewish independence from the
Seleucids on December 25.
The Maccabees founded what is called the Hasmonean dynasty or family
rulership which kept the Jews free about 100 years until the Roman Empire came and conquered the land.
To
celebrate their Independence Day which, as said was on December 25, the Jewish people began a holiday which continues even
in current times but usually on days besides December 25, since it is based on the moon.
That day or Jewish
holiday includes the use of special foods, candle lights, singing and gifts. It is called Hannukah.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
About 2,000
years ago many people among the Jews began predicting that soon God was going to send a Messiah, meaning a descendant of King
David, who would save the Jews from the Roman Empire. The word in Greek for Messiah is Christos or Christ. Although the Romans
who controlled the land of the Jews spoke Latin, they also liked Greek culture including the Greeks’ everyday language
called Koine. Many Jews also spoke Koine along with their native Hebrew as it was the international language around
the Mediterranean Sea at that time both for culture and business purposes. From the writings of Daniel and others,
the Jews knew to be on the watch for the Messiah or Christ and a man named John, or John the Baptizer, began to prepare the
way for the coming Messiah or Christ. He went to live in the desert and baptize people. He shouted “Get
baptized! Stop sinning! The Christ is coming!” One day the angel Gabriel told a young unmarried Jewish girl named Mary,
“God’s Holy Spirit will cause you to give birth to the Messiah or Savior and you must call him Jesus.”
God’s Spirit then caused Mary to become pregnant, and a very nice older man, a carpenter named Joseph, married her.
 As you know we
celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on December 25 although some people say he may have been born in early October.
Even if that is so, if you count nine months back from October you reach late December, the time when God’s Holy Spirit
began the life of Jesus inside of Mary. You see, when women become pregnant or have new life in them, it normally takes
nine months before a baby is born. Both Mary and Joseph were descendants of King David. When they were staying
in a stable in the little town of Bethlehem near Jerusalem, Mary gave birth to Jesus in a manger or wooden box with food like
hay in it for animals to eat. Some men called magi came from the east to Bethlehem, having followed a star or possibly
what we call a comet since it moved slowly across the sky. Such stars or comets were rare and people believe dthey meant
a new king or government was about to start. As said, the magi came from the east. Some think they may have
come from what is now called Iran or Persia, perhaps even from what is now China, or a combination of such lands. In any event, the
magi told everyone including evil King Herod, “We have come here to see the new child who will be king and to bring
him gifts.” The word magi does not just mean magicians or astrologers, but men of wisdom who were star-gazers
or those who studied the weather and stars.
These
magi or wise men did get to go on to Bethlehem where they gave gifts for Jesus. Up in the heavens the angels
sang in honor of Jesus’ birthday too. Jesus Christ would grow up later, learning the scriptures
and history of the Jewish people, be pleasing in appearance and very intelligent.
Then one night Joseph had
a dream which he told Mary. “God wants us to flee to safety in Egypt or else angry, jealous King
Herod will kill Jesus!”
So they fled to Egypt and sure enough King Herod sent soldiers
to slay all the newly born children in Bethlehem. Why? It was because he knew prophecies
said that Christ would be born there and he feared competition for his throne.
Eventually the family returned
home, and Jesus was raised at Nazareth, although he sometimes got to go to Jerusalem. For example his family
once took him there then accidentally left him behind in the city. When they returned to search for him,
she found him not only learning from older men in the Temple but even teaching them.
At the time
Jesus told his mother something like, “Of course I was here. Where else would I be? This
is my Father’s house!”
When an adult Jesus often was at Caperneum, a city far north of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Years later as a man he would travel south of there usually in the area around the Sea of Galilee with other people,
both men and women, including a group called his disciples or followers.
Those disciples included fishermen
but also a very well-educated physician or doctor named Luke and a tax collector named Matthew. Being mostly
fishermen, many of the twelve disciples such as Peter had worked together. Jesus taught men, women and children about
the kingdom of God.  When Christ
was baptized by John the Baptizer, God’s Holy Spirit came down upon him from heaven in the form of a dove.
Jesus then went into the desert to fast or not eat anything. Satan came,
by vision showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and said “I will give you all these kingdoms if you will do an act
of worship for me.” But Jesus turned Satan down then returned from out of the desert. His very first
miracle was when he changed water into the best of wine at a wedding feast in Cana.
Large crowds in the thousands often came to hear Jesus.
Sometimes he had to have himself rowed in a boat upon a lake or sea from which his voice could reach them better. At
other times they were so many that he finally had to find a quiet place to go to. When they were hungry he had his disciples
to give him a few fish or loaves of bread which he turned into enough food to feed thousands of listeners.
While on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was able to quiet a storm
and walk upon water, all signs that he truly was the Son of God, the Messiah or savior of Israel and the world. Jesus
Christ also liked to use lots of illustrations meaning words that form a picture or stories. Once he told what is called
the Story of the Good Samaritan.
It
said a man was once wounded and lying on the side of a road. Along came a Jewish temple helper who knew all about the
Law of Moses but this man ignored the wounded man and walked on past him. A Jewish priest did the same thing.
Next came a Samaritan man.
The Samaritans were people who correctly knew and lived by only part of the Law of Moses.
The Samaritan man
stopped and helped the wounded man, so that of the three men, he was the one who acted most commendably like a good neighbor.
This story by Jesus taught an important point because
Jewish priests considered all Samaritans bad people. In fact they called them horrible names like “apostates,”
and yet the story showed that they were wrong to be so negative about those with some incorrect beliefs but a kind heart.
Jesus said to love even your enemies.
The
two main branches of Judaism at the time were called the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Jesus sometimes pointed out the
hypocrisy or phoniness of both groups. For example he said though they became angry when a lame man he had healed “worked”
by carrying a cot or portable bed on the Sabbath, yet members of both groups themselves commonly would lead an ox they had
to get a drink at a well of water on the Sabbath.
Jesus healed and
cured many, many people. He could even heal blind people and sometimes he also brought dead people back to life with
perfect health, minds and bodies.
Such things
infuriated the Sadducees and Pharisees because what he said was true. They claimed Jesus was not only teaching
disobedience to the Law of Moses but trying to make himself equal to God and destroying the entire Jewish faith.
Jesus replied something like “I’m not destroying the Law of Moses but my life and
teachings have fulfilled that law and what Moses taught.” In fact John 10:22 says that in the winter
Jesus, who himself was Jewish and clearly a rabbi or educated spiritual teacher, was at the Temple in Jerusalem during the
Feast of Dedication, also called the Festival of Lights. As said much earlier, this
festival is still celebrated as a Jewish holiday. Most now call it Hannukah. As also said before,
it includes parts of a tree, good food, toys for children, etc very remindful of Christmas. Jesus’
enemies next tried to convince the occupying Romans, led by Pontius Pilate, to crucify him. They
told lies about him. They really wanted this done, scared that although he was kind and loved by the people,
both young and old, they might lose their own influence, power and wealth. They must have
felt that Jesus was a bad influence contrasted to themselves. Why? For one thing they felt like he had
ignored their really harsh, tough ideals for society. For example he had spoken to and taught a Samaritan woman at a
well, and she was a woman who had been with different men. Also Jesus had eaten with people who drank or
ate too much, even though he himself did not eat or drink too much and used such times to teach about God. The night before
being captured by his enemies, Jesus and his twelve disciples had a last supper where he basically told them, “Consume
this wine and bread symbolic of me when you meet in the future. Do that in my memory.”
The disciple Judas Iscariot then slipped away in the dark, and Judas betrayed Jesus by leading soldiers to him at the
Garden of Gethsemane.
Roman soldiers
scourged or lashed Jesus cruelly with a kind of whip and then they crucified him while he was mocked by many people who were
looking on. They mocked that he did not save himself since he said he was the Son of God. However, after
Jesus Christ had been dead three days, later he came back to life for he was seen by many witnesses materializing first as
one body then another, and in different places. After forty days of this Jesus Christ went up into the clouds to
heaven, and his disciples such as John and Peter were inspired to travel about teaching others what he had taught. God’s
Holy Spirit comforted and enabled them to speak other languages and do other marvelous things we call miracles. At first the Christians
were only persons who had been born as Jews, but later many were Gentiles, meaning people not Jews such
as the Romans and Greeks, who also became Christians since God is not partial. The very first Christians
were the Roman army leader Cornelius and his household who were baptized in water by Peter after a short talk.
Later the apostle Paul went out to encourage and help
groups of Christians in different cities around the Mediterranean Sea and other places. For example Paul
visited them in cities called Ephesus, Corinth and Galatia. They met in private homes, and they included
both men and women, which was unusual back at that time. Paul said “men, women, slaves and their
masters are all one in Christ!” For example at Romans 16:1 Paul wrote that Phoebe (Fee-bee) was a minister, deaconness
or servant at Cenchrae (Sihn-kray-ah) who had saved his life. Prisca and her husband Aquila also had a
congregation or church meeting in their home too. Paul sometimes talked to the public at places such as
on Mars Hill in Athens. Legends, not the Bible, say that Peter went on to witness or preach about Christianity
in Babylon before eventually being imprisoned then crucified in Rome. Thomas, who at first doubted Jesus
had been resurrected, went on to Syria, Persia, western India, perhaps once even to China. He was martyred
or killed for his Christian beliefs in India.
The other
disciples went to other lands so that they were called apostles, which means people who are sent forth, and they also died
for witnessing about Christ and Christianity. The Bible notes that they preached that the main hope of
Christians is for resurrection to serve with Christ from heaven, while many Jews then and now have been uncertain that there
will be a resurrection or else they believe it will be on earth. The apostle who wrote the most books of the Bible was Paul.
In those books, which originally were his letters to different groups of Christians around the Mediterranean Sea, he
explained many things. For example during the days of the apostles, the everyday Greek language called Koine
(Koy-nay) was used a lot all over the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea. It was also used in the
New Testament part of the Bible. In Koine the Bible says that the earliest Christians decided who
to appoint as their local group helpers, servants or older elders. It says they did so by stretching out
their hands, meaning raising their hands to vote. Acts 14:23 and 2 Corinthians 8:19 use the Koine word
cheirotoneo (keer-oh-toh-nay-oh) for this.
There was no campaigning
to become a group servant which would have been very divisive or split people against each other. People
decided who was or was not a servant based on if the person had actually been serving or helping them and had a good reputation
in general just as Paul had recommended for example in the Bible at 1 Timothy 3. Also, for example at Romans 14 Paul
said allow fellow Christians great freedom to differ in views on things. This freedom caused much peace
and harmony so that the early Christian faith grew steadily. So the early Christians were different
some but they still had unity about basic beliefs such as the resurrection and God rewarding those who are good.
And, above all things, they had unity by actively showing their love for each other. (Colossians 3:14) At Romans 8:14 Paul
said “all led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.” So they were not divided into different
groups by nation, language, race, sex or class. At Romans 13:1 Paul taught that as much as possible Christians
need to obey authorities such as in government and police. At Colossian 2:16 Paul said “Don’t let others including other
Christians judge us over if they are keeping the Sabbath or other religious festivals or holidays.”
Christians had the right to celebrate or not celebrate such days as their individual conscience said to do. Once at 2 Corinthians
2:6 Paul said to forgive a wrongdoer whom he, Paul, had earlier recommended that they not associate with, noting that the
“majority” (not all) of the Christians at Corinth had gone along with his suggestion, showing that the minority
also had the freedom to go by their consciences on such matters. Paul could order Timothy, a missionary
worker under him, but not other Christians in general, as only Christ is the one overall leader of Christians.
(Mt 23:10)
There was
no campaigning to become a group servant which would have been very divisive or split people against each other.
People decided who was or was not a servant based on if the person had actually been serving or helping them and had
a good reputation in general just as Paul had recommended for example in the Bible at 1 Timothy 3. Also, for example
at Romans 14 Paul said allow fellow Christians great freedom to differ in views on things. This freedom
caused much peace and harmony so that the early Christian faith grew steadily. So the early Christians
were different some but they still had unity about basic beliefs such as the resurrection and God rewarding those who are
good. And, above all things, they had unity by actively showing their love for each other. (Colossians
3:14) At Romans 8:14 Paul said “all led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.”
So they were not divided into different groups by nation, language, race, sex or class. At Romans
13:1 Paul taught that as much as possible Christians need to obey authorities such as in government and police. At Colossian
2:16 Paul said “Don’t let others including other Christians judge us over if they are keeping the Sabbath or other
religious festivals or holidays.” Christians had the right to celebrate or not celebrate such
days as their individual conscience said to do. Once at 2 Corinthians 2:6 Paul said to forgive a wrongdoer whom he, Paul, had earlier
recommended that they not associate with, noting that the “majority” (not all) of the Christians at Corinth had
gone along with his suggestion, showing that the minority also had the freedom to go by their consciences on such matters.
Paul could order Timothy, a missionary worker under him, but not other Christians in general, as only Christ is the
one overall leader of Christians. (Mt 23:10)
Paul wrote
that Christians need to cultivate the good fruits of God’s Spirit. These include love, joy and peace.
(Galatians 5:22) The Christian faith was to promote the kingdom of God and bring the bright light
of happiness to a world otherwise with too much darkness in it. At Ephesians 4:4 Paul noted that there was but “one faith”
for Christians. It’s true they were already in different groups such as the Bereans who read the
scriptures daily, the Corinthians who spoke different regular languages or euphonic, meaning good or interesting-soundings,
languages or tongues, etc. But, as said, they still had unity from basic beliefs and the love they showed.
The only true faith for Christians was and is true Christianity which is all true followers of
Christ, for back in Paul’s time when he said this there were not all the different church groups we see today, only
Christianity in the general, broad sense. Paul said a Christian widow could marry someone "only in the Lord" (1 Corinthians
7:39) which some think means you must never marry a person of different beliefs while others say that as with Joseph, Moses
and Esther, this means usually we should do that but sometimes there are reasonable exceptions. Paul also
wrote at 1 Timothy 4:1-5 that anyone telling Christians they can’t marry is going against God. Paul told the
early Christians that they needed to boast of the cross as a symbol of resurrection winning over death. (Galatians 6:14, 1
Corinthians 1:17-18) They were not to hate it as a repugnant, evil murder weapon but a symbol God transformed
or changed into something really good, the resurrection victory over death.
At 1 Corinthians
6:1 Paul told Christians to only judge "trivial" things as in business, James 2:4-13 called judging other Christians
harmful, and Christ himself had said “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.” (Lu 6:37) James wrote
that there is “only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you
to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12) And he also wrote “Have you not discriminated among yourselves
and become judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2:4) The point was that only God is a perfect judge of how other people are.
We must remember that Christ also accepted imperfect people, greeted and ate with them. He did not like wrongdoing, that is
sin, but he welcomed "sinners," which all but himself have been throughout all of history. Christ didn't
throw them away like a worthless trash, but welcomed, spoke with and comforted them. The last book in the Bible is called
Revelation. Some believe it was written about 90 years after Jesus Christ’s birth by his close friend the apostle
John. It has much symbolism. For example Revelation talks about or reveals information which includes a symbolic vision
with unusual-looking beasts and a dragon. The gist or main point of Revelation was that although Christians face great
tribulation or persecution, as experienced at the time of John mostly at the hands of Roman torturers, God will indeed overcome
all enemies and establish His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
AFTER THE APOSTLES TO NOW
Tradition
says after doing many good deeds and miracles, all the apostles were eventually slain as martyrs, some being crucified.
For example both Paul and Peter died in Rome for the sake of telling others about Christ and his teachings of love.
However, the love the apostles had had from knowing Christ continued.
Many years after all the books of the Christian scriptures
had been written, Christians put them together to form what is now the entire Bible. This helped
the new faith to spread faster from the Middle East in an eastern direction to what are now nations of Europe such as Germany,
France, Spain and then England.
Control
of most of the groups of Christians in the western part of Europe eventually came under control by a man called the Pope in
Rome. The church in the West was called “Catholic” which in Latin means universal or everywhere.
Christians in much of eastern Europe and the Middle East were and are in what is often called the Orthodox Church.  However,
about 1,500 years after Christ, a Catholic priest in Germany named Martin Luther began protesting to reform the church.
This led to the creation of a new church within Christianity called the Lutheran church.
Still other people felt that different reforms were needed, and they began
even more churches as branches in Christianity. All these new non-Catholics began to be called Protestants,
a word which is from the word “protest.” Some new customs
also developed. For example about 400 years after Christ a man named Nicholas became the new bishop in
a town called Myra in what is now Turkey. He thought it was sad to see Christian girls there so poor they
did not have enough money for a dowry, the money needed to get a husband, so that their families sold them as slaves or worse. Nicholas sometimes
got gold from wealthy family members who lived far away. So he put some of the gold coins into bags then
secretly at night went to where the girls had a home and push the bags through the wooden window shutters where they fell
near the chimney so that next morning the girls would go to get clothing they had left to dry there and find his gifts. When Nicholas was
dying people who had seen him leaving the gifts told others what he had done. “We tried to respect
his desire for God to get all credit for the gifts, and now that he’s dying, all of you deserve to know what a good
person he was!” People liked what Nicholas had done. They were so inspired that they also begin
giving gifts. In fact the Catholic church said Nicholas was a saint or holy person, not meaning perfect
but a person who was really good about being a lot like Christ. Many other lands adopted the custom of Saint Nicholas. In
Holland his name was pronounced Sint Nicholaus. When the custom of celebrating Christmas came east from
Europe to North America, the colonists changed the name from Sint Nicholas or Sint ‘claus to Santa Claus.
Some think the
Christmas tree came from Luther, who began the Protestant branch of modern Christianity, but historians now say it began in
plays put on in churches during the Middle Ages. In those plays it was the Tree of Paradise that had been
in the Garden of Eden. Another new custom was originally called All Hallows (Holy Ones or Saints) Evening, the time when Christians
had their children dress up as saints to encourage them to be good and faithful like the saints had been. Much later, Christians
from Ireland added what today are normally harmless pranks. The evening for the saints (All Hallows Evening) is now called Halloween
but some Christians call it Satanic, upset, for example, that some children and adults wear costumes of devils or witches
on the day and may play pranks; even though now, as when Christians began it, some other participants wear costumes of angels
or good people and do not play pranks. Of course, Romans 14 and Colossians 2:16 say there is freedom about Christians observing
or not observing Sabbaths and holidays. Christians can freely decide about such things. Because “joy”
is a fruit of God’s holy spirit (Galatians 5:22), some parents who do not celebrate Halloween have an alternative church-sponsored
party for their children during Halloween. Sometimes they call it a Hallelujah or Praise the Lord party
night
Very few Christians
have ever had any problems about celebrating Easter but those who have objected to it have said they think the bunny rabbits,
baby chickens and eggs that many people buy during Easter began as part of ancient pagan fertility rituals, although actually
the baby animals and eggs began as symbols of new life or the Christian resurrection hope and continue as such. Modern Christians
hold a variety of views on Bible matters. For example most believe “hell” in the Bible refers to a place
of literal fiery torment. Others, mostly Adventists or in groups which developed from Adventists, think hell is symbolic
of having to sleep forever in death. Still others such as Methodists think it is where a person’s soul or
spirit must stay isolated forever from fellowship with God. There are also some different views about even the nature of God.
They are called Trinitarianism, Unitarianism and Modalism. The most traditional, wide-spread view of God is the Trinity
view held by the Roman Catholic church and most Protestant churches. It teaches there are three totally different persons (Father, Son, Holy
Spirit) forming together what Romans 1:20 calls a Godship, Godhead, divine nature or deity. Within that Godship or Trinity
the Son and Holy Spirit share age, power, and knowledge with God the Father as when an acorn may be only a day old but its
genes have the Father oak tree's infinitely longer age, capacity and information. Another way to put it is
there are three that are one in that all are equally holy, that is three in one state of holiness.
The
Unitarian view is that there is no Trinity although there are three different beings. The Modalist view
was promoted for a while during ancient times and began again during the early 1900s starting with many people in the United
Pentecostal church. It is that God the Father has sometimes changed into the Son Jesus Christ or Holy Spirit
and then back to God the Father. 
Catholics like Thomas Aquinas showed great loved for
people and animals, and Mother Theresa helped the poor and dying people in India.
Jane Addams was a Protestant, a Presbyterian often called
saintly. She helped countless poor people, helped found the NAACP for racial fairness, founded the ACLU
to fight for justice, served people harmed by wars, and she tried very hard to bring peace worldwide. David
Zeiberger was a brave Moravian minister who taught Christianity to the Delaware and other nations of Native Americans.
So there have been and still are many
good people who are above all: Christians. Maybe some are as near to you as your own father and mother
who have worked hard to provide food for you and shown you love including when you were sick.
Further, some Christians believe the Kingdom of God is a
literal kingdom that will come to earth, replacing all existing human governments. Others believe the Kingdom
stays in heaven but extends down to earth into the heart and mind of all truly Christ-like persons or Christians; and there
are many views that fit in between such beliefs about it.
Again, as Christ often said, the key is love. Today most Christians will fellowship
with each other although holding different views as they are united by love for others who also deeply love God’s son,
Jesus Christ.
Christ says we know those who are true Christians by how they treat others. Happily such true Christians
have been with us even since the last apostle died and are sometimes called saints or holy ones.
Our Father
in heaven also looks on and loves us. When we are hurt or someone we love dies, let us remember that God
never wanted anyone to suffer or die and His plan is for us to be resurrected and suffer no more. Evils
can come from ignorance, accidents and Satan, but not from our Father who is in heaven and continues to show us love through
the precious ransoming blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.
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