We wonder if she had to hold it in place throughout the entire ceremony.
The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 4/4
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
• When we turn to what the Bible has to say about sex outside of marriage, it’s not hard to sum up the message. Don’t do it. From the Ten Commandments in Exodus to the laws of Leviticus 18, to the instructions of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6-7 to the public embarrassment that attached to the Virgin Mary, the Bible is clear that God’s standard is that sex is to be reserved for marriage, and marriage alone. And unlike much that you’ll find on the shelves of your local Christian bookstore, the Bible doesn’t spend much time trying to justify that standard. You won’t find a verse that says “Thou shalt wait, because it’s better in marriage.” There is no chapter in Scripture that touts the protection from physical disease and emotional heartache that comes from monogamy, although both of those things are true.
Instead, the Bible says things like, “You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 18:4). Or, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The Bible teaches that we should reserve sexual intimacy for marriage for no other reason than that, if we are Christians, we belong to God. Sex outside of marriage is not only a sin against ourselves and our partner, but a fraudulent misrepresentation of God and a cruel distortion of the intimacy he created to be a picture of the eternal intimacy of the Trinity itself. (From the Boundless.org article, “Sex Is Not About Waiting” by Michael Lawrence, published on December 7, 2006)
Dr. Adrian Rogers – Steadfast Loyalty To Your Wife
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s topper stood out in a sea of hats—there’s just something about a full-on electric blue ensemble that grabs your attention.
The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 3/4
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
Question: But what if we get married and find out we’re completely incompatible? Answer: You will find out you’re incompatible—in a hundred different ways. Every married couple does. But a successful marriage isn’t based so much on compatibility as on a commitment to work through the incompatibilities. You don’t need that level of commitment just to live together, so your relationship is missing a vital element right from the beginning.(From Kyria.com article titled, “We’re Moving in Together” – Sept/Oct 2002)
Once the [engagement] ring is on the finger [a false type of] rationalization begins: “We’re married in the eyes of God, and we’re committed to each other for life, so why wait?” Many young women [and men] who have abstained until they are engaged believe that being engaged is a license to go ahead. It is not. In spite of your rationalization, until the minister says, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” you are not joined. Marriage requires discipline— including sexual discipline— and if you cannot be disciplined during the engagement, you will have some problems down the road. (Kay Coles James, What I Wish I’d Known before I God Married)
Weekend to Remember Story – Dennis Rainey
Tim Hawkins – “Some Songs Should Be One Verse”
Revelation (Biblical Numbers 4 of 4)-Dr Adrian Rogers
Leave it to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden to spice things up a bit in a fitted, coral dress.
The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 2/4
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
•In the midst of premarital sex, the worst of couples feels like it’s a great relationship, and that’s one of the great problems with premarital sex. It’s not just that it is sin, but it creates a deception, and it retards the real development of the deeper things. The reason that a couple falls into premarital sex a lot of times is because of the pure novelty of eroticism. Premarital sex that occurs in spontaneity, in combustion, on an eroticism scale of 1 to 10, that’s about a 12. And you can’t maintain that in marriage. When you get married, it’s not going to be this explosive kind of thing that takes off. Oh, every once in a while things happen, but generally it’s going to be the expression of character, it’s going to come out of this fountain of character.
When you get into premarital sex, you go around the character. What happens, though, when you get into marriage, is that premarital stuff doesn’t happen like it used to. Now sex takes place at the end of the day when the man comes in, the woman is doing her deal, they put those kids down, they shower up, brush teeth, clean up, psych themselves up — “all right, it’s time for sex, here we go.” It’s an act of the will. You say, “You’re kidding.” Trust me. If that fountain is not there, of the fear of God, love, servant-hood, kindness, courtesy, helping each other, taking out the trash — if all of those expressions of piety, theology, and Christ-likeness aren’t there, sex isn’t going to happen. You’re going to go frigid. And that’s why couples that get into premarital sex create a deception, they retard the building of what it takes to really develop a relationship, and they build that thing, they cross that bridge on a bridge of balsa. It’s on Styrofoam. They get into marriage, the fountain of piety isn’t there, and now it just becomes frustration, manipulation, the attempt to kick in the eroticism, and it doesn’t work, and you end up just busting it up. (Pastor Tommy Nelson, from Family Life Today broadcast: Unity)
Tim Hawkins – The Dog’s on Fire
Weekend to Remember Story – Dennis Rainey
Revelation (Biblical Numbers 3 of 4)-Dr Adrian Rogers
Royal Wedding: William and Kate’s First Kiss, Too Short for Buckingham Palace Balcony
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
•Tom Elliff: Couples come to us sometimes and blush, “We want to get married.” “Well, are you sleeping around?” “Yes, that’s why we need to hurry up and get married.” I say, “Then that’s the last thing you need to do right now. The person that God has for you is going to make you more holy not less holy, more in love with Jesus not less in love with Jesus, a more effective worker, a better student, better with his parents and her parents not less. The very fact that you’re frustrated and violating every commandment of God means you ought not to get married. You ought to back up, grow up, deepen your relationship with God before you ever consider being married, because if you bring out the worst in each other when you’re dating, you’re really going to bring out the worst in each other when you marry.” Dennis Rainey: I couldn’t agree more. If there is compromise in courtship, where is the trust going to be there after the covenant is established? That covenant is not some magical binding relational agreement. It’s an accountability before God that you better be experiencing both before and after it’s established.
TOM: Sex before marriage is a revelation of your real value system. It says in spite of all that I say about how much I love you and how much I love God and how much I’m going to serve Him, the bottom line, the thing that motivates me more than anything else is this — I get what I want. Even if you have to be guilty before God, even if I have to defile the temple of God when the Scripture says “Whosoever defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” I am willing for you to do that so I can have a few minutes of pleasure — a terrible revelation of a terrible value system. DENNIS: And one that you don’t want to begin a marriage with that being the basis. You want to begin a marriage with trust. Tom: It just says I can’t be trusted. Dennis: Yes, and you want to trust when that covenant is established. (Tom Elliff and Dennis Rainey, from the Family Life Today radio broadcast: Pre-Marriage Pre-Requisites -Broadcast Date: 05/22/07 )
Weekend to Remember-Family Life…Fireproof your marriage
Tim Hawkins 70’s music in 6 minutes
Revelation (Biblical Numbers 1 of 4)-Dr Adrian Rogers
Couples who were engaged at the time they began cohabiting, the study said, had roughly the same odds of survival in marriage as couples who did not cohabit before marrying. The key, observers said, is the nature of commitment at the time of cohabitation.
“When an engagement has taken place, the ring is bought, caterers are being interviewed, dresses being considered, the clarity of the relationship becomes clearer for all involved. Expectations are clearer,” Stanton said.
In a bulletin circulated March 4, Stanton noted the conflicting ways the study had been interpreted in media reports. A USA Today headline said, “Report: Cohabiting Has Little Effect on Marriage Success,” while The New York Times said “Study Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make Unions Last.”
The Times, Stanton said, “did a better job in its reporting.” While it’s true that data indicated engaged cohabiting couples and married couples who did not cohabit were on mostly equal ground, the study did not find that cohabiting generally helped marriages and in fact found that it harmed those that lacked commitment.
The CDC study found that cohabiting women were more likely to have unemployed partners, college educated women were much less likely to be cohabiting than those with only a high school diploma, and young people who grew up with two parents at home were less likely to cohabit prior to marriage.
In comparing the longevity of marriage versus cohabiting, researchers found that about two-thirds of first marriages lasted 10 years or more, while only about one-fourth of men’s and one-third of women’s first cohabitations were estimated to last three years without either disrupting or transitioning to marriage.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., in commentary on the subject March 2, said many young adults tend to believe they are wise to try living together before committing to marriage, but actually they are undermining the institution they hope to protect.
“They do not know that what they are actually doing is undoing marriage. They miss the central logic of marriage as an institution of permanence,” Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said. “They miss the essential wisdom of marriage — that the commitment must come before the intimacy, that the vows must come before the shared living, that the wisdom of marriage is its permanence before its experience.
“Cohabitation weakens marriage — even a cohabiting couple’s eventual marriage — because a temporary and transitory commitment always weakens a permanent commitment. Having lived together with the open possibility of parting, that possibility always remains, and never leaves,” Mohler wrote at albertmohler.com.
Christians should be reminded, he said, that marriage is a gift from the Creator and cannot be substituted adequately with cohabitation.
“In a world of transitory experiences, events, and commitments, marriage is intransigent. It simply is what it is — a permanent commitment made by a man and a woman who commit themselves to live faithfully unto one another until the parting of death,” Mohler said.
“That is what makes marriage what it is. The logic of marriage is easy to understand and difficult to subvert, which is one reason the institution has survived over so many millennia. Marriage lasts because of its fundamental status. It is literally what a healthy and functioning society cannot survive without.”
Weekend to Remember-Family Life…Fireproof your marriage
Tim Hawkins- Old Rock Star Songs
Introduction to the Book Of Revelation- Dr Adrian Rogers
Haunting Cloud
On August 9, 1945, the mushroom cloud of the first atomic bomb rose over Nagasaki, Japan.
Archaeology demonstrates solid connections between the biblical record and ancient history, in contrast to Christopher Hitchens’ assertion that it is an implausible record. Consider the following:
The Patriarchs
Critics often malign the patriarchs without just cause. They insist that camels were not domesticated during the patriarchal age, thus constituting an anachronism in the biblical text. Yet evidence of camel domestication appears as early as 2000 B.C. in several places in Mesopotamia, concurrent with Abraham—if not slightly preceding him (Kitchen, 2003, p. 339). Another point of confidence is the names of the patriarchs. While God selected Jacob’s name, they all highlight the Mesopotamian roots of Abraham since the names of Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, and Joseph are all of Amorite origin (pp. 341-342). These names were at the height of their popularity when the patriarchs lived in the early second millennium and quickly fell into disuse in subsequent centuries.
A vital piece of evidence is the structure of covenants in the Bible. Covenants made in antiquity evolved over time, and each period has a distinct structure for the covenants made at various times and particular locations. Kenneth Kitchen has surveyed a wide range of covenants used from the third millennium through the first millennium B.C. (Kitchen, 2003, pp. 283-289). He found the Abrahamic covenant made in Genesis 15-17 fits securely in the early second millennium, while the covenants in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua 24 fit only in a late second millennium context.
After the evidence is surveyed, it is apparent that much of the criticism of the Bible arises—not from intense scrutiny of the evidence—but from ignorance of it. The overwhelming weight of the archaeological and historical evidence firmly places the Bible in the sphere of reality rather than myth.
REFERENCES
Hitchens, Christopher (2007), God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything(New York: Hachette).
Hoffmeier, James K. (1996), Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Kitchen, Kenneth A., trans. (2000) “The Battle of Kadesh—The Poem, or Literary Record,” The Context of Scripture, Volume Two: Monumental Inscriptions Form the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill).
Kitchen, Kenneth A. (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).
As of April 8, 2011, Dewayne Bryant holds two Masters degrees, and is completing Masters study in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, while pursuing doctoral studies at Amridge University. He has participated in an archaeological dig at Tell El-Borg in Egypt and holds professional membership in the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Archaeological Institute of America.
I will be sharing portions of the article “How Do We Know that the Bible Is True?,” by Dr. Jason Lisle, Answers in Genesis, March 22, 2011. Here is the first part:
The Bible is an extraordinary work of literature, and it makes some astonishing claims. It records the details of the creation of the universe, the origin of life, the moral law of God, the history of man’s rebellion against God, and the historical details of God’s work of redemption for all who trust in His Son. Moreover, the Bible claims to be God’s revelation to mankind. If true, this has implications for all aspects of life: how we should live, why we exist, what happens when we die, and what our meaning and purpose is. But how do we know if the claims of the Bible are true?
Some Typical Answers
A number of Christians have tried to answer this question. Unfortunately, not all of those answers have been as cogent as we might hope. Some answers make very little sense at all. Others have some merit but fall short of proving the truth of the Bible with certainty. Let’s consider some of the arguments that have been put forth by Christians.
A Subjective Standard
Some Christians have argued for the truth of the Scriptures by pointing to the changes in their own lives that belief in the God who inspired the Bible has induced. Receiving Jesus as Lord is a life-changing experience that brings great joy. A believer is a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). However, this change does not in and of itself prove the Bible is true. People might experience positive feelings and changes by believing in a position that happens to be false.
At best, a changed life shows consistency with the Scriptures. We would expect a difference in attitudes and actions given that the Bible is true. Although giving a testimony is certainly acceptable, a changed life does not (by itself) demonstrate the truth of the Scriptures. Even an atheist might argue that his belief in atheism produces feelings of inner peace or satisfaction. This does not mean that his position is true.
The truth of the Bible is obvious to anyone willing to fairly investigate it. The Bible is uniquely self-consistent and extraordinarily authentic. It has changed the lives of millions of people who have placed their faith in Christ. It has been confirmed countless times by archaeology and other sciences. It possesses divine insight into the nature of the universe and has made correct predictions about distant future events with perfect accuracy. When Christians read the Bible, they cannot help but recognize the voice of their Creator. The Bible claims to be the Word of God, and it demonstrates this claim by making knowledge possible. It is the standard of standards. The proof of the Bible is that unless its truth is presupposed, we couldn’t prove anything at all.8
Footnote #8 This fact has been recognized and elaborated upon by Christian scholars such as Dr. Cornelius Van Til and Dr. Greg Bahnsen.
I grew up listening to sermons by Adrian Rogers who was the longtime pastor of Bellevue Church in Memphis.
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
Cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first co-residential union formed among young adults, a new study has found, but those who practice some facets of marriage without the foundation of commitment are harming their relationship.
“Over the past several decades, there have been large increases in the number of persons who have ever cohabited, that is, lived together with a sexual partner of the opposite sex,” said the study, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics March 2.
The data, collected in 2002, showed that the proportion of women in their late 30s who had ever cohabited had doubled in 15 years, to 61 percent. Half of couples who cohabit marry within three years, the study said, but the likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by six percentage points if the couple had lived together first. Additionally, a couple who lives together before getting engaged and married is 10 percentage points more likely to break up before their 10-year anniversary than is a married couple who didn’t cohabitate.
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Tim Hawkins Free Credit Report Dot Com Spoof
(5/5) Adrian Rogers – No Other Way to Heaven Except Through Jesus
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
Michael Foust wrote an excellent article, “‘Livingtogether‘ beforemarriage a statisticalrisk ,” March 26, 2008, Baptist Press, and I have enjoyed sharing this article with you the last few days. Here is the fourth and final portion:
Couples who believe they can save money by cohabitating must weigh not only the biblical commandment against it but the likely negative consequences of their decision, the McManuses say. Such couples should instead look for same-sex roommates as a money-saver, they added. Often, couples cohabitate because they rarely have seen a successful marriage up close, Mike McManus said.
“The major underlying reason for soaring cohabitation is that these are couples in which one or both partners grew up in a divorced home or in a home where there was not a marriage,” he said. “These young couples fear marriage because they fear divorce.”
Churches should mentor engaged couples as a way to strengthen relationships, stop cohabitation and prevent divorces, the McManuses believe. Statistics back them up. Of 288 couples who were mentored at their church between 1992 and 2000, only seven divorced or separated. Fifty-five of the couples (19 percent) broke up before marrying.
“That’s a huge percentage — that’s 19 percent,” Mike McManus said of the break-ups. “You need to have the (mentoring) process be rigorous enough that the weak relationships either break up on their own or get better and get stronger.”
Cohabitation, Mike McManus believes, is a subject too often avoided by pastors.
“I think if sermons were preached on this subject and if churches offered an alternative — a better way to test the relationship — the country would be better off.”
–30– With reporting by Katherine Kipp, an intern with the Washington bureau of Baptist Press.
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Chick-fil-A
(4/5) Adrian Rogers – No Other Way to Heaven Except Through Jesus
FamilyLife Weekend to Remember – great weekend getaway!!
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
Michael Foust wrote an excellent article, “‘Livingtogether‘ beforemarriage a statisticalrisk ,” March 26, 2008, Baptist Press, and I wanted share portions of that article with you the next few days. Here is the third portion:
He added that no studies have ever shown cohabitation to benefit relationships.
Harriet McManus discounted the notion that couples can go through a “trial marriage.”
“[I]t’s really more like a trial divorce,” she said at a press conference at the Family Research Council. “The only question is whether you break up before the wedding or after the wedding in a legal divorce. As one of our marriage educator friends says, you can’t practice permanence. Of 100 cohabiting couples, 85 break up before or after the wedding, leaving only 15 couples in a lasting marriage after 10 years, and who knows how many more divorces after 10 years.”
Women who cohabitate are more likely to be abused and to be depressed than women in a marriage, studies cited by the McManuses say. Additionally, men and women in a live-together arrangement are more likely to cheat on one another. But perhaps most concerning, couples who cohabitate are nearly just as likely as married couples to have children — meaning that the failed relationship has an impact beyond the man and woman.
“The children feel abandoned when one parent moves out,” Harriet McManus said. “That causes a great deal of trauma for the children, tripling the odds that the child will be expelled from school [compared to] those raised in an intact family.”
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Jason and Aerobics
(3/5) Adrian Rogers – No Other Way to Heaven Except Through Jesus
The Authenticity of the Bible – The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict – Josh McDowell Part 3
From time to time you will read articles in the Arkansas press by such writers as John Brummett, Max Brantley and Gene Lyons that poke fun at those that actually believe the Bible is historically accurate when in fact the Bible is backed up by many archaeological facts. The Book of Mormon is blindly accepted even though archaeology has disproven many of the facts that are claimed by it.
The Book of Mormon claims that the Native American populations are descended from the Lamanites, who originated from ancient Israel 2,600 years ago. This concept is stated several times throughout the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants (both of which are part of the “standard works”). Modern molecular genetics have proven that Native Americans are descended from Siberian and Asian ancestors. No evidence of Hebrew ancestry has been found in living Native Americans or in the remains of ancient Native Americans. However, other claims of Hebrew ancestry have been verified genetically in the African Lemba tribe, who left the Middle east during the same time frame found in the Book of Mormon account. In addition, no evidence for the “white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome” Nephites has ever been found in ancient American artwork.
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Stela of Baal
Could this stone monument of Baal have been the same image that many Israelites worshipped?Baal, the storm god, is seen on this Stele unleashing a storm. He is holding a club in his right hand and a spear in his left like a lightning bolt, which extends upward in the form of a tree. It was found in 1932 at the site of ancient Ugarit, known today as Ras Shamra. Baal the was supreme male deity that was worshipped by the ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians, just as Ashtoreth was their supreme female deity. In many cases Baal was identified with the sun and Ashtoreth with the moon. Baal worship was prevalent during the time of Moses, especially among the Moabites, the Midianites, and eventually spread to the Israelites. During the time of the Kings, the northern Kingdom of Israel were Baal worshippers as were many of the kings of Judah. Many Temples were erected to Baal and have been discovered by archaeologists. Places for worship of Baal were often high places in the hills consisting of an altar and a sacred tree, stone, or pillar.
1 Kings 16:30-33 “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”
“At Ugarit, El was sovereign, but another god ran things on earth for El as his vizier. That god’s name was Baal. At Ugarit Baal was known by several titles: “king of the gods,” “the Most High,” “Prince Baal” (baal zbl), and—most importantly for our discussion—“the Rider on the Clouds.”” – Wikipedia
Stela of Baal in Biblical archaeology.
Louvre Excerpt
Stèle du “Baal au foudre”
The stela depicting the storm god Baal is the largest and the most significant of the stelae discovered at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit). It was found, along with eight others, not far from Temple de Baal by the Schaeffer archaeological mission, 1932. Four others were discovered near the Temple of Dagon and another ten in various locations around the city. All date to the Late Bronze Age, eighteenth-fifteenth centuries BC.
The large stela bears the relief carving of a monumental male figure, towering over a much smaller figure standing on a pedestal. The bearded lion-clothed main figure is wearing a horned headdress, indicating that he is a god. He is brandishing a club in his right arm, with left outstretched carrying a spear, the head of which is stuck in the ground, while vegetation sprouts out its shaft. Today it is generally agreed that the scene depicts the god, Baal, unleashing a storm from the club in the the traditional pose of the storm gods worshiped throughout the Levant – the Greek god Zeus and the Roman god Jupiter would later take up the same pose and attributes. The metaphor of the spear sprouting a plant alludes to the beneficial effects of the rain. The small figure crouching on the small horned altar is believed to be the king of Ugarit, in ceremonial dress, his arms crossed in prayer and the recipient of divine protection. The motifs carved on the two-tiered altar on which the god stands are more difficult to interpret: is the monstrous snake who will cause the death of Baal depicted above the carved waves of the ocean? Or is it the horizon of mountains that surrounded the kingdom of Ugarit, protected by Baal, whose home is “in the innermost reaches of Mount Sapon.”
Ugarit was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria a few kilometers north of the modern city of Latakia. Itsent tribute to Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus (called Alashiya), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from ca. 1450 BC until 1200 BC.
Paris – Musée du Louvre
British Museum Excerpt:
Bronze Figure of Baal
Canaanite, about 1400-1200 BC From Syria
The god Baal with raised right arm
This figure is typical of bronzes from Syria in the second half of the second millennium BC. Although clearly broken, his pointed cap and raised right arm suggest that this is a representation of the god Baal, one of the major deities of the Canaanites. He would usually be wielding a club, but this example may have held a smaller object, perhaps a thunderbolt. The eyes were originally inlaid and the dowel and hole are modern.
The god Baal embodied royal power and authority. Much of our knowledge about Canaanite gods comes from the local Canaanite literature, particularly from the archive of cuneiform tablets from the site of Ugarit. The Canaanite gods and goddesses continued to be worshipped during the first millennium BC, though some of their functions changed. They were worshipped wherever the Canaanites (Phoenicians) established trading colonies across the Mediterranean.
I grew up listening to sermons by Adrian Rogers who was the longtime pastor of Bellevue Church in Memphis.
Adrian Rogers sermon “No other way to heaven except through Jesus” based on Romans chapter one (part 4).
There is such a powerful illustration of an agnostic that came to Christ in this previous clip that I had to give you the completion of that story in this next clip below:
The Daily Hatch 