America's First Contact with Islam

A nation whose single greatest influence was Christianity
makes “first contact” with the lands of Islam…
 

In practice America’s first contact with the lands of Islam came through their trading of slaves among other things while in the colonial stage.   The Islamic warriors could not hold the interior of Africa largely due to the geography of the interior.  Over time the interior of Africa became viewed as a virtually inexhaustible supply of slaves for the Islamic countries.   The slave markets buzzed and routes were established going east (to Arabia, Persia etc.) and west (to the Americas) on a huge scale.

 
Britain’s massive naval presence in the Mediterranean (and elsewhere) protected America for the most part from becoming slaves… though white slaves were highly prized especially in the harems.  Most of Islam’s white slaves were imported from the Islamic frontiers bordering Russia.

That all changed with the declaration of independence.  America was no longer under the protection of the British flag.  The Barbary States along the northern coast of Africa, Tripoli (AKA Libya) in particular began capturing and selling American ships back to the US on a massive scale.  This tribute money from “unbelievers” to avoid enslavement eventually reached the unbelievable sum of 20% of the entire US budget.

It appears that 10 of the first 11 Americans seized died in slavery. It took awhile for the Americans to take the threat seriously.  (It sounds a lot like today…)
 In 1787 alone eleven American vessels were plundered and 121 sailors were taken hostage. They demanded one million dollars in ransom from the fledgling democracy.  [source]

Where Did Church Buildings Come From?

In recent years I have continued to run into folks that have believed it was somehow more spiritual to worship God at home alone, or in small groups etc. Each time it seems the persons are coming from a different direction but to the same conclusion that the practice of gathering together in a public building as a congregation of God’s people was somehow inferior to a private, or hidden worship.

They are generally pursuing intimacy and fear losing it.

By way of contrast I have also continued to run into folks that believe that the building was “nothing” and therefore you can do anything with said building that you wish. They have thereby wrapped Jesus’ name around everything from country music shows to strip dancing. Yes… here in Wichita a group recently tried to mingle the worship of God with a strip club!

Locally we are trying to raise enough for a down payment and to find financing to buy our first building… so we have been discussing every aspect of this question for the last year.

Here is some of the rationale often given to dismiss church buildings;

• Organized religion is corrupt. (No one can deny that some, if not most, of it is!)
• Constantine founded modern Christianity in the 300’s AD. (Not true…)
• Church buildings were not used until after Constantine’s edict of Milan in 313AD. (this is a blatant misrepresentation of history!)
• In the first century the church was composed of “house churches.” (Some were in homes… only some… not all or even most.)
• If a local church owns a building, then its work ends up centering on the building rather than saving souls etc. (This can and often does happen. This argument is like saying ‘since some marriages fall apart we should do away with marriage.’ Simply put, it is clearly an over-reaction.)

What's the Difference Between the Old and New Testaments?

It is a sad thing today that some people go to a church for many years and yet have not been taught the answer to this simple Bible question.  To mature as we should, we need to build a foundation of biblical principles.  The first of which will be "rightly dividing" the word of God.

In scripture, we find basically three dispensations of biblical history.  These are the Patriarchal, Mosaical and the Christian ages, respectively.  We might compare these to the starlight, moonlight and sunlight, with the degree of light referring to God's continuously clearer revelation of Himself.  Of course Jesus Christ is the ultimate in God's revelation to man.  “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”  (John 14:9)

What You May Not Know About Christmas

Today’s article (see below) will allow a bit of a father’s pride to show through.  It was written by my daughter.  She had done her own research with the intention of drawing her own conclusions and explaining why she believed what she believed to her friends.  She then sent it to me to edit and criticize… I asked for permission to send it out on my “Jottings”

Christians that study scripture will rapidly find themselves in a dilemma.  What can we participate in and defend?  For example, only a light reading of scripture reveals that the nativity scenes pass on a sorely mistaken view of what actually happened the night our Lord was born. As the ACLU attacks their placement in public places with a view to attacking Christianity… Our dilemma is, how do we defend Christianity without defending what is not really Christianity?

There is a certain joy that comes with watching your children come of age and establish families of their own.  That joy runs even deeper as you watch them choose Christian spouses and then establish Christian families.

Yours in Christ,
Jerry Blount

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What You May Not Know About Christmas...

What does the Bible say?

I don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday- the reason being that the Bible doesn’t tell me to. Under the Old Law, God was very specific about the holy days He wanted observed. He told what event was to be remembered, what should be taught, how and when to observe the celebration. Today… we aren’t under the Old Law anymore (refer to Hebrews 8-10), and God radically changed the way worship occurs in the New Testament. The only way we are commanded to remember Christ with a ceremony today is the Lord's Supper which we observe every Sunday. (1 Cor 11:23-26, Ac 20:7). The New Testament church did not celebrate the birth of Christ in any special way. If Jesus wanted us to celebrate His birthday, He would have told us to celebrate it, when and how to celebrate it. God has given us all instruction about life and godliness in the scriptures (2 Peter 1:3, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). It’s not my place to add in any religious holidays or observances that God didn’t command (Rev. 22:18).
 
 
When was Jesus born?

         No one knows the date Jesus was born! Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 describe Christ’s birth. December 25th, or any Roman or Hebrew equivalent is not mentioned! What we do know is that the shepherds were abiding in the fields, watching over their sheep at night (Luke 2:8), which wouldn’t be the case in December. “It's a well-known fact that December falls in the middle of the rainy season in Palestine, and the sheep were kept in the fold at that time of the year.”3 (Refer to Ezra 10:9-13, Song of Solomon 2:11, which show winter as the rainy season and shepherds could not be out on the cold, open fields at night with their sheep.)

Proving the Story of Jesus

Today’s article will be focused on untangling a stubborn knot for some people. I will be attempting to put before you one very solid answer to why a grown man can hold his head up and declare that he believes Jesus to be the Son of God.

To often we have allowed others to characterize Christianity as a group of followers of an incredible myth. Little do many realize that Christianity, the Bible, and the story of the Bible will stand up to honest, even hostile, scrutiny.

Christianity is not Blind stupid faith! It is the only sensible way to approach life and the God who created it! Today we’ll look at one segment of proving this to be so.

I am 52 years old and I won’t blindly follow anyone anywhere without a real reason to do so…. I don’t expect you to either! That said, the Bible is the Word of God!

The story of Jesus: Was it a Myth or can we prove Jesus to be the true focus of all of human history?

Answer: Yes, a Christian can prove that Jesus is the focus of all of human history!

A History Lesson on Mormonism

Last week I sent out an email to the list comparing the Mormon's founders to the founders of Christianity. I noted that virtually every signatory witness to the golden plates either repudiated their testimony, left the mormon faith or was excommunicated before they died. Comparably, we also noted that none of the authors of your Bible ran... even though most of then became martyrs. 

Today's email is somewhat of a follow-up from last week.

I was unprepared for the quantity and varied nature of the comments about Mormonism that followed. There seems to be a renewed interest in displacing what I would call a willful ignorance of Mormonism.  It is likely to be because of Mitt Romney's being a Mormon. We live in a funny world. Most churches are so afraid of sounding negative they just leave their members wallowing in ignorance.

I am reminded of another time...

Hosea 4: 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

By the same token, the behavior of the original Mormons was so inappropriate that most Mormons just do not want to know either! I have always thought how sad it was that Mormon leaders really have had to hide much of their history from their members. The Bible deals directly with this mindset. 

“The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?”  Jeremiah 5:31

Now a Mormon wants to be president and people don’t know whether they should be afraid or not. 

To make a long story short, a couple years back,  our high school class was asking some pointed questions about the origins of the various churches. They also wanted to know how one church could be as good as another! Logically our young people were properly concluding that just couldn’t be so.  They knew they were correct and were asking for a basis to judge various churches as adults. Well, we don't leave our children ignorant. This is the material I used in that class. 

Providentially at  about the same time, I was studying with some young Mormon elders that had come to my door. These 20 year old “elders” complained that all they heard was negative things said about the Mormons.  They elaborated that people just read bad things about the LDS church. I thought about it awhile and decided that part of their complaint was fair.  It is important to know what Mormons really say, rather than what others say they say…  I determined that I  would concentrate on finding my material in the LDS documents rather than just from others.

What Happened to the People Who Wrote Your Bible?

The character of the Bible’s Witnesses

"You are My witnesses," declares the LORD, "And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me.” Isaiah 43:10-11 

The strength of any testimony absolutely depends on the quality of it’s witnesses.  The Bible is not unique in that respect.   In a court of law, the witnesses are often tried as aggressively as the accused.  The reason is simple, there is a lot at stake and we need to be sure the story holds up to competent investigation. 

God went to a lot of trouble to be sure we would have the ability to test and know that His story was true.  The Bible really did come from God.  Let’s begin looking at the Bible’s testimony and evaluating it’s witnesses.

The first and obvious testimony inside our modern completed work is prophecy.  By 740 BC God’s batting average is so clearly established that it became the basis of other discussions as we can see in Is. 43 under our title. 

Did Muhammad Promote Pedophilia?

This is by far the most sensitive of our studies on Islam.  I have chopped a couple of the quotes down because I don’t want to rate this list “R”!  I have given you the references … you can look up the remainder of said quotes by using the links if you are so inclined.  By any Christian measure these standards presented by Islam are vile, even criminal.  The only thing more criminal would be to just hand over the keys to our way of life to them and embrace this nonsense.

Even if you ignored all the people Muhammad killed and the forcible rapes he committed…  He would have done hard time in a federal prison if he practiced the Islam he established in our country today.  If the Muslims among us practiced what Muhammad taught… so would they.  The age of consent, for both boys and girls is one of the things we will give up if Islam gains influence in America. It is important that you recognize the Ayatollah Khomeini’s name on the first quote below.   He is the one who originally established the Islamic state of Iran in 1979.

Beyond that, please note that I have gone to great lengths to allow Muhammad to speak for himself in this essay. These aren’t Christian quotes, they are Muslim.

         
"A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not ***.” [Ayatollah Khomeini]    

(Yes, I censored this one.  -JB)

I have heard many times that Islam is a religion a religion of peace. I have also heard that Islam is a religion based on strong morals etc.  I guess my reaction is to ask a simple question.  Can you define “moral?”

In reality, Islam is a hostile invading force.  The West is not by any means a “Christian” society.  However…The West is definitely a society that has been massively influenced by Christianity, and we should make no apology for that.  To understand the implications of this invasion, we must know what we are being invaded by.

Sex with very young minors is integral to Islam.  Muhammad claimed that he was the ultimate example of right and wrong.  Many today believe this claim unquestionably.  For example, when Iran’s clerics overthrew the Shaw and established and Islamic state… the age of marriage for girls dropped first to 13, then to 9.  You’ll understand why when you read the story of Aisha below. 

Islam in the West is very different from the East.  i.e. Islam when it is a minority is very different from Islam when it rules! 

Let’s divide this study into two parts:
            1) Islam and sex relevant to young boys. (CLICK HERE)
            2) Islam and sex relevant to young girls. (CLICK HERE)

Hi I am glad you stopped by our blog. These articles are from an emailing that we did several years ago.   Today most of our work is on facebook

You can follow my personal page on Facebook by clicking on this link    ...  

  Jerry Blount 

You can follow the postings on the congregation's page by clicking on this link....   

Las Vegas church of Christ 

If you wish to worship with us....

Las Vegas church of Christ

709 Dora Celeste

Las Vegas, NM 87701

Our meeting times are

10am Sunday morning for Bible study.

11am Sunday morning for the worship service.

6pm Wednesday evening for Midweek Bible study.

If you wish to contact me...

yakipreacher@gmail.com

Be well 

Jerry Blount