Are we really living in the end times? Could it be that the recent Covid-19 crisis marked “the beginning of the end?” Will that be followed by an imminent (pre-tribulation) rapture? Will we still be living here for (at least some of) “the great tribulation?” Are we prepared? Will we need to change “the model” we use as Messiah’s body during the potentially tumultuous circumstances soon coming on our world? This very interesting and challenging book addresses the above questions in a convincing and biblical way. As a native Israeli Jew and a follower of Israel’s Messiah Redeemer, the author approaches the above issues using his Hebraic Jewish Middle Eastern lens. Spoiler alert! Do not expect traditionally accepted explanations and interpretations of end-time prophecies. Be prepared rather to have your settled theology disrupted as you read with an open mind. You may discover your thinking has been influenced by traditional teachings, which are the byproducts of misinterpreted scriptures due to a lack of understanding of their proper cultural and linguistic context. Sit back and enjoy the ride!
In recent decades, there has been a growing movement within the body of Messiah/ Christ towards a greater understanding of the Hebraic/Jewish roots of Christianity. Moses Wrote About Me is an integral part of this movement. Moses Wrote About Me is the first of five commentary books written by Yosef Rachamim Danieli, a native Israeli Jew who has followed Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth for almost 40 years. He has traveled and taught the Word of God (both Old and New Testaments) inside and outside God’s Promised Land for many years. The author believes that this book series will not only contribute to the body of Messiah’s appreciation of the Jewish roots of Christianity, but that it is also an integral part of the preparation that all true followers of Messiah should make for the Messiah’s Second Coming. For more information on Yosef, to listen to his teachings, sign up to his newsletters, and, to invite him and his wife Gabriela to share with your people on a diversity of subjects related to Israel and the Word, please visit www.touryourroots.com Moses Wrote About Me follows the traditional Jewish readings that are held in every synagogue around the world on Sabbath/Saturday. The book’s emphasis is on the portraits and foreshadowings of the Jewish Messiah in each and every one of these Sabbath readings. To accomplish the goal of increasing our understanding of God’s masterplan of salvation, the author includes comments of the Jewish sages and provides explanations of the meanings of Hebrew words, Hebrew names, and Hebrew places. In addition, Moses Wrote About Me addresses many known theological controversies from a unique and out-of-the-box perspective. All these things create a rich and stimulating experience in the study of the Word of God. The prospective reader is encouraged to approach Moses Wrote About Me with an open mind. Set aside your pre-conceived ideas and doctrines, sit back, relax, and enjoy this unique perspective and approach to God’s Holy Word.
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
The idea of "The Rapture" -- the return of Christ to rescue and deliver Christians off the earth -- is an extremely popular interpretation of the Bible's Book of Revelation and a jumping-off point for the best-selling "Left Behind" series of books. This interpretation, based on a psychology of fear and destruction, guides the daily acts of thousands if not millions of people worldwide. In The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing argues that this script for the world's future is nothing more than a disingenuous distortion of the Bible. The truth, Rossing argues, is that Revelation offers a vision of God's healing love for the world. The Rapture Exposed reclaims Christianity from fundamentalists' destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God's beloved community.
LaHaye and Jenkins' best-selling apocalyptic fiction novel, 'Left Behind, ' is already so ridiculous that it's hard to make a parody of it. Yet the conservative Christian author, Nathan Wilson, bravely sets forth to push it over the top. Tweaked versions of all the original characters work together in an absurd tangle of Evangelical goofiness struggling to make sense of the pathetically gnostic vision of the original story. You won't want to miss all body parts, cats, and youth pastors left behind, Buff Williamson's Ivy League deductions, Haddie the Whore of Babylon, or the climactic struggle with the Tulsa Antichrist in a Christian "book store." If you regret reading 'Left Behind, ' read 'Right Behind' to ease that pain with laughter.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.
This book addresses the questions about the believer's relationship to the Torah (the five Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch) and its commandments (the Law): Since Jesus kept the Law, are believers (Jewish and Gentile) also obliged to keep the Law, or at least some portions of it (Sabbath, the food laws, etc.)? What about the Oral Law (rabbinic traditions)? How does the Torah point to the Messiah? How do we apply the Law of Moses today? Though this book is based on more than a decade of academic research, it is written with the non-academic reader in mind and provides easy-to-understand answers to the questions related to the Torah and does so in a manner thoroughly rooted in a careful reading of the biblical text.
The extraordinary success of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins shows that their action/adventure novels have tapped into the American psyche. It has revived our fascination with vivid images of the book of Revelation and other biblical texts: the Antichrist, the mysterious number 666, and people suddenly raptured into the sky by God. But is there something dangerous behind the thinking in these books and how they play out in our world today? In Left Behind or Left Befuddled, Gordon Isaac takes the reader inside the theology behind the series. In clear and accessible prose, Isaac answers many important questions that Christians have about the phenomenon that is Left Behind: Is this Vision of the end times really biblical? Why do people have such a powerful response to it? What are alternative ways to think about the end times? How do the books view Catholics and other Christians? What does this Vision of things mean for Israel and the Jewish people? How can we counter the myths proposed in the series as fact? Gordon Isaac is the Berkshire Associate Professor of Advent Christian Studies in the church history department at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. He is also an ordained Advent Christian minister who has served a number of congregations.
The examines Noah and the flood story from an ancient Near Eastern cultural and historical perspective through the lens of creation, order, kingship, and chaos. It looks at the cosmos as a kingdom, the mountain as the center of government, the ark as the bulwark against chaos, and the vineyard as a sign new creation.
Jesus’ blood is more powerful than you realize. “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” — Revelation 12:11 (NIV) While many Christians believe that Jesus purchased all we need at the cross, few of us grasp the true power of His blood and its vital relevance to...
