Free Republic

Jews world over have built their sukkot, chosen their "4 species", and are ready to fulfill the Bible's command to rejoice on this festival. Sunday evening at sundown is the start of the holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles), one of the three major festivals (shlosha regalim) of the Jewish calendar in which, in Temple days, the Jewish People were enjoined to "go up to Jerusalem." Sukkot, coming immediately after the solemn month of Elul and the High Holydays, is the holiday on which the Bible encourages all of us to "be wholly happy". In recognition of that joy, the entire Halled...

ANOTHER REQUEST FOR OUR NATION Father, GOD, Creator, Yahweh, Jehovah Jireh, I pray that YOU will hear us as many of us lift our hearts to YOU, There are still many of us who are trying to do right by YOU. We know you are the true and just and only GOD. YOU started watching over us so many centuries ago; even before we were aware of how wonderful YOU a re. Many of us understand that what we deem “bad” things may be happening soon: so let me now Bless you because You are You. You Spoke and light...

Tintoretto’s painting of the ascetic and acerbic St Jerome Jerome (c 347-420), the greatest scholar among the Church Fathers, made the Latin translation of the Bible which became known as the Vulgate.He was, however, a contentious individual, with a penchant for sarcasm which readily created enemies. “If he will only conceal his nose and hold his tongue,” he wrote of one opponent, “he might yet be taken as handsome and learned.”Jerome was born at Stridon, near Ljubljana in modern Slovenia. He was not baptised until he went to study in Rome as a teenager.His early propensity for idleness and amusement...

“The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place". (Daniel 11:36) “At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood.” (Daniel 11:40) Three separate...

Isaiah 41:10 Fear not, for I am with You. Do not be Dismayed; I am Your God. I will Strengthen you; I will Help you; I will Uphold you with My Victorious Right Hand.

The tittle may sound a little strange, but that's how I want you to view faith. Not just something cute that you keep in your heart, but a force. A force is defined as- Capacity to do work or cause physical change; strength; power. I like that, cause physical change. Let me tell you where I got the tittle, I was watching television one day and I happened to come upon a compass. So, I picked it up and started to move around the room with it and as I moved that compass moved. And the Holy Spirit quickened my...

Editor's Note: This is part two in a three-part series that will feature both sides of the debate on the Bible and homosexuality. The series launched with an interview with Matthew Vines. This second story features responses from evangelical theologians. Ending the series will be guest contributions from Christians who have chosen not to engage in homosexuality and those who don't believe a gay lifestyle conflicts with the Bible. "Being gay is not a sin" is the mantra that one young Harvard student is trying to promulgate. But while Matthew Vines has attracted a growing following with what some are...

Pray For the Salvation of America My fellow Freepers, It is a very serious time in our nation's history and our future looks very uncertain and every day the news is full of stories that cause us to fear as it looks like we are teetering towards the edge of a cliff. It is quite obvious to even the casual observer that our great country is under a tremendous spiritual assault by the forces of darkness and hell that is causing great distress to many across this land and in other free nations. This is largely our own fault as...

…SILVERADO, Calif. – On the morning Grant Desme ceased to exist, he was at peace. He spent years searching for serenity, convinced it was coming soon, next, now. It never did. Life was a blaring stereo, and he had become numb to its noise. The sound finally abated when he arrived here. He believed God muted it. So on Christmas Eve two years ago he and seven other men marched into the church at St. Michael's Abbey and readied for a transition the church considered spiritual death. Grant Desme would go by another name. His plainclothes would become a head-to-toe...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Jerusalem In The Scriptures Artaxerxes Sends Nehemiah to Jerusalem 1. In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, 2. so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.” I was very much afraid, 3. but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my...

The Assigning of the Call "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . ." —Colossians 1:24 We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant,...

September 30, 2012   Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Nm 11:25-29 The LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses.Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses,the LORD bestowed it on the seventy elders;and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied. Now two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad,were not in the gathering but had been left in the camp.They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent;yet the spirit came to rest on them also,and they prophesied in the camp.So, when a...

The Prime Minister of Turkey and other non-thinkers want us to believe that hatred of Jews for being Jews is equivalent to criticizing a group for what they believe, teach, and practice! Someone has some screws loose. They tell us the UN effort to “Ban criticism of Muslims worldwide” is a civil rights issue. No, it is a “Protect-Islam-at-all-costs-since-Islam- can’t-be-defended-rationally” issue. It is pointed out that Pakistan and other nations have laws about speaking ill of the “prophet” or the Koran. Oh, yes, Pakistan is a great example for us! Like honor killings of daughters if they are raped! Or...

Muslim leaders were in unison at the United Nations this week arguing that the West was hiding behind its defense of freedom of speech and ignoring cultural sensitivities in the aftermath of anti-Islam slurs that have raised fears of a widening East-West cultural divide. A video made in California depicting the Prophet Mohammad as a fool sparked the storming of U.S. and other Western embassies in many Islamic countries and a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan this month. The crisis deepened when a French magazine published caricatures of the Prophet. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was time to...

What the Schneck? A Catholic University scholar’s data-free theory on Romney and abortion:Professor Stephen Schneck is a conundrum. He’s a Catholic who works for the Catholic University of America (CUA). But he’s involved with the group Catholics for Obama—despite the church hierarchy’s view that the president is attacking the religious freedom of Catholics. He’s pro-life. But he supports Democratic politicians universally—even though the party has become manifestly hostile to pro-lifers. Schneck’s most puzzling contradiction is this: He claims that while Democrats support abortion rights, it’s really Republicans who cause abortions. Schneck is very specific about it. He has numbers. At...

Forty years ago, long before the recent afternoon when Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky knelt at the warped feet of his 4-year-old patient, he was a small-town teenager approaching his Catholic confirmation and needing to select a patron saint. He made an unlikely choice, a newly canonized figure, St. Martin de Porres, the illegitimate child of a former black slave in 16th-century Peru. Back then, in the early 1970s, as the child of a factory worker and a homemaker, Joseph had no aspiration toward medicine. Nor did he know that Martin de Porres had been elevated to sainthood in part because of...

Until recently traditional Muslims and Salafists lived harmoniously side-by-side in Tatarstan. No longerFOR years Tatarstan was held up as a model of stability and tranquillity as the Muslim-majority republics of the Russian north Caucasus became embroiled in a separatist conflict that spawned a still-continuing civil war along religious lines. More than half of Tatarstan’s 4m people are Sunni Muslims who have long enjoyed friendly relations with the rest of Russia. Kazan, the regional capital on the Volga river 450 miles (724km) east of Moscow, is a prosperous and attractive city. That sense of calm has changed since July, when assassins...

As today is the Feast of of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels, here is a popular post years I am "recycling" for those who missed it before. It is an excerpt from Angels (and Demons): What Do We Really About Them? (Ignatius Press; 2004, sixth printing) by Peter Kreeft:The Twelve Most Important Things to Know About Them 1. They really exist. Not just in our minds, or our myths, or our symbols, or our culture. They are as real as your dog, or your sister, or electricity. 2. They’re present, right here, right now, right next to you, reading...

Christian activists are demanding Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. drop its lawsuit opposing the Health and Human Services “preventive services” mandate. The Rev. Lance Schmitz, pastor of the Capitol Hill Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, Okla., was turned away from Hobby Lobby's headquarters Thursday when he attempted to deliver a petition. “I thought they'd let me drop off the package,” Schmitz said. “I thought a Christian business would be interested in hearing from a pastor with a petition signed by thousands of people of faith. I guess Hobby Lobby is more interested in using their faith to score political...

O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, you saints of his; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:3-5)