Questions and Answers
Confusion exists as to who the Hagrites were, and where they could be found today. Some suggest that they are living in Syria today; others claim that they were Egyptians and are living in Egypt. Others even claim that the Hagrites are the ancestors of the modern Hungarians. And then there are those who say that the Hagrites are Ishmaelites or Saudi Arabians. What does the Bible say? We find an interesting end-time prophecy, mentioning the Hagrites in Psalm 83:1-8, where we read the following: “A Song. A Psalm of Asaph. Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; And those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.’ For they have consulted together with one consent; They form a confederacy against You: The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagrites; Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also… Firstly, the Bible was written in three main languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Classical Hebrew was used for most of the Old Testament. Some parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra and one verse in the book of Jeremiah (chapter 10, verse 11) and one word in the book of Genesis (chapter 31, verse 47) were written in Aramaic. Hebrew and Aramaic were both Semitic languages, and if one was understood, much of the other could also be understood, due to their similarities. Considering the Old Testament, the Hebrew that the Bible was written in was different from the modern Hebrew spoken in Israel today. For a start, there were no vowels but only consonants. Vowels were added later, which is a reason that the correct pronunciation of God’s name is uncertain today. Also, there was no punctuation and, according to “Got Questions.org”, there were no spaces between words, which can cause some difficulties in understanding. However, as far as we are aware, the copying of the Scriptures was very meticulous. The Masoretic text used for the last thousand years is amazingly consistent with the Dead Sea scrolls and the Greek Septuagint versions. To demonstrate this meticulousness, there is an alteration… In the previous instalments, we looked at some reasons why both the Old Testament and the New Testament combine to make up the complete Word of God. We continue, in this final instalment, with some further reasons and conclude that anything less than the full Bible is insufficient for a true Christian. The New Testament hadn’t been written until the end of the first century, which was after Jesus’ death. In the Old Testament, we find a number of Scriptures that prophesy of Jesus’ first coming. If we only relied on the New Testament, we wouldn’t have the prophecies to review and see how they were fulfilled. Let us review just a few of these Old Testament prophecies. In Isaiah 7:14 we read: “Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” This was written about 700 years before the birth of Jesus and was brought to fruition as we read in the New Testament – please see Matthew 1:22-23. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah are remarkable prophecies: Verse 5: “But He was wounded [pierced] for our transgressions, He was bruised [crushed] for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon… In the first instalment of this series, we saw how there are those who do not believe that the Old Testament is necessary for a Christian today. We continue in part 2 to look at reasons why such thinking is wrong. We saw, under the first of seven points, that both the Old Testament and the New Testament combine to give revelation about God, His creation of the universe and of man. Let us move on discussing more reasons why the Old Testament is so important. In Leviticus 23:1-2, we read about God’s Holy Days: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.’” It should be noted that they are God’s Feasts, not Israel’s or of the Jews. Today, as we will know, these generally are no longer kept by professing Christians except by the true Church of God with very few others understanding their necessity. Even most Jews do not keep them in the way prescribed by God. Mainstream Christianity have their own set of days which they keep, namely Christmas, Easter and other days. … Amazingly, there are those who consider themselves to be “Christians” who do not believe that the Old Testament is a necessary part of their belief system. Just to give some brief examples to show that such attitudes exist, let us take note of the following: “In the USA, North Point Community Church (of Alpharetta, Georgia, USA), Senior Pastor Andy Stanley has stated that Christians need to ‘unhitch’ the Old Testament from their faith. In the final part of a recent sermon series, Stanley explained that while he believes that the Old Testament is ‘divinely inspired,’ it should not be ‘the go-to source regarding any behavior in the church.’ To justify this, Stanley preached last month about Acts 15, which described how the early church decided that Gentile converts did not need to strictly observe Jewish law to become Christians” (christianpost.com). The above Pastor also said that “(First Century) Church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and regulations of the Jewish scriptures (the Old Testament). Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well.” Of course, we know that that was not the outcome of the Acts 15 conference, and in our Q&A we say: “For instance, we… Sometimes, when looking at various “parallel” Scriptures, one may find at first glance an apparent contradiction. Some feel that the accounts in Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 contradict each other. To begin with, let us consider the context in Acts 9. Saul, who is later called Paul, persecuted true Christians seeking their death (Galatians 1:13-14). Saul was a carnal-minded Pharisee, who embraced the teachings of the Pharisees (Acts 23:6). At that time, he was very eager to kill genuine followers of Jesus Christ, because they had a different doctrine that, from the Pharisaic point of view, was contrary to their teachings. It was the religion of that “new way,” the Way of Jesus Christ, who was time and again wrongfully accused of being a blasphemer, because He claimed to be the Son of God. But Christ has always been, and still is, the Son of God! Saul, furious in his anger, went to the high priest and asked letters which he wanted to carry to the synagogues of Damascus, affirming that he had the authority to bind and deport the disciples of that new Way, whether women or men, to Jerusalem, in order to accuse them of death in court (Acts 9:1-2). Now let… This is an interesting question. Many times, especially the Catholic concepts of angels picture them as good-looking women with long blond hair, long white dresses and huge white wings, but is there any biblical evidence for such concepts? On the other hand, can it be dogmatically said that angels, representing female features, do not exist? We have addressed the question as to how angels are being portrayed in the Bible in our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World.” Beginning with page 13, under the headline, “What Angels Look Like,” we show from the Bible that some angels have man-like features; some look like animals with wings (especially mentioned are those who are looking like a lion, a calf, a flying eagle, or black, white, red and sorrel horses); and others have features combining man-like and animal-like features (cherubs with wings are described as having the likeness of men, but each one has four faces—faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle). When describing the man-like features, we point out that sometimes, angels appeared as “young men,” but this is not always the case (at least, in several incidents, it is not mentioned that the angels… In the first of this two-part series, we looked at Scriptures which indicate that the early apostles thought that Jesus might return in their lifetime, and since that time, there have been many other predictions about the Second Coming right up until the present time. We showed that the world is currently in chaos with prophecies being fulfilled. We also briefly reviewed the manifold and insurmountable problems around the world at this time. It is the job of the true Church of God to preach the gospel about the soon-coming Kingdom of God on earth and to warn about what is to come. In our booklet “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God,” the following is written under the heading, “We Must Be About Our Father’s Business,” on pages 25-26: “As we saw earlier, when Jesus Christ came preaching the Kingdom of God, people thought that He would establish it right then. Note in Luke 19:11: ‘Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the Kingdom of God would appear immediately.’ “Although He, the future King of the Kingdom, was among them, the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on this earth would… Since Jesus returned to heaven around 2,000 years ago, there have been continued interest and predictions about His return to earth. We know from the Bible that even before Jesus was crucified, resurrected and then returned to heaven, the original apostles were looking to His Second Coming. In Matthew 24:3, we read: “Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’” Jesus then lists what will happen before His return to earth, from verse 4 until the end of the chapter. And after He had returned to heaven, some thought that His return was to be in their lifetime. Let us look at some examples of this. In Acts 2:16-17, we see that Peter was speaking on the day of Pentecost in 31 AD, recorded by Luke some 30 years or so later, and Peter said: “But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your… In the previous installment, we began discussing the history of the Stone of Destiny and its relationship with the Throne of David. In this second installment, we will continue with astonishing claims in this regard. “Tradition identifies this stone with the one upon which Jacob rested his head at Bethel… Jacob’s sons carried it to Egypt, and from thence it passed to Spain with King Garthelus, son of Cecops, the builder of Athens. About 700 B.C., it appears in Ireland… there it was placed upon the sacred hill of Tara, and called ‘Lia-Fail, the ‘fatal’ stone, or ‘stone of destiny’… Fergus II (d. 501), the founder of the Scottish monarchy and one of the Blood Royal of Ireland, received it in Scotland, and King Kenneth (d. 860) finally deposited it in the monastery of Scotland (846)… Upon the stone their kings, down to John Baliol, were crowned. … after the death of Zedekiah [it] was carried by a migrating colony, with ‘Scota the King’s daughter’ under the leadership of the prophet Jeremiah. “There is no record of what Jacob did with the Stone, but it is hardly likely that he who had had such a dream, and…Who are the Hagrites today?
What were some of the events leading up to the English Bible?
Why do you consider the Old Testament so important? (Part 3)
Why do you consider the Old Testament so important? (Part 2)
Why do you consider the Old Testament so important? (Part 1)
Do the accounts in Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 contradict each other?
Are there any angels who may look like women?
Don’t you emphasise the end times too much when there still seems to be plenty of time left? (Part 2)
Don’t you emphasise the end times too much when there still seems to be plenty of time left? (Part 1)
What do we know of the Stone of Destiny? (Part 2)
