Revelation 1:2&3, An Expositional Commentary.

    

So far we’ve got God giving the Revelation to Jesus Christ. From there it went to an angel, and then John.

    

Verse 2 : Who bare record

   OK, that’s just bad English. The Greek word for “bare record”, transliterated “martureō”, according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, means: to be a witness, to bear witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something.

    So it should just say “who bares record”.

    I’ll be honest. I read out of the King James Bible as a default while I work on studying through Revelation. But I’ve got five other Bibles that I’ll run the verse through just to see what differences there are; and if they are significant, to try to find out why they are different.

         In case anyone is wondering, those other versions are: the International Standard Version, New English Translation, World English Bible, The New King James and the New International Version.

    Usually the difference comes down to which of the various ancient manuscripts were used in the translation. The King James Bible used the Textus Receptus, while a lot of the newer translations rely on the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. All of these manuscripts have their strengths, all of them have a certain amount of controversy. I’m not going to argue for one translation or manuscript over another here. I am going to try to keep track of all the places where the difference causes a problem in understanding.

    

of the word of God,

    In this case, I just like the way the King James and the New King James Bibles put it.

    John bares record of the Word of God: He’s read the scriptures, and he can testify to what they say.

and of the testimony of Jesus Christ,

    The word “testimony” (marturia) here is not quite the same as the “bare Record” (martureō) at the beginning of this verse. According to Thayer, marturia means “testimony, i.e. before a judge.

    John was there when Jesus testified before the High Priest.

John 18:15 -  And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple: that disciple was known unto the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest.

    John didn’t like to identify himself by name in his gospel. He kept making reference to “another disciple” or “that other disciple”. Finally, at the end of John’s gospel, he says:

John 21:24 - This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. He’s clearly got a thing for referring to himself in the third person.

     Everybody agrees the “other disciple” in this verse was John, so he actually heard Jesus Christ’s testimony. I don’t know why he couldn’t get Peter in.

and of all things that he saw.

    So altogether John bore witness to three things: The Word of God (scriptures), the testimony of God (Jesus Christ) and the revelation of God (things that he saw). None of the other translations come out quite as poetic.

Verse 3: Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy,

    Isn’t it amazing how so many churches and preachers won’t touch this book, and yet it is the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to anyone who reads or hears it.

and keep those things which are written therein:

    To “keep” is “to attend to carefully, take care of.” (Thayer) So, there is that. You are to carefully attend to the words of this prophecy. So that’s what I am doing. I am attending, as carefully as I can, to the words of this prophecy. I want a blessing. Help me along here and you can get a blessing, too.

for the time is at hand.

    You got me here. Every translation I have says either “at hand” or “near”. Look it up in Strong’s and Thayer and they all say near, at hand, imminent.

    Here we are two thousand years later...What does he mean IMMINENT? It is verses just like this that have me hoping someone more learned than I will one day read my blog and give me an answer to this little conundrum. ...and keep reading, because I’ve got more.

    This might be a good place to admit to one of my labels. I’m what they call a “dispensational premillennialist”. (say that five times, fast).  Everybody who thinks about the the end of the world (eschatology - don’t you just love these words) has their own idea of how to interpret books like Revelation. There are several different schools, and they all have really long, incredible sounding names.

    For instance, there is Dispensational Premillennialism. This is the view I hold. I believe that there will be a “Rapture of the church.” That one day, without warning, the church will be snatched into heaven. This automatically leads to the question of: “What is the church?” That question should be answered pretty thoroughly over the next couple of chapters. In fact, this question of the rapture will be coming up again.

    For now, let’s just say that the church refers to those who love and serve God. Sitting in a pew doesn’t necessarily put you in the church.

    After the rapture, there will be what’s called the Great Tribulation. That term’s pretty self-explanatory. Some hold that it is a seven year period. There’s a pretty strong case to be made that, while there is a seven year period in view - The seventieth week that the book of Daniel talks about in chapter 9 of that book - the actual Great Tribulation only covers the second half of that.

    Then we have the second coming of Jesus, followed by the Millennium - The thousand year reign of Christ on David’s throne before Satan is loosed again for the final climax.

    This is just one of the several preconceived views that I bring into this study. It can’t be helped. We all have them. I’ll try to admit to mine as we go along and hopefully, if the text proves me to be wrong, I’ll be able to recognize it and change my thinking. Isn’t that what studying is supposed to be all about?

    Another view would be Historic Premillennialism. This teaching holds that there is no rapture. That there will be a Great Tribulation (seven or three and a half years - take your pick), and then Christ will return with His angels, rescue the church, bind Satan in the Abyss and kick off the Millennium.

    There is also Amillennialism. This would be the position of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Century commentators that I mentioned in my last post. They believe that Satan is already chained in the Abyss, that the Millennium refers to the church age and that Christ will return at the end of the

Church age.

    The problems with this position seems pretty obvious. While it would seem that this position fits well with “The time is at hand”, it has still been a lot more than a thousand years. Besides that, if Satan is supposed to be bound, I’d say his chain is too long.

(Just a reminder: all scripture is cut and pasted from the Blue Letter Bible.org)

Revelation 1:1 An Expositional Commentary

  

  I’m a layman. I’m not a theologian. I don’t have a degree from a seminary and I certainly cannot be considered an authority.

    But I read a lot. I’ve been exposed to a multitude of doctrines. I went to Catholic school through third grade. You can get a lot drilled into you in your first three grades of school. I also went to a Baptist church, sat through the foundational class of the Way International, then was baptised into the Seventh Day Adventist church and the Assembly of God. I’ve even sat through services at a Mormon church and a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall. A lot of these folks think they have a monopoly on the Truth. This idea that they alone have stumbled across the Truth of God and everyone not of their particular sect is deceived. That attitude has always annoyed me. I personally think that we’re all deceived. We think we’re serving God, but our very best efforts have motives behind them that don’t honor God. ...Or maybe that’s just me. I have no right to place an evaluation on anybody else’s motives, but I can tell you mine are not totally righteous.

    I’m going through all this introduction so that we’ll all understand each other when we get into studying the Book of Revelation. I don’t have all the answers. This whole commentary is part of my search for some of those answers. I’m looking for the truth. I’d like to think I’m totally objective, but let’s not fool ourselves. We all have notions, positions and beliefs that we have constructed in our minds and anything that  requires that we actually go back and rethink something is going to be met with great resistance.

    The trick is to get your beliefs to agree with the Bible rather than making the Bible agree with your beliefs. It sounds simple enough. But if you’re honest with yourself, you know better.

    There are various schools of thought on how to interpret the Bible, which translation to use, and even whether the Book of Revelation is to be taken literally or allegorically. There are questions and controversies over the Rapture of the church, whether Jesus is God and when, exactly, the Tribulation starts. All this stuff will be addressed in the Book of Revelation.

    My hope is, that I can tell you something you hadn’t thought about, and hopefully, my dear readers, you can help me figure out the parts that still confuse me.

    So, let’s get to it. By the way, all the verses are copied from BlueLetterBible.org

Revelation 1:1 -  The Revelation

    The “revealing”. Singular. Something that was hidden will now be revealed

of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him

    Those people that teach that Jesus is not God get their doctrine from Arius of Alexandria, who argued at the Council of Nicea in favor of a doctrine taught by Paul of Samosata who became the Patriarch of Antioch. In fact, the Council of Nicea was called by Constantine to address this very controversy that was threatening to cause violence in the church.

    The Samosatene doctrine taught that Jesus is not eternal like the Father is. That he is a created being and therefore does not have the eternal essence of God the Father.

    To take this argument a little bit further, Adam was considered a son of God

(Luke 3:38 -Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.)

because Adam was a direct creation of God. We are not sons of God; we are sons of Adam. Likewise, in Genesis 6:2 - That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

    Most scholars believe that these “sons of God” were misbehaving angels. Angels also being direct creations of God, are therefore referred to as “sons of God”.

    Carry that same logic to Jesus, and he is considered the Son of God because he is a direct creation of God. This would mean that Jesus Christ is not the same as the Father, not equal with the Father and therefore not worthy of worship.

    I bring all this up because right here, I think we can score one for the Samosatenes. The text clearly says that God gave the revelation to Jesus. This not only identifies them as two separate persons, but also seems to place God in a higher position than Jesus.

to shew unto his servants

    I suppose you could spend a week arguing over whether the servants belong to God or Jesus. If you consider yourself a servant of either one, the point of God giving this revelation to Jesus is to show it to you.

things which must shortly come to pass;

    Most commentators will tell you the Greek word used here for “shortly” (tachos) means not so much “soon” as “quickly”. Once it starts, it will all take place in rapid succession.

    It seems to me, since it’s been almost two thousand years since he wrote this, and none of it has happened yet (at least none of the exciting stuff), I would be one to lean toward that same interpretation.

    I realise that my position that this is all still future isn’t a position that is unanimously held either. I love reading the old Bible commentaries from the 16th. 17th and 18th centuries. They allegorise everything  and most of them are convinced that a big chunk of Revelation has already been fulfilled. Almost every one I’ve read (and I can’t remember a specific exception) adheres to what is called Replacement Theology; the idea that all references to Israel or Jerusalem were actually references to the church. That the church had completely supplanted Israel in prophetic literature.

    It’s kind of hard to blame them. Israel didn’t exist. Hadn’t existed for centuries. Never mind the scriptures that said the children of Israel would one day be called back to the promised land. While the first Christians were Jews, as the Gospel spread it didn’t take long before there were more non-Jews than Jews in the church, and non-Jews had always hated Jews. By the fourth century AD, most of the congregations were headed by non-Jews and in fact, not a single bishop at the Council of Nicaea was Jewish. By the end of the Council of Nicea, the church leaders legislated that Easter (By the year 325, the church was already using the word “Easter” because Passover sounded too Jewish)  would be scheduled in such a way as to make sure it never coincided with the Jewish Passover so as to have nothing common with the Jews.

    What bothers me is that a lot of churches - most, it would seem - still teach that today With the return of the Jewish state in Israel, I would think that those in charge of doctrine would update their teaching. But let’s face it, people (even leaders in the church) still hate Jews.

and he sent and signified it by his angel

   His angel rendered it into signs, then delivered it

unto his servant John:

    So, the Revelation went from God, to Jesus Christ, to his angel, to John. It's not finished traveling yet, but that's as far as we get in the first verse.

I Had a Revelation

    I started this blog about a year ago because I had a couple of things on my mind, and I wanted to get them off my chest. This is why I’m not a professional writer. You would think that if they were on my mind I would want to get them off my mind. I don’t understand why it doesn’t work that way. They are still on my mind, but I managed to get them off my chest. Somehow, that’s supposed to make it alright.

    In any case, I still have plenty on my mind and on my chest. Given last year’s election and and the very unusual reactions to it, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that most of what is driving me crazy lately is political. I’ve even drifted that way in a couple of my essays. But considering the name I decided to give this whole blog, that didn’t seem to be all that appropriate. So if I’m to continue to contribute to this endeavour, I need to come up with an actual direction to take this thing. An idea came to me this morning.

    Given the current political climate, not just in America but around the world, it’s hard not to get all eschatological. That word’s a lot more fun to say than it is to try to spell, but it means I’m convinced the world is coming to an end.

    It’s sad in a way. All my life I’ve kinda figured the world would end in my lifetime, and all I ever had to say about it was that when it happens, I wanted a good seat. I can’t for the life of me understand why I didn’t realise the end of the world would be unbearably ugly. But looking around at what’s been going on in the world, and the attitude that is quickly pervading all of society, I’ve come to realise that if this is really the beginning of the end of the world, it’s not going to be any fun at all.

    Over the years I’ve heard all kinds of theories, explanations, timelines and sermons about the end of the age and how it’s all going to come down. Chronologically, what is going to happen when. Politically, who the anti-Christ is, and historically, how what you read in the papers matches up with what was written in the Book of Revelation. I’ve read some books trying to make sense out of the whole thing, and those books seem to disagree with the sermons, and each other.

    Finally, having plenty of time on my hands, I decided to study the book of Revelation. I’ve read through it a couple of times, and by the time I get to the end, I’m never quite sure what happened. This time, I’m going verse by verse, Taking notes and referencing however many commentaries I need to to make the particular verse I’m working on make sense.

    This has now been going on for months. I try to spend a couple of hours a day on it, first thing in the morning. I don’t have an alarm to tell me when I’m done for the day. Something else always lets me know when it’s time to move on to the next part of my day. Usually, it’s the next part of my day that comes crashing in, demanding my attention. I try to get up early enough to have a couple of hours before that happens.

    Sometimes, I realise that it’s time to quit when I get to a part that I just can’t make sense out of; I can’t find a suitable reference to put in my notes and I am just getting nowhere. At that point I’ll wrap it up and decide to start the next day looking for a commentary, or Bible footnote, or whatever I can find to get me past that verse and onto the next one. There have been times that it’s taken me three days to get past a verse.

    I blame Chuck Missler for all this. If you’ve never heard of him, you might want to look him up on YouTube. He’s what you call an expositional commentator. He goes through the Bible, chapter by chapter and really works to flesh it out. He believes that every single word, every number and every place name have a meaning that ties into the total message that God is trying to get across to us.

    This all sounds great, but after listening to him for a while, you get to where you read passages you’ve read twenty times before and suddenly you find yourself asking, “what did he mean by that?” Why did God give us a genealogy of Cain’s descendants when they were all wiped out in the flood anyway? I still don’t have an answer for that, by the way and that is what brings me to the point of this particular post:

    The more I learn, the less I seem to know. I’m going to start sharing what I’ve learned about the Book of Revelation. More importantly, I’m going to discuss what I still haven’t figured out.

    As much as I’ve learned from Mr. Missler, John MacArthur, Chuck Smith, Stanley D. Tousaint and others, there are details in the Book of Revelation that drive me crazy that nobody else even seems to notice. I pour through commentary after commentary and they will all skip over these little details like they didn’t even notice them. Well I noticed them, and I want answers.

    Let me give you an example. This is what caught my attention this morning that made me think that studying Revelation was the best course I could take with this blog right now:

    Turn to chapter 11. John shifting from the Temple to the two witnesses without a clutch is troubling enough, but am I the only one to notice that these witnesses are discussed in the future tense until verse eleven. As soon as verse 11 hits, it shifts to the past tense. Maybe I’m missing some sort of innocuous literary device and this doesn’t mean anything. But it is the point that stopped my studying this morning.

    Now I’ve been writing this blog for a year and I know a few people have read parts of it, but I have gotten virtually no feedback from anyone but Pastor Jeff Arp so far. (Thank you Pastor, by the way). I’m hoping that changes and people begin to engage with me as I go through the questions and confusions bubbling up from the pages of this incredible book. I’m hoping somebody helps me out with trying to understand some of this.

    I may be lost. But at least I may have found a direction for this blog.

My Bible Can Beat Up Your Bible

   

     I was writing an essay for this blog, and while doing a little research in an attempt to keep from looking like a total moron, I ran into a controversy that I feel has to be addressed before I even try to share what it was I was writing.

     Bibles. I wonder how many different translations the average Christian owns. Personally, I find I'm becoming somewhat of a collector. It's incredibly easy these days. What, with the internet and phone apps that have a half dozen versions each and more coming out seemingly every month. I'm constantly running into a new translation that has a way of wording one verse or another that just strikes me in a way that makes that particular verse mean something to me when before, the verse was just another line on the way to a different point I thought the writer was trying to make.

Little did I know I was reading BLASPHEMOUS SCRIPTS FROM THE PIT OF HELL!

     Seriously, while doing a little Google search yesterday, I ran across a fist full of web pages explaining in detail, how the King James Version is the only God ordained, infallible English translation of God's Word. Looking back, I actually know some very sincere Christians who feel this way. My mother got saved while I was a teenager. She was one that told me more than once, that the way to judge a Bible's authenticity was to turn to 1 John 5, verses 7 & 8. I'll bet a lot of readers know where I'm going already. The King James (KJV) Bible says:

        7. For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.

8. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.

But, the New English Translation (NET) reads:

7. For there are three that testify,
8. the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are in agreement.

You see the problem, I'm sure. The KJV spells out the Trinity right there in black and white while the NET denies the Trinity.

     I disagree. For those that are interested in the reasons why most of your later translations don't have the KJV version (is that redundant?), Google it. Or just check the footnotes of any good study Bible. The extra verbiage simply doesn't show up on any manuscript before the 16^th century. For those that believe in the Trinity, there is plenty of evidence for the Trinity in other places in the NET and in the other modern translations. For those that don't believe in the Trinity, the best evidence they have is that the Roman Catholic Church is so enthralled with the concept, and of course anything the Roman Catholic Church teaches as fundamental doctrine is going to be suspect.

      As for me, I can see a lot of evidence all through the Bible. But...there's still that Roman Catholic thing. But, this essay isn't about the Trinity. It's about Bibles

      Ironically, my mother, the one who was so concerned about whether that verse was in there, got saved while reading a New Living Bible. Possibly the most maligned of all the translations. I can't even tell you which version I was reading when I got saved.

     I don't think it's that important what Bible you read, as long as you are reading a Bible.

Jeremiah 29:13 “When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul.” (NET – sorry) With that, I think I've reached my scripture per essay quota.

     The point is, the Word of God isn't so much something that you read. I've read Bible commentaries written by atheists. The Word of God is something that enters your heart. You read the Bible for that to happen, but let's be honest, there are flaws in every translation in every language.

I have a lot of fun studying the Bible, and the deeper you dig, the more fun it is. But when I start digging into the history of the translations and where they came from, nobody seems to agree on anything.

     You've got the Textus Receptus (and several versions of it), the Codex Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus, the Vulgate, Heysychian type, the Septuagint, and on and on and on, and I'm just scratching the surface. These are based on even older texts that also get argued over beyond my capacity for following along. Most of these don't even have real names. They are mostly catalog references.

I swear, if you follow these arguments too long, you'll have to stop and remind yourself of why you believe in the Bible in the first place. Some of these folks involved in these discussions aren't even believers. They just found a fun subject to argue about and in some instances I think they actually want to throw doubt into your mind.

     God's Word is more powerful than all that. I had a Mormon Missionary ask me, “Do you really think that all of God's Word can be contained in just the one Bible?” I found that to be a thrilling question. My answer was yes. Not only that, but the Bible is actually quite repetitive. It says the same thing over and over, and if you get into types and models (One story being a representation of a more central point), the repetitions seem almost endless.

     The idea is, God is going to get His point across. Man is going to screw up the telling of it, but if you are sincere in your search for God and His Will in your life, He will get it through to you if you only have one page of the Message Bible to read.

     On the other hand, if you're just looking to make a point for your own selfish purposes (kinda like me, most of the time), you could hear God's Voice itself speaking to you from a pillar of fire and still end up wandering in the desert until you die when you could have been living in a land flowing with milk and honey.

It Was Only Raining When We Left the Farm

I keep wanting to write a book about my wedding day, or even my life in general. This is the title I always wanted to give it.

   On this date in 1984, I married Perry Ann Stewart.

   Why, you may ask, would anyone get married on New Year's Eve? Trust me, the reason is anything but romantic.

   In 1981, I married an Amish girl named Bertha that I'd met and fallen in love with four years earlier. I was romantic then. They say love is blind. My love was deaf, dumb (meaning stupid), blind and stubborn. The girl had no business getting married, and she knew it. But I would not take “no” for an answer. So, after four tumultuous years of arm twisting – Way past the time I should have caught on – she agreed to marry me. I don't want to spend a lot of time on my anniversary talking about a past relationship; so I'll just point out that on our second wedding anniversary, she told me if she had thirty five dollars to eat on, she would leave me, hitch hike to Portland Oregon and move in with a guy that she knew out there. I gave her thirty five dollars, and she was gone.

   I actually met Perry while I was married to Bertha. My cousin Tim worked at the same hospital where Perry's mother worked, so they were acquainted with each other. One night at a bar in Warrensburg, Perry had won a pool shooting contest with the prize being a pony keg. She had no idea where to go with the thing, so Tim suggested taking it to his cousin Bob's (that's me) house where there is always a poker game going on. So Perry, her cousin Pat and the keg all rode up to my house with Tim to the “Perpetual Poker Game”.

   Tim knocked on the door and when I answered, introduced me to his friends and told me about the keg, which Bertha promptly ran out and grabbed. She wasn't very big, but she was brought up on a farm.

   When I looked in Perry's eyes, it was like I knew her. Specifically, I could see us being together; that she would become very depressed, but that she would never leave. All of this scared me half to death. As did the thought that went through my mind that this woman would be the end of my marriage to Bertha.

   Through the entire evening, I would not pay any more attention to her than was required to function in a poker game. I wouldn't talk to her. I wouldn't even make eye contact. This confused the heck out of Perry. The dynamics in the room being the way they were, she didn't even realize that Bertha and I were married. She thought Bertha was my sister and couldn't figure out why I wouldn't interact with her. After all, she was the hottest thing on wheels – and she knew it. Besides being beautiful, she was built like a brick outhouse and was used to being the center of attention in any room where there were men. Yet, I spent more time talking to her cousin. Pat cracked everybody up. He looked like the stereotypical Lounge Lizard. He had the hiphuggers, the loud shirt unbuttoned far enough to see the medallion resting in a sea of chest hairs. A freshly coiffed perm. To everyone playing poker that night, he will always be referred to as “Mister Disco”.

    When they left, I worked very hard to calm myself down. I kept telling myself: “She's from Warrensburg and you live in Wellington.” “This was just a fluke meeting.” “You'll never see her again.” “Calm down!” I was really upset. As tortuous as my marriage was at the time, I didn't want to give up on it. I thought marriage meant forever. Besides, there's that whole stubborn romantic thing. I really needed to get a grip.

    I don't even know what date that was, but I'm thinking it was in the spring of 1983. Then, on July 5^th, Bertha left.

    I worked for a small town butchery at the time and they tended to lay me off in the summer when things were real slow. So with nothing else to do, I moved out of the house in Wellington, put my stuff in storage, and just kind of wondered around looking for good fishing holes.

    My brother Carl had just come back from 12 years in Australia and was living with my mother outside of Centerview, so I dropped by to see him. While there my car broke down and I was stuck.

Carl had met this girl and was absolutely smitten by her and kept asking me for advice on how to win her affection. I kept trying to point out that my wife had left me just a couple of months before – what did he think I knew about women? But he kept on anyway.

    One day my cousin Tim stopped by and as we were talking, I mentioned Carl and this girl he wouldn't shut up about.

Tim asked: “Well, you know who it is don't you?”

“No. I haven't met her”

“Sure you have. Remember Mister Disco?”

  I thought: “OH NO! SHE FOUND ME!!!”

    Carl eventually arranged for me to meet this girl he wouldn't shut up about. As soon as our eyes met, the sparks started flying. I couldn't help messing with her. A sort of game developed between us to 

see how subtly one of us could mess with the other and still have them know they are being messed with. We didn't want to actually start anything because Carl had such a crush on her and we were both worried about his feelings getting hurt. But the results were inevitable. Resistance was futile. Things got started.

    In January of 1984, Perry told me she was pregnant. By this time I was working at the butchery in Wellington again, so on February 4^th we moved into a house in Wellington.

    I wasn't thinking about getting married. I had lost all faith in the institution of marriage. After all, I'd done it once. Look where that had gotten me. I'd also lost all faith in romance, for the same reason. Why Perry wanted to be with me so bad was beyond me. I was as cold as ice. Of course I wanted to get laid, but that was a long way from being in love. I was determined not to get emotionally attached to anyone again. I told her over and over again: “This is purely physical.” I also remember telling her: “Look, this is my life. If you want to tag along, that's up to you. Try not to make too much noise.” I'm sure anyone reading this has to think I was a first class jerk (That's the polite term). I'm telling you, you don't know the half of it. But if she was going to have my baby, I was going to be there.

    On July 29^th, Leo was born.

    During the course of 1984, the butchery I worked at went bankrupt and the men that owned it and I all went to work for R.B. Rice in Lee's Summit, Missouri. By that Christmas, I was laid off again, couldn't afford to stay in the house in Wellington, and Perry, Leo and I ended up outside of Knob Noster, Missouri living in a double wide trailer with Perry's mother, step-father and her two younger sisters.

    Now, for the touching story of how we got married:

    Two days after Christmas, for reasons I don't remember, we found ourselves on the square in Clinton, Missouri eating lunch at a restaurant across from the court house. During the course of conversation, it suddenly dawned on me that if we were to get married before the year ran out, I could write Perry and Leo off my taxes and even get an earned income credit.

    With not a moment to lose, I ran across the street to the court house and applied for a marriage license. As I filled out the paper work, I found out there was a three day waiting period from the time I filed the license to the time we could actually get married. This meant the soonest we could get married would be on the 30^th. I started checking around to see where we could get the deed done and my former boss, Glen Nadler, managed to get the pastor at his church in Wellington to agree to do it on the 31^st. All we had to do was pick up the license and get from Knob Noster to Wellington. This didn't seem like it was going to be a problem. It was only fifty miles North, and the weather wasn't bad – yet. It was cold and rainy, but for December 31^st, I felt we were pretty fortunate.

    Perry, her older sister and I headed up there in a '72 Impala. Her Mother, step-father and her other sisters headed up in an old Dodge van.

    Right about the time we crossed I-70, the rain turned to snow. By the time we got to Wellington, it had turned into something of a blizzard.

    The wedding was informal and strange. My former bosses, Glen and Larry were there with their wives. Glen was actually the best man. His wife took lots of pictures and then lost them. I didn't get to see them for 28 years. I suddenly got a phone call from her about four years ago telling me that she had found them.

    We wanted to have music for the wedding, so Perry's little sister Nemy sang Bread's “If”; a beautiful love song that nobody knew how to play except me. I ended up playing the piano at my own wedding. The pastor bought us a cake, which was great. He laid out a little spread for us, so we had something of a reception. It may have been one of the strangest weddings he ever performed, but it was nice. My taxes were now taken care of and there was nothing left to do but find a New Year's Eve party to crash.

    Everybody else headed back to Knob Noster in the Van. Perry, Carol and I went looking for a party...in the snow.

    We first thought to check Stretch's house. He used to live across the street from me. I woke up one morning to yelling, cussing and gun fire coming from his place. Turns out he had become frustrated with his record player which he threw out into his back yard and emptied his pistol into it. He was a fun guy to party with. Unfortunately, he wasn't home. Then, when we left his porch, the car got stuck in the still falling snow where we parked it. I tried and tried to rock it out of there and ended up blowing out the differential. Now, we were in trouble.

    It seemed no one that I knew was home anywhere in that town. Carol, who was thrilled to see snow for the first time in her life (She's from Mississippi), was in tears because the shoes she had on were not meant for snow and her feet on the brink of frost bite. We eventually ended up back at the pastor's house, banging on the door because they had already gone to bed. We eventually roused them, and they were nice enough to put the three of us up for the night in the spare bedrooms that they had.

    That night, Perry discovered she was NOT pregnant again – if you know what I mean.

    So thirty two years ago today, on a very strange New Year's Eve, a woman who does not deserve what I have put her through, officially agreed to spend the rest of her life with a man that does not deserve the joys that she has brought to me.

...And the whole world parties with us. She never has to worry about me forgetting our anniversary.

Merry Christmas!

I spent all year waiting for Christmas so I could write this essay.

I was going to write about all the things that are wrong with the celebration of Christmas. I was going to start with the very date that we celebrate Christmas on. I'm sure everyone who has done the slightest bit of research knows that Jesus Christ was not born on December 25^th. Lately I've found it fascinating that the Bible gives the exact date that Noah left the Ark. It spells out in advance the exact date that Jesus entered into the Temple on the back of a donkey's colt. Of course it gives the date He was crucified and the date He was raised. (we don't actually celebrate those occurrences on the dates that the Bible gives, but that is an argument for another day.) Yet, the Bible does not tell us the day He was born. A piece of information I find conspicuous in its absence. I read an essay recently that makes a pretty good argument that He was born at the Feast of Tabernacles. I'm not going to try to make that argument, but it is pretty clear he wasn't born on the date Christians celebrate His birth.

The ways we celebrate Christmas started bothering me years ago. I'll admit right up front that it was the money involved that first started getting under my skin. I didn't want to come across like Ebeneezer Scrooge but I couldn't understand how the proper celebration of Christmas meant you were going to spend so much money that you either had to start laying away in August or you were going to be in debt until April. Or both. I could see the pressures this put people under; the pressure it was putting on me, and I decided that I wasn't going to participate anymore. I told everybody that I wasn't going to buy them anything for Christmas and for them to not buy anything for me either. That didn't work, by the way. My mother is going to buy me a present whether I like it or not. So is my son. I get cards from all over the place, and well I guess I can't just drop out of the whole thing. Like I said: I don't want to be a jerk. But the expense just bugs the Dickens out of me. I quit smoking because I didn't want to spend a dollar a pack on cigarettes. Now, they're over $5.00 a pack. I quit doing Christmas when the commercials you saw the most was for Norelco razors. Now, the commercials are all Lexus cars and diamonds. Are you kidding me?

Then there's the lights. I don't know why people feel compelled to triple their light bill for the month of December, but I must admit I really like seeing the all the lights. I'm just too cheap and lazy to put any up myself.

I don't like Christmas trees either. Putting them up used to be fun. Taking them back down never was. The real trees made the house smell nice, but you ended up with pine needles everywhere – not to mention the attendant fire hazard. Then I ran into Jeremiah, Chapter 10, and I now have Scriptural justification for not having a tree. I even became offended by Christmas trees, interpreting that chapter as forbidding them. I found out not everybody sees it that way. It seems there are a lot of things that people I look up to as Christians don't see the way I do.

However, this year I've suddenly become very aware of the importance of Christmas. It becomes clearer to me as I see all the forces so determined to eliminate it. It started with Xmas. I didn't think anything of it at first. It just seemed like an abbreviation. When people started screaming to “Put Christ back in Christmas” my first thought was that Christ never was really in Christmas. That goes back to my argument about the date and all the other problems I have with how we celebrate Christmas. I mean, don't even get me started on Santa Claus. What in the world does a fat dude flying around in a sleigh have to do with Jesus, for crying out loud?

Then they started with “Happy Holidays”. Still, I was not concerned. After all, the holiday season contains Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah...heck, there was a time when I considered the holiday season to run from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl. Of course, that was before they started playing the Super Bowl in February. "Happy Holidays" to me sounded like encouragement to do what I thought was necessary to stay happy for two months of cold weather and reduced sunlight. Things that faith in Jesus have allowed me to see the error in and consequently to free myself from. That, too is a whole different discussion.

Now we have stores that refuse to have the word Christmas displayed anywhere, though they still expect you to spend an insane amount of money there in celebration of a Holiday that they won't name. We have schools forbidding Christmas from being uttered in their hallways, let alone being displayed anywhere on the property. Lawsuits are being filed to remove nativity scenes from parks and court houses, and now I've noticed Leftist groups doing everything they can to distort the nativity displays that remain. Disgusting things mostly that I won't even describe here. The War on Christmas can no longer be ignored.

So, given the current political environment where businesses are being targeted just because it is known that they are owned and operated by Christians, I figure that this constant and determined effort to eliminate Christmas serves, at least in my mind, as an endorsement of the importance of Christmas.

Someone said you can judge the character of a man by the strength and power of his enemies. In kind of a warped sense, I think that applies here.

My problems with the date notwithstanding, it seems to me now it's pretty important to have a day to not only remember that Jesus Christ was born, but to proclaim it far and wide as a testimony to the rest of the world. The nativity scenes, if nothing else, will hopefully cause people to wonder what it is all about; and if they wonder, they might ask. If they ask, they might learn. Once they learn they might decide to believe, and thus be saved. That's why He was born in the first place. Because God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.

Therefore,I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

...I still don't have a tree. ...I still didn't buy you anything. 

OK, So I'm Sexist

     Anybody that knows me probably already knows that I'm a sexist. I always have been. I know there are people that will tell you that just by virtue of being born male, of course I'm sexist. But it's much more than that. I don't remember ever thinking that girls had “cooties.” I always thought they were the most beautiful, fascinating creatures on earth.

If you check the account in Genesis, woman was the last creation of God. The cherry on top, as it were. God noticed that it wasn't good for man to be alone, so woman was literally God's gift to mankind.(...and I'm not just saying this because I know my wife will be reading it.)

I said all this because I want to talk about a phenomenon known as the Feminist Movement, that I am convinced hates women.

Women are different from men. That claim makes me sexist, but I am thoroughly qualified to make this statement. I have my own test case that I have studied for thirty odd years now. Women are built differently (I REALLY like that), they think differently, they react to things differently and different things matter to them. Yet, the feminists will have you believe that there is no difference between men and women other than stereotypes forced upon them by society. They've spent decades shaming and belittling women into thinking that they are supposed to be like men, while at the same time publicly denigrating men.

They've done such a good job that now women and men have been pitted against each other in a senseless competition that neither side is going to win. It is making everybody miserable with the constant insults and derogatory jokes and threatens to destroy civilization altogether. This whole battle of the sexes is keeping both men and women distracted from what they could be accomplishing together while worrying about whether a woman is “as good as a man.” As good how? Men, whether they want to admit it or not (and most men are more than happy to), do everything they do to in order to impress women. Why would a woman waste time worrying whether she's as good as a man while men are turning themselves inside out just trying to prove they're good enough for a woman?

Let me tell you something: Theoretically, a woman can do anything a man can do. I say theoretically because there is that whole size and weight issue. Let's face it, men are bigger. If you can find a six foot, three inch woman that weights 340 pounds, I'm sure she could play on the defensive line of an NFL team, but why on earth would she want to? The idea that she might is an example of how the feminist movement has distorted our thinking.

Long ago in an orchestrated, deliberate effort, the feminists started devaluing women and the role they were playing in society. Suddenly, homemaking was belittling. Women needed to be “liberated” from the demeaning role of running a household and nurturing children. Somehow, you couldn't be fulfilled unless you were out there with the men, digging ditches, chopping trees, hauling hay, getting carpel tunnel and wrecking your back, while leaving your children at home while someone else watched them grow.

Now they think women should have the RIGHT to fight on the front lines in a time of war. Right? Are you kidding me? Nobody wants the right to be shot at. Men go to war for two reasons: Either to fight for something they believe in (...and getting shot is not a right that anybody believes in), or because they feel they have no choice. Getting drafted would be an example of the latter, and now the feminists are fighting for the right of women to get drafted. Congratulations ladies, your advocates have now won you the right to be forced into battle and get shot.

But there's one thing that a woman can do that no man can possibly accomplish: Bringing new life into the world, and that is where the feminists focus their attack.

They came up with the phrase “pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen” as their slogan for men “dominating” women.

I got news for you: when my wife gets home the first thing she does is kick off her shoes. She hates shoes. She wants to be barefoot, and everybody wants to be in the kitchen. That's where the food is! ...and pregnant would mean that she was going to have a baby.

When did having a baby become terrible? When the feminists started selling the idea that it was another example of man's oppression of women. So now we have N.O.W., the National Organization of Women, whose main focus seems to be keeping women from having babies. Planned Parenthood is the same way. They claim to be about women's health, but they don't do mammograms, they don't have any gynecologists working there, they don't treat ANYTHING. All they are about is doing whatever necessary to keep women from having babies; even if that means killing the baby that is growing in her womb, and the feminists are the club that beats back any opposition.

They want to talk about exploitation of women, but if you take away the thing that makes a woman truly unique, you've just turned her into a sex object. It used to be if a man and a woman made love, there was responsibility there. Not anymore. There's no reason now for a woman to have any kind of class or dignity. It's “Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am” and if she was too stupid to take her pill that day, you can just force her to have an abortion and move on. Now that's exploitation. But they're managing to brainwash girls into thinking it's their right to do whatever they want with their bodies and that the thing growing inside is just a lump of tissues. Why don't they teach them to revere their bodies and not just let anybody do whatever they want with it without any inhibitions or sense of worth. The feminists are intent on destroying all the grace, beauty and distinction that goes with being a woman.

You want to talk about women's issues? What about the way women are treated by Islam? In countries ruled by Muslims, women can't even drive a car. They are not allowed to leave the house without a male relative and their head covered. If they do, they will be beaten ...or worse. Do you know what “the Rule of Thumb” is? It's part of Islamic law that says you can beat your wife with a stick as long as it isn't thicker than your thumb. If the feminists are so worried about the welfare of women, why can't I find a single word on any of their websites or Facebook pages about any of this.

Then there is “female circumcision.” If you don't know what it is, I'm not going to tell you. Just mentioning the word gets my blood pressure dangerously high. It has got to be about the most horrible thing you can do to another human being, and they are doing it to girls all over the world - America too – in the name of Islam. The whole idea is that in the sick and disgusting mind of a Muslim, women are not supposed to enjoy sex. They are just there to be used for the man's pleasure.

NOT ONE WORD from any of these organizations that claim to have women's best interests at heart. They are lying to you. They hate women!

Still don't believe me? We now have a situation where men are expected to be allowed in women's bathrooms, locker rooms and showers if they say they “identify” as being a woman. Target has announced that is their store's policy. As soon as Americans see this, the first thing that goes through their heads (assuming there is a brain in there) is that their wives and daughters are no longer safe. Any guy can now stroll into the women's shower at the local YWCA with impunity.

North Carolina decided already that this will not happen in their state. Incidents had already occurred where men had gone into the women's room to take pictures and videos of girls using the bathroom; holding their phones either over or under the door of the stall. One man was caught taking a video of a young woman in the shower at the gym. Another woman told of being in a rest room that didn't even have doors on the stalls (WTH?), and having a man just stand there and gaze at her while she was trying to go to the bathroom. North Carolina passed a law that says you will use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex listed on your birth certificate. God help the moron that tries to take a picture of my wife in the ladies room. If he's lucky, I'll be close enough to hear the screaming before she kills him; and if he's really lucky the doctors will be able to remove the recording device from whichever orifice she stuffs it in. Then she'll run over and cry on my shoulder, because she is a delicate feminine flower.

A quick check of the N.O.W. web site shows that they are trying to pressure the NFL into moving this month's league meetings out of Charlotte unless the state rescinds the law that was written to protect girls and women from perverts and predators. They're more worried about gay rights than they are about women's rights, privacy, or safety. How's that for women's advocacy?

Men used to adore women. They would defer to any woman in the room. The cry “Women and children first!” meant that men would give their lives to protect the lives of the women and children in times of extreme danger. Men would give up their seat on a bus or train, tip their hat to honor any woman that crossed their path, stand when a woman walked into a room, open doors and carry any load that a woman - any woman – happened to be burdened with if they were near enough to help.

During the seventies, I remember specifically doing any of these things could get you cussed out for being a chauvinist. Today I hear that chivalry is dead. If it is, the feminists killed it.

I still open doors for women. I like to check for their reaction. I don't get cussed at anymore. They actually look kind of stunned. But I've noticed they like it.

Maybe, just maybe, real women are starting to want to be liberated from all this liberation.