In your patience possess ye your souls

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Rom 8:4 that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Gal 5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

By default we walk in the flesh.  If you are not walking in the Spirit, then you are in the flesh.  The only way to not walk in the flesh is to walk in the Spirit.

Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Our part is to exercise faith that the Holy Ghost causes us to walk in the Spirit.

Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.

The Holy Ghost produces patience in us as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).  We then have a choice to choose to trust in God’s words and choose patience.  Thereby we possess our own soul, rather than being driven by Satan and the flesh (Mt 6:22-24; Luke 16:13-15; John 8:44)

Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Tell your soul: “This I say then, walk in the Spirit!”

Tell your soul: “you will NOT fulfil the lust of the flesh!”

If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death

“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;  If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?”  (Pro. 24:11-12) 

 

“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.  When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”  (Ezk. 3:17-18)

 

“For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”  (Acts 20:27)

 

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”  (II Tim. 4:2-4)

Yea, hath God said

Genesis 3:1-5

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman,

Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Yea, hath God said – first step is to cast doubt on God’s words, to get you to lay down your shield

Ye shall not surely die – direct contradiction of God’s words

For God doth know – suggesting that there is secret knowledge that God is withholding from you

your eyes shall be opened – suggests that gaining this secret knowledge brings enlightenment

ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil – suggests that gaining knowledge makes you a god and you can decide for yourself what is good and what is evil.

The Circle Maker fable

The latest fad to hit the church is a book and its associated merchandise known as “The Circle Maker”.

The Circle Maker is targeted to adults, teens, and children who want to “achieve their desires” by drawing a circle and praying inside of it.

Note how on the cover of the book there are three concentric circles?

 

Also, in the videos associated with the book, the author strikes the circle three times with chalk.

 

 

The Wiccan Rede, which is the guide for Witchcraft-based faiths, says:

For tread the Circle thrice about to keep unwelcome spirits out.

It would seem the author is well indoctrinated with witch’s lore, or he is influenced by the same spirits.  Circles drawn with chalk, salt, blood, or various other elements (or drawn in the mind or imagination) are an essential part of a variety of traditions of The Craft.

 

 

Some might say that the devil has corrupted something of God.

That can only be true of things that God has indeed prescribed or given examples of in His word.  Only then can one say God established it first, then the devil corrupted it.

However, the author of the circle maker could not get the making of circles from the bible, because there is no scriptural basis for it.

If it is not in the bible, then where does it come from?

It comes from a Jewish fable found in the Talmud about a first century B.C. man Honi ha-M’agel  who, when his land was drought-stricken, is said to have drawn a circle in the sand, stepped inside it, and wouldn’t budge until God answered his petition for rain.

 

What IS in scripture is the following:

Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. Titus 1:14

If the author, publishers, and pastors who are promoting the Circle Maker would have read their bibles, seen this one verse in Titus, and given heed to it, they would not have anything to do this this practice.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables 2 Timothy 4:3-4

 

See also: The Shack – wolf in sheep’s clothing

the LORD your God proveth you

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deut 13:1-3

much ado about Euodias

I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. (Philippians 4:2 KJB)

The King James Bible (KJB) spells the name as Euodias

Note that Tyndale 1534, Coverdale 1535, Matthew’s bible 1537, the Great bible 1539, the Geneva bible 1560, the Bishops’ bible 1568, Mace N.T., Wesley’s N.T., Haweis N.T., Webster’s 1833, Julia E. Smith Translation 1876, New Life Version 1969, The Living Bible 1971, JB Phillips 1972, Green’s Literal 1993, Wycliffe 2001, A Conservative Version 2005, Jubilee bible 2010, New Matthew Bible 2016, and Orthodox Jewish Bible 2011 spell it Euodias same as KJB. [Thank you facebook amigos for help compiling this list]

Remaining modern versions I’ve checked so far spell it Euodia.

The name recorded in the Greek texts is Εὐοδία.  Male names usually end in -ας, -ης, and -ος, but sometimes ancient forms are also used. Female names usually end in -α and -η, though a few end in -ώ with -ου being possible.(w)  Again this is the general rule according to the ever changing understanding of contemporary scholars about Greek language as it was over 2,000 years ago.

Various commentators imply that the KJB translators purposely changed ended the name Euodias with an ‘S’ because they were chauvinist or had agenda to portray the disagreement in Phil 4:2 as between a man and woman. I recently heard a someone use this as an example of how there are mistakes in the KJB.

Can see this bias in this Thayer’s Greek Lexicon entry:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2136&t=KJV

There may well be a trend that in Greek where masculine names have an ‘S’ at the end, but that is a generality and not true in every case and the ‘S’ does not always carry forward into other languages.

For example  Ανδρέας is transliterated into Andreas, but the English equivalent is Andrew and the Italian equivalent is “Andrea”, but just because the Italian equivalent ends in ‘a’ doesn’t transform a man into a woman.

Even if it is a general rule in Greek, Euodias is the name in English, not in Greek — and there is no general rule in English that female names cannot end in ‘S’, as a matter of fact there are many female names that end in ‘S’.

To accuse the translators of the AV1611 as having an agenda requires willful ignorance of the many bibles that come before the KJB that translate the name as Euodias including Tyndale 1534, Coverdale 1535, Matthew’s bible 1537, the Great bible 1539, the Geneva bible 1560, the Bishops’ bible 1568.

The translators choice to spell Euodias the same as previous English bibles before them is consistent with the goal of the king’s translators of 1604-1611 to not write a new Bible from scratch:

“Truly, good Christian Reader, we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one; … but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark” (The Translators to the Reader, 1611 KJV, ninth page).

 

If it was truly an agenda on the part of the translators to portray these two as a man and a woman as a way to suppress women, then the translators were woefully inconsistent and ineffective as there are plenty of other verses throughout scripture that elevate the position of women.

Research continues…