Today, I felt led to study the Holy Spirit.

This study is called "pneumatology," which comes from the Greek words pneuma (meaning "spirit") and logos (meaning "doctrine").

The Hebrew word that is commonly translated "Spirit" literally means "wind" or "breath." Thus the "Spirit of God" is literally the invisible, active presence of God. You can hear the wind and see its result as it moves the branches of a tree, but you cannot see the wind itself. Similarly the actions of the Holy Spirit are evident in the lives of believers, even though we cannot see him directly.

The Spirit is a person. Before ut can be decided that the Holy Spirit is God, it must first be established that he is a person, not mere influence or divine power. And he truly is. Though the Greek term for spirit is neuter, Jesus in John 14:26 and 16:13-14 used the masculine pronoun "he" when speaking of the Holy Spirit. He also has the three essential elements of personality: intellect (1 Cor. 2:11), sensibilities (Rom. 8:27; 15:30), and will (1Cor. 12:11). He can be tempted (Acts 5:9), lied to (Acts 5:3), grieved (Eph. 4:30), resisted (Acts 7:51), insulted (Heb. 10:29), and blasphemed (Matt. 12:31-32).

The Holy Spirit is recognized as God. He is a divine person as can be shown by his attributes of diety: He is eternal )Heb. 9:14), omniscient (1 Cor. 2:10-11), omnipotent (Luke 1:35), and omnipresent (Ps.139:7-10). Works of Deity are also ascribed to him such as creation, regeneration, inspiration of the Scriptures, and raising of the dead.

Some groups (for example, the Jehovah's Witness) view the Holy Spirit as a "force" or "power", rather than as a person. However, that heresy grew largely from the translators of the King James Bible, who referred to the Spirit as "it."

The Holy Spirit has personality, as revealed by the fact that he has a will (1Cor. 12:11), a mind (Rom 8:27), knowledge (John 14:26), the ability to communicate (Acts 1:16), and emotions (Eph. 4:30). His personality is also demonstrated in the fact that he has a job: to teach, guide, restrain, comfort, and intercede on behalf of believers.

The New Testament reveals that the Spirit can be grieved, quenched, resisted, blasphemed, and insulted.

The Holy Spirit is referred to as "God" in Acts 5:3-4, as "Lord" in 2 Corinthians 3:18, ans as being equal to the Father and the Son in Matthew 28:19.

Scripture reveals the divine attributes of the Holy Spirit, referring to him as eternal (Heb. 9:14), omniscient (John 14:26), omnipotent (Job 26:13), all wise (Isa. 40:13), sovereign (1 Cor. 12:11), and the giver of life (Rom. 8:2).

I will finish this study of the Holy Spirit on Wednesday evening.

by Bonnie Calhoun

While watching a little TV on Sunday instead of going to church, I watched a church in Atlanta honoring one of its senior pastors who had been retired many years. He was 92 at that time and I wondered why the church even bothered to ask the old gentleman to preach at that age.

After a warm and welcoming introduction of this speaker, and as the applause quieted down, he rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort and a sliding gait to the podium. Without a noteor written paper of any kind he placed both hands on the pulpit to steady himself and then quietly and slowly he began to speak...

"When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever learned in my 50-odd years of preaching. I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials... The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me... the only thing that would comfort was this verse...

"Jesus loves me this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
we are weak but He is strong...
Yes, Jesus loves me....
The Bible tells me so."

When he finished, the church was quiet. You actually could hear his foot steps as he shuffled back to his chair. I don't believe I will ever forget it.

A pastor once stated, "I always noticed that it was the adults who chose the children's hymn 'Jesus Loves Me' (for the children of course) during a hymn sing, and it was the adults who sang the loudest because I could see they knew it the best."

"Senior version of Jesus Loves Me" (Below)

Here is a new version just for us who have white hair or no hair at all. For us over middle age (or even those almost there) and all you others, check out this newest version of Jesus Loves Me.


JESUS LOVES ME

Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in Him.
(CHORUS)
YES, JESUS LOVES ME.. YES, JESUS LOVES ME..
YES, JESUS LOVES ME, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

Though my steps are oh, so slow,
With my hand in His I'll go
On through life, let come what may,
He'll be there to lead the way.
(CHORUS)

When the nights are dark and long,
In my heart He puts a song..
Telling me in words so clear,
"Have no fear, for I am near."
(CHORUS)

When my work on earth is done,
And life's victories have been won.
He will take me home above,
Then I'll understand His love.
(CHORUS)

I love Jesus, does He know?
Have I ever told Him so?
Jesus loves to hear me say,
That I love Him every day.
(CHORUS)


If you think this is neat, please pass it on to your friends. If you do not pass it on, nothing bad will happen, but you will have missed an opportunity to "reach out and touch" a friend or a loved one.

God Bless Us All!

by Bonnie S. Calhoun

I'm sorry for the delay but life got in the way!

ROFLOL...now that I have regaled you with my poetic rhyme I will give you the awaited answers. And LOL...only two of you were somewhat close!

The well-known evangelist that committed suicide is Judas in Matthew 27: 1-10

The innocent man tortured and executed while townspeople cheer is Jesus in Luke 23:13-25

The fat man found murdered is the story of Ehud in Judges 3:12-25.

The man who cuts up his raped wife is the Levite in Judges 19:22-30.

The woman savaged by vicious dogs is Jezebel in 2Kings 9:30-37.

And the woman who used the tent peg thru the head to pin the man to to ground is in the Song of Deborah. It's Jael in Judges 5:20-27.

There are a ton more great and interesting stories in the Bible. How many of them do you know?

God bless.

by Bonnie S. Calhoun

How many of these bible stories can you name? I'll give you the answers over the weekend...LOL...or tomorrow if enough people bug me :-)

And there's another one to add to the mix:

42 Youth Mauled by Bear for Taunting Prophet!

by Bonnie S. Calhoun

Prompted by a Facebook comment about the name of Jesus not being valid, I decided to share this teaching I have done on His name in the past.

The Tanakh, which is the Old Testament in Hebrew, was translated into Greek for the Jews of the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C.E. The translation was called the Septuagint or LXX. Septuagint means “Translation of the Seventy” because it was transcribed by 70 Jewish translators.

You must remember that this was a translation of the Masoretic Text, so even though it works great really for certain types of biblical research, it does not take authority over the original Hebrew. Now that I’ve added that caveat, let’s look at the Hebraic concepts that were translated into Greek.

The Greek equivalent of “Christ” comes from their word “christos,” which is the equivalent of the Hebrew “messiah” (masciach) meaning the “Anointed One.”

In the Septuagint, a short list of finding “christos” (Christ) and “christian” which are the the direct subjects of verbs takes us to these places in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 4:5, 6:15, 21:12
1 Samuel 24:7, 24:11; 26:9, 11, 16, 23
2 Samuel 1:14, 16; 2:5, 19:22, 23:1
2 Chronicles 22:7
Lamentations 4:20
Amos 4:13
Psalm 19:7, 20:6, 88:39

There is also textual evidence that before Jesus came, the Greek-speaking Jews of that day referred to the Maschiach as Christos…ergo “Christ.” During the time of Jesus, when he was considered the Messiah, they referred to him as ho christos “the Christ.”

Now for the name of Jesus. Yeshua originated from Joshua’s Hebrew name, Yehoshua, which when shortened was Yeshua, which when translated to Greek becomes Iesous (Yay-soos). In old English, the “y” sound was rendered as “j”, and so we get “Jesus.”

To argue that Yeshua’s name was incorrectly transliterated is like complaining that the Jews are called “Jews” rather than the exact term “Y’hudi” which was also transliterated from the Greek word Ioudaios and thusly became our English word “Judean.”

ROFLOL…So we should really be calling Judiasm by the name “Yoodiasm.”

The bottom line is that for those of us raised with the Latin alphabet in English speaking countries, our Lord’s name is Jesus Christ…and it’s all good. AMEN.


by Bonnie S. Calhoun