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Showing posts from October, 2018

Learning How to Pray “The Lord’s Prayer”

Thanks to one of Jesus’s disciples, billions of Christians have prayed and still pray a common prayer. It is probably the most widely known prayer in history. Now it came to pass, as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” 1 Below is King James Version of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-12. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I am a senior citizen and this prayer has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. However, it wasn’t until I began my work on the Jewish Jesus that I realized my understanding of this short prayer and what praying it meant were very different from what Jesus actually said and intended

What the "Image of God" Really Means, God’s Parenting Model, Purposes of Life, Exercising Power & much more.

The Sixth Day of Creation is packed with instructions, principles and wisdom most Bible readers are completely unaware of. Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor and Jim Myers discovered the things below, and more, embedded in the Hebrew words of the account of the Sixth Day of Creation in Genesis 1 . ● Humans share an Earthly soul with the animals. ● “The image of God” is a “them” -- not a “him” or a “her. ● God’s model of “parenting.” ● Gender equality in the ancient text. ● “Impulse control” and “self-discipline.” ● God’s model for exercising power. ● Purposes of life. ● Jewish & Christian “images of God” are different. ● Judaism & Christian Religions view history differently. View the discussions between Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor and Jim Myers about the Sixth Day of Creation by clicking on the links below. ● Creation of Animal s   (6:37 minutes) ​ ● Creation of Humans # 1   (6:41 minutes) ​ ● Creation of Humans # 2   (6:31 minutes) ​ ● T

Whose Image of God?

Humans are created “ in the image of God ” is a very important tenet of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity; but their understandings of what “ in the image of God ” means are very different. Since both views are based on the same scripture, we decided to examine the ancient Hebrew text in which the phrase first appears. It is found in the opening account of Genesis (1:1-2:4a), specifically in the events of Day Six. Let’s allow that context to define the ancient meaning of “ in the image of God .” 24 And God said, “Let the Earth cause to bring forth a living soul according to her kind; a large animal (cattle, oxen), small moving creature, and wild predatory beast of the Earth, according to her kind.” And it was so. The first thing God does on the sixth day is command the Earth to bring forth a “ living souls according to her kind .” The Hebrew word NEFESh is the word translated “ soul .” The presence of a soul indicates the presence of life and the soul is the source of

Tracing the histories of our religions -- Judaism and Christianity.

An important goal Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor and Jim Myers shared at the beginning of our journey was discovering how our religions, Rabbinic Judaism and Protestant Christianity , began as two sects of Second Temple Judaism and became two mutually exclusive monotheistic religions . ● Mutually exclusive means a person can belong to one but not both religions. ● Monotheistic means both religions believe that only one God exists. From my (Jim Myers) perspective the primary difference between our religions was that they have very different beliefs about God. From Jeffrey’s perspective beliefs about who God is are less important than doing what the God of his Scriptures instructed and commanded people to do. Below is how scholars describe the differences between our religions. ● Judaism is an “ orthopraxy ” religion, concerned with “ correct ” ( ortho ) “ practice ” ( praxis ) that places the “ fundamental emphasis on the application of God’s instructions, laws and regulati