Making Life Work

From the program notes of Ronald L. Dart

    In the movie, The Ten Commandments, a voice said, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and the inhabitants thereof.” Did you know those words were inscribed on the Liberty Bell in 1753?

    When you think about it, the dominant theme of that movie was liberty—liberty for a people who had just been set free. In the same way, the central idea of what Jesus taught is liberty or freedom. That was intended from the beginning. Jesus wants us to have freedom.

    The purpose of the Law was to guarantee freedom. The whole idea was freedom for man. When at last you are given freedom, you don’t want control to rear its ugly head. The Law and freedom are no problem until man steps in and tries to control...

An Excerpt from The Thread: God's Appointments with History

By: Ronald L. Dart

    One of the great losses to the nominal Christian faith was the abandonment of the holydays of the Bible, their dismissal as merely “Jewish” institutions. And surely, one of the greatest of the Christian holydays is Pentecost, because it was on this day that the church was empowered to do its work. Some even call Pentecost the birthday of the church.

    But on that first Pentecost of the New Testament church, no one even thought of abandoning this festival. They were too high with the experience. Imagine yourself sitting in a room with 120 of the first disciples of Jesus. You have been...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart

    When you hear the word “Pentecost” do you automatically relate it to what happens among charismatic Christian groups today? Pentecost is actually older than the New Testament church. Considering the significance of what happened on this day, it’s astonishing that so many Christian churches know so little about this most important day, and so few even keep it or take note of it.

    Let’s consider one statement from the Book of Acts. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they [Jesus’s disciples] were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1). But to do what? It is beyond dispute that they were there to observe the Feast of Pentecost. These were all Israelites. So, the disciples had observed...

By: Lenny Cacchio  





    Most Christians don’t realize that they keep a Jewish High Holy Day! The day known as Pentecost was originally one of the Holy Days given to the Israelites while in the wilderness. It was known as the Feast of Weeks because it occurred about seven weeks after the people of Israel offered to God the first fruits of the spring barley harvest (Deuteronomy 16:9-10).     The word “Pentecost” is derived from the Greek words “pente” and “koste”, which literally mean to “count fifty” as in counting fifty days from that offering of first fruits to the day known as Pentecost (see Leviticus 23:16 where the instructions are to “count fifty days”). Pentecost marked the end of the spring harvest, so the day was essentially...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When God gave Abraham his great victory over the King of Elam, he was met on his return by an enigmatic figure, a priest, by the name of Melchizedek. What is of special interest about this encounter is that Abraham gave Melchizedek tithes (a tenth) of all the spoil he had taken from the opposing armies–much of it the property of the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14:20). Why did Abraham do that?

By: Ronald L. Dart

    If Jesus told you not to think something, would you believe Him? Or would you continue to suppose that something were true when Jesus told you plainly it was not? For example, if Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets," would you assume that Jesus came to do away with the law?

    Surprisingly, many Christians think that Jesus came to destroy the law when He said specifically that He did not. He said: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).

By: Ronald L. Dart

The Second Key

    The best ideas are usually simple and this one is no exception. The idea was conceived long ago and is so simply stated that most of us would read right over it and never grasp its implications. It reads as follows: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

    I can hear you saying, “That sounds like a good idea, but a little tough to execute. I have enough trouble making ends meet as it is without worrying about the next generation.”

By: Ronald L. Dart

See "The Christian Woman" by Ronald Dart

    Relatively few Christian sects these days prohibit women from wearing makeup. Most of those that do seem to be holdovers from another era when "respectable" women in society did not wear makeup. Some of these groups still try to find biblical support for their position and quite forcefully forbid women to wear makeup in church; some forbid the wearing of it at any time.

    It is of singular importance to note that nowhere does the Bible specifically forbid women to wear makeup. It is not mentioned at all in the law of God or the teachings of Christ. All of the reasons advanced for not wearing makeup are inferences from prophetic writings. There are four principal scriptures that are advanced.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    What do you do when you have already done all you can? You are in trouble and there is no way out. You are sick and the doctors have done all they can. You are persecuted and there is no relief. You have made every effort, tried every option, and still see no way out. The matter is out of your hands. What do you do now?

By: Ronald L. Dart

“Let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce,
says the Lord the God of Israel.”

    Divorce is painful. If you have been through a divorce, you need no one to tell you that. Not only do the children get hurt, there are the grandparents, the family, the friends. And who can tell of the pain, of the anger that comes in the middle of the night to the two people who once loved each other above all others?

By: Ronald L. Dart

Did Jesus adjust God’s ancient laws of clean and unclean meats? The answer shouldn’t be hard to find. It should be right there in the four gospels.

    Everyone is concerned about health these days. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and yet people often neglect to consider what the best selling book of all time has to say about healthful eating habits.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    The holy days are, to me, an endless source of fascination. Every year I approach them with renewed anticipation. Long ago someone pointed out to me a simple, elegant pattern in the meaning of these days. The Passover, for example, portrays the sacrifice of Christ. The days of Unleavened Bread remind us to put sin out of our lives. Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Trumpets looks forward to the return of Christ and the resurrection. Atonement represents the binding of Satan and the whole world being "at one" with God. The Feast of Tabernacles look forward to the millennium, and the eighth day pictures the "Great White Throne" judgment.

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

By: Lenny Cacchio

    On September 28 most Jews and a small but growing number of Christians will be keeping one of the Holy Days mentioned in Leviticus 23 known as the Day of Atonement, or in Hebrew, Yom Kippur. The day is unlike any of the other High Days because, rather than being a feast day, it is instead a fast day, where the people of God are instructed to “afflict” their souls before God.

    Christians who keep this day focus on the atonement the Messiah makes for our sins. Those of the Jewish faith also view it as a day of atonement for sins, and in addition they view it as a day of judgement. But sometimes missed is a nuance revealed throughout the Biblical descriptions of this day that lead me to describe this year’s observance...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    In times of crisis, American political leaders from time to time have called for a day of prayer, and sometimes even a day of fasting and prayer.  The Pilgrims did it.  The Puritans did it.  In 1746 the settlements in New England did it when the French fleet threatened them.  Shortly thereafter a storm destroyed the fleet.  

    In Revolutionary times, Civil War times, and even as recently as 2003, political leaders called for such observances.  Various religious groups periodically call their congregations to days of prayer, and there is even a National Day of Prayer every May that Congress authorized in the 1950s.  

    God gave the nation of Israel a national day of prayer and fasting.  It is commonly known...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    I am a proponent of immigration, but only of the kind that follows the rules.  I’m not just speaking of the rules of the country.  Those are important rules too, although those rules seem to be too porous for proper enforcement.  Rather, I am talking about an ancient law that is surprisingly wise in its intent and application.

    The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy are very much a codification of the basic law of an ancient nation.  They contain hundreds of civil laws and judgments that clearly pertain to an ancient culture, but quite often would be impractical to apply literally to a 21st century culture. 

For example, there is an interesting tidbit from the civil code found in the book of Deuteronomy: “You...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    When Eve offered Adam that infamous piece of fruit, what should he have done?  The obvious answer, of course, would be to refuse it.  But what else?     What Adam should have done is found in part in an unusual High Day mentioned in Leviticus 23. "The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present an offering made to the LORD by fire.   Do no work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God. "  (Leviticus 23:27-28 NIV)     The Day of Atonement is more commonly known by its Hebrew name Yom Kippur.  In our English Bibles, the word kippur is translated "atonement", but a more precise translation would...