Many people think of Samson as a brawny, muscular, large, man. But if this were so, why did the Philistines, Samson’s enemies, or Delilah, the person closest to him, or anyone else that saw him, not realize the source of his strength? Could Samson have been a regular sized, or a thin or even a scrawny man that God used to show His power and strength? The biblical account says nothing about his physical appearance, except for his long hair. It is very possible that Samson was physically normal or even scrawny in appearance, since there are many examples in scripture about how God used weakness to show His power and strength. See in this work what others have said about Samson being scrawny and how faith plays a big part in what can be done. See how God used normal people to do big things, and what He says about how the power of the Holy Spirit can make us strong to “move mountains”. Also in this work is shown what God says about fighting for faith, its methods, benefits and rewards. We live in a physical world, but physical appearance is not always the sign of what can be done. Faith in God is what makes you strong. In the back of the book, I took the opportunity to include some photos of some of my architecture and building projects I was involved in over the years that God has used me to positively influence others. Also included are photos of family and friends whom God has used to positively influence me.
The last 150 years of biblical scholarship have revolutionised the understanding of the four Gospels. The revolution remains, however, largely unknown to the general public. Paul Laffan’s The Fabricated Christ argues for the wider dissemination of this knowledge and tasks those engaged in biblical criticism with greater honesty and frankness about the results of their research.
Paul’s life-changing events: 1. Born a triplet in 1955 – 4th of 6 children in family 2. Mom died when I was 5 years old in 1961. She was 45. 3. Dad married Mother when I was 7 in 1963. 4. Acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior Lord at age 13, 1968. 5. College & single life- ages 18-26, 1974 - 1981. 6. Older sister died when I was 23 in 1978. She was 29. 7. Married at age 27 in 1982. 8. Birth of 1st daughter in 1986. 9. Birth of 1st son in 1987. 10. Delta Plane Crash when I was 33 in 1988. 11. Registered Architect, State of TX at age 34 in 1989. 12. Birth of 2nd son in 1990. 13. Car crash when I was 36 in 1991. 14. Registered Interior Designer, State of TX, age 38 in 1993. 15. Birth of 2nd daughter in 1993. 16. Mother died when I was 40 in 1995. She was 82. 17. Dad married Laverna when I was 41 in 1996. 18. Separation of both legs simultaneously at age 44 in 2000. 19. Miracle of the Crusaders Football Team at age 47 in 2003. 20. Dad died when I was 50 in 2006. He was 90. 21. Brain Surgery at age 53 in Jan. 2009. 22. 2 seizures with work and income loss at 53 in Feb. 2009. 23. Shoulder Surgery twice at 53 in Mar. 2009. Use the Bible Reading charts in the back of the book to read through the Bible in one year!
Many people think of Samson as a brawny, muscular, large, man. But if this were so, why did the Philistines, Samson’s enemies, or Delilah, the person closest to him, or anyone else that saw him, not realize the source of his strength? Could Samson have been a regular sized, or a thin or even a scrawny man that God used to show His power and strength? The biblical account says nothing about his physical appearance, except for his long hair. It is very possible that Samson was physically normal or even scrawny in appearance, since there are many examples in scripture about how God used weakness to show His power and strength. See in this work what others have said about Samson being scrawny and how faith plays a big part in what can be done. See how God used normal people to do big things, and what He says about how the power of the Holy Spirit can make us strong to “move mountains”. Also in this work is shown what God says about fighting for faith, its methods, benefits and rewards. We live in a physical world, but physical appearance is not always the sign of what can be done. Faith in God is what makes you strong. In the back of the book, I took the opportunity to include some photos of some of my architecture and building projects I was involved in over the years that God has used me to positively influence others. Also included are photos of family and friends whom God has used to positively influence me.
David Moessner proposes a new understanding of the relation of Luke’s second volume to his Gospel to open up a whole new reading of Luke’s foundational contribution to the New Testament. For postmodern readers who find Acts a ‘generic outlier,’ dangling tenuously somewhere between the ‘mainland’ of the evangelists and the ‘Peloponnese’ of Paul—diffused and confused and shunted to the backwaters of the New Testament by these signature corpora—Moessner plunges his readers into the hermeneutical atmosphere of Greek narrative poetics and elaboration of multi-volume works to inhale the rhetorical swells that animate Luke’s first readers in their engagement of his narrative. In this collection of twelve of his essays, re-contextualized and re-organized into five major topical movements, Moessner showcases multiple Hellenistic texts and rhetorical tropes to spotlight the various signals Luke provides his readers of the multiple ways his Acts will follow "all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1) and, consequently, bring coherence to this dominant block of the New Testament that has long been split apart. By collapsing the world of Jesus into the words and deeds of his followers, Luke re-configures the significance of Israel’s "Christ" and the "Reign" of Israel’s God for all peoples and places to create a new account of ‘Gospel Acts,’ discrete and distinctively different than the "narrative" of the "many" (Luke 1:1). Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy combines what no analysis of the Lukan writings has previously accomplished, integrating seamlessly two ‘generically-estranged’ volumes into one new whole from the intent of the one composer. For Luke is the Hellenistic historian and simultaneously ‘biblical’ theologian who arranges the one "plan of God" read from the script of the Jewish scriptures—parts and whole, severally and together—as the saving ‘script’ for the whole world through Israel’s suffering and raised up "Christ," Jesus of Nazareth. In the introductions to each major theme of the essays, this noted scholar of the Lukan writings offers an epitome of the main features of Luke’s theological ‘thought,’ and, in a final Conclusions chapter, weaves together a comprehensive synthesis of this new reading of the whole.
In this volume Joshua Paul Smith challenges the long-held assumption that Luke and Acts were written by a gentile, arguing instead that the author of these texts was educated and enculturated within a Second-Temple Jewish context. Advancing from a consciously interdisciplinary perspective, Smith considers the question of Lukan authorship from multiple fronts, including reception history and social memory theory, literary criticism, and the emerging discipline of cognitive sociolinguistics. The result is an alternative portrait of Luke the Evangelist, one who sees the mission to the gentiles not as a supersession of Jewish law and tradition, but rather as a fulfillment and expansion of Israel’s own salvation history.
What terms did early Christians use for outsiders? How did they refer to non-members? In this book-length investigation of these questions, Paul Trebilco explores the outsider designations that the early Christians used in the New Testament. He examines a range of terms, including unbelievers, 'outsiders', sinners, Gentiles, Jews, among others. Drawing on insights from social identity theory, sociolinguistics, and the sociology of deviance, he investigates the usage and development of these terms across the New Testament, and also examines how these outsider designations function in boundary construction across several texts. Trebilco's analysis leads to new conclusions about the identity and character of the early Christian movement, the range of relations between early Christians and outsiders, and the theology of particular New Testament authors.
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