{"id":2660,"date":"2020-12-16T04:20:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T10:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/?p=2660"},"modified":"2020-12-19T05:30:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T11:30:42","slug":"the-light-still-shines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/the-light-still-shines\/","title":{"rendered":"The Light Still Shines…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Chanukah<\/a> is important because it stands in decided opposition to the relentless propaganda of humanism and its ongoing attempt to deny the reality of the Divine Presence in our lives… It makes bold the statement that reality is not reducible to merely natural categories, and it repudiates the \u201cHellenistic\u201d conceit that all religions are true, and it especially rejects the arrogant notion that the LORD God of Israel is just “one more member” of some globalist pantheon… Chanukah adamantly denies the politically correct dogma that despair is the universal condition of humanity and that darkness will finally extinguish the light. Like the gospel message, Chanukah scandalizes human rationalism and the solipsism that affirms that \u201cman is the measure of all things.\u201d \u201cFor everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world (\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1fb7 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u1f79\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd); and this is the victory that has overcome the world- our faith\u201d (1 John 5:4).<\/p>\n

Think counterculturally. It is written: Do not let your mind be conformed (lit., \u201csqueezed into the mold\u201d) of this world, but be transformed (\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f79\u03c9, i.e., metamorphosized like a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly) by the renewal of your mind (Rom. 12:2). The Greek word translated \u201crenewal\u201d is \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u1f77\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, from \u1f00\u03bd\u1f71, meaning \u201cinto the midst,\u201d and \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u1f79\u03c2, meaning \u201cnewness.\u201d The idea here is that we are inwardly transfigured as we take hold of the truth of the new covenant and make it central to our lives. For this we must \u201cput on the mind of Messiah\u201d and repudiate the world\u2019s values and vain philosophy (1 Cor. 2:16). “When the devil is called the god of this world, it is not because he made it, but because people serve him with worldliness.” The \u201cgod of this world\u201d blinds the eyes of those who do not believe so they cannot see the truth of the gospel of Messiah (2 Cor. 4:4). The philosophy of this world is always based on lies, propaganda, fear, lust, pride, anger, appeals to vanity, and so on. We must be vigilant, friends, and use discernment by testing the world\u2019s assumptions against the truth of the Scriptures.<\/p>\n

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chanukah is important because it stands in decided opposition to the relentless propaganda of humanism and its ongoing attempt to deny the reality of the Divine Presence in our lives… It makes bold the statement that reality is not reducible to merely natural categories, and it repudiates the \u201cHellenistic\u201d conceit that all religions are true, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays","category-torah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2731,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2660\/revisions\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebrew4christians.com\/training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}