Author: martinsmanuelbooks

The Church began at Jerusalem when God poured out the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ disciples on the day of Pentecost.  One hundred twenty followers exploded to several thousand in one day (Acts 1:15; 2:41).  The core group was mostly from Galilee (Acts 1:11) and did not have residences in Jerusalem.  A smaller number of followers […]

Through Jeremiah the prophet, the Holy Spirit inspired the promise of a new covenant to replace God’s covenant with Israel (Jer. 31:31-34).  Jesus Christ inaugurated this New Covenant at His Last Supper with His disciples before His crucifixion (Luke 22:20).  The writer of the book of Hebrews repeated Jeremiah’s prophecy in Heb. 8:6-12, adding in […]

In biblical history, only one nation had the designation as God’s.  Yahweh covenanted with Israel to become His nation (Ex. 19:5-6, 24:8).  He chose Israel to be His people; they did not choose Him to be their God (Deut. 7:6); the choice had nothing to do with their population (Deut. 7:7) or character (Deut. 9:4-5).  […]

God, Creator of heaven and earth, gave humanity responsibility for ruling the material creation on earth (Gen. 1:26).   He “took man and put him in the Garden of Eden to take care of it” (Gen. 2:15).  Here there is no suggestion of how humanity would manage an economy. But God intended that humans would populate […]

According to Wikipedia.com articles on Capitalism and Socialism: “Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit.”   “The term capitalism gradually spread throughout the Western world in the 19th and 20th centuries largely through the writings of Karl Marx. […]

One of the focal points of the political division between Americans is the ongoing debate about which ‘ism should be dominant in our culture: capitalism or socialism.  The Church in America cleaves upon the same divisions, instead of providing America with a light to see the best for our culture.  In the series of blog […]

The story in Episode 3 above seems to go out of its way to point out that a Samaritan was the only leper among ten to show gratitude to Jesus for healing.  The story in this episode similarly adds what might seem to be an unnecessary detail about a Samaritan.  The story is the familiar […]

That previous border incident of rejection for racial or religious reasons did not deter or stop Jesus.  Still traveling to Jerusalem and at the border of Galilee and Samaria, Jesus headed toward another village where he might be accepted.  As Luke tells in Luke 17:11-12, unexpectedly, he is met by 10 lepers.  The disease of […]

The Gospel of Luke mentions the Samaritan issue several times.  Because Jesus spent most of his time in Galilee, the province north of Samaria, it was not unusual for him to encounter Samaritans whenever he travelled south to Jerusalem.  On one such occasion, he encountered resistance.  The Samaritan hostility toward the Jews in Jerusalem would […]

In the time of Jesus, Samaria was a Roman Empire province situated between the provinces of Judea and Galilee. Although Jews were the predominant residents of Judea and Galilee, they were geographically separated by Samaria, whose residents were not Israelite. The Jews and Samaritans were rivals and enemies. They claimed to worship the same God—of […]