In Rev 2: 12-17 there is a lot of information and a lot to understand. The first thing we should look at when trying to understand this is the geography of Pergamum, it was a Roman City in Asia. Therefore it was the capital of emperor worship. The people had many temples for the Roman gods and goddesses and it was perfectly fine to worship idols and many gods in this area. It was known as the capital of the imperial cult. The location made this city super booming. Throughout the entire section, pretty intense language is used; referring to Christ as the one with a sharp double-edged sword on his way to judge them, and also calling where the people live “where Satan’s throne is.” There were two potential reasons that I found for calling Pergamum Satan’s dwelling place. There was a temple in Pergamum that stood for the Greek god Asklepius. He was the god of healing and he was often correlated with a serpent, so images of serpents were around his temple. John later refers to Satan as a serpent, so people draw lines between those two things. The second reason is that Antipas was martyred there. He is known as the first Christian martyr in Asia. Calling Pergamum Satan’s throne could possibly just be in reference to those who persecuted the Christians and put Antipas to death. At this point in the passage, no qualms have been listed about the church, as they seemed to still proclaim Jesus, even though the persecution that Antipas faced. The next verses 2:14-17 of Revelation is where their shortcomings are listed. Their offense was that they followed to teachings of Balaam. Balaam first appears in Numbers and is blamed for Israel’s idolatry and sexual immorality, because he would not speak against Israel. The other name mentioned in this passage is Nicolaitans, which this second group listed is often seen as the same group of Balaamites that practice sexual immorality and idolatry. In the following verses, there is a call to repentance. For each person that repents, they will receive some of the hidden manna and a white stone with a new name that only they will know. The hidden manna just seems to be a reference to back in the day when the Israelites had only manna to eat, it was a symbol of God’s provisions for his people even in dark times. So this doesn’t literally mean the food, but that God will continue to provide for them. The piece on the white stone with a new name wasn’t really mentioned much in any commentary, however, maybe it’s just in reference to our spiritual change when we truly follow Christ. That’s just I thought though, I have no idea what it really means. Overall, this passage wasn’t a damning message, there was still hope for the church at Pergamum and that’s a nice thought.

I grew up to believe that The Flood happened because that is what I learned in Sunday school. But I mean when you actually think about it, I don’t really think it happened. I mean this is a Sunday school story that starts off with genocide, there also isn’t scientific evidence that there was a giant flood that covered the whole world. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I think that something happened I just don’t think it was a global flood. Something definitely occurred that caused so many flood stories and accounts to be written. There are many similarities between these stories of the flood especially between The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Biblical Flood, but there are also differences as well. I think we should be focusing more on not if the flood actually occurred but what the stories are trying to say just like most things in the Bible. There are many things in the bible that don’t make sense scientifically but back then the people reading these stories didn’t look at things scientifically but for the messages within. That is what we should be doing with all the stories in the Bible God put them in there for a reason so we can learn something from them not because they were true but because there are a message and lesson to be learned. The main thing in the Bible we know to be true because there is so much evidence to prove it is that Jesus really existed and Died on the cross, I’m sure there are other things as well, but we need to stop looking for proof and needed things to be real to be true.

I actually enjoyed this ready from Cosby there wasn’t anything I found really boring or unnecessary for the chapter.  I wasn’t shocked that there are similar creation accounts to ours. I learned about this in my religions of the world class last semester. I really think that we shouldn’t read the creation texts so literally because if we do the first one proves the flat earth theory, and there is scientific proof that the earth is round. I have always found the flat earth theory stupid and the fact that people actually believe in it is dumb. I think that we should look at other creation stories and compare them to our creation stories because then we not only learn something about what we believe but we also learn more about the God we believe in. I think the focus should be more on who our God is and what he created rather than when and how he created these things. The same thing with Revelation that maybe it is not about the end of the world but about social change and maybe the creation story is not really focused on the creation of how and when but about why and by who. Our God is so great that he could create the entire universe and the heavens, that maybe we just can’t explain in human words how it was all created.

I really enjoyed the reading, I have never read Revelation at all before. We don’t talk about it in my church, we like to focus on a happier topic not how the world is going to end. I completely agree that we shouldn’t look at Revelation as the end of the world but as a way to change and what we need to change about ourselves. I always heard Revelation is about the end of the world and that just always depressed me. So to see that there is a different perspective that it is not the end of the world is a better perspective for me. That is what I choose to believe because there is no way that a monster with however many heads is going to come to our world today and either way if it is a metaphor, what is the metaphor? I don’t like the fact that it is thought that God is going to come and judge us all and see if we will go to heaven, I mean yes we have to live in a way that he would but it makes me sad that there are so many people that would be dammed and not go to heaven. It feels like we should read it like we read most things in the Bible and really analyze and see if we are asking the wrong questions and looking for the wrong things, like usual.

I loved reading James and seeing the differences and similarities to 1 Corinthians. James was broader and was speaking to the church in general and not just one specific church. James also spoke more about works in salvation and faith rather than just believing. James describes the relationship between faith and works. He teaches that a person of faith without works demonstrates useless faith. What good is a person’s faith if they don’t present it to the world? A believer’s good works are evidence of their faith in Jesus Christ. He also teaches that everyone is a sinner and that if one of the 10 Commandments are broken, then that person is guilty of breaking every one of them, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (2:10). Although I agree there should be actions and works, I also think there should be a full belief in Jesus and actions. But that’s how it is at my church we focus on both works and faith, we have a ministry at my church called Love Works which works through Hope’s Ministry of Care and Compassion that serves the local communities in tangible ways: one person, one family, one community at a time.  And we have things called Super Saturdays that are held most second Saturdays of the month where we meet the needs of people in our surrounding communities and through nonprofit organizations. I think this is kind of what James was talking about although he is saying that it should be all about works and I disagree on that part of it.

I really enjoyed reading 1 Corinthians, it was nice to see what “the church of God that is in Corinth” was like back then and the flaws within the church. One of the main things Paul criticizes the church on is factionalism within the church Paul devotes almost four chapters to this topic just to really show its importance. Paul has heard that the Corinthian church has divided itself according to the various preachers of the Gospel: “each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1:12). But Paul really stresses hat each preacher of the Gospel is merely a servant of Jesus, and that all believers should be united in Jesus. The faithful should put aside their differences and remember that “[a]ll things are yours. . . . You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (3:23). The place of the preachers is not to establish themselves as leaders among men; instead, “people should think of us as servants of Christ” (4:1). I completely agree with this and agree with Paul that is how it should be and still today this is sometimes how it is in the church. I feel like especially in the Catholic church they have levels of preachers I guess you could say, I’m not sure what word to use, there is the pope, preachers, bishop, archbishop and many more.

This reading was kind of boring for me, there wasn’t a lot that caught my attention or interested me. I do think its good to know how to interpret letters in the bible. Although a lot of these letters are just random and we don’t know what came before or after them. So there may have been a conversation that we know nothing about and are just reading one part of the whole story. I feel that you have to kind of take and read these with a grain of salt because of that fact. Although the letters are in the bible for a reason so we know there is a lesson or something in each of the letters.  But also just like most things in the bible we have to know the historical context to funny understand what is going on and who they were writing to and what they were writing for. Just like all the other chapters so far I like how they have a page to explain how to interpret that part of the bible.  I like how Cosby used one of his own letters as an example, but to really be able to figure out whose letter that was you need to have context and there were many clues throughout the book just like you can find context with the letters throughout the bible.

I liked this reading, It made me really think about how we evangelize to other people compared to how they did it back then. I realized that today there are many people that who evangelize that tell others what they believe is wrong and are very judgemental and are harsh when they evangelize. But in Acts 17 Paul has a very different approach he didn’t outright bash what they believe he said it was ok but then told them what was wrong with what they believed in a kind way and a very smart way. He talked to them in a way that they could understand unlike what we do today we use scripture to prove our point but if they are not Christian and don’t believe they will completely dismiss what we are saying.  If we want to really evangelize to people we should use Pauls methods and speak to others in a way they would understand and really get the most out of what we are trying to present and get across. I think that the way we evangelize is wrong and need to change things if we want more people to believe in God and be in the church we have to act like God would and be kind and not bash what others believe and just try to change their perspective in a kind way.

I have never read Acts all the way through but I have read many parts of it. But the one things that I never figured out and I have always wanted to, is who is the author of Acts. In the book, it states at one point that Acts follows Luke and by assumption and most people agree that it was Luke. There are many examples that point to Luke being the author, such as Luke being written in the same style as Acts and Acts directly follows Luke. Although in class we talked about how The Gospels probably weren’t written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and were written by people a few years later. So I decided to do so research, but all I could find were many people saying that Luke wrote it or that it was the same author as Luke. So if we agree that Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke then Luke wrote Acts but if we Agree that someone else wrote Luke than that person also wrote Acts. So I guess I’m just getting confused with who wrote what, I mean I guess we will never fully know and we can just make educated guesses. I also guess it doesn’t really matter that message still stands and the message that God wanted to get across did. I feel like we always have conversations and debate about things like this but in the end, it doesn’t really matter if the message God wanted is still getting across.

I really liked this ready today, it really shows how much Jesus cares about the people on the outside and the sinners. Jesus always talks about repentance and redeeming yourself and then following God, that means so much in the eyes of God. The first two parables are very similar by saying that when a sinner repents there is an astonishing amount of joy in Heaven. Also for those two, the people who lost the item went out looking for them. But the third parable talks less about the sinner and repentance and more about the restoration of a believer into fellowship with the Father. In the first two parables, the owner went out to look for what was lost, whereas in this story the father waits and watches eagerly for his son’s return, Just like God does for us who already believe but then get lost and need to find our way back to him. There is also a progression through the three parables from the relationship of one in a hundred with the sheep, to one in ten with the coins, and to one in one, demonstrating God’s love for each individual. These parables not only show that God loves the sinners and wants them to come to him but he also waits for the believers who fall away and get lost, and need to find their way back to him and be by his side once more.