By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I state in this essay that women preaching is a significant rebellion against God’s standards. I emphasize that such behavior undermines the church and God’s commands, regardless of societal trends.
Continue reading “Remembering 2019: Beth Moore, Mother’s Day, and women preaching”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
The author reflects on Pope Francis’ visit to America, expressing concern over the decline of biblical knowledge among pastors, as evidenced by a LifeWay survey showing only 37% are doctrinally sound. The piece warns of growing apostasy within Christianity, highlighting the need for continued protest against Catholicism and a return to biblical teachings.
Continue reading “Pope Francis and American Christianity: A Critical Response”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I was asked to write a fable or an allegory for the ministry Exposit the Word as a tract. In it, I narrate a visionary judgment experience where I confront Christ after death. My allegory self realizes that being “good” isn’t sufficient for heaven. Jesus reveals my sins, declaring me unqualified for entry.
Continue reading “The Judgment Seat of Christ: A Life-Altering Allegory”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
A reader had asked me a question, my response focuses on the significance of the spiritual gift of discernment within the church. This gift helps identify and warn against false teachers, which is crucial given the prevalence of false doctrine in the New Testament. A by-product of training one’s self in discernment is that the Christian values the word of God even more. All believers should cultivate discernment, recognizing the balance between vetting teachers and focusing on Jesus.
Continue reading “Understanding Spiritual Gifts: The Role of Discernment”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
This discussion highlights the often negative portrayal of Job’s wife, emphasizing her grief after losing everything along with Job. Despite Mrs. Job urging her husband to abandon his faith, my essay calls for a compassionate understanding of her character. It warns against allowing adverse circumstances to weaken our faith, and I encourage women to provide support to their family during trials.
Continue reading “Job’s Wife: A Call for Compassion”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS:
I talk about Christian conferences, particularly in light of the recent issue of the G3 Conference. While I appreciate the value of some events, I express concern over commercialization and issues undermining spiritual integrity. The tension between organizing a large venue conference and pure ministry remains a critical issue.
Continue reading “Evaluating the Recent G3 Conference Issue: A Case Study”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
Many feel insignificant in their contribution to the Kingdom but can still make a powerful impact through humble service. Each person’s efforts, no matter how small or overlooked, hold value in God’s eyes. Like minor biblical figures who played crucial roles, everyone can honor God through sincere and prayerful actions.
Continue reading “Too old? Too small? You make a difference!”By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I reflect on the disorder of my digital files while I was reorganizing them, and in so doing re-discovered a commentary I’d forgotten I had. It is by John Phillips called Exploring Genesis. Phillips recounted different reactions to apocalypse, including Jonah, Abraham, and Jesus. In this essay I urge readers to remember the impending apocalypse and to respond as Abraham and Jesus did, with prayer and tears.
Continue reading “Facing the Apocalypse: Reactions from the Bible”By Elizabeth Prata
I watch Nathan Fillion in his TV show “The Rookie”. It’s about LA’s oldest police rookie on the force, loosely based on a true story of an older man who really had switched careers mid-life and decided to become a beat cop.
In a recent episode, Fillion, playing police officer John Nolan, woke up, stretched, grimaced, and said, “Getting older means waking up every morning wondering, “Why does that hurt?”
He nailed it.
As I age, sleep becomes important proportionately to the amount it becomes elusive. I’ve always been a good sleeper, no issues with insomnia. Even now as I’m older I still sleep well, but now only for 5 1/2 to 6 hours straight. Then I wake up. It’s usually around 3am, and it takes me a while to return to slumberland. Which is irritating because on weekdays I get up at 4:30am.
Everything in our lives, saved or unsaved, is from the Lord. He either allows it or causes it. As a Christian, sleep is a graceful gift from the Lord. He gives us sleep, peace, and rest.
Now, being the Bible, those three words have various meanings. Sleep in the Bible is used sometimes as a euphemism for death, because death for us is not final, our ‘death’ is only sleep until we are resurrected. Sleep can also mean a spiritual torpor. (Romans 11:8). Sleep also means actual 40 winks sleep.
Peace can mean a restful interlude that includes sleep or not, but it also means peace as in cessation from war and enmity against God due to our sin. Rest can mean actual rest as in the 7th day God rested and we do too, or it can also mean a rest from the struggle against sin.
But for now, let’s look at actual 40 winks sleep and rest. There is natural sleep, bad sleep, and good sleep.
Sleep is a natural human function and a good gift from God. He knows our body is temporary, gets tired, and needs sleep to continue to function. So sleep itself is a gift and is neutral. The human side of Jesus got tired, and He slept.
Psalm 4:8, In peace I will both lie down and sleep, For You alone, LORD, have me dwell in safety.
Psalm 127:2, In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved.
Then there is a sleep our mind uses to indulge the body or escape the conscience. Jonah the runaway prophet disobeyed God and ran in the other direction he was told to go. He scurried to Joppa and boarded a boat. He went “down below into the stern of the ship, had lain down, and fallen sound asleep.” (Jonah 1:5b).
Now this is funny to me because I am a small craft mariner. I’d lived on a 37′ sailboat for two years. In Jonah’s storm, the sailors were hurling cargo overboard – so picture the bumps and scrapes of amphorae and trunks being dragged across the deck- the waves were crashing against the boat, the wind was screaming, the sailors were yelling, the sails noisily hoisted and reefed…a lot of noisy activity all around Jonah. Yet he not only slept, but the Bible said he slept soundly. The Hebrews word lists synonyms for soundly as a heavy sleep or a dead sleep.
As a mariner, I wonder HOW he could sleep deeply when all this activity and noise was going on?! We do know his journey to Joppa was full of emotion and stress. Stress and exhaustion can make one tired. Barnes’ Notes mentions this true fact, “Perhaps he had given himself up to sleep, to dull his conscience.” Sleep IS an escape.
In Jonah’s case, the LORD had not given Jonah the sweetness of refreshing sleep, instead He had given the ship a great wind and storm. (Jonah 1:4).
Also, as Ellicott’s Commentary says, “when a resolution is once irrevocably (as we think) taken, conscience ceases to disturb with its wakeful warning, and the restlessness of remorse has not yet arrived.“
So while a deep sleep is a gift from the LORD, our flesh can also give us a deep sleep, but the two are not the same. One is a heavenly gift and the other is a fleshly indulgence. Deep sleep can arise from sloth, avoidance, laziness (Proverbs 19:15), or just lain weakness of the flesh, as we see in this next example.
The Disciples slept in Gethsemane the night of our Lord’s arrest. The Lord Jesus asked Peter, John, and James to stay awake with Him. He said he was greatly distressed, grieved to the point of death and to stay and keep watch with Him. Yet their eyes were heavy and they fell asleep. Jesus returned from his little distance away three times and each time found them slumbering.
And He *came to the disciples and *found them sleeping, and He *said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 Keep watching and praying, so that you do not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. (Matthew 26:40-41).
The disciples’ flesh won in this battle.
And then Jesus was arrested and there were no more chances to be with Him! How guilty would you feel if a dear loved one asked you to stay awake and pray with him or her but you fell asleep and then they were taken away, or died?
Jesus told them that they were willing but their flesh was weak. And so it is. We forget just how child-like we are. We forget just how weak we are. We forget just how bound by our flesh we are.
Several times in the Bible we see that God gave a deep sleep to someone for spiritual purposes. In Genesis 2:21 God gave Adam a deep sleep while he took a rib from the man. In Genesis 15:12 God again caused a deep sleep to come on Abram, when God was making the covenant with him. In 1 Samuel 26:12 the Lord caused a deep sleep to come over King Saul and his men while David crept in and took his water jug and spear.
He often came to the Prophets when they slept to deliver a vision.
Jeremiah 31:25-26, for I will refresh the weary soul and replenish all who are weak.” / At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been most pleasant to me.
I am glad for Jeremiah for his good sleep. For once the Lord had not given him dire visions or terror warnings in his dreams, but instead Jeremiah had received a vision that was actually pleasant. Phew.
Psalm 3:5
I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the LORD sustains me.
Proverbs 3:24
When you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you rest, your sleep will be sweet.
Jesus slept on the boat in the storm. The disciples were heaving water overboard as fast as it came in. The wind screamed. The sails flapped wildly. The men were yelling. So finally they woke Jesus up. What a similar but different scene with Jonah on his boat. This was an example of both Jesus’ humanity- the man Jesus was exhausted. And it is also a spiritual picture of his deep, unwavering trust in His Father. This is a sleep of trust in the good gifts of the Father.
When you lay your head down tonight, thank the Lord for making us weak and needing sleep to keep going. Thank Him for the sweetness of an unencumbered sleep. Ask Him, if you are troubled, to give you the gift of an uninterrupted night of rest.
By Elizabeth Prata
I was watching a Youtube video titled “How North Korea Finally Made It Impossible to Escape“. (also below) NK is the only country in the world where it is impossible to leave. Even moving within the country from province to province is fraught with paperwork, obstacles, and suspicion.
The video is interesting and seems factual. The narrator goes over what happens when someone defects and where they can go if they defect north, west, or south. Options are limited. China and Russia have extradition treaties, so a defector must make it through to Mongolia or Taiwan of they are to be successful. This is extremely difficult. Even more difficult is that Jong Un has closed the border physically and tightened it dramatically, and also digitally. He seeks to be a digital and physical island in the world with no outside contact. In this, he is succeeding.
I was happy to hear that South Korea’s stance is that all Koreans on the peninsula are Koreans, and if a North Korean defected from North Korea to South Korea (more often in the past, see chart below) they would be taken in as a citizen. However, reports are, that the vast climate differences, social differences, and some prejudice from the South Koreans make it difficult for a North Korean to thrive. But at least they are out of the most closed and oppressive country in the world.
Life in North Korea ranges from difficult to daily horrors, if reports that happen to make it out of the country are to be believed, and they should be believed. The three dictators of the nation after the NK-SK split in 1945 Kim Il Sung beginning in 1948, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un who is dictator now. The current dictator’s regime brutally enforces any breeching of any law. Sentenced people are usually sent to a prison, a euphemism for hard labor camp. In fact, in 2016 an American tourist on an organized tour was alleged to have stolen a propaganda poster, and sentenced to prison on a charge of subversion. Months later he was released back to America in a vegetative state with no explanation. He died shortly after.
In the video the narrator made mention of this terrible situation that occurred a a few years ago but we are just hearing about it now. Two parents were discovered to be in possession of a Bible. They were arrested and imprisoned for life. Their two-year-old child was also imprisoned for life!
North Korea: Two-year-old sent to life imprisonment after Bible found in parents’ possession
It is estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 North Korean citizens have been imprisoned for ‘being Christians’. An entire family, including a two-year-old child, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 simply because a Bible was discovered in their possession. This shocking case highlights the extreme measures taken by the North Korean regime to suppress religious freedom.
According to Wikipedia in North Korea, Religion (2020)
73% no religion (officially an atheist state)
13% Chondoism
12% Shamanism
1.5% Buddhism
0.5% other[Including Christianity, Islam, and Chinese folk religion]
It is encouraging that a Bible had made its way into the country. It is also encouraging that the parents took such a risk in possessing it, they honored Jesus with their life by making the choice for Him rather than their physical life. But the brutality of North Korea’s dictator against a baby reminds one of Herod who killed the children, or Pharaoh who allowed his own people to be killed in all the plagues, famines, and firstborn deaths rather than capitulate the greater Power of God.
As we come off the glow of yesterday’s Easter celebrations, let us remember that our happy family pictures on a grassy lawn in front of a thriving church where we celebrated the resurrection of Christ is something to be treasured and appreciated. The ease with which I drove through three ‘provinces’ (aka counties), walked freely into my church, sang and worshiped without fear of reprisal for me or any of the children in the congregation, is a gift we presently enjoy.
From the Economic Times article: Defectors from North Korea have revealed that the state promotes an ideology called “Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism,” which involves intense study of the teachings of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un. While this ideology does not explicitly declare the leaders as gods, they are described as exceptional beings capable of supernatural abilities.
Hadn’t the Pharaohs claimed to be gods? And the Caesars? Wasn’t Herod Agrippa killed and eaten by worms that God had sent because he accepted worship? (Acts 12:22-23). Unless Jong Un repents, the wrath of God abides on him.
A comment on the youtube video’s page also reminded us that China is no friendly act, either:
Also, a reminder that North Korea can only do most of what it does thanks to massive support from China. China sends regular supplies to North Korea, in direct violation of sanctions, to prop up the autocracy. Because the only thing worse to China than the shit happening in North Korea is having no buffer between themselves and an American allied country. Without this critical support, both official, and under the table unofficially, North Korea probably would have collapsed long ago. Or at least they’d be a minor player who would increasingly have little ability to enforce the oppression they have upon their population.
Here is the video I’d watched. And remember to pray for any Christians in North Korea. Praise the thank God for your own ability to easily and freely worship Him here in America.
