Building on the Foundation

There are few biblical characters more ignored than Joseph, the father of Jesus. He is generally viewed as an aside, simply the somewhat unnecessary husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and after all, Jesus could have been born and raised without Joseph around at all. Mary was genuinely the first and only woman to exist who seemingly really didn’t need no man.  However, Joseph is far more than just an aside; in fact, he is as important to the birth of Jesus as Mary herself. Of course, the role of a father in a child’s life is irreplaceable, but more than that, with Joseph, his bloodline was irreplaceable, and I believe he was especially selected by God for the lineage of Jesus the Anointed.  You see, Scripture never traces a lineage through a woman, and you won't find any place where it explicitly identifies Mary’s lineage. Was she of the House of David? We aren’t told explicitly, but her cousin Elizabeth is said to be of the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1:5).  That’s the on...

A question I have wrestled with for a while, as many have in the Church of God, is the definition of “between the evenings.” Most of the arguments regarding “between the evenings” are based on historical records, which are then used to work backward into the Bible to arrive at a definition.  Some of the other writers on this blog have undertaken to write about this, and until now, I have largely remained silent on the topic simply because I have not studied it for myself.  I was one of those who took others' papers on the topic and relied on historical sources to define what “between the evenings” actually meant, so this is no judgment of those who do the same. The main question I wanted to examine is whether or not, by strictly using Scripture, it’s possible to define the term “between the evenings.” My conclusion is that it is indeed possible to define the terms solely based on Scripture, and it’s not even that complicated. I realize this post may be quite controversial...