Philemon and Onesimus - Some people just need to be slaves

It's not white on black slavery so it's ok, right?

Two millenia ago, Paul wrote a nice letter to his friend Philemon about Jesus and forgiveness. You see, once upon a time, Philemon had a really poor quality slave named Onesimus. This slave was so bad that Phelemon finally had to give him the boot.

This is EXACTLY the same as that part in the movie The Two Towers where Grima Wormtongue convinced King Theoden that Eomer was a poor servant and needed to be exiled.

Eventually this slave ended up in prison with the apostle Paul and while there, converted to Christianity. Paul loved Jesus and loved helping out followers of Christ, so he wrote this letter:

Dearest Philemon,

I pray for you a lot and we both love Jesus, Yay! Hey, you remember that worthless bastard Onesimus? Well, it turn out he's a Christian now and he's been super helpful to me since he converted. I would totally keep him forever, but I want him to return and be your slave again so you can learn forgiveness and see how great he is now.

Now remember, he's christian now so you should be nicer to him than the other slaves. Think of him more as a slave/brother. Like, whip him less or something out of respect for your shared faith.

Love,

Paul

This is EXACTLY the same as that part in the movie The Two Towers where a huge orc army was killing all of Theoden's people and Gandalf convinced Eomer to show up with a couple thousand light cavalry at the last possible minute and kill all the orcs.

 

Yep, exactly the same . . .

Moral: It's better to be a Christian slave than a regular slave.

Ref: Philemon 1

Rhoda – The first dumb blonde

This angel sounds pretty violent

Once upon a time, Herod the King started killing Christ's famous followers and posting pictures of their bodies on Twitter.

Herod was worried about his popularity and thought if he could get more followers than Caesar things would go well.

 

Herod had already iced James, and Peter was in prison waiting his turn. Fortunately for Peter (not so much for James) an angel showed up prior to the execution and whacked Peter on the side, knocking him to the ground. This act of violence miraculously freed Peter from his bonds. Peter got dressed and the angel led him straight out of prison and left him in the middle of the street.

 

Once Peter got his bearings, he headed to a nearby secret Christian meeting place where a group of followers were fervently praying for his safety. Peter knocked on the door but as luck would have it, Rhoda, the only blonde teenager in the entire Middle East opened the door and recognized him. She was so excited she ran to tell everyone the good news immediately . . . and LEFT PETER LOCKED OUTSIDE!

Of course nobody believed Rhoda, but when she wouldn't change her story a few of the listeners said, "Well, maybe you think you saw Peter. It must have been his ghost though." At this point it STILL hadn't occured to Rhoda to just let Peter into the house so everyone could see him for themselves.

Fortunately, Peter has the presence of mind to keep knocking until someone else finally came to the door and let him in.

Moral: Not all dumbs are blonde.

Ref: Acts 12

Note: Blondes aren't from the Middle East. Blonde hair in a Northern European thing and Northern Europeans are actually pretty damn smart!

Acts 12:13-16 (KJV) - And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished.

Peleg - From Pangaea to today

Only God gets to move around that much water

Back when God was making the earth, he commanded all the water on the planet to gather together into a single body and caused the land to appear.

It seems logical that if all the water was in a single body, all the land would also have to be together, you know, to avoid dividing all that water into separate oceans, rivers, lakes, and seas.

 

Genesis 1:9-10 (KJV) And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

However, that's not the Earth we are used to seeing. Our Earth looks more like this:

Well, that's weird; something must have happened. The bible gives us a hint while running through some genealogy. About 100 years after the great flood, some guy named Eber had two sons, Peleg and Joktan.

Genesis 10:25 (KJV) And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

It turns out Eber wasn't very creative with names. Apparently Peleg means "division" and Joktan means "lesser." Way to go Eber! Now, some so-called "scholars" think Peleg got his name because the humans stopped all living in one place and were dispersed across the earth. I think that's just crazy. Such an event seems too gradual to be first-born son name worthy. No! I demand a CATACLYSMIC explanation! I say the earth was physically divided.

No, not like that.

Imagine that God created a perfect landmass. It was all fertile garden land and stuff, perfect for growing food and grazing delicious animals. You know, flat like a cue ball.

 

Then one day, God decided to spice things up and introduced a major cataclysm. One that broke all the land into pieces and slid them around the globe, creating mountains, valleys, deep ocean trenches. Yeah; that seems more like God's style.

Moral: God always goes big.