Paul

God prepared Paul for his future missionary in many ways. One of those ways was that as a kid, Paul went through lots of schooling where he memorized much of scripture from not only the Old Testament, but also some of the Apocryphal books. He also learned how to make tents, which helped him in many different ways throughout his ministry, especially to the gentiles. Jesus has also been preparing me in various ways to further his kingdom. One of those ways was receiving a Christian education where I can learn much more about the Lord than I would have otherwise. Secondly, my dad was a pastor, so he knows a lot about the Lord and I have learned a lot through him and his love for Christ.

The Attack of the Coronavirus – Part 11

These past few days have certainly been an interesting experience to say the least. School work has certainly been a bit more challenging when doing it through a google doc. I guess I would say that it is at least rewarding that I can finally catch up on some of my sleep. I’ve had more time to do stuff like bike, run, or watch The Office, but haven’t been able to do to much more than that what with everything shut down. I believe that this is a time that I can grow in my faith in God, as I have little control over what happens next, but God has full control.

The Stoning of Stephen

The project that I chose for the Stoning of Stephen was a newspaper article that can be seen below. I think that I did a pretty good job of explaining the story and using quotes from Stephen. If I was really observing this event, I think that it would make me disgusted that they are brutally executing him because he has different beliefs. Acts 8:1 says that they Saul (later Paul) was there and approved of them killing him. I would certainly be made at him if I was there and saw him do this. Quite ironic that one of the great christian persecutors became perhaps the greatest preacher of the word. I believe that the reason that the early church kept it up, despite persecution, is because they knew that they had eternal life and didn’t need to worry about their earthly lives.

 

The Stoning of Stephen Newspaper Article

Stephen, a deacon of Jesus Christ, was stoned to death around 2000 years ago.  He was a man of God through and through. He was selected with six others to help the people in the area while the disciples left to preach the word of God. He was stoned because he was falsely accused of speaking poorly about Moses, and about God. His enemies produced false witnesses to testify against him in the Sanhedrin. In reply to this, Stephen gave a history of the Hebrews. He talked about Abraham, father of all the Jews. He spoke of Isaac, father of Jacob, and Jacob’s twelve sons. He spoke of Joseph, who became the ruler of Egypt. He also talked of Moses, and many more such as kings David and Solomon. Concluded with saying, “was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute.” This made the Sanhedrin furious, and they decided to stone him to death. Before the beginning of the stoning, Stephen said, “Look, I see heaven open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. After being dragged out of the city, he prayed this to the son, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and then, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” After all of that, Stephen died.

Beginning of the Year Reflections

After many years of toilsome labor, I have finally made it to my 8th grade year at ZCS. One thing about this year that I have enjoyed was playing football at HC, with some other ZCS kids too. One thing that I’ve learned this year is how to do proofs in math. One thing that I look forward to this year is going to Timberwolf with or class.

What I did this summer

This summer, I did a lot of different stuff. First, my family went camping. When we were there, we rode horses. Next, I went to camp with a friend. When we were there, we played capture the flag. After that we went to our cottage. There we went skiing and tubing. Later, we went to the fair. Me and my cousin both showed a pig. Finally, right before school football practice started with coach Taylor. My summer was fun!

Reflection

The AU day was fun because it gave us a chance to learn more about Africa. It was nice to do something in class other than write a paper. I had fun debating with other people. I really did learn more about Africa, and especially Egypt.

Single Stories of Africa

Do you hold a single story of Africa?

For a long time, I did hold a single story of Africa. I don’t think that I do anymore, but very slowly I have been discovering the other side(s) of the story. We tend to think of Africa as a place where everyone needs to walk miles for water. Where everyone hunts and lives in small villages. But there is actually a lot of wealth in Africa. Not all places, but a lot of them.

What stories might you be missing?

Billions. There are billions of people in Africa, all with different backgrounds and experiences. Learning some of those different stories could completely change my perspective of Africa and Africans.

What is the ‘danger of a single story’?

The danger of a single story, in my opinion, is when you have only one story of a place or a people like Africa. The danger behind this is when you hold only that one story as the truth, and you don’t look any deeper into it. Once that happens, you begin to make assumptions, which tend to be more false than otherwise. This becomes problematic when you continue to make assumptions, and then what you really know becomes less and less. Then you can offend people of that place, or just make a fool of yourself when you talk about it.

Bible Exam Blog Post

Themes

  1. Names

In the times of the Bible, (and in some places now) you name would be based on a word. A word with a meaning. That meaning should also reflect who you are. Sometimes in the Bible, names would be changed. An example of this would be Jacob. Jacob means holder of the heel, which kind of means deceptive (which he was). Jacob fled to escape Esau, and when he was returning, God appeared to him. Jacob quarreled with God, so God changed his name to Israel, which means he quarrels with God. My name (Malachi) means messenger of God. Malachi was also the last of the old testament prophets and most certainly a messenger of God. That’s why I picked that for my visual.

 

2.Covenant

In biblical times, but also modern times, there are two types of covenants. The first type of covenant is a conditional covenant. These are like two way covenants. If one party breaks the covenant, then the other party has no reason to keep it. An example of this is the covenant between God and the Israelites on Mount Sinai. The other type of covenant is more one ended. These covenants are called unconditional covenants. A great example of this is Jesus’ love. Jesus’ love is unconditional, so no matter what we do, Jesus will always love us. This is very important to me, because, as a human (and an American), I screw up a lot, but I  know that Jesus will always love and accept me. That’s why I picked that for my visual.

 

  1. Slavery/Salvation

The story of Moses is very commonly known. The baby in the basket. The 10 plagues. The parting of the sea. But one thing we seem to forget is their slavery. Not necessarily that we forget it happened, but we forget that many Israelites died slaves. That most who didn’t were born slaves. We remember that Moses survived Pharaoh’s baby slaughter, but we forget how many died. We forget that the Israelites were slaves for at least eighty years. I feel like when we remember all of this, there freedom only becomes more significant. This can be related to our own sin filled lives also. Sin is like the Egyptians. We are the Israelites. We are all slaves to sin. Heaven is the promised land and faith in Jesus is the way to get there. To me, this is a very comforting thought. The thought that all we need to get to heaven is faith. Faith that Jesus will part the seas for us. That his cross will be used as a bridge to reach the other side. It is all in faith. That’s why that is my visual.

 

 

  1. Sinai Law

The Israelites were never the greatest listeners. Time after time they disobeyed the Lord. One of these times was the golden calf. So Moses was on top of mount Sinai for a really long time. The Israelites were growing tired of waiting for Moses to come. So they told Aaron, “Come make us gods who will come before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32: 1b) Aaron foolishly responded by giving them what they wanted: a golden calf. Well, soon enough Moses came down the mountain and found the Israelites bowing to a fake cow. Moses wasn’t very pleased by this, and neither was God. Now how do we ably this to our own lives? Well, in our lives, a golden cow could be anything. A devise, yourself, a sport, a game, another person, and the list goes on. Now all this is fine, but the problem starts when you put these this together. One rather basic math equation is that God > Everything else. For me personally, I believe that these means simply spending time with or for God. This could mean prayer, devotions, church, youth group, Sunday school, Bible class, or even filling out an exam paper on Bible. So the next time there is a free five minutes, I challenge you and myself to spend it with or for God. That’s why this is my visual.

  1. Sent to the Promised Land

After much sin, God punished the Israelites to forty years of wandering in the desert. The main reason for this is a result of the people of Israel not having enough faith in God to help them take what they considered a people of giants. These forty years were tough for God’s people. Not only were they trapped in the wilderness, but every one of them who was twenty or older at the time, except for Caleb and Joshua, would die wandering. My personal connection is this. There are so many times in the Torah where the Israelites needed to trust God. The wilderness, the Red Sea, the Jordan, Jericho, but we can learn from their failures and success, and learn to trust God no matter what. So that explains my visual.

  1. Salute to a king

Again, Israel wanted to be like the rest. Like the golden calf. This time Israel didn’t want a god, they wanted a king. A ruler that they could physically see. Samuel eventually gave in. God picked Saul from the tribe of Benjamin to be the king. The king of Israel that God wanted was a nagid, but the people of Israel all wanted a melek. A nagid was a king who ruled through love and cared deeply for his people. A melek was a king who ruled through fear and power, and cared about their people much less than a nagid would. A nagid would be a representative of God. A melek was mostly centered around being a war lord. The Israelites ended up getting the melek king Saul, until David son of Jesse took his place as king. Solomon, David’s son, followed David as king. The closest the Israelites ever got to a nagid king was probably David, or maybe Solomon. This so closely ties into our own lives, when so often we want is often not what God does. I think that everyone’s lives would be so much better if they just listened to God. So that’s my visual.

  1. Slide to Destruction

Israel sins a lot. Following so much sin there is usually a prophet sent by God that comes and challenges them to be better. However, these stiff-necked people normally fail to listen to the prophet. This tends to lead to exile. They get captured by another country. Eventually they get the opportunity to return to Israel, but this is also what destroyed Israel. Judah survived it though. My personal relation to this is a targeting penalty. Similar to Mr. Minkus’ red card, in football, if you make a bad decision (make helmet to helmet contact with a defenseless player) then the referee will throw a flag, you’ll lose fifteen yards, and if the targeting penalty is confirmed, you will be ejected from the game, just like Israel was exiled out of Israel. That explains my visual.

 

  1.  A Savior

This world is a broken, sinful place. It’s near impossible to get through a day without sinning, whether that sin be big or small. Everywhere you look you seem to find sin. But that is exactly why Jesus died. To save us from all the broken, terrible, no good, evil sin. Something we always seem to pass off is Jesus’ resurrection after his death. We don’t realize quite how incredible that really is. Think about it from the perspective of a Jesus follower in the time of his death. Jesus is dead. You have little reason to believe that he will ever come back. To make it worse, for two days he doesn’t return, giving you even less hope. But then on the third day he does return, and how magnificent it would have been if you were lucky enough to see him in the forty days he was on Earth after his resurrection. But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus will still, one day, return to this sinful Earth, and bring heaven down with him. Jesus will bring the perfect splendor of heaven to the brokenness of  Earth. How cool is that! Then there will be a new heaven and a new Earth. Like a dying fire coming back and thriving again. That is why I chose fire for my visual.

Math Project

Jenna has a problem. She is flying to the amazon on a helicopter she is going on vacation to the Amazon and her best friend Miah is back at her house. She wants to know how far away she is from Miah. She is 1 mile high in the air and Miah is 3,600 miles away from the point directly below her. How far away are Jenna and Miah?

 

a2 + b2= c2

12 + 36002 = c2

1 + 12,960,000  = c2

12,960,001 = c2

12,960,000= c

3600.00013889 = c

3600 = c

 

Reflection:

We failed many times trying to make our problem about pizza and then thought of the word problem about the two people  that was in one of our assignments. Our results make sense because 1 times anything is itself and that is what we got.

 

 

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