Bible Pearls, Sacred Cows, and the Kingdom of God

Miriam F. Jacobs

Description

The author uses scripture to understand truth regarding death, hell, judgment, salvation, the kingdom of God, and His amazing patterns that point to the Messiah.

Bible Pearls, Sacred Cows, and the Kingdom of God is a labor of love stemming from years of scripture study. In this book, Miriam seeks biblical answers to important questions. What happens when we die? Does God torment people forever? What is the ultimate destiny of humanity? What is the Kingdom of God, and how do we enter it? Where and when does it take place? What is the gospel? She also explores some amazing biblical patterns that all point to the Messiah, such as the Feasts of the Lord, the elements of the Tabernacle, and even the seven churches of Revelation.

Sujets

• Biblical Commentary
• Philosophie et théologie
• El Mesías
• Religious text
• Salvation
• Truth
• Religion
• Kingdom
• Salut (religion)
• Hell
• Messiah

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 23 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664290075
• Langue: English

Extrait

BIBLE PEARLS, SACRED COWS, and the KINGDOM OF GOD
MIRIAM F. JACOBS


Copyright © 2023 Miriam F. Jacobs.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9008-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9009-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9007-5 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901061
 
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 2/20/2023
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 All the Things (Preface, Foreword, Introduction, Background, etc)
Chapter 2 Hell in Hebrew and Greek: An Analysis
Chapter 3 From Eternity to Here
Chapter 4 Those Who Sleep in the Dust Shall Awake
Chapter 5 Tortured Forever, or Wiped From the Book?
Chapter 6 The Rich Man and Lazarus
Chapter 7 Heaven, Earth, Salvation, and the Coming Glory
Chapter 8 The Gospel and the Kingdom
Chapter 9 What About Babylon?
Chapter 10 The Seven Churches
Chapter 11 Speaking of Patterns…
Chapter 12 The Timing of Messiah’s Birth and Death
 
Endnotes

This book is dedicated to my beloved Messiah Yeshua, with shout-outs to my inquisitive friend Al whose thought-provoking questions have long inspired me and whose content suggestions have been invaluable, and to my husband, who supports me, eats my cooking, does my laundry, and catches most of my mistakes.

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
Proverbs 25:2
Chapter 1
ALL THE THINGS
(Preface, Foreword, Introduction, Background, etc)

I have a pet peeve. Whenever I find a recipe on Pinterest, I generally need to scroll past all the ads, links, the author’s childhood attachment to jambalaya, and the exhaustive history of said recipe, before I get to the actual recipe so that I can finally make dinner. Similarly, whenever I start reading a new book, it starts with a foreword, a preface, an introduction, some endorsements, and sometimes a prologue. By the time I reach chapter one, I either feel like I’ve already read the book or just want them to get on with it, please.
Therefore, I am avoiding all those things and am going to jump right in. Skip to recipe, if you will.
This book begins with my passion for the scriptures. I believe that the Bible tells a unique and unified story from beginning to end that points to the Messiah. The Word of God is truly a treasure trove, a beautiful love letter given to humankind by the Creator of the universe.
Warning: This book is going to poke at some “sacred cow” doctrines that have been in the church for centuries. And I am going to do it with the Word of God. I want to look at the big picture: what is God’s plan for humankind, according to His Word? How is He going to restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden? Where do we end up? What happens to those who say no to Him?
I am also going to recount some amazing treasures that I have discovered in the scriptures. The Lord has given us beautiful patterns in His Word that all point to Him.
Who am I, why should you trust me, and why should you read this book? Let me tell you, and then you can decide whether to continue reading or not.
I was raised in the church, faithfully going to Mass every Sunday and all the other holy days of obligation. (I’m not going to mention the denomination, but see what I did there?)
I had questions as a kid, but when I voiced some of them, I was told by my mother not to question my faith. Throughout my childhood, I went to parochial school, went to confession, recited my same five prayers every night at bedtime, and rarely missed a Sunday (except for that year my best friend and I told our parents we were attending Mass but went to the park instead, only to remember it was Palm Sunday which led us to sneak into the church basement and steal – er, I mean borrow – some palm branches to prove we were there).
By the way, I have always believed in God. The church I was raised in gave me a good foundation, and I don’t mean to knock it. But simmering below the surface were unasked questions that I didn’t even know to ask. Will I go to heaven? Why did Jesus die for us? Why did He need to die? What’s it all about, anyway?! In this book, I will address these questions and more.
Back when I was sixteen, I stood up at a Young Life camp in the Colorado Rockies and accepted Jesus into my heart. An emotional moment to be sure, but I still had no idea what it meant.
I returned from camp that year and tried to be holy, which lasted a good couple of weeks. In my spiritual confusion, I then embarked on a lifestyle that alternated between youth group meetings and drinking parties, each with my two different friend groups. One night, the two worldviews collided in my mind when I snuck into a bar with my other underage drinking friends, wearing the Young Life shirt that I had acquired in Colorado. Though that was over forty years ago, the irony of that moment has never left me.
The pull of the partying crowd won for a season, and I spent the next thirteen years living it up. I met my husband toward the end of that season, and he was in a similar place as me. He grew up in the church (various denominations) but was enjoying (?) a partying season as well. Looking back, we both see how God was working behind the scenes to draw these two heathens to Himself.
Long story short, we got married and began attending a “seeker-friendly” church. We took the membership class, and the pastor clearly explained the gospel to us. I had never understood how Jesus paid for our sins, but the way this pastor explained it made the light bulb come on. My previous understanding of “how we get to heaven” was based on a lyric from an Easter hymn, “Christ has opened paradise. A-a-a-a-a-aleluia!” I had this notion in my head that the clouds parted on Ascension Thursday as Jesus ascended, thus opening the clouds for us, too.
Thanks to this gospel-minded pastor, I finally understood why the blood of Jesus was shed for us: because He had no sin and we did. He was able to pay the penalty that we never could. And if we received His payment for us, we were in. The penalty that we owed was paid in full.
After that, there wasn’t much talk of holiness or living life for the savior in that particular congregation. (Ok, maybe they did, and we just were not paying attention). We were in. No worries. And for the next ten years, I am ashamed to admit that I barely opened my Bible, unless it was during a church service or a Bible study group. The church encouraged us to read our Bibles, but I would start in Genesis, determined to read the whole thing, and usually make it to about the middle of Leviticus before giving up completely and heading back to the New Testament.
Thankfully, God is faithful, and His Holy Spirit never gave up on me. One year, after following Jesus for about ten years, I felt a question pop into my head: “Where does the word Easter come from?” I had a vague notion that Jesus was somehow our Passover lamb, so what was with this Easter stuff?
To make an even longer story short, this began my journey of learning to love God’s Word, the scriptures. All of them. Even Leviticus. I discovered that the word Easter wasn’t even found in scripture (except for a mistranslation of the Greek word Pascha in the King James Version, but the word means Passover ).
If you are interested, the word Easter is the name of a Babylonian fertility goddess that goes by many different names in different cultures. Asherah, Astarte, Oestre, Ishtar, Isis, etc. I believe this goddess worship originated at Babel (Babylon) and was carried to many cultures of the world when the people and languages were scattered (more on that in a later chapter.) Personally, I have a hard time using this word to describe the incredible day that changed the world. But if you have no problem with the word, I’m not here to condemn you.
In my voracious studying, I was led to the biblical appointed times found in Leviticus 23, and I learned that they all point to Jesus. I learned that His name is Yeshua in Hebrew, which means salvation . Suddenly Matthew 1:21 became much clearer: She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus ( Yeshua, which means salvation ), because he will save people from their sins (italics mine).
More light bulbs began coming on.
John the Baptizer said it well when he declared in John 1:29, Behold the Lamb of God, who take