I wonder how Sabbatarians apply these today.

Do not go out of your place
Exo. 16:29- "Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out"

Do not bake or boil
Exo. 16:23- "Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning."

Do not do any work
Exo. 20:10- "but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates."

Do not build a fire
Exo. 35:3- " Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day."

Do not carry a load
Jer. 17:27- "But if you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day"

Do not buy or sell
Neh. 10:31- "When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day"

Amos 8:5- "When will the New Moon be over
    that we may sell grain,
  and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market wheat?"

Do not do you own pleasure (Isa. 58:13-14)

81-year old blogger: Donn Arms explains why Jay Adams (born Jan. 30, 1929) is blogging

"... while he is enjoying a degree of good health he is not able to travel far from the 'Adams compound' in rural Spartanburg county in South Carolina. We are thankful that today’s technology enables him to continue to have a wide ministry.

The psalmist wrote:

    The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age, they shall be full of sap and very green.
                                                                        Psalm 92:12-14

I believe you will find, as you read Dr. Adams’ blog, that he is still ”full of sap and very green!” (-Donn Arms, read the whole thing here)

Jonathan Sarfati: A Christian view of natural laws

 on the allegation made by Scientific American that creationism is religion, not science.

Genesis 1:28 gives us permission to investigate creation, unlike say animism or pantheism that teach that the creation itself is divine. And since God is sovereign, He was free to create as He pleased. So where the Bible is silent, the only way to find out how His creation works is to experiment, not rely on man-made philosophies as did the ancient Greeks.

These founding scientists, like modern creationists, regarded ‘natural laws’ as descriptions of the way God upholds His creation in a regular and repeatable way (Col. 1:15–17), while miracles are God's way of upholding His creation in a special way for special reasons. Because creation finished at the end of day 6 (Gen. 2:1–3), creationists following the Bible would expect that God has since mostly worked through ‘natural laws’ except where He has revealed in the Bible that He used a miracle. And since ‘natural laws’ are descriptive, they cannot prescribe what cannot happen, so they cannot rule out miracles. Scientific laws do not cause or forbid anything any more than the outline of a map causes the shape of the coastline.

Because creation finished at the end of day 6, biblical creationists would try to find natural laws for every aspect of operation science, and would not invoke a miracle to explain any repeating event in nature in the present, despite Scientific American's scare tactics. This can be shown in a letter I wrote to an inquirer who believed that atoms had to be held together by miraculous means:

‘Natural laws’ also help us make predictions about future events. In the case of the atom, the explanation of the electrons staying in their orbitals is the positive electric charge and large mass of the nucleus. This enables us to make predictions about how strongly a particular electron is held by a particular atom, for example, making the science of chemistry possible. While this is certainly an example of Colossians 1:17, simply saying ‘God upholds the electron’ doesn't help us make predictions.

And in my days as a university teaching assistant before joining CMI, I marked an examination answer wrong because it said ‘God made it so’ for a question about the frequency of infrared spectral lines, instead of discussing atomic masses and force constants.

So, Scientific American is wrong to imply that creationists are in any way hindered in real operational scientific research, either in theory or in practice.

Jonathan Sarfati

chapter 1, Refuting Evolution 2

Now online here

Roman Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin explains how the "Infallible" church handles Scripture

"Well there's not a single Catholic understanding of almost any passage in the Bible. The Church does not have an official commentary on either the Old or the New Testament. There are certain verses that the Church has said that they mean 'at least this much' but that's not to exclude other interpretations that may be there in addition. I can give you an interpretation of this that is catholic but I can't give you an official one." (Jimmy Akin, transcribed from James Swan's Xanga Audio Page)

Ang Nakaraang Sampung Araw sa Tinubos Blog

September 1-10, 2011

Sep. 3
Soundtrip Saturday (09-03-2011) Click HERE

Sep. 4
Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver Click HERE

Sep. 6
Things that Have Not Changed Before and After the Flood Click HERE

Sep. 9
Earth's City Lights Click HERE

Sep.10
Soundtrip Saturday (09-10-2011) Click HERE

Pang-elitista lang daw ang bibliya: Henry Knighton explains why the Roman Catholic Church hates John Wycliffe

"Wycliffe translated the gospel, which Christ had entrusted to clerics and doctors of the church, so that they might administer it conveniently to the laity, and to lesser people according to the needs of the time... Wycliffe translated it from Latin into English-- not the angelic-- language. As a result, what was previously known only by learned clerics and those of good understanding had become common, and available to the laity- in fact, even to women who can read. As a result, the pearls of the gospel have been scattered and spread before swine."

Henry Knighton

cited in "In the Beginning..." (Alister McGrath)

D.A. Carson: Submission to the Government in the 21st Century (Romans 13:1-2)

The application of some themes and subjects must be handled with special care, not only because of their intrinsic complexity, but also because of essential shifts in social structures between Biblical times and our own day.

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves" (Rom 13:1-2). Some Christians have reasoned from this passage that we must always submit to the governing authorities, except in matters of conscience before God (Acts 4:19). Even then, we "submit" to the authorities by patiently bearing the sanctions they impose on us in this fallen world. Other Christians have reasoned from this passage that since Paul goes on to say that the purpose of rulers is to uphold justice (Rom 13:3-4), then if rulers are no longer up- holding justice, the time may come when righteous people should oppose them, and even, if necessary, overthrow them. The issues are exceedingly complex, and were thought through in some detail by the Reformers.

But there is of course a new wrinkle added to the fabric of debate when one moves from a totalitarian regime, or from an oligarchy, or from a view of government bound up with an inherited monarchy, to some form of democracy. This is not to elevate democracy to heights it must not occupy. It is to say, rather, that in theory at least, a democracy allows you to "overthrow" a government without violence or bloodshed. And if the causes of justice cannot do so, it is because the country as a whole has slid into a miasma that lacks the will, courage, and vision to do what it has the power to do. What, precisely, are the Christian's responsibilities in that case (whatever your view of the meaning of Romans 13 in its own context)?

In other words, new social structures beyond anything Paul could have imagined, though they cannot overturn what he said, may force us to see that the valid application demands that we bring into the discussion some considerations he could not have foreseen. It is a great comfort, and epistemologically important, to remember that God did foresee them but that does not itself reduce the hermeneutical responsibilities we have.

D.A. Carson

Must I Learn How to Interpret the Bible?

Modern Reformation

May/June Vol. 5 No. 3 1996 Pages 18-22

Robert Stein: Literacy rate in biblical times

William Harris- 5-10% (Ancient Literacy)
Catherine Hezser- 10-15% (Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine)
Harry Gamble- 15-20% (Books and Readers in the Early Church)

Col. 4:16; 1 Thess.5:27; Rev.1:3; 22:18; 1 Tim. 4:13; Acts 15:21,31; Luke 4:16-21

"These, and the other letters of the New Testament, were meant to be read aloud. If, as I assume, Paul was a careful writer, he would therefore have penned these letters more for his readers' ears than for their eyes"

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"... the New Testament writers anticipated that the members of this corporate audience would not have individual copies of their works before them, but that someone would read aloud what they have written... The main sense involved was not their eyes but their ears, and the experience was not a visual one but an auditory one.

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"... the person who brought  the gospel to them... knew the context of the work and may very well have practiced reading the goepel aloud before he read it publicly..."

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"In this respect it is probable that the bearers of Pual's various letters brought with them, not only the letters themselves, but an understanding of the content of those letters from the Apostle. Thus such messengers would have been able to provide a "commentary" and answer questions that the hearers might have had."

Robert Stein

Is Our Reading the Bible the Same As the Original Audience's Hearing It?

- A Case Study in the Gospel of Mark

 Journal of Evangelical Theological Society (March 2003)

William Mounce: Extra-biblical sources in word studies

"When you are limited in the number of occurrences for a word, you have to go to secular literature; just be sure you stay within 100 years or so of the biblical time period. Words can change their meaning quickly."

William Mounce

Are We God's Poem (Eph.2:10)

William Mounce: Quoting Greek words in a sermon

" It is one thing to quote a Greek word in a sermon, a practice I do not condone since it rarely adds to the meaning of the text and so often seems to be an arrogant (or ignorant) elevation of the preacher over the laity"

William Mounce

Are We God's Poem (Eph.2:10)