Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 77
October 14, 2022
Join us with St. Paul and follow him on this St. Paul Timeline
This is a timeline I made for St. Paul, of his travels and his writings. We used it for the Bible studies I was teaching at the time. You can download it for free here.
Today we are in Athens and embarking on our cruise ship to follow St. Paul — visiting 10 biblical sites. Enjoy the timeline!
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St Paul Cruise 1: Arrivals!
We couldn’t have asked for a better first day. Great weather, no lost people, no lost luggage, and even though we had to take a Covid test, we had 90 people test negative. So we are all on board the ship tomorrow — after a tour of ancient Athens
Everyone is tired but full of joy and excited. Lovely dinner and opening Mass and everyone got to bed for a good good night’s sleep here at the Novotel in Athens overlooking the Acropolis and the Parthenon, which has stood there for 2400 years.
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October 13, 2022
Castration for Boys, Hysterectomies for Girls without Parental Consent
DISTURBING SMALL PRINT IN MICHIGAN’S PROP 3
Proposal 3, a pro-abortion ballot measure in Michigan, would empower Planned Parenthood facilities in the state to give children “gender transition” drugs without parental consent.
Few Michigan voters are likely aware of it, but if they vote to pass Prop 3 in November the measure “will also give boys a constitutional right to be castrated and girls the right under Michigan’s constitution to be sterilized by way of a hysterectomy or the removal of their ovaries — all without their parents’ consent.”
READ
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October 12, 2022
Traveling with Paul, Mary and the Apostles in the 1st Century was TOUGH!
Jostling through the crowds Paul and Luke pushed their way to the ramp. The wooden cargo ship was ready to leave Caesarea and they had gathered the last of their supplies. They pressed the silver denarii into the hands of the sailer at the dock. They were allowed onto the ship.
They rushed to the far side of the salty deck to claim their few square feet of living space where they would live, sleep and eat for the next seven days. The set up a leather tent covering, put their blankets under the tarp and stashed their food and meager supplies in the corner. They were ready to go!
Traveling by ship in the first century was rugged and grueling. Ships did not have cabins for travelers. They purchased space on the deck — the lower part of the ship was for the huge cargos, usually grain from Egypt, marble from Greece or lumber from Lebanon.
However, this was certainly the quickest way to get through the Roman Empire by voyaging the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean Sea. Even though Rome had built over 250,000 miles of primary roads the time and labor to walk around the sea was rugged, dangerous and timely.
How do you think Mary traveled from Israel (Judea) to Ephesus with St. John? It would have been almost impossible to travel by land so she must have suffered much on the deck of one of these cargo ships. Mary was tough!
Ships were not reliable like the luxurious cruise ships today where pilgrims sip a glass of wine on the deck looking out over the waves only imagining the grueling voyage of St. Paul and the other early Christians. To get a sense of this rugged reality we suggest our pilgrims go out on the deck of our cruise ship in the middle of a windy wavy night. Imagining living on the deck of the ship, covered with the salty spray and using the side of the ship for a toilet is not the way modern people would want to travel.
Even though we can only use our imagination to “experience” the travels of St. Paul as he spread the Gospel around the Mediterranean, our pilgrims traveling with us through the Great Sea of biblical times still get to walk in Paul’s footprints through the cities he walked. We even walk on the actual roads with the stones laid over 2,000 year ago.
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October 11, 2022
Questions I Answered Monday on Catholic Answers Live
It is always a blast to join Cy Kellett on Catholic Answers Live. I’ve been doing the show 6-12 times a year for over 20 years. Always a pleasure to answer questions that explain and defend our beautiful Catholic truth.
Our topic was “Abraham, Father of Faith and Works” and a lot of other aspects of Abraham’s life and faith.
We started out discussing the huge ordeal of packing up everything, leaving home and family at 75 years old to drive your herds and flocks about 1,600 miles to a land God had promised him. “You come very lately Lord, very late…but my camels will leave in the morning.”
We had a Muslim call in (who refused to admit he was a Muslim) trying to imply that the “prophet who was to come” in Deut 18:15-18 was Mohammed. It is actually referring to Jesus Christ and we ably defended the Catholic position.
https://catholicconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ca221010a.mp315:33 – I’ve heard people say that Abraham knew that he wouldn’t have to actually sacrifice his son because he said, “wait here, we’ll be back”. What do you think about this?29:23 – What happened with Abraham’s other son? (This one ended up being quite feisty with a Muslim who didn’t want to admit he was a Muslim)41:20 – Did Abraham know God to be a trinity, or did he know God to just be one person, the Father?45:48 – Follow up on the conversion earlier – Do you typically call the elder generation “brethren”?50:54 – Did Abraham have/receive the Holy Spirit?The post Questions I Answered Monday on Catholic Answers Live appeared first on Defenders of the Catholic Faith.
October 10, 2022
If only our president would say what Teddy Roosevelt said!
Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.’
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
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October 9, 2022
Two Fun Things from Today’s OT Mass Reading
Two fun things in Sunday’s Old Testament readings, 1) Naaman’s skin is restored like that of a little child; and 2) he takes a load of dirt back to Syria.
A reading from the second Book of Kings 5:14-17:
“Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha, the man of God. His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.
Naaman returned with his whole retinue to the man of God. On his arrival he stood before Elisha and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. Please accept a gift from your servant.”
Elisha replied, “As the Lord lives whom I serve, I will not take it”; and despite Naaman’s urging, he still refused.
Naaman said: “If you will not accept, please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord.”
The word of the Lord.
This dipping in the Jordan River is a prefiguring of water baptism—dipping in the Jordan for cleansing. And what do we hear about water baptism from Jesus? After he had gone into the Jordan River—into the water when the Spirit came down, he talked to Nicodemus about being born again.
It is the way we become born again—water and Spirit—and when we’re born again we’re like a newborn child. That’s why this dipping in the Jordan River is a prefiguring of water baptism. That’s why it’s interesting. Naaman’s flesh became like that of a newborn baby because it pictures the new birth we receive in water baptism that will come with the New Covenant.
And the dirt? Here we see the biblical view of holy ground. Naaman will take two mule’s load of land; rather dirt, from Israel back home to Syria. He asked for permission to take two mule loads of dirt home with him.
From this point on, Naaman will spread that dirt out where he worships, and he will stand on the holy ground of the Lord to worship. YHWH is the only God of all the earth and on his earth Naaman will worship.
One of the interesting first mentions of “holy ground”. Also it can be seen as a precursor to holy relics.
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Was Abraham Saved by Faith Alone? Are the Protestants Right?
Today is the Feast Day of Father Abraham. Most Catholics do not know that many of the heroes of the Old Testament are regarded as saints!
“The patriarchs, prophets, and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the Church’s liturgical traditions.” (paragraph 61)
In honor of this feast day I am posting this article on Abraham, a critique I made of a book falsely claiming Abraham was saved by “faith alone.”
Was Abraham saved by Faith Alone? By Steve Ray
You say, “Of course Abraham was saved by faith alone! Doesn’t the Bible make that perfectly clear, especially in Paul’s letters? And didn’t Luther’s German translation inform the masses that the words “faith” and “alone” belonged together like bread and butter? Abraham was saved by faith alone!”
Well, maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but the Bible certainly throws some question on this well-known Protestant cliché. Let’s find out how and when Abraham was really “saved.” Fundamentalist Protestants like to tell us that we are saved at “one-point-in-time when we “simply believe.” In other words mental assent to the simple gospel gives us a free passage to heaven.
Since Abraham is used in the New Testament as the quintessential example of justification by faith, let’s see if we can pin-point the moment when Abraham believed? Can we locate the exact moment he was “saved”? Since this was such a momentous occasion in the history of mankind, and in the drama of salvation history, it should be clearly shown when Abraham actually believed and was reckoned as righteous. From unbelief to belief, from no faith to saving faith.
Protestants (e.g., John Ankerberg in Protestants and Catholics, Do They Now Agree? [Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publ., 1995) like to say the word “justify” as used by James really means “vindicate,” and that “vindicate” has nothing to do with salvation, but has to do with the proving of the believer’s faith—Abraham’s faith. You really should have addressed the major weakness of this perspective: it is not the faith that is being justified by works—it is the man.
How can we justify this? If our theory holds true shouldn’t we read, “Was not Abraham our father’s faith justified (vindicated) by works?” making it clear that it is his faith, and not his person. Instead we read, unfortunately, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works?” This observation does not set well with our interpretation.
In your book you say that it is always the faith that is proven by works, whereas the Apostle James seems to say it is the person. We should try to figure out how James could have worded this passage more carefully so Catholics don’t get the wrong idea and misunderstand the gospel. You also say in your book (p. 37) that “Paul is writing about a person being justified before God, while James is writing about a man being justified before men. Men cannot see another person’s heart as God can.”
Somehow we have to more careful in this theory, or else we end up scratching a few verses out of the story of Abraham in Genesis. Was it men who were testing Abraham’s faith? The book of Genesis says, no. It was God who was testing Abraham in Genesis 22, not men. You write that James is referring to justification before men (p. 37), because God can already see the heart. I noticed in reading James & Peter, by Harry Ironside, that he agrees with you on this point.
But the problem seems to be that it was God who was testing Abraham in Genesis, because Moses wrote, “Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham . . . ” (Gen. 22:1) Notice it was not men who were finding out what was in Abraham’s heart— whether he had true faith—it was God.
For the whole article, click here. To learn more or purchase our documentary on Abraham filmed in Iraq, Turkey and Israel, click here.
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October 8, 2022
What Kind of Music Did Abraham Listen To?
Today is the Feast Day of Abraham!
One of our DVDs in the Footprints of God series is entitled “Abraham, Father of Faith & Works.” We filmed the first chapter in Iraq — in Ur of Chaldees — which is the home of Abraham, just south of Baghdad (Gen 11:28-31).
Thanks to the Biblical Archaeology Society to which I subscribe, we can now listen to music that Abraham listened to. We included this music in our DVD.
Listen below to The Music of Ur, a musical duet featuring a lyre and double pipes such as those found at the ancient city of Ur. Click here to learn more about these instruments and the music from that time period.
Enjoy! And you can hear this kind of music on our Footprints of God DVD. We follow Abraham from Iraq (yeah, we really went there to film) to Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
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