Today is the seventh day of the first week of seven weeks.
Today is the seventh day of the counting of 50 days from the day of the waving of the omer on the morrow after the Sabbath.
Today is Shabbat, the first Shabbat of seven Shabbatot.
Today completes the first week of seven weeks.
Kudos to these young people for taking a stand against the murder of babies euphemistically called abortion. May more bold and righteous young people continue to rise up against this evil!
Bet you didn’t hear about this in the mainstream media. At the same time, an anti-god progressive liberal burps or sneezes, and it makes national headlines all over America!
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? (Ps 94:26)
From https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/patrina-mosley/pro-life-students-partake-walkout-unborn
By Patrina Mosley | April 12, 2018 | 12:05 PM EDT
America’s most pro-life generation is at it again. Pro-life students across the country partook in a planned school walkout on Wednesday morning.
After a California high school history teacher was suspendedfor talking with students about whether pro-life students would receive the same support for their human rights concerns as those who engaged in the gun violence walkout, student Brandon Gillespie was inspired to organize a pro-life walkout for his school that has now spread across the country.
With the help of Students for Life of America, the nation’s largest pro-life organization with more than 1,200 groups in all 50 states, Gillespie and other pro-life students meeting on their campuses will receive “resources, legal help, and training for all who want to take a stand for life, to remember those lost to abortion, to call for support for mothers and their pre-born infants, and to demand that Planned Parenthood be defunded,” says Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America.
Also, the Thomas More Society will be there to offer “legal help, free of charge, to students as they prepare to exercise their constitutional rights to stand up for life and to students who encounter a pro-abortion double standard at their schools,” said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.
Gillespie says, “I just want to spread awareness about the cruel things that are happening in Planned Parenthood clinics across the country, the cruel murder of these children who have done nothing wrong.”
Gillespie has inspired other students across the country to stand courageously for the dignity and sanctity of life.
Luke Gutierrez, 16, has organized a pro-life walkout for his school simply because he didn’t see anybody else doing it. He said he takes a stand against the one-sided agenda pushed to him and his fellow peers every day because he knows God created every person with a purpose, and that view should be represented as well.
In a promotional video for his pro-life walkout, he points out that 17 people tragically died in the Parkland high school shooting, but roughly 1,700 people die every day because of abortion.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 600,000 abortions were performed in the U.S. in 2014—with Planned Parenthood responsible for more than a third. In 2016, Planned Parenthood claimed to have aborted 881 babies per day—or one every 98 seconds. Since Roe v. Wade, we have lost more than 60 million people to abortion.
Gutierrez admits he is usually a shy guy and does not like to get out of his comfort zone, but he knows “[there are] issues in life you have to stand for and even though I’m a kid … if we don’t stand up for them, who will?”
This generation is showing no fear in the face of liberal bias in the classroom and on university campuses. There are some things that pro-life students are seeing as more important than getting their peers’ and teachers’ approval.
The moral conscience of our nation is rising. The voices of victims of the abortion industry are becoming louder. The wounded are becoming warriors, and abortion is becoming unthinkable.
As a pro-life generation, we hope to one day take our future grandchildren to an abortion clinic-turned-museum to remember a time when the unborn had no voice, and to declare, “No more.”
Patrina Mosley is Director of Life, Culture and Women’s Advocacy at Family Research Council.
The state of Indiana has adopted a new law that essentially grants personhood to unborn children.
Relevant Magazine reports that Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has signed a bill into law that allows suspects to be charged with murder if they harm a pregnant woman who then loses her unborn child.
Pro-life supporters are championing this bill, as it acknowledges the personhood of unborn children. The law, however, does not apply to legally obtained abortions.
The law also brings to mind the Old Testament passage which says:
“Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve. But if there is further injury, the punishment must match the injury: a life for a life” (Exodus 21:22-23).
This law was brought to the attention of the state’s lawmakers by a woman whose 11-months-pregnant daughter was shot and killed. The woman felt it was unjust that the killer could not be tried for the death of the unborn child as well as the death of her daughter.
The law will go into effect in July 2018.
Think about it. Home churches are harder for terrorists to find and enter. They’re easier to protect. In a home church, everyone knows everyone, so terrorist can’t infiltrate as easily. They’re usually more spiritually vibrant, so less likely for the devil and his minions to take out. There are less people congregated in more places making it a more difficult target for the enemy to hit and to take out.
Also, it’s easier to invite family and friends to a home church or Bible study than to a building. That works well for evangelism!
Home churches are also tough on the unbiblical model of institutionalized religious structures, centralized denominations and hireling pastors, since it’s generally harder on the business model of the church system (i.e. controlling people for the purpose of collecting money), but it’s better for the people and their spiritual growth. This is a good thing. Plus home churches follows the NT model. Go read the book of Acts.
Home churches were the apostles answer to church persecution in their day. Again, go read the book of Acts!
From The Christian Post at https://www.christianpost.com/news/36-isis-suspects-sentenced-death-killing-christians-egypt-church-bombings-222803/
A military court has referred the cases of 36 defendants to the nation’s Grand Mufti with the recommendation that they be put to death. The defendants were convicted of being involved in four different acts of terror that occurred in 2016 and 2017, including the bombings of two churches on Palm Sunday last year, and an attack on a police checkpoint. They’re also accused of being part of the Islamic State cells in Cairo and Qena.
The cases were originally referred to the military court by Egypt’s Attorney General Nabil Sadek.
Two of the attacks occurred on April 9, 2017, when churches in Tanta and Alexandria were bombed during Palm Sunday attacks that were later claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group. The bombings took the lives of 47 people and injured over 120 others.
Additionally, some were convicted for their involvement in the bombing of the Botroseya Church in Cairo on Dec. 11, 2016, which took the lives of 29 people and injured 47. That attack was also claimed by the Islamic State.
The other attack occurred last January when eight policemen were killed and three were wounded during an attack on a police checkpoint in the New Valley.
The Egyptian news site Al-Ahram reports that the military court has referred the case to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s highest official of religious law who weighs in with legal opinions and edicts. Earlier this year, the Grand Mufti approved the death sentence of a Muslim man who brutally murdered a Coptic priest in a Cairo street.
The convictions of the 36 suspects are subject to appeal. In addition, prosecutors charged three of the defendants with providing other militants with combat training at training camps and with training other militants to manufacture bombs.
According to Daily News Egypt, the case involves a total of 48 defendants who have all been accused of joining an illegal terror group and were not only involved in the four attacks but were also planning to launch other violent attacks inside Cairo that would have targeted Christians.
Reuters reports that 11 of the 36 are being tried in absentia. An official verdict is expected on May 15.
As Coptic Christians comprise about 10 percent of the Egyptian population, the community has faced numerous attacks from radicals in the past year-plus. In addition to the bombings, a number of Copts have been brutally killed in separate attacks and Christians’ homes have been burned.
Egypt ranks as the 17th-worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA’s 2018 World Watch List.
The persecution comes as President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has extended an olive branch to the Coptic community and has tried to foster peace and protection for the persecuted Christians.
In 2015, Sisi gave a speech before Muslim leaders at Egypt’s 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar University where he called for the Muslim leaders to lead a “religious revolution” that embraces peace rather than violence.
Sisi has also attended masses during Christian holidays to show his solidarity with the Coptic community. After he came to power in 2014, Sisi personally ordered the rebuilding of dozens of churches that were destroyed by Muslim Brotherhood extremists.
“When a law passed by parliament to protect churches was trapped in a maze of bureaucracy and indifference, [Sisi] intervened, ordering it all to be sped up,” American religious freedom advocate and informal advisor to the Trump administration Johnnie Moore wrote in an op-ed this week. “Under President el-Sisi, Egypt’s religious establishment has also signaled moderation.”
Acts 13:14–15, A synagogue service. In that day as in our day, a typical Jewish Sabbath day synagogue service involved reading the from the Torah and the rest of the Tanakh and then hearing a teaching on what was read or on some other biblical subject. Add these Sabbath day activities to those mentioned in Acts 2:42, 47; 1 Tim 4:13; Eph 5:19–20; Col 3:16; Jas 5:13–14 and 1 Cor 14:26 and we have a list of activities the early believers did when they came together. These include
How many modern day churches do all of these things on a regular basis? If not, maybe it’s time to find a new church…
Leviticus 10:16, Diligently sought or inquired insistently (ASET). According to one Jewish tradition, these two words are the exact halfway mark of the words of the Torah. “This is to teach us that the entire Torah revolves around constant inquiry. One must never stop studying and seeking deeper and broader understanding of the Torah” (The ArtScroll Vayikra/Leviticus Commentary, p. 159).
How many times have you read a passage in the Word of Elohim many times only to receive a fresh revelation or to find a new nugget of understanding? This is because the Word of Elohim is spiritually alive! (Heb 4:12; John 14:25–26; 16:13; also Ps 119:30; Isa 55:11.)
It must be noted that other Jewish traditions place the center of the Torah in other passages as well. (These options are discussed in The Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 30a.)
Study to shew thyself approved unto Elohim, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Tim 2:15)
Leviticus 10:13, Because it is due. In the days before coinage, a man’s wages were weighed out in silver bullion or bartering occurred. In the case of the Levites (including the priests), they were given a portion of the offerings and sacrifices as their wages for serving the people. It is often the attitude of those in congregations that ministers should serve the people for free—without pay, and they are therefore negligent in giving. This is contrary to the Torah, which commands the Israelites to remunerate the Levites for their services (see Lev 27:30, 32). YHVH even calls the tithe to his ministers “their inheritance” (Num 18:21, 26).
Although the Testimony of Yeshua doesn’t overtly promote the concept of tithing per se, it does teach the Torah principle of giving to the ministry. For example, Paul instructed the believers in Philippi about giving. He addresses the issue of supporting his ministry and that by their faithfulness in giving to him it was in effect giving an offering (or a sacrifice) to YHVH, and that the Philippians would be blessed for this (Phil 4:16–19). He goes on to say that we are to give to those who spiritually feed us (1 Tim 5:17–18). Paul backs up this assertion by quoting a Torah principle here.
Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn,” and, “The labourer is worthy of his reward.”
What’s more, the Scriptures tell us that great blessings from heaven accrue to those who tithe or give to YHVH’s spiritual work on earth (Mal 3:10–11).
To not give, according to the Scriptures is called “robbing Elohim” (Mal 3:8–9). Those who refuse to give financially bring a curse upon themselves (Mal 3:9). Paul rebukes the congregation in Corinth for not supporting him financially, and states that he has “robbed” other churches who did support him, thus forcing him to use their offerings to pay his ministry expenses in Corinth (2 Cor 11:8–9). Corinth was not the only stingy congregation in the first century. The problem seemed to be widespread then (Phil 4:15) as it is today.