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Atheism has gotten a lot more press recently helped along by the likes of the media savvy Richard Dawkins whose website has such quotes as “The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything.” At first glance this is a kind of funny shot at religious types and suits the “poke fun at the establishment” thinking of our age. Of course to actually back up such a sweeping statement is a lot more complicated, in fact it’s quite impossible to do. What is ironic is t

In this article on the prince of Greece we’re investigating how he has affected our interpretation of scripture. It’s interesting that despite most of the New Testament manuscripts we have today being written in Greek or Aramaic, Papias, John’s disciple stated that “Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew language and several did their best to translate it.”(Ecclesiastical History 3:39 – Eusebius) In fact there has recently been discovered over 14 ancient Hebrew manuscripts of

Even though the Prince of Greece was defeated by the Maccabees, a few centuries later he came back for a second round this time using the Roman empire, a round which still continues to this day… As mentioned in the first article in this series, the Romans did not do away with Greek culture, in fact they built their empire on it. They even borrowed from it in their persecution of the Jews. In the 2 nd century CE part of their persecution of the Jews included banning reading t

Interestingly even though Alexander the Great conquered the known world including the remnant of the exiles who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, he didn’t sack Jerusalem or stop their religious practices, in fact he pretty much left them alone. It was about 125 years after Alexander’s death that the prince of Greece made his move. When Alexander died his kingdom was divided among his servants. In the one hundred and thirty seventh year of the Greek empire Antiochus IV

Daniel 10:20 reads Then he (the angel) said (to Daniel) , “Do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia; and when I have gone forth, indeed the prince of Greece will come .” ( Italics mine ) The prince of Persia is a spiritual principality. He is so powerful that the angel sent to Daniel needed help from Michael one of the chief princes to be able to get to Daniel (Dan 10:13), and he was going to have to fight going back as wel

In the previous article we looked at the Biblical phrase “the ends of the earth.” We saw this encompasses all the island nations from Japan through to New Zealand, in fact all the countries on the immediate western side of the international dateline. We also saw that New Zealand is the “End of the Earth” or the “Uttermost part of the Earth”. However the Bible doesn’t just mention where these nations are, it commands them to do certain things: Isaiah 45:22 “Look to Me, and be

The Ends of the Earth There is a phrase which appears many times in the Bible and it has a quaint ring to it; “the ends of the earth.” The question is what and where are they? – especially given the earth is round! Does the Bible give any indication about where these mysterious ends are? In fact God defines where the ends of the earth are in His challenge to Job: Job 38:12-13 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place , that i

In the book of Job we read about a very rich man who has everything and then suddenly loses it all. In one day, all his children are killed in a tornado, all his businesses are stolen or destroyed, almost all his servants are killed and then shortly afterwards his health breaks down leaving him in agony with boils all over his body. His wife says to him, “Do you still hold to your integrity? Curse God and die!” But Job says to her, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and s

On the morning of Sunday 12 September 2010 God showed me a vision of a greenstone mere. He asked me what it was and I said it was a mere. “Keep going,” He said. I said it was a treasure. “Keep going,” He said. I said it was also a weapon. “Good,” He said. God told me the mere was a picture of Māori, that Māori were His treasure, a people He held in His hand like a mere. And they were not just a treasure but also a mighty weapon in the hand of God. God said His treasure had be