Forbidden Fruit...

Peeps...

You're seeing a lot of talk lately about political figures having relationships outside of their marriage. For some that claim piety, the defense will always be "gotcha" journalism. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 stated: "there's no new thing under the sun."

Putting David's business out there:

2 Samuel 11:1 NKJV - It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out [to battle], that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 Samuel 11:2 NKJV - Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman [was] very beautiful to behold.
2 Samuel 11:3 NKJV - So David sent and inquired about the woman. And [someone] said, "[Is] this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
2 Samuel 11:4 NKJV - Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
2 Samuel 11:5 NKJV - And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, "I [am] with child."


In the book: "Temptations Men Face: Straightforward Talk on Power, Money, Affairs, Perfectionism, Insensitivity" (Saltshaker Books Saltshaker Books) [Paperback]," Tom Eisenman analyzed verse one of this chapter of Samuel. It was spring and kings were expected to go to war. It could have been that David "just wasn't feeling it," and Eiseman surmised why he wasn't feeling so conquering and kingly:

David had hit the big 4-0.

Granted, he had everything a king in his position could ever want, but his lack of certitude with his manly vigor made him hit on his best friend's wife! Uriah was so devoted to David, he wouldn't sleep with Bathsheba to cover up the affair and pregnancy (as David had tried to arrange). He was "forced" to kill his friend, then the Prophet Nathan stepped in...and jacked him up! (2 Samuel: 1 - 12)

Pysch Central blogs about the "Forbidden Fruit" hypothesis whereby ironically you basically want what you say you don't want. A concluding paragraph in the article (see link) states:

"Put with the existing research literature on this subject, the researchers suggest that when inattention to attractive alternatives is internally motivated, it leads to positive relationship processes. We have to consciously limit — and want to limit — our looking for attractive alternatives outside of our relationship."

Internal motivation:

Job 31:1 NKJV - "I have made a covenant [bĕriyth - alliance, pledge between God and man] with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?
Job 31:2 NKJV - For what [is] the allotment of God from above, And the inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
Job 31:3 NKJV - [Is] it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity?
Job 31:4 NKJV - Does He not see my ways, And count all my steps?
Job 31:5 NKJV - "If I have walked with falsehood, Or if my foot has hastened to deceit,
Job 31:6 NKJV - Let me be weighed on honest scales, That God may know my integrity.
Job 31:7 NKJV - If my step has turned from the way, Or my heart walked after my eyes, Or if any spot adheres to my hands,
Job 31:8 NKJV - [Then] let me sow, and another eat; Yes, let my harvest be rooted out.
Job 31:9 NKJV - "If my heart has been enticed by a woman, Or [if] I have lurked at my neighbor's door,
Job 31:10 NKJV - [Then] let my wife grind for another, And let others bow down over her.
Job 31:11 NKJV - For that [would be] wickedness; Yes, it [would be] iniquity [deserving of] judgment.

Romans 7:21 KJV - I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Romans 7:22 KJV - For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Romans 7:23 KJV - But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Romans 7:24 KJV - O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Romans 7:25 KJV - I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

No New Thing...

Ecclesiastes 1:9 NKJV - That which has been [is] what will be, that which [is] done is what will be done, and [there is] nothing new under the sun.

1 Corinthians 14:34 NKJV - Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but [they are] to be submissive, as the law also says.

The second is a VERY controversial statement, and some denominations have staked their dogma on it. However, there may have been a more PRACTICAL reason Paul wanted the women to go mum. The Greek word we translate to "keep silence" is sigaō literally meaning "hold your peace," i.e. temporary, conditional for the times and the place Paul was trying to plant a church...

The Religion Of Corinth

In Corinth you could find the cults of the gods of Egypt, Rome and Greece. The temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, stood atop the Acrocorinth.

"A famous temple to Aphrodite had stood on the summit of Acrocorinth in the Classical Age... It had fallen into ruins by Paul's time, but successors to its 1,000 cult prostitutes continued to ply their profession in the city below. Many of them were no doubt housed in the lofts above the 33 wine shops uncovered in the modern excavations. Corinth was a city catering to sailors and traveling salesmen. Even by the Classical Age it had earned an unsavory reputation for its libertine atmosphere; to call someone 'a Corinthian lass' was to impugn her morals. It may well be that one of Corinth's attractions for Paul was precisely this reputation of immorality." (The Biblical World In Pictures).

The city was filled with sailors who gladly spent their money there. The name "Corinth" became a synonym for immorality. This temple gave Corinth it's reputation for gross immorality of which Paul often spoke (1 Cor. 6:9-20; 2 Cor. 12:20-21).

"She had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai, to live like a Corinthian, had become a part of the Greek language, and meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery ... Aelian, the late Greek writer, tells us that if ever a Corinthian was shown upon the stage in a Greek play he was shown drunk. The very name Corinth was synonymous with debauchery and there was one source of evil in the city which was known all over the civilized world. Above the isthmus towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple there were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, and in the evenings they descended from the Acropolis and plied their trade upon the streets of Corinth, until it became a Greek proverb, 'It is not every man who can afford a journey to Corinth.' In addition to these cruder sins, there flourished far more recondite vices, which had come in with the traders and the sailors from the ends of the earth, until Corinth became not only a synonym for wealth and luxury, drunkenness and debauchery, but also for filth." (William Barclay, The Letters To The Corinthians, p. 2-3).

Ref: Corinth, Greece in the New Testament

..."[there is] nothing new under the sun"...in Arizona.

"No Future Without Forgiveness"...

Wisdom...

STAY in school; PAY attention; TURN off the cell phones/I-pads/I-pods.

"S/He who solves problems gets PAID!" Bishop Hilliard

Pro 3:13 NKJV - Happy [is] the man [who] finds wisdom, And the man [who] gains understanding;
Pro 3:14 NKJV - For her proceeds [are] better than the profits of silver, And her gain than fine gold.
Pro 3:15 NKJV - She [is] more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
Pro 3:16 NKJV - Length of days [is] in her right hand, In her left hand riches and honor.

Grandma's Got it Good...

I declare to you: YOU can have it better!

The country added zero jobs in the month of August. For some, that's a call to panic, point fingers, place blame.

Yo...it's been worse:

2Ki 6:25 NKJV - And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey's head was [sold] for eighty [shekels] of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings (ahem: bird doo-doo) for five [shekels] of silver.
2Ki 6:26 NKJV - Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, "Help, my lord, O king!"
2Ki 6:27 NKJV - And he said, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?"
2Ki 6:28 NKJV - Then the king said to her, "What is troubling you?" And she answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'
2Ki 6:29 NKJV - "So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."
2Ki 6:30 NKJV - Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath [he had] sackcloth on his body.
2Ki 6:31 NKJV - Then he said, "God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!"
2Ki 6:32 NKJV - But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And [the king] sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. [Is] not the sound of his master's feet behind him?"
2Ki 6:33 NKJV - And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then [the king] said, "Surely this calamity [is] from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"

2Ki 7:1 NKJV - Then Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD: 'Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour [shall be sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.' "
2Ki 7:2 NKJV - So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, "Look, [if] the LORD would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?" And he said, "In fact, you shall see [it] with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it."
2Ki 7:3 NKJV - Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, "Why are we sitting here until we die?
2Ki 7:4 NKJV - "If we say, 'We will enter the city,' the famine [is] in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die."
2Ki 7:5 NKJV - And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one [was] there.
2Ki 7:6 NKJV - For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses--the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!"
2Ki 7:7 NKJV - Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact--their tents, their horses, and their donkeys--and they fled for their lives.
2Ki 7:8 NKJV - And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid [them]; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried [some] from there [also], and went and hid [it].
2Ki 7:9 NKJV - Then they said to one another, "We are not doing right. This day [is] a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household."
2Ki 7:10 NKJV - So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, "We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one [was] there, not a human sound--only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact."
2Ki 7:11 NKJV - And the gatekeepers called out, and they told [it] to the king's household inside.
2Ki 7:12 NKJV - So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, "Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we [are] hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, 'When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.' "
2Ki 7:13 NKJV - And one of his servants answered and said, "Please, let several [men] take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they [may either become] like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it; or indeed, [I say], they [may become] like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed; so let us send them and see."
2Ki 7:14 NKJV - Therefore they took two chariots with horses; and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, "Go and see."
2Ki 7:15 NKJV - And they went after them to the Jordan; and indeed all the road [was] full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king.
2Ki 7:16 NKJV - Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was [sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
2Ki 7:17 NKJV - Now the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.

So, let's recap:

1. There was a famine in the land: an economic downturn, so bad people started eating and valuing bird poop and canabalizing their own children!
2. The Man of God spoke the Word and circumstances changed dramatically!
3. The scoffer of the Man of God not only ended up not taking part of this bonanza: he was killed by the hungry in a stampede!

If you've got 10 dollars, tithe one.
If you've got 100 dollars, tithe ten.
HEAR the Word from your Man or Woman of God and believe it!

1Pe 2:9 NKJV - But you [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
1Pe 2:10 NKJV - who once [were] not a people but [are] now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.


Grandma (and Grandpa) may have it good right now...you can have it better!