A Few Positive Changes To The Blog

Greetings and Godspeed!

I wanted to let you know of a few addition to the blog. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page, you will see that you can subscribe to Scripture Demystified with your e-mail, so you will always know when the blog is updated with a new entry. I do not collect these e-mails, and will never sell them to any 3rd party. 

Also, you'll see where you can search the blog for subjects or topics, which will make it easier for you to find something, especially as the blog get larger and larger. 

And you can also see how many page views we've received, as well, for those curious about how fast we have grown, by the Grace of God! 

Keep an eye open for more additions as time goes on, and as always, thank you for reading Scripture Demystified!!!! 

God bless!

Eric

Founder of Scripture Demystified

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

+JMJ+

May the Word of the Lord be in our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit....

I've wanted to speak on this parable ever since it was part of our bible reading during adult Sunday School in my old church many, many years ago, and the debate ended up way off course. Here is the parable:

 

Matthew 20:1-16

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Workers in a Vineyard

 ¹As Jesus was telling what the kingdom of heaven would be like, he said:

   Early one morning a man went out to hire some workers for his vineyard. ²After he had agreed to pay them the usual amount for a day's work, he sent them off to his vineyard.

    ³About nine that morning, the man saw some other people standing in the market with nothing to do. ⁴He said he would pay them what was fair, if they would work in his vineyard. ⁵So they went.

   At noon and again about three in the afternoon he returned to the market. And each time he made the same agreement with others who were loafing around with nothing to do.

    ⁶Finally, about five in the afternoon the man went back and found some others standing there. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?"

    ⁷"Because no one has hired us," they answered. Then he told them to go work in his vineyard.

    ⁸That evening the owner of the vineyard told the man in charge of the workers to call them in and give them their money. He also told the man to begin with the ones who were hired last. ⁹When the workers arrived, the ones who had been hired at five in the afternoon were given a full day's pay.

    ¹⁰The workers who had been hired first thought they would be given more than the others. But when they were given the same, ¹¹they began complaining to the owner of the vineyard. ¹²They said, "The ones who were hired last worked for only one hour. But you paid them the same that you did us. And we worked in the hot sun all day long!"

    ¹³The owner answered one of them, "Friend, I didn't cheat you. I paid you exactly what we agreed on. ¹⁴Take your money now and go! What business is it of yours if I want to pay them the same that I paid you? ¹⁵Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Why should you be jealous, if I want to be generous?"

    ¹⁶Jesus then said, "So it is. Everyone who is now first will be last, and everyone who is last will be first." 

What the members of my adult Sunday School class all those years ago started debating, was whether or not it was fair to pay their employees the same regardless of how long they worked. They did not think that was fair at all (thereby unintentionally mimicking the reaction of the workers in the Parable.) Basically, they took the parable literally (and parables, but their own design, cannot be taken literally if you are to understand the meaning of them) and thought it was a teaching on labor laws. However, this is not the case.

The workers in the parable represent those who come to believe in Christ and serve Him. They are His laborers. Some people will serve the Lord their entire lives, some will come to Him somewhere in the middle, and some will only come to believe and serve Him in their final years. 

The point of the parable, is that no matter when you start serving the Lord, your reward will be the same, eternal salvation. Why? Because his salvation and mercy is His to give as He sees fit, and He is saying, what does it concern us if He is merciful and generous? Why should we be jealous of that fact? 

The fact that our sins are forgiven at all should cause us joy, for non of us our worthy. But alas, some will be jealous when they find out that the "late comers" receive the same eternal rewards as those who have served the Lord for many years. Is this fair?

Well, first, as God says, that is not our concern, and we received the reward that was promised us, anyways. Second,  God is a merciful God, fortunately for us, as I said above. The fact that God would equally reward  those who came to serve Him late in life magnifies His grace and His mercy. His grace is shown more clearly than ever when He shows mercy on all who come to believe in Him, regardless of what they have done before that moment (so long as they repent of their sins and serve Him, of course.) 

Now, in response to this parable I have heard some people say: "Well I might as well wait until I am old to serve the Lord and just do what I want in the meantime! Why bother now if the reward is the same?"

There are two problems with this thinking:

One, God knows what your plan is and He is not one to be taken advantage of. Do you really think you can somehow find a loophole and trick Him?

Second, do you know when you are going to die? Were you promised you would live to be a ripe, old age? Were you guaranteed a deathbed to make last minute conversions and repentances on? Of course not! You could die while reading this. Or later today. Or tomorrow. And it could be instant. 

We are not here to do the bare minimum to get ourselves into heaven. That is hardly following the #1 Commandment to "Love and Serve the Lord with all our hearts." God's mercy is sufficient for all of us, praise Him for that. And that very mercy and love means that "last minute" servants can receive their heavenly reward just as equally as those of us who have served the Lord for longer periods of time. That mercy is God's to give as He pleases. 

Instead of being jealous of others at the end of our lives, let's spend our time serving the Lord in His vineyard, the world, so that we may receive our reward, and then rejoice when we see anyone come to serve the Lord, no matter how late they arrive. They are one of us, then, aren't they?

Godspeed.

The Judas Question

+JMJ+

May the word of the Lord be on our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit....

Well, now that we've survived the alleged "Rapture" that was supposed to happen on May 21, I guess I can continue writing this blog, hehe! Obviously I will have to write an entry about the dangers of false teachers soon, as this "pastor" was a good example of that.

But the topic I felt called to discuss is what I refer to as, "The Judas Question."

This refers to the question that a lot of people have asked over the centuries, and that is, since Jesus had to be betrayed as part of His passion that lead to the Crucifixion, does that make Judas guilt-free? In other words, was Judas committing a grave sin, or was he just doing what he was supposed to do? And did he go to heaven or hell?

Well, I cannot say whether he went to heaven or hell, only the Lord knows that (well, and Judas, of course.) Mystics such as Anne Catherine Emmerich have had visions of Judas in hell, but scripture does not make that clear (don't confuse mystic with psychic, there are not the same thing.)

So, the question is, was Judas guilty or just doing what had to be done?

Christ's words to Judas (that you can find easily throughout the Passion narratives of the Gospels) show that Jesus felt Judas was very much guilty of the choice he made. But if it had to be done, how can that be?

Since Jesus clearly had God's omnipotence, and He hand picked all of His apostles, Jesus knowingly hand picked His betrayer. Keep in mind that in the days and hours leading up to His passion, Jesus foretold that one of twelve would betray Him and even indicated it was Judas, without saying his name, so He proves that He knew ahead of time what Judas' role was, and there is no reason to believe He did not know that when He chose Judas to be an Apostle. So, He chose Judas not because He felt he would be a good apostle, but because He knew Judas was the kind of person that would willingly betray Him for some silver. So He kept Judas around, knowing from day one that when the time came, he would betray Him for 30 pieces of silver and turn Him over to the authorities.

So how did Jesus even interest Judas in joining Him and staying so long? He put Judas in charge of the money the Apostles collected to give to widows and the needy, allowing the greedy Judas an opportunity to skim off of the top for his own personal gain. 

So what does this mean? It means that Judas made his decision in and of his own accord. He was not "led" to do it by any external force, he betrayed Jesus by his own free will. He was chosen as an Apostle because Jesus knew he would do the job willingly when it came time to betray Him. And, of course, that's exactly what Judas did. And that's why Jesus was so harsh to him, because He knew Judas chose to do this willingly. Needless to say, Jesus could read people's hearts, and He knew how dark Judas' soul was.

So yes, the betrayal did have to happen, and Jesus chose as His Apostle the man who He knew would willingly do this evil job when the time came, thereby fulfilling the prophecy, and making Judas fully responsible for his actions.

Godspeed, everyone!

Another Praise Report

I have to take a moment and once again give praise to the Lord for helping me spread the word about this blog and having so many people respond to it!

As of this writing, according to the statistics that Blogger provides me with, since this blog was started in January of this year, it has been viewed 905 times and in countries all around the world, including the Philippines, South America, Canada, the United States, Colombia, India, Nigeria, Germany, the U.K., Sweden, Australia, Russia, and, most surprisingly, China, where religious freedom is very, very limited!

Thank you, Lord, for blessing this blog, and thank all of YOU who read it and spread the word about it to others!

God bless!

Eric
Creator and Writer of "Scripture Demystified"
WWJD?

A Funny Thing Happened At Church on Easter....

+JMJ+

May the word of the Lord be in our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit.....

I hope everybody has had a happy and blessed Easter and Easter Week! I received the brand new New American Bible-Revised Edition on Holy Thursday, perfect timing as only the Lord can do, and have enjoyed reading it, so far. I highly recommend it for the added notations alone, it would make a terrific study bible.

So, as I was sitting in the pews during the "sunrise" service on Easter morning, I noticed something. I was seeing people that I hadn't seen in church in 4 months. And when I say 4 months, I mean exactly 4 months! You see, Easter fell on April 24, 2011, exactly 4 months after Christmas Eve, 2010. I am going to wager a guess that I won't see some of them, again, for another 8 months (it's exactly 8 months between Easter and Christmas Eve, 2011.)

We all know of "holiday Christians," or as a friend of mine calls them, "Submarine Christians," because they only pop up every once in awhile. They only attend church on Christmas and Easter (or the evenings before in churches that have Masses or services then.) I guess they figure they should at least show up on the holy days of the year. It's the bare minimum, certainly.


Now, some will say that is better than never attending at all.  On the surface, that is true. However, the book of Revelation gives us a warning:

Revelation 3:14-16 (New American Standard Bible)

Message to Laodicea:

 ¹⁴"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:  ¹⁵ 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
 ¹⁶'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

The Lord, here, is warning the members of the church in Laodicea that their lukewarm faith is not pleasing to Him, and as a result, the Lord will spit them from His mouth. In other words, He will not accept them. 

Part of the reason these church members are so lukewarm, is that they feel they don't really need the Lord. They think they are doing just fine as it is, so why bother with all that religious stuff? Most likely, they only went to the Lord when they needed something. Here is what the Lord says in verse 17-18:

¹⁷'Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,  ¹⁸I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

God does not literally expect them to purchase gold or garments from Him. These are metaphors for what the Lord offers through His church and by following His commandments, but to "buy" these things, you must have a fervent and lively faith. Obviously the members of this church were doing the bare minimum of their faith, and the Lord warns them of the eternal consequences of this.

The Good Friday and Easter messages should be evidence enough of why the Lord deserves nothing less than a fiery and fervent faith, full of life and action and love for Him (remember the first commandment.) God, and His Son, Jesus Christ, sacrificed everything out of love for us. The torture, the death on the cross, and the miracle of the resurrection, were all for us! They did not endure this for Themselves, it was due to our sins, and it was God's love for us that He sacrificed His only Son so that we may be saved. They gave us everything that They had, how can we live with ourselves when we only give Them the bare minimum in return?

We should be emptying ourselves totally for the Lord, just as the Lord did for us, and that should manifest itself in our faith, and the subsequent actions of that faith. There is nothing that the Lord asks of us that is unreasonable, given what They have given up out of love for us for our salvation.

What if your son sacrificed himself and died a horrible death to save another person? You would never forget it, I am guessing, and would do many things to keep their memory alive forever. And their sacrifice would never leave your heart. And you would want people to remember their sacrifice forever. And yet, some of you dare to have a lukewarm faith, and only give the Lord the bare minimum, when He did that very thing for you? And not to save just one person, but the whole world, generation after generation!  He deserves our very best! Not our very least!

God sacrificed His only Son for you, and that Son willingly suffered a horrible death for you, and the best you can do is attend church twice a year? Or maybe you go more often, but you arrive late and leave early every time. Do you have something more important to do? Or you only attend when it fits into your schedule. When you die and face the Lord, do you really think He will say, "well done good and faithful servant! You squeezed Me in between tee times on the golf course every so often, good job!" No! He will spit you out of His mouth, which is exactly what you deserve for having such a lukewarm faith, such a lukewarm love for the Lord!

We can either be on fire for the Lord, or we can be on fire in hell with the others who did not follow the first commandment and "love the Lord with all our heart."

God is merciful well beyond what any of us deserve, but the warning in Revelation was for our benefit, and we'd do well to heed that warning.

Godspeed to one and all.

PS: I can already hear some of you saying, "I don't need to go to church to worship God." You couldn't be more wrong about the importance of attending church, and I'll explain why in the near future on this blog.

I love you all and wish you a blessed day!

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”

+JMJ+

May the word of the Lord be on our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts, amen.

Come holy spirit....

I wish all of you a very blessed Good Friday of the Lord's Passion today, and a happy Easter weekend.

The following is part of the Gospel of Matthew's account of the passion and death of our Lord, Jesus Christ:

Matthew 27: 45

⁴⁵ From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶ About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).


This is why 12-3pm on Good Friday are considered the Holy Hours, as they are the hours that Jesus hung on the cross before he died.

Can you conceive being nailed to wood and then hanging there for three hours? In the movies is lasts mere minutes. In reality, it was far more torturous.

I have heard many theories and speculations on Jesus suddenly asking God why He has forsaken Him. It is a part of His passion that seems somehow out of place to many people.  After all, why would the Son of God, who willingly submitted to this horrible death, lash out at His Father so suddenly?

Before we look into that, let's take a look back to a scene a bit earlier in Matthew's account of Christ's passion:

Matthew 26


³⁹ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

⁴² He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

The above passages are from Jesus' time in the Garden of Gethsemane. It shows that Jesus is having His reservations about the suffering that was to come, yet also showing His obedience to His Father, and His love for humanity. 


So, when we fast forward to Jesus on the cross, in a moment of anguish, not too many moments before Jesus finally expired, Jesus also cries out in frustration and pain.


What do these passages show, then? They show Jesus' humanity! He was both human and divine at the same time. There have been various heresies in Church history where people have tried to claim that there was no humanity in Christ, that he was purely divine. 


This is not possible, however. A 100% divine being, such as God or the angels, cannot bleed, cannot feel pain, cannot sweat, cannot cry, cannot feel fatigue, and cannot die. Jesus, however, did all of these things.  Yet, at the same time, He performed miracles and did numerous other supernatural things during His ministry. He was both human and divine, at the same time.


So, when Jesus cried out: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" it was his humanity that was screaming out. All of the pain, all of the abuse, all of the torture, all of the mocking that He endured finally got to be so much, that He lashed out for a brief moment. Remember the night before, Jesus asked that if the cup of suffering could be removed from Him by His Father, that it please be removed. God's Will was that this must come to pass, and under the crushing weight of the cross, the human side of Jesus felt forsaken for a brief moment. You can imagine the anguished thoughts that must have passed through Jesus' mind. Shortly before He expired, He even said, "I thirst," another very human feeling. 


A caller to a religious television show this past week, asked the host if God has pulled away from them because they are handicapped, and did God possibly stop caring about them? The answer, of course, is no. His handicap was his own cross to bear, and he felt like perhaps God has forsaken him, but as with Christ, God does not forsake us just because we have a cross to bear. But that feeling of being forsaken while carrying our cross is one with can all identify with. 

All of this is important for another reason. Quite often I hear people say, "Well I am not Jesus. Jesus was the son of God when He carried His cross, I am not Him." Christ's very human reaction to His suffering tells us that, in fact. Jesus knows exactly how we feel! His humanity allowed Him to feel every ounce of that pain, both physical and psychological. His humanity allows Jesus to know exactly how we feel when we are asked to carry our own crosses. His divinity did not spare Him from feeling the human side of that suffering, because our Lord was not only paying our prices for our sins, but can now say that He has gone through it before we did. 


And God did not punish Jesus in response to Christ's cry to Him. In fact, it is only a couple of verses later in the Gospel that Jesus finally gives up the spirit and dies, ending the suffering. And His suffering ended before the two criminals, as they were still alive when Christ died. God heard Jesus' cry of "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" and ended the torture shortly thereafter. 


We can also cry out to God, and to Jesus, when we feel alone, abandoned, afraid, or in the midst of any suffering. Tell God how you really feel. Cry out to Jesus to save you, for He has suffered, and felt that suffering fully, and knows what you are feeling. And God would not have sacrificed His son, and Jesus would not have agreed to endure that suffering, if they did not love you and feel you were worth it. It's well known that sometimes God pulls away to test, and thereby strengthen, our faith, but that does not equate abandonment. He is simply....around the corner, so to speak. Watching you to see how you are doing, and whether or not you are still faithful to Him even when you may not sense His presence. But you are not forsaken. Neither was Jesus, even though He briefly felt that way, just like we sometimes do. 

On this Good Friday, remember to smile, because God and Jesus love you. Remember to love Them back.

Godspeed, everyone.

GOOD FRIDAY NOVENA PRAYER

Jesus Christ,
Son of God made Man,
crowned with thorns,
bearing a scepter of a reed,
wearing a royal cloak purpled
with Your Precious Blood,
I venerate You as the Man of Sorrows
and acknowledge You as my Lord and King!

Jesus crucified,
I firmly renounce the devil
and detest all sin
that has torn me from Your loving friendship.
I pledge my loyalty to You,
my Savior,
and beg You to make me Your own in sincerest love.
I promise to be faithful in service to You,
and to strive to become more pleasing to you
by avoiding every sin and its occasions,
by carrying out my duties
perfectly as a good Catholic,
and by practicing virtue.

Jesus crucified,
accept the homage I wish to render You
during this novena,
as a token of my sincerest appreciation
for the sorrows and sufferings
You have willingly borne to atone for my many sins
and to prove how much You love me.

I adore You as my very God,
Who willed to become Man
in order to save me from eternal death.

I thank You as my best Friend,
Who laid down Your life
as proof of the greatest love possible.

I ask pardon for having so little thought of You,
Jesus crucified,
and for having caused Your sorrows
and sufferings by the many sins I have committed.

I pray to You,
dearest Jesus,
for all the graces I need to know You,
to love You and serve You faithfully unto death,
and to save my soul.
Give me a tender and fervent devotion
to Your Sacred Passion by which I was redeemed,
venerating You especially in Holy Mass.
Teach me how to unite sorrows and sufferings
of my life with Your own.

Finally, through all Your sorrows and pains,
through Your Sacred Heart
glowing with love for me,
broken because of my want of love for You,
through the sorrows of Mary,
your Sorrowful Mother,
I ask for this special favor:

[Mention your request here...]

With childlike trust
I abandon myself to Your holy Will
concerning my request.