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What's New at the BRJ...
It is now available for BRJ readers to post comments on the Weblog posts for purposes of discussion. We have been searching for a system that would provide that capability for a while, and found it at html comment box. Hip! Hip! Hooray! Just click on the "Discuss" link at the bottom of the page, and a text box will appear. Be aware that your comments will post immediately. Sorry, but once they are posted you cannot edit or delete them. The only thing automatically filtered is profanity. I'm going to keep an eye out, of course, and I will delete all inappropriate remarks. So long as everyone remains civil, there should be no problems. I am very much looking forward to the discussions. By the way, you may have noticed that we have also made subscriptions to the BRJ available via RSS.
All God's Best to You and Yours,
This Just In ...
"How to Change Your Mind and Your Life"
BOOK REVIEW: Learned Optimism, by Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.
-- Jeff, Tueday 11-08-2009, 4:15 pm CST
In medical research, there are three kinds of evidence that are considered to determine the effectiveness of a particular treatment. The least valuable is anecdotal evidence. More valuable, is clinical evidence. But only a treatment that has been proven by controlled studies can be said to have been proven scientifically.
Anecedotal evidence would be evidence along the lines of, "My sister-in-law said that her Aunt Gertrude drank Mr. Fletcher's Real Crabgrass Tea for two weeks and the wart fell off her nose." Clinical evidence would be reports by physicians about how often warts fall off the noses of patients who are known to drink Mr. Fletcher's tea, whether on their own initiative or by the doctor's recommendation. But controlled studies must involve double-blind experiments -- which any researcher who cares to can verify independently -- of the effect that crabgrass tea has on making nose warts fall off.
It was eye opening some years ago to discover a book by Martin E. P. Seligman, who is the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. In it I discovered that the Biblical principles of the renewed mind -- which I was introduced to in Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille's "Power for Abundant Living" class and learned more in-depth in Rev. Walter Cummins' "Renewed Mind" class -- have been proven in controlled studies using double-blind experiments involving people suffering from or at risk of psychological depression.
As a matter of fact, in the class I teach on the subject, "The Renewed Mind: Principles, Keys and Skills," next to the Bible, Learned Optimism is the textbook . . . more>>
----- BRJ Weblog: November 2009 -----
The Foundation of Biblical Research -Sticky-
-- Jeff, Sunday 04-01-2007, 9:30 pm CDT
God bless you and welcome to the Biblical Research Journal. The idea of Biblical research is at odds with many preconceived notions popular nowadays. To a lot of folks, putting the term "research" in association with the word "Bible" seems like an unlikely combination . . . more>>
The "Kingdom Theology" Counterfeit
And How the Camel Gets His Nose Under the Tent
-- Jeff, Tueday 11-03-2009, 3:30 pm CST
Sorry, but just because you publish a picture of George Washington praying next to the quote "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," like the one that was published in The Way Magazine years ago, that does not make the United States of America God's nation.
The verse, from which the quote was pulled, says in its entirety:
Psalm 33:12
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
There has been and will only ever be one, and only one, nation whose God is the Lord. There has been and will only ever be one, and only one, people that the Lord chose for His own inheritance as a people. And it is not -- I repeat -- IT IS NOT THE U.S.A. OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Never has been. Never will be. . . . more>>
"The Root of All Evil" or "A Root of All Evil"?
The Definite vs. Indefinite Article in I Timothy 6:10
-- Jeff, Tuesday 10-27-2009, 6:30 am CDT
In the English language there is a vast difference in meaning between the definite and indefinite article. For instance if I say, "This photo is the illustration (definite article) of the gizmo," I may well mean that that the photo I am referring to represents the one-and-only illustration of it that exists. But if I say, "This photo is an illustration (indefinite article) of the gizmo," I am implying that this may be only one illustration among some number of others.
When using the English definite and indefinite articles to translate the Greek New Testament, the workman of the Word of God immediately encounters a puzzle common to all translation work. And that is the fact that different languages have varying levels of available specificity among their possible usages . . . more>>
Audio Teaching by Victor Paul Wierwille
"Riches For Power" Sunday Night Service Teaching STS 641, November 11, 1973
-- posted by Jeff, Friday 04-02-2009, 3:35 pm CDT
Dr. Wierwille explains what's behind the "love of money," a most timely subject from the Word of God, given the events that are unfolding in our world today. Formatted in mp3 . . .
"Riches for Power": Part One · Part Two · Part Three · Part Four
By the way, all of Dr. Wierwille's Sunday Night Service teachings are available at the website That Ye May Know.
Recessions, Depressions, and the Biblical Jubilee
Part Three: The Business Cycle Then and Now
-- Jeff, Tuesday 02-17-2009, 6:30 pm CST
It is impossible to rightly-divide the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus -- or any of the rest of Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 -- without keeping straight "to whom" it is addressed. God is not addressing the Christian church, much less present-day governments or central banks, in Leviticus 25. Rather, via Moses, God gave these commands to Israel as it existed 3,500 years ago as an agrarian and pastoral society.
So Leviticus 25 doesn't offer prescriptions that can be adapted wholesale by, say, the United States Federal Reserve, the Bank of England or The People's Bank of China as a cure-all for what ails today's industrial and information-age economies. What we can learn from this chapter in God's Word, rather, are the principles upon which the specifics in Leviticus 25 are based . . . more>>
Recessions, Depressions, and the Biblical Jubilee
Part Two: God Made the Earth to be Inhabited
-- Jeff, Sunday 11-02-2008, 10:30 am CST
Hey now, hold on one doggon minute there, Professor. I thought Jesus Christ declared in John 10:10 that he came so we might 'have life' and 'have it more abundantly'. So what is this in Part One about 'scarcity' as a 'basic premise'? Sounds off the Word to me. ON GUARD!"
Oh, definitely. Time to be on guard. Scarcity may be the basic premise of economics, but economics is a senses-based social science. In fact, all of science is senses-based, which makes for a wide margin of error to say the least. Furthermore, because human nature is an inescapable factor in the science of economics -- unlike in the hard science of physics, for instance -- the margin for error increases so much the more.
Take gravity, as observed by a physicist. Human nature has no bearing whatsoever on how fast a falling object accelerates. But when it comes to supply and demand, as observed by an economist, human nature has tremendous bearing . . . more>>
Recessions, Depressions, and the Biblical Jubilee
Part One: Scarcity
-- Jeff, Friday 10-24-2008, 5:30 pm CDT
By now, it's no secret that the American and world economies have, all of a sudden, begun to experience widespread turmoil. Talk of a global recession, and even the possibility of a depression -- as bad or worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s -- is being heard from the highest governmental authorities in the country.
God declares in II Peter 1:3 that He, "...hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue." And in Psalm 119:130 that, "The entrance of thy [God's] words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple."
Clearly, God and His Son Jesus Christ do not want us left in the dark -- without an understanding of the situations that we face in this life. It is the Word of God alone -- on this subject as all others -- which stands as a beacon of light that can pierce through the darkness of this world, and deliver us from all our fears.
So does the Bible actually have something to say about recessions and depressions? . . . more>>
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