jesusFor what it's worth I thought I should note today, Easter Sunday, that last week, (3/30), the History Channel  did a special called, "The Real Face of Jesus?"   The special  centered on a computer arts re-creation of the face of Jesus Christ, made using the Shroud of Turin as a guide.

The Shroud of Turin is a blood-stained linen cloth that many of the faithful believe was the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, but questions on the shroud's authenticity have been raised for centuries. The team featured on History Channel's documentary state that they have no doubt the Shroud is real.

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Today is Good Friday, one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar. The holiest of holy days of course is Easter Sunday, the Day of the Resurrection. Although, the Bible tells us that Mother Mary was present at both events, and there are many works of art, descriptions in literature and illustrations in sculpture and paintings showing her at the cross and at the entombment, remembrance of the The Virgin Mary is more associated with the Christmas season and with Christ's Birth than with the  Easter season and His Death and the Resurrection.   Well, Mother Mary  did play a major role during the first event and a secondary one during the latter. Any how, today,  CBS News has a video titled, "Virgin Mary Image In A Bathroom.". It is a video of a  New Mexico homeowner, whom says that she  could not believe her own eyes, when she noticed a holy image of the Virgin Mary  in the marble above her bathtub. The video is posted below.

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It has been said that as much as the Jewish people have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jewish people and never perhaps is this truer that in modern times because as much as there is a spiritual and scriptural significance to this statement, it also speaks volumes about the human condition and the need for the centrality of the Sabbath in our lives. While some may see this sacred time as out dated or non-essential for modern times, nothing could be further from the truth and in fact it is in these times, perhaps greater than ever before, that the Sabbath is needed the most.

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Imagine living in a town where the government, not you, decides what you can and not do in your own home and chooses to ban Bible studies in the home. What kind of society could possibly dictate to others what they can study or whom they can fellowship with in their own homes? It makes you glad that you live in a nation that values and guarantees the Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, and the Right of Privacy, right? The problem is that this did not occur in some backwoods dictatorship half way across the globe, but right here in the good ol' US of A.

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I noticed an online acquaintance the other day becoming extremely agitated that someone had referred to Christmas using the colloquialism Xmas. She felt that this was insulting, and offensive in the extreme. What she didn't realize was that Xmas as a shortened form for Christmas has a venerable, and solidly Christian, history.

The word Christmas is a compound of Christ + mass; we see it first in Old English in the form Cristes mæsse in 1038, according to the OED. The Old English form eventually evolved to the Middle English Christemasse. The word Christ is derived from the Greek word Christos, meaning "anointed," a literal translation of the Hebrew cognate of messiah.

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Tibetan Prayer WheelIn Col. 2:20-23, Paul rejects a modern trend that emerged in the 60's.  Not the 1960's.  The 60's.  :- )  This trend was towards a "voluntary will-worship" that, said Paul, gained no favor from its Target.

The Greek word thelothreskia -- will-worship -- comes from two Greek words.

The second, threskia, was the word they used for ceremony.  If your sister is getting married Saturday, then very likely she'll be at a rehearsal on Friday night.  Rehearsing what?  Rehearsing the threskia.  The formal sequence of acts that is performed as a ritual towards the function of marriage.  In religion, threskias are the worship sequences.

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.Hebrews 2:1-3 tells Christians that they have received a "great salvation." 

What is "great" about your salvation?  Dylan and Jack sit and read Heb. 2:1-3 and smile ... "Yep, it's a great salvation.  I went to a great movie yesterday.  I have a great Persian kitty at home.  I have a great stereo in the car, and a great salvation into the bargain."

Nope.  Actually, "great" in this sense comes from a Greek word, telekautes, that means colossal.  Mighty.  Heavy. 

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What does Frodo have in common with Christ?In Acts 18, the preacher Apollos is described as "an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures," who "mightily convinced the Jews publicly" that Jesus was Christ. 

In this context, "eloquent" describes a man well-educated, reinforcing his arguments with many appeals to logic and to outside authorities.  Whether the Book of Hebrews was written by Apollos or not, it is a blow-for-blow example of the kind of ultra-sophistication that Luke ran into, in Acts 18:24-28.

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In Hebrews 3, the inspired writer points out that with all of the other things that Jesus accomplished, He was also the greatest Apostle of all time:

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We spend a lot of time thinking about life and the nature of being, as humans. Perhaps it's simply a byproduct of being sentient animals, perhaps—as the more spiritual among us would insist—that level of introspection is a mark that we are indeed God's deliberate creation, superior to and different than other What if the Big Bang didn't create life at all, but rather, life created the Big Bang?animals.

A thought-provoking recent article on msnbc.com abridges and presents part of a new book, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by two leading scientists: biologist Robert Lanza, M.D., and astronomer Bob Berman.

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Now that we have taken a look at whether or not Christians should watch mainstream television (see Should Christians Watch Television? Part 1: Mainstream Programming) we will now consider another important question:what about “Family” or Christian programming?

There are two issues to consider here, first of all just because something is labeled as “Family” programming does not mean that it really is espousing wholesome, Christian family values. Consider for example “The Great Mouse Detective” which was pushed as a family movie for little kids; however has a bar scene in it with alcohol, smoking, and a stripper on stage singing her pitch as a prostitute and also includes political assassination plots and an elaborate attempted murder scene among other things. Not exactly what we would consider “kid friendly” to despite how it was labeled.

Now, as far as actual Christian programming or what would otherwise be considered “safe” shows.

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