I have been away awhile due to illness but I'm back and ready to share what I have learned.
I grew up an Irish Roman Catholic with an Irish Mother and Jewish German/Swedish Father who converted to Catholicism to marry, he never really had his heart in it. Well, sometime ago I went full on ancestry research with extensive DNA testing and the results were eye opening. My Father's family I knew pretty well including the fact that my Grandmother was Jewish with the maternal last name of Jacob. My Mother was Irish/Scottish and the Irish family was very old and had been in Ireland for 1000's of years and the Hamilton Catholic Scottish paternal side came over during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Well, that wasn't all the truth. It turned out that not only was my Father Jewish by birth, which I did not know for years, but my Mother was very Jewish by lineage. Her DNA indicated an early and late maternal line to include Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsular (Spain) with a strong presence of Basque, Moroccan, Tunisian and finally the Mid-East origins in and around Jerusalem. I had this test preformed again at many deeper levels but this only confirmed the previous findings.
My Irish family was shocked and my German family shrugged, I was confused.
At the time this information did not change my Christian beliefs but from that point on I had an emptiness in my soul that I could not figure out. Why would I feel this void inhabiting my heart when I was filled with the Holy Spirit of GOD leading my footsteps through this life. That Spirit led walk guided me to a consuming inquiry and search for the missing pieces and what I found was left me sitting with my mouth open, silent and simply stupefied. How could I have been a student of the Word of GOD for 49 years and never understood so much of what I had read. I was just like so many others that believed so much that wasn't the truth of what GOD has done and is continuing to do for HIS children, all children. Growing up Catholic was definitely a great hindrance to spiritual growth in GOD's Word and when I was around 10 I started asking questions that I received no answers for and when I was 14 I simply refused to have any part in a religion that lied, which I clearly pointed out when I had read the Bible for myself. The more I studied the more I was shocked and very disappointed in a Church that knew so little and shared even less, this revelation was very sad and caused a rifted in my family, my Father being the only understanding adult I could talk with but I found that he didn't really believe in anything, another sad moment.
I spent the next 49 years searching for that which is true. In and out of Christianity, to Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Orthodox Greek Christianity, Gnosticism, Scientism, Satanism and others in-between, all leading to brick walls of pure emotionalism and base feelings. Although my investigation into Satanism did produce some startling results it was the one search that did lead me back to GOD and HIS WORD. I found that darkness, evil, demons and devils were quite real so if that was true than there had to be an opposing truth of light and goodness. After years of searching for GOD's Truth and His revealing to me so much truth I never learned from man's teachings that I finally understood what is so plainly written in the Scriptures, that truth can only be found in GOD and that happens on a one on one basis or if you will a prayerful, humble and repentant submission resulting in a meeting with my Heavenly Creator and Savior. Eventually, this led to my investigation into my Jewish roots which was a Heavenly invitation to search out and discover a previously unknown book. That book turned out to be the Bible but read with new eyes and understood with new spirit filled discernment. I cannot begin to tell you the illumination I experienced once I found that my Christian Born Again background was quite insufficient to accommodate the spiritual growth that lay before me. My life before this was like finding the Temple of God and knowing that it was here I can find that which I seek and always seeing before me a small one story building with a library like interior but now I see the same one story building but upon entering I find it is so much bigger with wonderful stairways and elevators rising to many different floors. In other words, all this was always here but unknowable without daily bringing your humble and repentant heart before Our Heavenly High Priest, who stands in the Heavenly Temple performing the duties of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. If you don't know what duties the High Priest performed on Yom Kippur then you do not know what your Savoir is doing or why! He does this daily until that future Day of Atonement when He steps out of the Temple to reveal Himself to the people.
I was considered a mature Christian in the Faith but the maturity was of the first degree and now I know that degree of maturity was in reality no more than kindergarten. GOD has so much more to show you and it is all in the Bible but if you can do no more than read compounded letters and discern its basic meaning than you shall miss the meaning behind each and every letter.
We can only see colors that are within the wavelengths from 400–700 nano-meters but the full spectrum goes from one trillionth of a meter to 100 million meters.
We can only hear in a range commonly given as 20Hz to 20,000Hz (Hz or Hertz is defined as one cycle per second) so we can hear at levels of 20 cycles per second up to 20,000 cycles per second but the sound world is much, much larger so large in fact it is commonly referred to in multiples such as kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, and terahertz.
This formulaic approach is also be true of the Bible. If your just looking at the surface wording with a myopic modern Christian understanding your only getting the basic introduction.
Suddenly idioms that have a Western meaning will take on new meaning! The passage stating the “cock crowing three times” had nothing to do with a rooster crowing, but instead refers to the priest calling out for the commencement of the Temple services for the day! Chickens are considered a very foul and dirty creature and they would never be allowed anywhere near the Temple but if you know nothing of Hebrew culture you wouldn't know this. How many more Bible truths have you grown up with that turn out not to be so. This is just a minuscule example believe me there are things within the Word that will make you fall out of your chair. Remember that GOD delights in Your search for HIM.
I grew up an Irish Roman Catholic with an Irish Mother and Jewish German/Swedish Father who converted to Catholicism to marry, he never really had his heart in it. Well, sometime ago I went full on ancestry research with extensive DNA testing and the results were eye opening. My Father's family I knew pretty well including the fact that my Grandmother was Jewish with the maternal last name of Jacob. My Mother was Irish/Scottish and the Irish family was very old and had been in Ireland for 1000's of years and the Hamilton Catholic Scottish paternal side came over during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Well, that wasn't all the truth. It turned out that not only was my Father Jewish by birth, which I did not know for years, but my Mother was very Jewish by lineage. Her DNA indicated an early and late maternal line to include Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsular (Spain) with a strong presence of Basque, Moroccan, Tunisian and finally the Mid-East origins in and around Jerusalem. I had this test preformed again at many deeper levels but this only confirmed the previous findings.
My Irish family was shocked and my German family shrugged, I was confused.
At the time this information did not change my Christian beliefs but from that point on I had an emptiness in my soul that I could not figure out. Why would I feel this void inhabiting my heart when I was filled with the Holy Spirit of GOD leading my footsteps through this life. That Spirit led walk guided me to a consuming inquiry and search for the missing pieces and what I found was left me sitting with my mouth open, silent and simply stupefied. How could I have been a student of the Word of GOD for 49 years and never understood so much of what I had read. I was just like so many others that believed so much that wasn't the truth of what GOD has done and is continuing to do for HIS children, all children. Growing up Catholic was definitely a great hindrance to spiritual growth in GOD's Word and when I was around 10 I started asking questions that I received no answers for and when I was 14 I simply refused to have any part in a religion that lied, which I clearly pointed out when I had read the Bible for myself. The more I studied the more I was shocked and very disappointed in a Church that knew so little and shared even less, this revelation was very sad and caused a rifted in my family, my Father being the only understanding adult I could talk with but I found that he didn't really believe in anything, another sad moment.
I spent the next 49 years searching for that which is true. In and out of Christianity, to Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Orthodox Greek Christianity, Gnosticism, Scientism, Satanism and others in-between, all leading to brick walls of pure emotionalism and base feelings. Although my investigation into Satanism did produce some startling results it was the one search that did lead me back to GOD and HIS WORD. I found that darkness, evil, demons and devils were quite real so if that was true than there had to be an opposing truth of light and goodness. After years of searching for GOD's Truth and His revealing to me so much truth I never learned from man's teachings that I finally understood what is so plainly written in the Scriptures, that truth can only be found in GOD and that happens on a one on one basis or if you will a prayerful, humble and repentant submission resulting in a meeting with my Heavenly Creator and Savior. Eventually, this led to my investigation into my Jewish roots which was a Heavenly invitation to search out and discover a previously unknown book. That book turned out to be the Bible but read with new eyes and understood with new spirit filled discernment. I cannot begin to tell you the illumination I experienced once I found that my Christian Born Again background was quite insufficient to accommodate the spiritual growth that lay before me. My life before this was like finding the Temple of God and knowing that it was here I can find that which I seek and always seeing before me a small one story building with a library like interior but now I see the same one story building but upon entering I find it is so much bigger with wonderful stairways and elevators rising to many different floors. In other words, all this was always here but unknowable without daily bringing your humble and repentant heart before Our Heavenly High Priest, who stands in the Heavenly Temple performing the duties of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. If you don't know what duties the High Priest performed on Yom Kippur then you do not know what your Savoir is doing or why! He does this daily until that future Day of Atonement when He steps out of the Temple to reveal Himself to the people.
I was considered a mature Christian in the Faith but the maturity was of the first degree and now I know that degree of maturity was in reality no more than kindergarten. GOD has so much more to show you and it is all in the Bible but if you can do no more than read compounded letters and discern its basic meaning than you shall miss the meaning behind each and every letter.
We can only see colors that are within the wavelengths from 400–700 nano-meters but the full spectrum goes from one trillionth of a meter to 100 million meters.
We can only hear in a range commonly given as 20Hz to 20,000Hz (Hz or Hertz is defined as one cycle per second) so we can hear at levels of 20 cycles per second up to 20,000 cycles per second but the sound world is much, much larger so large in fact it is commonly referred to in multiples such as kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, and terahertz.
This formulaic approach is also be true of the Bible. If your just looking at the surface wording with a myopic modern Christian understanding your only getting the basic introduction.
Suddenly idioms that have a Western meaning will take on new meaning! The passage stating the “cock crowing three times” had nothing to do with a rooster crowing, but instead refers to the priest calling out for the commencement of the Temple services for the day! Chickens are considered a very foul and dirty creature and they would never be allowed anywhere near the Temple but if you know nothing of Hebrew culture you wouldn't know this. How many more Bible truths have you grown up with that turn out not to be so. This is just a minuscule example believe me there are things within the Word that will make you fall out of your chair. Remember that GOD delights in Your search for HIM.
