This just appeared in the PZ Insider Report, 4/30/07, "The Slippery Slope".at
www.prophezine.com
Praise God,
Stephen
 
 
 
 

Inscribed to God Jesus Christ
By Stephen Yulish
 

It never ceases to amaze me how much God listens to our prayers and petitions.
He is right there beside us but we often have no clue. I have been having a
friendly discussion with a man who calls himself a fellow Christian yet
refuses to believe that Jesus is equal to the Father. I have told him that he
is therefore either a Jehovah's Witness or maybe a Mormon. He told me that he
loves Jesus and was insulted that I called him a JW or a Mormon. I asked him
how he could call himself a follower of Christ, i.e. a Christian, and not
believe that Christ is equal to Jehovah or Yahweh?
He would quote me from John 14 where Jesus said that He would petition the
Father. When I showed him John 10:30,38 where Jesus said me and the Father are
one, he did not listen. He quoted me from the New Jerusalem Bible and from
Harper's Bible and other so called scholarly works which seemed to question
the equality of Jesus to the Father. He tried to tell me that he had seen
programs on the History and the Discovery Channels that supported his beliefs.
He quoted the theologian Hans Kung and even used his Professor of New
Testament many, many years ago in college who had taught him that Jesus was a
prophet and God's only son but was not equal to the Father. When he tried to
tell me that many of Jesus sayings were similar to those of the Essenes and
that He therefore might have learned from them, I nearly lost it. I told him
that Jesus was God and therefore could not learn anything from the Essenes or
anybody else. He scoffed.
I became frustrated and finally told him that the Holy Spirit would have to
reveal the truth to him. We agreed to disagree.
Then I picked up my copy of the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review,
March/April 2007, vol. 33, no.2 and found the article, "Inscribed to God Jesus
Christ".
The article tells about the recent discovery of an early Christian prayer hall
under the prison in Megiddo in Northern Israel. The prison needed more room so
they began excavating. When they found archaeological remains, they called in
the Israeli Antiquities Authority. They discovered the remains of the earliest
prayer hall ever discovered in the Holy Land. It was dated to the first half
of the 3rd Century around 230 AD. Very few prayer halls or churches have been
discovered anywhere in the Middle East before the Church became a part of the
Roman Empire under Constantine a hundred years or so later.
The find was actually near the ancient Jewish village of Kfar Othnay which is
mentioned in the Jewish Mishnah and also near the outpost of two Roman
legions. They found elaborate mosaic plaques and floor designs. They found an
early Christian design of two fish facing one another. The Greek word for fish
is ichthys whose letters spell out, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. More
importantly they found the four sides of what appeared to be an offering,
communion, or Eucharist table. Nearby, they found an inscription which said,
"The God loving Akeptuous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a
memorial."
This is the earliest inscription found in Israel and perhaps anywhere, that
mentions Jesus Christ. And, even more significantly, to describe Him as God
shows that the early followers of Christ thought of Him as God. Historians and
Bible scholars have tried to tell us that his early followers did not think of
him of God and that this belief was not added until later at the Council of
Nicea and others under Constantine. My friend also tried to use those same
arguments but this find silenced him. To God Jesus Christ says it all.
Finally, isn't it sad that this tremendous archaeological find did not get the
attention that the scandalous Lost Tomb of Jesus did? Of course, we know the
reason for this. The Lost Tomb purported to say that Jesus was not God was not
resurrected and married Mary Magdelene while this find showed that Jesus
Christ was thought of as God by His early followers. The media always seems to
choose blasphemy over truth. It sells better.