Aramaic Herald: The Ephod-and other issues

Libya fiasco

Apparently, Obama refused the requests of our embattled embassy staff military assistance during the terrorist attack of 9-11-12. One of the heroes was former SEAL Tyrone Woods. He made three requests for assistance that were denied. It seems like Obama watched him die. If King David murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites-by denying Uriah back up and leaving him to die in combat-then Obama murdered Tyrone Woods with the "sword" of the Libyan terrorists. Worse yet-he tries to exploit the incident to use it as an occasion to restrict free speech-that is the questioning of the so-called Prophet Mohammed. Then Obama lied to the American people and said it was a spontaneous demonstration of outrage due to the anti-Islam video clip.

After learning that Obama watched his son die-and refused to send in military assistance, the father of Tyrone Woods spoke out. Every American needs to listen to what the father of this hero has to say. He is a great Christian man.

So, why did Obama ignore these heroes' pleas for help and let them die? I think its because he wants to make nice with the terrorists. Obama says in his book-that were there ever a conflict between Muslims and America-he would "stand with" the Muslims against the people of America. It seems his opportunity to do so came in Libya. I guess he is a man of his word. (From the "Audacity of Hope" pages 260-262.)

Justice program http://video.foxnews.com/v/1927267151001/charles-woods-wh-officials-murdered-my-son

Megyn Kelley
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/america-live/index.html#/v/1926876746001/seal-father-who-denied-backup-during-benghazi-attack/?playlist_id=87651

Bill O'Reilly
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1927271218001/will-libya-lose-the-election-for-president-obama

The family speaks out:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1929168517001/father-of-former-seal-killed-in-libya-wants-the-truth

Sean Hannity:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1932893062001/father-of-american-killed-in-libya-demands-truth-from-wh/?playlist_id=903226511001

Liberal media bias
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1932745633001/media-coverage-of-attack-in-libya-called-into-question

Islam and animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice gone wrong-cow kills Muslim trying to sacrifice her to Allah! I am so glad Jesus abolished animal sacrifice. (Yes-Muslims do still practice animal sacrifice.)

A spooked cow killed a Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter the beast on Saturday during the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, a Gaza health official said. Muslims around the world slaughter sheep, cows and goats, during the four-day holiday that began Friday, giving away much of the meat to the poor. The Muslim holiday commemorates the sacrifice by the Prophet Ibrahim, known to Christians and Jews as Abraham. But accidents are common as people frequently buy animals to slaughter themselves instead of paying professional butchers. The festive atmosphere at the site of the slaughtering also tends to make the animals fidgety. The 52-year-old man who died was trampled to death, and another three people were seriously injured when the cow ran wild in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, said health official Ashraf al-Kidra. In all, he said some 150 people were hospitalized in the Palestinian territory with knife wounds or other injuries caused by animals trying to break away. Two similar incidents occurred in Pakistan on Saturday. In the northwestern city of Peshawar, a bull escaped from untrained butchers and injured three people, including a 12-year-old boy. Police official Abdul Waheed said dozens of people chased to the bull and it was recaptured an hour later. In southern city of Karachi, a young boy also was lightly wounded by a runaway bull. Owner Abdul Quddoos said it took two hours to reclaim the animal. In Gaza, where over a third of the territory's 1.6 million residents live in poverty and nearly 80 percent rely on food aid, few people ever eat fresh meat regularly, making the holiday an even bigger treat. During the holiday's first day in particular, Gaza's sandy alleyways and main streets are drenched in blood and entrails. Curious, war-hardened children stick their hands in the blood and watch in fascinated crowds as their elders butcher the livestock. Impoverished families save all year to pay for an animal to slaughter, with many families often pooling their resources. A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fresh beef or lamb costs about $12 in Gaza — more than a day's wage for a worker, said Ibrahim al-Kidra, an agriculture ministry official. He is related to the health official. He said some 3,700 cows and sheep are imported for consumption on a regular day, while 42,000 are brought in for the holidays. Most of Gaza's livestock comes through Israel's commercial crossing with the territory, he added, although female breeding sheep are still smuggled in. This represents a change from years past, when Palestinians hauled most of their sheep, goats and cows through smuggling tunnels linking Gaza to Egypt, a move they resorted to because of Israel's blockade on the territory imposed when militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. That blockade has since loosened. During the festivities, residents distribute at least a third of their meat to the poor, and another third to neighbors, giving the celebration a sense of communal solidarity. Public slaughtering is common in Gaza, where professional butcher shops are pricey. "It's neither healthy nor good. But it's a tradition," al-Kidra said. "Most Gazans can't believe they've finally managed to get an animal. They ask themselves: why should I pay for a butcher when I can slaughter it myself?" Commentators also were disapproving. "Killing an animal has standards," Sami Abu Ajwa pleaded on Gaza's al-Quds radio Saturday. He said under Islamic law animals shouldn't see each other being killed, they should be soothed, fed water and slaughtered quickly with a sharp knife to make the suffering minimal. Those regulations are widely ignored through the Arab world however.

I wrote about the issue of animal sacrifice-and its abolishment in my book "Christ the Man" and "The Second Adam and the Restoration of All Things."

Islam Verses Jesus Christ

Jesus taught that God is our Father. Mohammed attacks the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God in the Koran. Koran 9:30, " And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah... Allah (Himself) fights against them. How perverse are they!"

Jesus abolished the animal sacrifice system by A. liberating all the animals in the temple during the "Cleansing of the Temple" incident and B. Atoning for sins upon the cross. Muslims still practice animal sacrifice.

Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies-and to do good to those who seek them harm. But the Koran says, "Mohammed is God's apostle. Those who follow him are harsh to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" Quran 48:29

The Ephod

The Bible speaks of a religious object, apparently a vestment, called the "Ephod." What was an Ephod and what it its significance? An Ephod seems to have been a pectoral (a breastplate). (Or the breastplate was a component of the Ephod.) Pectorals worn by priests, similar to the breastplate described in the Bible have been found by archeologists in Egypt. While Egyptian pectorals resembled the Israelite High Priest's breastplate, there were some differences. Egyptian pectorals were square and embedded with jewels but they didn't have twelve stones in rows in the same manner as the Israelites priestly pectoral. The Ephod is described in the Bible, at Exodus 28:6-14: "The Breastplate" seems to be described separately from the Ephod but if you read the entire chapter together, it seems that the breastplate is part of the Ephod. (At a brief glance, artistic recreations of the High Priest's vestments look the same. But on a closer examination, I haven't found two renditions that look the same. The Jewels on Aaron's Breastplate are

A more simplified description of the Ephod is found in Exodus 29:4-6, "And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the tunic, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the decorated girdle of the ephod: And thou shalt put the turban upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the turban." 1 Samuel 2:27 the Lord says he chose Aaron, "to wear" or "to carry" the "Ephod before me." According to Leviticus 8:7, the Urim and Thummim, were placed within the breastplate. The Urim and Thummim were apparently lots that were cast to get a "yes" or "no" answer from God. (The practice of casting lots for divination is called Cleromancy.) As we shall see, the Ephod was an oracle. It may be through the Urim and Thummim, that were kept in the breastplate of the Ephod that the answer from God came. Urim and Thummim has traditionally been translated as "lights and perfection." The singular forms - ur and tumm - have been connected by some early scholars with the Babylonian terms urtu and tamitu, meaning oracle and command, respectively. Many scholars now believe that Urim simply derives from the Hebrew term Arrim, meaning curses, and thus that Urim and Thummim essentially means cursed or faultless, in reference to the deity's view of an accused—in other words Urim and Thummim were used to answer the question innocent or guilty. According to Islamic sources, there was a similar form of divination among the Arabs prior to the beginning of Islam. There, two arrow shafts (without heads or feathers), on one of which was written command and the other prohibition or similar, were kept in a container, and stored in the Kaaba at Mecca; whenever someone wished to know whether to get married, go on a journey, or to make some other similar decision, one of the Kaaba's guardians would randomly pull one of the arrow shafts out of the container, and the word written upon it was said to indicate the will of the god concerning the matter in question. Sometimes a third, blank, arrow shaft would be used, to represent the refusal of the deity to give an answer. This practice is called rhabdomancy, after the Greek roots rhabd- "rod" and -mancy ("divination"). A passage of the Books of Samuel mentions three methods of divine communication - dreams, prophets, and the Urim and Thummim; the first two of these are also mentioned copiously in Assyrian and Babylonian literature, and such literature also mentions Tablets of Destiny, which are similar in some ways to the Urim and Thummim. The Tablets of Destiny had to rest on the breast of deities mediating between the other gods and mankind in order to function, while the Urim and Thummim had to rest within the breastplate of the priest mediating between God and mankind. Marduk was said to have put his seal on the Tablets of Destiny, while the Israelite breastplate had a jewelled stone upon it for each of the Israelite tribes, which may derive from the same principle. Like the Urim and Thummim, the Tablets of Destiny came into use when the fate of king and nation was concerned. According to a minority of archaeologists, the Israelites emerged as a subculture from within Canaanite society, and not as an invading force from outside, and therefore it would be natural for them to have used similar religious practices to other Semitic nations, and these scholars suspect that the concept of Urim and Thummim was originally derived from the Tablets of Destiny. It is interesting that the Jewish High Priest did not wear the Ephod or the priestly vestments when he entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Instead he wore a plane linen robe with a linen sash and a linen turban (Leviticus 16:4). He would wear the Ephod with the breastplate and all the sacred vestments when he officiated in the Holy Place but apparently not when he entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Although Josephus argues that the Urim and Thummim continued to be used until the era of the Maccabees, Talmudic sources are unanimous in agreeing that the Urim and Thummim were lost much earlier, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians. In a passage from the part of the Book of Ezra which overlaps with the Book of Nehemiah, it is mentioned that individuals who were unable to prove, after the Babylonian captivity had ended, that they were descended from the priesthood before the captivity began, were required to wait until priests in possession of Urim and Thummim were discovered; this would appear to confirm the Talmudic view that the Urim and Thummim had by then been lost. Ezra 2:63 states that certain priests had no genealogical records so they were excluded from the priesthood "until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thummim." This means that there wasn't such a priest at that time, most likely because the Urim and Thummim were lost. The appearance of the Urim and Thummim isn't described in the Bible. In the Richard Gere movie "King David," they are portrayed as smooth stones, one of which glows when it gives an answer. According to classical rabbinical literature, in order for the Urim and Thummim to give an answer, it was first necessary for the individual to stand facing the fully dressed high priest, and vocalise the question briefly and in a simple way, though it wasn't necessary for it to be loud enough for anyone else to hear it. The Talmudic rabbis argued that Urim and Thummim were words written on the sacred breastplate. Most of the Talmudic rabbis, and Josephus, following the belief that Urim meant lights, argued that divination by Urim and Thummim involved questions being answered by great rays of light shining out of certain jewels on the breastplate; each jewel was taken to represent different letters, and the sequence of lighting thus would spell out an answer (though there were 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and only 12 jewels on the breastplate); two Talmudic rabbis, however, argued that the jewels themselves moved in a way that made them stand out from the rest, or even moved themselves into groups to form words. These rabbinic traditions are very late and contradict how the Bible describes how the Urim and Thummim were used. The Urim and Thummim gave a "yes" or "no" answer. It seems that the Ephod/Urim and Thummim were used to identify Achan in Joshua 7:16-19 and it is clearly referenced regarding Jonathan in 1 Samuel 14:41 regarding their transgressions. An interesting reference to the Ephod is in Hosea 3:4, "The Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim." It is interesting here that the Ephod is mentioned in connection with a teraphim. The meaning of teraphim is unclear, but most scholars believe it refers to idols or household gods. Perhaps they were also tools of divination. Rachel stole her father Laban's teraphim and Michal used a teraphim as a dummy to fool the guards into thinking it was David while he escaped (1 Samuel 19). Some scholars have argued that the inheritance was symbolized by who received the teraphim from their father. By stealing the teraphim, perhaps Rachel was stealing the inheritance in a similar manner to how Jacob had stolen the inheritance from his brother Esau. (The teraphim were portrayed in the Matthew Modine movie "Jacob.") Doeg the Edomite slaughtered 85 priests who wore an Ephod (1 Samuel 22:18). This is interesting because it shows that the high priest was not the only person who wore an Ephod. In 1 Samuel 2:18, the child Samuel is described as "a boy wearing a linen ephod." David wore an ephod when he danced before the Ark of the Covenant. This is interesting because Michal accused him of being immodest while dancing before the Lord so attired (2 Samuel 16:4). 1 Chronicles 15:27 says that David was wearing a "linen ephod." It may have been like an apron or a short skirt. Perhaps when David danced he wore the Ephod as a tunic/apron without the robe that the Ephod was usually worn over. An interesting passage is found in 1 Samuel 21:9, where the Sword of Goliath is described as being "wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod." So, where was the Ephod for the Sword to be behind it? Was it hung up on display like a trophy or on a some type of hanger? Was it in storage? Was the Ephod at Nob a type of box or chest like the Ark of the Covenant? Abiathar the son of Ahimelek, escaped Saul's massacre of the priest of Nob and brought with him a/the Ephod. David consults the Ephod in 1 Samuel 23:9 and gets an answer-the men of Keilah were preparing to surrender David to King Saul. With this news he escaped. In the Book of Revelation we see the stones of the Breastplate of the Ephod as building stones in the new heavenly Jerusalem. (Revelations 21:16-21). An Ephod is also described as an idolatrous image in the Bible.Gideon the judge had a Ephod made seemingly as a trophy to celebrate his victories over Israel's enemies (Judges 8:22-28). This ephod is described as "prostitution" and a "snare." Perhaps in this instance the Ephod was worn by an idol. In the story of Micah and the Levite (Jonathan the grandson of Moses), Micah made a shrine, and an ephod and teraphim, and installed one of his sons as his priest-until he met Jonathan (Judges 17:5). The Danites forcibly took Jonathan and made him their priest when they migrated to Tel Dan. When they kidnapped him, they took Micah's idol, the ephod and the teraphim along with him (Judges 18:17). Some scholars think the word "Ephod" may refer to a container that held oracular devices. The use of "casting lots" is found in several places in the Bible. Lots were used to chose the Scapegoat in Leviticus 16:8 (this is probably a reference to the Urim and Thummim). Joshua used lots to apportion the land of Canaan to the Israelites according to Joshua 18:6. Sailors used lots to identify Jonah according to Jonah 1:7. The Bible also describes the use of lots to assign guard duty according to 1 Chronicles 26:13. Book of Proverbs 16:33: The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Yahweh and 18:18: The lot settles disputes, and keeps strong ones apart. But the use of lots for divination (excepting the Urim and Thummim used by the High Priest) is condemned in Leviticus 19:26 and Deuteronomy18:10. Hamman used lots to choose the day of Purim (on which he planned to exterminate the Jews) according to the Book of Esther. An example in the New Testament occurs in the Acts of the Apostles 1:23-26 where the eleven remaining apostles cast lots to determine whether Matthias or Barsabbas (surnamed Justus) would be chosen to replace Judas. (Roman soldiers also used lots to gamble over Christ's garments at the crucifixion.) In the Eastern Orthodox Church this method of selection occasionally still used. In the Taoism religion of China, lots are still used for divination in a process called "I Ching." The stones of the breastplate are also mentioned in Ezekiel 28 in the prophecy against the king of Tyre. We should remember that this prophecy is directed against the King of Tyre. This passage is often interpreted to refer to the Fall of Lucifer. Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee [or "worked in gold were your setting and your engravings] in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: [Or-with an anointed cherub I placed you] thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. [-or-and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire] The nine stones listed her match nine of the twelve stones of the Priest's breastplate. The Septuagint has all twelve. What probably happened was a scribal error-in the Hebrew text, a scribe accidently skipped a line. If this is referring to Satan, it should be remembered that in this passage God gives him the pectoral before his fall. The breastplate isn't satanic.

On the on-line edition of this newsletter (the blog) there is more information-and article on cowardice and another on Science and politics. See www.aramaicherald.blogspot.com

Election Day:

Obama called future President Romney a "bull-sh***er" in an interview with the leftist "Rolling Stone" magazine. That is very un-presidential and shows no class and is unpresidential. You have to have some dignity when you are president and show respect to your opponents-especially when they represent millions of Americans-who are part of the country the president should stand for. Maybe Romney can bring us away from this partisanship and divisiveness Obama represents. A president should never publically use profanity-especially not in an interview. I think we need some national healing and need to come together to find unity in being Americans-instead of this pitting groups against each other that Obama does. Obama has GOT to go. I am tired of Obama's class warfare, racial conflict and hatred of the "other" (those who dare to disagree with his policies).

I think that General Petraeus was in on the "Innocence of Islam" scam. His "Counter-insurgency Strategy" is the surrender and appeasement to terrorists strategy. If the man was a freedom loving American-he wouldn't be working for Obama-the same could be said about that traitor Robert Gates. Al-Qaida in Iraq killed tens of thousands of Iraqis-so the Iraqis finally stood up with the American forces against the terrorists. General Petraeus is given way too much credit. He just happened to be there. He didn't have anything to do with the surge strategy either. I think Petraeus-like Obama-wants to help the Muslims out-so he and Obama concocted the scheme of blaming the anti-Muslim movie-also so they can introduce Sharia anti-Blasphemy laws in America.

There is one Messiah-Jesus Christ (Yeshua Meshikha in his Aramaic language), and not this false messiah the liberal news media foisted upon us back in 2008.

I was against the stimulus-but I may favor another one-if the money is used to send all the freedom hating Obama-zombies to the atheistic-communist country of their choice-Cuba, Belarus, North Korea once they renounce their citizenship-which shouldn't be a problem for them since they hate America anyway. Besides a communist country, perhaps we can allow these kool-aide drinkers to build Obamatown on the ruins of Jamestown in Guyana. There they can establish a new "People's Temple" where they can worship Obama as their god to their hearts delight.

Video of children singing Obama's praises. This is disgusting! Democrats exploiting children! And the kids are reciting leftwing inflammatory rhetoric! Sickening-the Democrats teaching children to hate their parents and love Obama. The reality is-if their parents re-elect Obama-the kids SHOULD be mad at their parents-they will inherit America as a third world country from them. Over 16 trillion dollars in debt is the Obama gift to these little girls and boys.

I predict that soon Obama will admit he is a Muslim-and it will be a big shocker-like when American Idol Clay Aiken and the actor that plays Shelton on "Big Bang Theory" came out as being homosexuals.

I used to try to look at various sources for my news. But I just can't take the "mainstream media" anymore-the blatant bias-the complete disregard for any appearance of neutrality-the contempt for the conservative opinion-the vitriol against republicans-so, now, I just go to fox news for the news. CNN, ABC News, NBC News, MSNBC, CBS News-have all become the propaganda wing of the Democratic party and the Obama re-election campaign.

Cowardice

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity [fear/cowardice], but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)

A book recently came out entitled "No Higher Power" which chronicles Obama's four year war against religious freedom-primarily directed against the Roman Catholic Church.

Our friend Albert, went to a conference about religious freedom at the Catholic church-but when he got there they talked about fund-raising instead.

Why? Because the Bishops shut it down.

But why? Because they are cowards.

Lack of leadership-people look to them expecting them to lead-but they won't.

One of the revelations in the book was that in his early days as a communist agitator-"community organizer" Obama was given a $33,000 gift from the Catholic Church by liberal Catholics.

This is how Catholic leadership use the tithes and offerings giving by devout Catholics.

There is controversy about the Catholic Church during World War II. Some people accuse the Catholic Church of collaborating with the Nazis. I don't believe this. But I do believe there was a moral failure. The Catholic Church decided to remain neutral-probably uncertain about the outcome. What if Hitler was triumphant? After all, he was from a Catholic background. Perhaps they thought they could oppose him or offer criticism after all the dust settled-if he was triumphant.

Now, looking back, it is obvious that Hitler was evil. Where was the moral authority of the church?

Some individual Catholics did defy Hitler. Some Catholics were martyred for doing so. Some individual Catholics collaborated with the Nazis. I have even read reports of nuns assisting in forced abortions of undesirables. But the institution failed to take a stand. Why?

Because they were cowards.

I want to recommend to you a movie "For Greater Glory." It is about Mexico in the late 1920s. A leftist regime came into power and began persecuting the Roman Catholic Church.

It feel to individual Catholics-to stand alone-and to risk martyrdom-to take up arms and fight to restore religious freedom. Many were martyred. It wasn't the institution of the Catholic church that took a stand-but independent Catholics-many of whom paid with their lives.

This isn't just a problem with the Catholic Church-it is also a problem with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Richard Land was fired-under the false pretense of comments about the Trayvon martin case-but really because he pledged to take a stand with Roman Catholics and the Battle for religious freedom.

I think many people have the false idea of Jesus as a wimp.

Jesus was no wimp! By Johnnie Moore, Liberty University President, Foxnews.com

[A common misconception that many people have is that Jesus was a weakling, a wimp, someone who was so passive that he enabled evil. This notion is most popular with liberals who seem to think that Jesus was a wimp and that being wimpy is somehow godly. Jesus called people to repent and live a life of virtue-but liberals think social evils, such as sodomy, abortion, prostitution, ect., are virtues. Now, for his day and time, Jesus would have been considered "liberal" and "anti-establishment." However, modern liberalism is immoral and debauched and its system of immorality is something that is opposed to the spirit of Christ. And, today Liberalism is the establishment. I recently read through a disturbing book entitled "The New Leviathan" by David Horowitz. It is about the vast financial resources of the radical left. They have billions-and they pretty much control all the purse-strings in America. Opposing them seems really hopeless, but the Bible says, "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." Horowitz shows that the idea that the democrats are the common people opposed to the wealthy Republican establishment isn't true-actually the opposite is true. However, I don't like the RINO Republican establishment either. Glenn Beck-in his book "Cowards" discusses important issues in the world today-and the lack of resolve in confronting them. ]

Of course, as a Bible-believing evangelical, I do not believe that Christians should treat people maliciously, take revenge or fight with others arbitrarily. I believe we should show extraordinary restraint. But, when someone asked me if I thought God would "get even" with people, I decided to make a nuanced, theological point: "God would, and he did, get even." In the end, God won. They must have expected me to react the way some liberal reporters responded in the aftermath of Mr. Trump's speech. The liberal press, which obviously couldn't bear the thought of Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Donald Trump working together to halt the current assault on the American free enterprise system, immediately took to the Bible to try to drive a wedge between these patriotic allies. They wanted us evangelicals to go ahead and stay put (and quiet) in our nice little box. After all, it's much easier to take advantage of us that way. Yet, I believe, it's high time that Christians toughen up a bit. Christians shouldn't be malicious, but they also shouldn't let people run all over them. Is it heretical to believe God is, and God wants us to be, tough? Hardly. Read the Bible. It's filled with God pursuing justice, settling scores with folks who messed with him, or who messed with his people, and – believe it or not - Jesus is "Exhibit A." The prevailing view of Jesus, mainly among liberal Christians, might be that he was a blond-haired, blue-eyed, fluffy little self-help teacher who spent lots of time tip-toeing through the lilies, doling out softly worded pieces of advice to children, and saying things like, "can't we all get along." However, Jesus was no "patsy," (as Trump might say) and being around him wasn't always like being cuddled up in a nice, warm Snuggie ®. Jesus was a tough character. The same Jesus who preached compassion is the same Jesus who publicly embarrassed his nemeses (the Pharisees) by calling them "a bunch of snakes" in front of a large crowd of people. The same Jesus who said, in a particular and oft-misunderstood context, that we ought to "turn the other cheek" is the same Jesus who made a royal mess out of the temple by taking a whip to a bunch of moneychangers. Does that sound like a cuddly Jesus who lets people run all over him? Jesus didn't float on down to planet earth like a deflating balloon. He dropped down like an atom bomb, and his very presence was a provocation. Christians believe Jesus was perfect, and sinless, yet it seems like two images of Jesus emerge in the Bible. One wonders if the real Jesus is the lover of lepers, or is it the tough-as-nails, Judean prophet with dirt under his fingernails "cleansing the temple?" Equally contradictory is the advice King Solomon once gave in the Old Testament, "do NOT answer a fool lest you become like him" to which he immediately followed by saying, "DO answer a fool lest he take advantage of you." (Proverbs 26:4-5). What was Solomon's point, and what can we learn from Jesus' example? We must be wise about "when" and "how" we react when someone has treated us unjustly, but we mustn't be fearful of standing up for ourselves. Of course, Christians shouldn't treat people maliciously and they shouldn't fight arbitrarily, but Christians – like Jesus – should pursue justice, and they should – like Jesus – not let people take advantage of them. Jesus might have been meek, but he sure wasn't weak. He had a steel spine; he spoke boldly and strongly. In the end he had lots of enemies who nailed him to a tree to shut him up. Then, Christians believe, Jesus just raised himself from the dead – showing that he was in control of everything, anyhow. I might just call that more than "getting even."

Some people believe it is "godly" to let evil prevail.

Jesus said, "Be ye wise as serpents and gentle as doves."

Jesus wants us to be wise-gentle as doves-not brainless and mindless as doves.

We shouldn't be timid-and let evil people walk all over us-like Paul Ryan did in his debate with Joe Biden

"The Future Must not belong to those who would malign the prophet of Islam" –President Obama, September 2012

Why is this statement so dangerous? Does this mean that there is no future for the first amendment?

The Arab Christian who made the "Innocence of Islam" was arrested for questioning Islam. We are losing our freedom of speech.

THE CAIRO SPEECH

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

[Note: Fighting against "negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear" is not the responsibility of the President of the United States-in fact it is against his constitutional duty to do so. His primary job is to protect the freedoms enumerated in the constitution. So when he fights against "negative stereotypes" he is violating freedom of speech. Also, giving Islam a privilege position is a violation of the "establishment clause." By not fighting against negative stereotypes of Christians, Jews, or Buddhists, apparently not "part of his responsibility," he is establishing Islam as a de facto official religion of the United States of America.]

Obama seems to be trying to shield Islam from criticism.

Now, with our interconnected world, criticism or questioning of Islam here-is a threat to Islam anywhere.