“Do you have eyes but fail to see?” (Mark 8:18), questions Jesus. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light” (Matt 6:22), Jesus reassures us. He’s hereby urging us to see through distortions, delusions and illusions by “the true light” (John 1:9). 1. The World is An Illusion Projected by the Kingdom Within Jesus makes it clear that “I am not of this world” (John 8:23); that “whoever wants to be my disciple must deny the

Summary: In Genesis, upon consuming the forbidden "fruit" (Gen 3:6) from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen 2:9), “which is in the midst of the garden” (Gen 3:3 KJV), Adam and Eve were deported from the Garden of Eden and they went from immortal to mortal. By examining the Hebrew original of the words concerned and their context, this article, inspired by Jeff Popick (2007) and Jane Erwin (2010), argues that the forbidden fruit of Eden is meat; that the origin

My dear brothers and sisters… Welcome back. Today, I invite you to slow down…just for a moment… Take a deep breath with me… (inhale)…and exhale. Let go of control… just for this moment. Today, we are reflecting on a sacred truth: Miracles do not happen when we force life…they happen when we surrender to God. 1. The Illusion of Control So many of us… are trying to control everything. We want to control outcomes…people…timing… Even God’s plan. But Jesus Christ teaches us somet

In the language of the Septuagint, the term holokauston (ὁλόκαυστον) denotes the “whole burnt offering,” translating the Hebrew ʿōlāh (עֹלָה), a sacrifice in which the victim is entirely consumed upon the altar.¹ Such offerings, prescribed in the ancient Temple cult, required the total destruction of innocent life in the name of devotion. Yet the Christ whom we encounter here does not perpetuate this system. In liberating the animals from the Temple, and in calling the...