Snapshots and Synapses

How should we pray? Before answering that, I believe we should ask ourselves why are we asking? Do we want to know the best format or the best formula for prayer? Or maybe we desire to make our prayers more powerful. Perhaps we want to know why some people's prayers are answered but ours are not.  Some people may quickly respond: we should say the Lord's Prayer! Once Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he stopped praying, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.” Jesus told them, “When you pray, say this: Father, let your name be kept holy. Let your kingdom come. Give us our bread day by day. Forgive us as we forgive everyone else. Don’t allow us to be tempted.” Luke 11:1-4  But some people looking for just the right formula may question this. Should we say the Lord's Prayer like we do in church or like Luke showed us in the passage above? Or should we follow the pattern in Matthew below? “When you pray, don’t be like hy...

This may be my blog, but the majority of this content I didn’t write. I wrote the prompt (see end of article) and queried 3 commonly available Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines. So this is not my analysis, but a compilation of AI’s threat to humanity from the perspective of M365 CoPilot, X/Twitter Grok, and Google Gemini. This is much longer than my typical post.  Because AI can often say things authoritatively yet incorrect, I've provided an  Author's Note where appropriate.

The United States of America had obviously not been formed when the Bible was authored, so “USA” and “America” are not words you’ll find in the Bible. However, that doesn’t mean that Bible prophecy is missing key points or that the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about the United States of America. It does mean that if there are one or more prophecies about America in the Bible, the prophecy will not clearly name the US. I have written before about America in the Bible. When I wrote America in the End Times ( Part 1 and Part 2 ) in 2021, I was concerned about the growing division in America. I also referenced Isaiah’s prophecy against Ethiopia (Isaiah 18). At the time I recall thinking of Ethiopia as a country, but believing Isaiah’s prophecy was about America because it referred to an unnamed country beyond the borders of Ethiopia. I have since realized that “Ethiopia” is the English translation for “Cush”, and that Cush refers to the land occupied by the descendants of Cush, whic...

“Why God?” is a cry people often make when they question why God allowed something to happen, but that is not what this short discourse is about. It’s actually more foundational, and while I’m not planning to prove anything, I am going to briefly describe why it’s logical to believe in God. While belief in God requires faith, it is not blind faith. There are multiple “logical” arguments that provide a rationale for belief in God and one practical decision matrix that even a child could understand. (I was that child!) Gr. Logos - word, discourse, reason  I don’t think it coincidence that Jesus was described by his close friend John as Logos. See John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word [gr. Logos], and the Word [gr. Logos] was with God, and the Word [gr. Logos] was fully God. These logical arguments for the existence of God are briefly described below. Cosmological Argument Gr. Cosmos - the order of the world or universe  aka Unmoved Mover or Prime Mover; the concept that cause...

I was asked a question: “Do you think Adam and Eve’s decisions to keep the commandments before perceiving  good and evil had the same value as after?” It’s an interesting question, but before it can be answered, we need to look at it more closely. Value is based on perception. In economic terms, the value of anything is based on its perceived worth. We don’t buy something for $500 that we believe is only worth $5.  So the question is inherently complicated by my follow-on question: “Who evaluates the worth?” From one person’s perspective, there may be more value in obeying when we know what we’re giving up, when we perceive something good that we won’t get by following God’s commandments.  In other words, we think we know what is good because we have decided it is good, and we can often label something “good” that is in reality a temporary and deceitful pleasure that is ultimately bad for us. For example, when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit they thought it would be good ...

 My highest value is Truth & Love. It's not my highest two values; it is my highest value because I don't believe the two can be separated. A partial truth is the most powerful lie. The gap in the full truth leaves an opening for so many different, wrong understandings, but the full truth cannot be separate from love.  Sadly, as John 1 points out, men prefer darkness to light; mankind prefers the lie or half truth to the full truth that can set us free. The full truth can't be spoken without love. Christians are commanded to speak the truth in love, but sadly, we can sometimes only speak the half-truth, focused on sinful behavior without love for the person caught in that sin. When we do that, it comes out as an accusation rather than an affirmation, and in the process we resemble the Accuser of Men (a.k.a. - Satan) rather than the One True God, Whose image we bear as ambassadors to this world.  When we sin, the Accuser speaks half-truths about who we are and what we ...