Commentary

Jesus the Messiah? An Enlightening, Compelling, Easy to Understand Argument for Every Jew and Gentile

“Jesus was a magician!”

That was the strong rebuke I received from my dad when I tried to explain to him I believed Jesus is the Messiah. My dad (God rest his soul) was Jewish and had been told years ago that Jesus was not the promised Messiah but instead was a phony, a sorcerer, a magician.

Where did my dad get that thinking from?

From a host of ancient Sages (rabbis).

In a powerfully convincing book, Refuting Rabbinical Objections to Christianity and Messianic Prophecies, Eitan Barr, an Israeli Jew who believes Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah, explains that after Jesus’ death and resurrection, unbelieving rabbinical scholars began to purposely confuse their students and the general population with propaganda designed to instill fear upon anyone who considered Yeshua to be God’s promised redeemer.

While the rabbis continue to belittle Yeshua as a fake, or a magician, Barr examines the Messianic Biblical prophecies that contend the Messiah must be a descendant of David (1 Chronicle 17), be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5), appear before the destruction of the second Temple and executed in 32CE (Daniel 9), be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7), enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9), heal otherwise incurable conditions (Isaiah 35), be rejected by the leaders of his own people (Isaiah 53, Psalm 22), be a blessing to the Gentiles (Psalm 118), and be crucified (Pslam 22, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12), and be raised from the dead…!

This scholarly book is an easy read and very enlightening.

This book is a must for:
– All Jewish people who are genuinely searching for the truth.
– For all Messianic Jews who desire to deepen their spiritual roots.
– For Gentile Christians who want to affirm the foundation of their salvation and be able to better share their faith with a Jewish friend.

By the way, my dad acknowledged Yeshua as his Savior about an hour before his departure into eternity.

California Explores “Carbon Footprint Guilt Tax” For Restaurant Diners

A new statewide environmental program in California may soon be coming to a blue state near you. It’s starting as a volunteer effort that will mean an extra charge for restaurant customers to offset the carbon footprint supposedly involved in going out to eat.

Cue the laugh track.

Launched earlier this month, the “Restore California Renewable Restaurants” program asks participating eateries to add a 1 percent increase to customers’ bills. The money goes to farms participating in the “Healthy Soils Program,” which supports sustainable farming practices in California.

The voluntary program has attracted national media attention and caught the eye of several restauranteurs in Sacramento.

Restore California is a joint effort by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the (Stalinist) California Air Resources Board, and San Francisco nonprofit, Perennial Farming Initiative. The money raised will be distributed to farms participating in the Department of Food and Agriculture’s Healthy Soils Program, which have been screened to show they practice methods that sequester carbon, reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases and improve soil health. Customers can opt out of the 1 percent fee, but the hope is most will likely never notice the price increase. If they do notice, I’m sure the liberals who run this state will follow up with a public-shaming PR campaign.

A restaurant’s carbon footprint includes all greenhouse gasses (mainly carbon dioxide, as well as methane and nitrous oxide) created in the production and transportation of food to customers’ plates or homes, as well as all energy use.

Extra money from the surcharge be given to help carbon-conscious farms offset their high cost-of-doing-business and sell, in theory, sell their goods to more restaurants. Such operations are so expensive they can’t exist without government handouts.

Basically, this is nothing more than a guilt tax: Pay up and you’re absolved for the sin of environmental gluttony, regardless of whether your practices change.

And the kicker? Carbon Dioxide is an essential atmospheric gas–we can’t live without it. And, greater the concentrations, the more plantlike flourishes. Check out next week’s Hidden Headlines podcast for more on that part of the story.

Does Universal Income Align With Judeo-Christian Values, Or Does It Encourage a Slacker Nation?

By now you’ve heard most of the current Democratic presidential candidates tout the need for Universal Basic Income (UBI). But is UBI in keeping with the Judeo-Christian values that have shaped the core foundation of this nation’s work ethic and economy?

And, is Universal Basic Income good for society?

According to a New York Times article, proponents of UBI believe that “as computers perform more of our work, we’d all be free to become artists, scholars, entrepreneurs or otherwise engage our passions in society no longer centered on the drudgery of daily labor.”

Sounds like paradise. Perhaps it’s no wonder that this socialist-aligned economic system resonates with so many Millennials. However, UBI should raise the eyebrows of those who value work as an inherent good, as the Bible does.

According to the Times article, one basic assumption of UBI is that some forms of work are beneath the dignity of humans. The writer, Farhad Manjoo, cites venture capitalist Albert Wegner:

I think it’s a bad use of a human to spend 20 years of their life driving a truck back and forth across the United States. That’s not what we aspire to do as humans—it’s a bad use of a human brain—and automation and basic income is a development that will free us to do lots of incredible things that are more aligned with what it means to be human.

This is pure hogwash.

God created us to find personal value in work, and such work is often done best when it aligns with our gifts, talents, and marketable skills.

It’s clear from the beginning of Genesis that humans are intended to work. Whether it is what is often referred to by theologians as the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28) or the more specific command to tend the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15), in the Biblical tradition work is inseparable from the human condition.

And then there is The Fall.

In reminding Adam and Eve how their sin distorted the moral order of creation, God cursed the ground making their daily work toilsome (Gen. 3:17-19). The very sweat of their brows provided a lesson: until the Lord returns, this world is not the way it was intended.

Therefore, driving a truck across the United States is not a waste of humanity. It may be, for that trucker, the best way to show love for others and contribute to a healthy economy.

Made In The Image Of God

Certain people are gifted with the ability to use their minds in amazing ways to serve others. Some of these are naturally inclined towards inventing, or programming, or music for example.

On the other hand, there are people made in the image of God whose vocational gifts tend toward manual labor and craftsmanship. And it is wrong to devalue those gifts in comparison to others.

So what if the world does become completely automated, as many of the politicians and thinkers contend?

The answer is not to encourage people to simply subsist on handouts. Instead, the marketplace and human capital will create opportunities for new vocational training (and retraining) and naturally encourage individuals coming into the workforce to diversify their skill set. When it comes to enriching our own coffers we humans inherently show our motivation to thrive, especially in a capitalistic system.

Engaging in meaningful work is part of participating in humanity and enhancing the world around us.

The Real Cost of UBI

Who pays for Universal Basic Income? The productive, working taxpayers, .

One obvious problem with UBI is that it will encourage slackers, just as government welfare currently does. Eventually such an economic system is fundamentally unsustainable.

Additionally, UBI encourages people not to find ways to add value to their communities. Work adds economic value, but it also adds a deep relational value that is difficult to replace.

Why the Democrats SHOULD NOT See the Un-redacted Mueller Report

Jerry Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, knows he has no right to see the complete, un-redacted version of the Mueller Report. Instead, he and his fellow democrats are conducting a shameful dog and pony show designed to hoodwink their voting base into wanting President Donald Trump’s head on a platter.

Rightly, President Trump has used his Constitutional authority to prevent Representative Nadler from seeing these confidential documents. Nadler was offered to review a “lightly redacted” version of the Report, but chose not to.

The following was prepared for “Members and Committees of Congress” by the Congressional Research Service:

The U.S. Constitution requires that any prosecution of a serious federal crime be initiated by “a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.” The “[g]rand [j]ury” contemplated by the Constitution is a temporary, citizen-comprised body that obtains evidence and considers whether it is sufficient to justify criminal charges in a particular case. Though a grand jury works with federal prosecutors and functions under judicial auspices, it is considered an independent “constitutional fixture in its own right” that “belongs to no branch of the institutional Government, serving as a kind of buffer . . . between the Government and the people.” One long-established principle that has been deemed essential to the grand jury’s functioning and independence is that matters occurring before it are to be kept secret. Secrecy prevents those under scrutiny from fleeing or importuning the grand jurors, encourages full disclosure by witnesses, and protects the innocent from unwarranted prosecution. For these and other reasons, prosecutors, the jurors themselves, and most others involved in grand jury proceedings are generally prohibited from revealing “such matters as the identities or addresses of witnesses or jurors, the substance of testimony, the strategy or direction of the investigation, the deliberations or questions of jurors, and the like.” The prohibition endures even after a grand jury’s work is completed.

The full briefing can be seen here: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/LSB10201.pdf

Who’s Reading the Bible? More People Than You May Realize

Despite the onslaught of anti-Christian values pushed by the elite media outlets, radical activists, educators, and politicians, there is a ray of hope. A newly published annual survey found nearly half of all adults engage with the Bible at least three or four times a year on their own.

The “State of the Bible” study, conducted by the Barna Group and commissioned by the American Bible Society, found 48 percent of those in the United States engage — three or four times a year — by using, listening to, watching, praying or using Bible text outside of a church service.

I totally understand that simply reading the Bible won’t get you to Heaven, but it is the Word of God and therefore I’m hopeful that those are reading and “engaging” in the Word, will hear God’s voice and respond to His calling.

Significantly, the study shows that 21 million new people are looking to the Bible for wisdom and guidance this year. Also, 14.9 million people who were disengaged in 2018 have chosen to interact with the Bible in 2019.

Interestingly:

16 percent of adults in America report using the Bible every day, while another 14 percent use it several times a week, according to the study.
9 percent of the population use the Bible once a week, and 7 percent use it once a month.
31 percent say they never use the Bible.

Barna observed that while the percent of adults who use the Bible at least three or four times a year has remained relatively stable since tracking began in 2011, the percent of adults who say they never engage with the Bible, 35 percent, has increased 3 percentage points since 2018 and 10 percentage points since 2011.

Other key findings:

81 percent of Americans see the church as a place people can go for help.
102.7 million adults interact with the Bible, often seeking practical advice for their modern lives.
Almost 60 percent of Americans believe that the message of the Bible has transformed their lives.

The survey found African Americans (69 percent) are the ethnic group most likely to use the Bible at least three to four times a year, compared to a smaller number of whites (44 percent) and Hispanics (52 percent).

Bible users are also more likely to reside in the South than they are in other regions of the U.S.

The researchers found little difference in Bible use by generation; however those who were married are more likely to use the Bible than single adults.

Also, 21 percent of Bible users are unchurched. The survey also discovered 11 percent of skeptics are reading the Bible.

The study indicates that Bible engagement results in an increase in financial giving and in volunteerism.

In 2018, Bible-centered respondents recalled contributing $1,000 on average, while the Bible-disengaged gave $20 on average