Delightful Light

When little children are mistreated, they have no understanding to help them process the sin perpetrated against them. The result is thinking like a child and growing up having to put away childish things. When I was about seven or eight years of age I still believed in Santa Clause. I was so adamant that the tubby red suited dude existed that I got into an argument with my older sister and younger brother about it. My sister dragged me by the arm to my parent's bedroom where she opened the closet door to reveal all the wrapped gifts that year. I stood there so stunned. Tears began to roll down my cheek. My parents had actually lied to me. The same Mom, who not three years earlier yelled and yelled at me for lying had herself been lying to me all these years. My world was literally shattered that day as I told myself, "I cannot trust my parents." The pain of it so deep I drowned the pain with repression. I spent the rest of their lives refusing to believe...

Before January 30, 2004: When I was in grade school, all my reading and writing skills were below par. The highest score I ever achieved was a B in English and only because I did a lot of extra credit work that used grammatical formulas. I never liked reading because I was made fun of by other students. Teachers, on occasion, publicly laughed at my reading failures. My reading was always slow and so was my comprehension.  My writing skills were no better. It was so bad that I had to take remedial writing classes before I was allowed to enter community college, but every class requiring writing produced the same struggle until I just simply gave up on college altogether. It was during my college struggles that I was diagnosed with a form of dyslexia that inserted incorrect words into my brain that caused the material to become confusing when I read or when I wrote. For example: I would read "hat" and the actual printed word was "cat" or I would w...

Judge for yourselves what is right, to obey God or man's rules, Acts 4:19 . Making rules of etiquette and justifying those rules with good intentions does not prevent wrong doing of any kind. Instead, it merely displaces where the wrong is done. Rules of etiquette or today's traditions of the elders added to the scriptures actually nullify God's words the same way they did in the past. But rules of etiquette also set up the scenario for people in authority to lord those rules over others, Matthew 20:25 , Mark 10:42 , Luke 22:25 .  God's words are violated no matter the justification for rules of etiquette. Thus, rules of etiquette actually bind burdens upon people's shoulders and do nothing to help those people be set free from the chains that enslave them to burdens, Matthew 23:2-5 . In other words, people behave the way they do because of their chains. Adding rules of etiquette to those chains does nothing to remove the chains and set them free....

The Curse   Jesus used human body parts to represent individual members within the Body of Christ as a whole as He spoke in parables. The "Beatitudes" within the gospels will yield ample examples of this. The apostle Paul gave us further understanding of body part analogy here: For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body. And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? Bu...

The Subtraction Ideally, in the perfect garden of Eden, there were no quarrels between any combination of men and women. There would not have been any quarrels even if Eve had raised children prior to the fall. Had it existed, this would have been a perfect example of unified authority that does not exalt itself over a brother as demonstrated by the apostles in 1 Thessalonians 2:6 . There would have been no exercise of authority over any human as they would have been one and equally authoritative over the rest of the earth while spread apart as commanded. Regardless of this originally intended equality, the fall happened and Jesus commanded even men to do what the religious leaders said: Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. ...

God's Original Design Now, look at 1 Timothy 2:12  again more carefully. If God allows women to teach men, there will be examples of such in the Holy Bible. We know that God's original design for women was to rule equally with men over the earth. We also know God allows women to teach men. Here are a few examples sanctioned by God of women teaching men. Genesis 38  - a woman teaches one of the 12 patriarchs about righteousness Joshua 2-6  - a woman teaches all of Israel about great faith Judges 4-5  - a woman judges men Esther - a woman teaches a king about the character of his trusted friend Luke 2:36  - a woman prophesies her lessons over men for 60 c. years Luke 7:36-50  - a female sinner is used to rebuke religious leaders Even the book of Proverbs is an example of a woman teaching men. Within Proverbs, wisdom is portrayed female. Could it be that in the same way Eve was the female portion of A...

So far we have explored various ways through time God's words have been nullified by additions to and subtractions from God's words via rules of etiquette or the traditions of men. Now let's test the Apostle Paul's words to see if the cause of sin as defined by Moses is indeed a snare to even an Apostle. It is important to remember here that the idea of adding and subtracting to God’s words did not come from Moses. Rather, nullifying God's words was witnessed by, then understood by, then communicated by Moses. The evil of nullifying God's words existed at the very fall in Genesis 3 . It did not start like the laws of marriage at the beginning of creation. With this in mind, t he apostle Paul justifies his command in Timothy 2:12-15 by two things: But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being dece...

No Loud Worship Finally, how do rules against loud worship and prayer that distract others from seeking God violate God's words? This may seam like a trick question because we are to consider others before ourselves and not cause weaker members to stumble. However, we are to consider God before we consider others. And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE Lord YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment . Matthew 22:37-38 Any rule for any reason that gives any precedence to any created thing rather than to God will automatically nullify the great and foremost commandment through idolatry. Loud worship is commanded in the Bible in many places. Just look up the word "shout" in any concordance and this command becomes apparent very quickly. David's tabernacle was filled with 4000 musicians praising the Lord, 1 Chronicles 23:5 . 4000 divided by 168 ...

No Laptops in the 1st Four rows You may ask, "How does the rule 'no laptops in the first four rows' nullify Gods commands? Since, three valid justifications for this rule can be presented, the answer will present three potential means by which God's words would be nullified by rules of etiquette.    A. Prevent inappropriate material broadcasted inadvertently: If inappropriate material is inadvertently broadcast, why is Matthew 18:15-19  not applied against the individual viewing such material on his laptop in the first place? Why is the fact that person is using their laptop to view such material not brought before the entire body to cut that person off in accordance with Jesus' command? Did Jesus not define love as keeping his commands, John 14:15 , 21  even when His commands seem to us to be harsh? Is the fear of man a snare to the leadership, Proverbs 29:25 ? Or is it that "kindness" or "gentleness" are used to justify...