Jeff Ragan > Recent Status Updates

"Then the Spirit of God came on Zecheriah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, 'Thus God has said, "Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord and do not prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He has forsaken you.'" So they conspired against him and at the command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord." - 2 Chr 24:20-21

"Peace is more than the absence of war. It is a tranquility of order, it is security, liberty - religious, political and economic freedom. It is life with honor, life with the dignity of the children of God" (268).

"Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with difficult questions...And Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was hidden from Solomon which he did not explain to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon...Then she said to the king...'How blessed are your men...who stand before you continually and hear your wisdom." - 2 Chr 9:1-7

"Having given us a power of reflection, [God] expects we should use that power, see our way...and think of it...When we have finished a day's work, and are entering upon the rest of the night, we should commune with our own hearts about what we have been doing that day; so likewise when we have finished a week's work,and are entering upon the sabbath-rest, we should thus prepare to meet our God..." (12).

"Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house. And all the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down...bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground..." - 2 Chr. 7:1-3

"Prophecy is a window that God has opened for his people by his servants the prophets. Through it one can see more of God's purpose in his redemptive work than would be possible otherwise. It gives a better understanding of what he has done for and with and through his people in the past, and a clearer comprehension of his purpose in the present" (230).

"As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." - 1 Chronicles 28:9

"Anyone venturing into unfrequented & possibly dangerous waters does so with his eyes open, should be willing to depend on his own exertions, & should neither expect nor ask for help. Nor would equipment of this sort be of much use in Drake Passage where the chances of being picked up are so slim as to be hardly worth considering." (544).

"But King David said to Ornan, 'No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the Lord, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.'" - 1 Chronicles 21:24

"...it was noticeable that the Allies were quick to criticize each other and allege inefficiency in case of reverses. In due time the British and French also suffered disastrous defeats and their armies were also open to criticism. Before the end of the war the records of reverses of the respective armies in the West were about a stand-off. Hasty criticisms are likely to be unjust" (262).

"God & Caesar, church & state, spiritual authority & temporal authority, have been a prevailing dualism in Western culture. Only in Hindu civilization were religion & politics also so distinctly separated. In Islam, God is Caesar; in China & Japan, Caesar is God; in Orthodoxy, God is Caesar's junior partner...This division of authority contributed immeasurably to the development of freedom in the West" (70).

"The gatekeepers were on the four sides, to the east, west, north, and south...for the four chief gatekeepers who were Levites, were in an office of trust, and were over the chambers and over the treasuries in the house of God. And they spent the night around the house of God because the watch was committed to them; and they were in charge of opening it morning by morning." - 1 Chronicles 9:24-27

"God never made us immune to pain, because He's not immune. The only kind of relationship worth having is one where you are sensitive to the other person" (311).

"...God is not only the author of all being, but the fountain of life and spring of motion. Dead matter would be for ever dead if he did not quicken it. And this makes it credible to us that God should raise the dead. That power which brought such a world as this out of confusion, emptiness, and darkness, at the beginning of time, can, at the end of time, bring our vile bodies out of the grave..." (3-4).

"And before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him. However, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which His anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him." - 2 Kings 23:25-26

At minimum, a lichen consists of a symbiotic interaction between a fungus and a population of unicellular photosynthetic organism. The photosynthetic organisms are typically algae, but thy can also be cyanobacteria (a group of photosynthetic bacteria)" (180).

"In any system of hotels we have found that each must be an individual personality, geared to the demands of its particular city and country" (259).

"The early church saw in itself the recreation of an ideal Israel. Just as Israel was portrayed in Deuteronomy as a unity having one God, one people, one land, one sanctuary, and one law, so the church is exhorted to a similar unity, for there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (119).

"It is a question whether those who contribute nothing towards the expenses of a voyage have any right to complain, if they do complain it needs to be done tactfully" (541).

"And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, 'O Lord the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, Thou art the God, Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth Thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.'" - 2 Kings 19:15-16

"The central elements of any culture or civilization are language and religion. If a universal civilization is emerging, there should be tendencies toward the emergence of a universal language and a universal religion" (59).

"During all of Jerusalem's years, the Jews had seen many a king and ruler ride through those gates in triumph. I thought particularly of Alexander the Great, by whom all conquerors are measured then and now, who three hundred years earlier had ridden down this same road on his great stallion as he conquered the world for Greece. I thought to myself, 'Move over, Alexander. A carpenter...is the true king... (297)'"

"...and his love to the Word of God, concerning which he expresses himself thus: 'I esteem it above all; I desire it as the food of my soul; I greatly delight both in reading and hearing it; and my soul can witness subjection to it in some measure; I think I love the Word of God for the purity of it; I love the ministers and messengers of it; I rejoice in the good success of it..." (ii)

"The weak of Romans 14 are not those given to excess. They are the opposite; the are total abstainers from certain articles of food. The 'weak' addicted to excess do not abstain; they take too much" (260).

"Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, & brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley & fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, 'Give them to the people that they may eat.' And his attendant said, 'What, shall I set this before a hundred men?' But he said, 'Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, "They shall eat and have some left over."'" - 2 Kings 4:42-43.