In my campaign for Congress I advocate sweeping radical
social changes in
church, in
politics, in
family, and in every area of life. My proposals are based on
the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and a blueprint for
all human action.
From time to time I am asked about the appropriateness of
mixing Christianity and politics. Many Americans mistakenly
believe that the Constitution makes
it illegal (or at least inappropriate) to endorse
the true religion
rather than false
religions, and certainly inappropriate (or even illegal) to promote
the true religion.
These assumptions are myths, as the links above demonstrate.
America was established as a Christian nation, on the belief
that God had communicated His Word in the Bible.
The purpose of this webpage is to explain why I believe the
Bible is not just another book, but is the Word of God.
Greater minds than mine have come to this conclusion. Among
them, Simon
Greenleaf, a founder of the Harvard Law School, as well as nearly
every Signer of the Constitution. They gave us an "Experiment
in Liberty" that produced the most prosperous and
admired nation in history. Their experiment was replaced in the
20th century with a secular experiment in government central
planning, which has brought poverty and mass death wherever
it was tried. Some of the Founders toyed with deistic and
"Enlightenment" ideas against the Bible, but if they
were here today, they would see where these ideas have led us,
and would whole-heartedly repudiate them.
It's a True Story
There are three reasons I believe the Bible is
the Word of God.
First, I like the story.
If I look at myself, the world around me, and the history of
the world through the lens of the Bible, it makes sense in an
attractive way.
But a nice story is just a fairy tale if it's not really
true. How do I know the Bible is the Word of a true and
trustworthy God?
One reason I believe the Bible is because unbelief is
horrifying.
-
I don't like the idea of being created by random,
meaningless, impersonal forces of "nature," that
make me fundamentally
no different than a rat or a pig.
-
I don't like the idea that there's no significance to one
randomly-mutated collection of chemicals raping, stabbing,
and killing another randomly-mutated collection of
chemicals. Or an entire nation of evolved chemicals.
-
I don't like the idea of the military-industrial complex
killing millions of human beings to protect overseas
corporate investments.
-
I don't like the idea of a world where everyone thinks
he's his own god, and all these would-be gods plunging the
world into violence and chaos.
- Human beings have value.
- They have value because
they are created in the Image of God.
- They have value because God
commands us to value them.
- Human beings do not have
value if they are meaningless conglomerations of chemicals
and water, randomly mutated when acted upon by the blind
collision of impersonal forces of the universe over billions
of years.
- If I am my own god, and I
chose not to value other human beings, then they have no
value. They are dead meat if I choose to exterminate them.
Human beings have no value if "Smith" -- a
meaningless conglomeration of chemicals and water -- chooses
to rearrange the molecules of another meaningless and blind
conglomeration of chemicals and water -- "Jones"
-- from a state of being which we call "life" to a
state of being which we call "death." This
meaningless re-arrangement of molecules has no real
significance in a cold, random, meaningless, blind,
impersonal universe.
- Nobody gets alarmed if an
eagle grabs a gopher and feeds it to its young. Why should
we get alarmed if "Smith" makes "Jones"
his prey?
If the Bible is the Word of God, I have a good reason for
believing that man has value. If the Bible is false, the idea
that randomly-mutated conglomerations of chemicals have value is
a fairy tale.
Of course, if you want to rape and kill
whenever you feel like it, denying the inspiration of the Bible
is a necessary first step in avoiding cognitive
dissonance. The next step is to reduce absolutes to personal
preference:
Chocolate or Vanilla?
Birth or Abortion?
Nurture
or Torture?
It's all just a matter of personal taste.
Arguments Against the Reliability of
the Bible
I've never heard an argument against the Bible that is
compelling enough for me to reject its story and embrace the
alternative of meaninglessness.
In fact, my
Second reason for believing in the Bible is that
it is demonstrably a miraculous book.
Most of the arguments against the Bible share common traits
with one of the most common: "The Telephone Game"
argument.
At a party, the first participant in "the Telephone
Game" will whisper a sentence to the person in the next
chair, who whispers the message to the person in the next chair,
and so on around the circle. The final person in the "phone
chain" reveals the message, which is compared with the first
participant's real message. The two are found to be totally
different, and everybody laughs.
As the argument goes, this is like the transmission of the
Bible over the centuries. Nobody involved in copying the Holy
Scriptures took it all that seriously, they whimsically changed
words, sentences, or paragraphs to suit their fancy, and the Bible
we have today bears no resemblance whatsoever to what Moses (or
whoever started the chain) had in mind.
This argument can be made to sound very educated and
sophisticated, but it is pathetic and juvenile.
Here
is some information on the actual transmission of the Biblical
text.
In 1912, Frederic Kenyon was knighted Sir
Frederic Kenyon for his service as Director and Head Librarian
of the British Museum. He describes how the Jews meticulously
copied the Old Testament:
Besides recording varieties of reading, tradition, or
conjecture, the Massoretes undertook a number of calculations
which do not enter into the ordinary sphere of textual
criticism. They numbered the verses, words, and letters of every
book. They calculated the middle word and the middle letter of
each. The enumerated verses which contained all the letters of
the alphabet, or a certain number of them; and so on. These
trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet the
effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission
of the text; and they are but an excessive manifestation of a
respect for the sacred Scriptures which in itself deserves
nothing but praise. The Massoretes were indeed anxious that not
one jot nor tittle, not one smallest letter nor one tiny part of
a letter, of the Law should pass away or be lost.
In Kenyon's day, the oldest copy of the Old Testament was a
copy from the 10th century after Christ. But in 1947 the Dead Sea
Scrolls were discovered, and they contained a complete copy of the
Book of Isaiah, dating over one thousand years earlier than that
10th century copy. The results astonished the scholarly world. Gleason
Archer, in comparing the manuscript variations of the Hebrew
text with pre-Christian literature such as the Egyptian Book of
the Dead, states that it is amazing that the Hebrew text does not
have the phenomenon of discrepancy and MS change of other
literature of the same age: "Even though the two copies of
Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were
a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript
previously known (A. D. 980), they proved to be word for word
identical with our standard Hebrew Bible" with the exception
of minor variations in spelling, on a par with the British "colour"
and the American "color." "Even those Dead Sea
fragments of Deuteronomy and Samuel which point to a different
manuscript family from that which underlies our received Hebrew
text do not indicate any differences in doctrine or teaching. They
do not affect the message of revelation in the slightest."
In other words, the Old Testament we have today is virtually
letter-for-letter the same Old Testament Jesus had in His day. And
the copy of Isaiah that Jesus read from (Luke
4) was virtually letter-for-letter the same as the one Isaiah
himself wrote. Ditto for the Proverbs of Solomon, the Psalms of
David, and the books of Moses.
All this about the Bible being filled with corruptions and
changes is the polar opposite of reality. There is no ancient
manuscript evidence to support this view; all the evidence is
against this view.
This proves that atheists live in a world of fantasy. Some
atheists believe the Bible is unreliable because that's what
they've been taught, and they want to be respected by those who
told them. But there are some atheists who are bad people and are
just making this stuff up. The ones who start these rumors about
the Bible have a completely different conception of history than
historical reality, and a completely different view of religious
people than reality. If an atheist -- knowing even one-tenth as
much about the Biblical manuscripts as the Director and Head
Librarian of the British Museum -- makes up the story that the
Bible is untrustworthy and unreliably transmitted through the
centuries, then he is a liar who probably hates God and doesn't
want to love his neighbor, refrain from stealing, or be faithful
to his wife. You would be wise not to listen to such people.
Here's an analogy that better represents the analysis of
different copies of an ancient manuscript. Suppose you won the
Pillsbury Bake-Off. Everyone wants your winning apple strudel
recipe. So you hand-write a copy. Then another. Then another. You
end up making 50 copies of your recipe. Then you lose it. You call
all your friends and tell them you lost the recipe, and request
that they give back the copy you made for them. When you get the
copies, you discover that on a couple of copies you made minor
mistakes. On one copy you put "2 Tbs" instead of "2
tsp." On another recipe you wrote "20 minutes at
350°" instead of "30 minutes at 350°." But since
all the other copies had the correct item, it's easy to see which
copy had the mistake. This is the science of "textual
criticism."
"Textual Criticism" is how, in God's Providence, we
can learn what God wants us to learn, and what the original
authors of the books of the Bible wrote.
There are thousands of copies of the New Testament, some copied
only decades after the original. There are only a handful of
copies of the History of Herodotus (B.C. 488-428), and they are
centuries older than the long-lost originals. F.
F. Bruce notes,
Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the
authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the
earliest manuscripts of their works which are of any use to us
are over 1,300 years later than the originals.
"Textual Criticism" looks at actual texts and
compares them. This is very different from "Higher
Criticism," which presupposes that there is no God who
communicates with people created in His Image, and speculates that
the entire Bible evolved in a meaningless universe -- even though
there are no actual texts supporting this view -- much like Darwin
speculated that species evolved -- even though all the
transitional forms were missing from the record. (And still are.)
The Third reason I believe the Bible is the Word
of God goes back to the first reason, relating to the story: I
believe the story-tellers. There are two reasons I believe them.
First, they appear to be people of integrity. Simon
Greenleaf, a co-founder of the Harvard Law School and the
greatest authority on the law of evidence in the 19th century,
said that if the New Testament were to be subjected to the
Anglo-American laws of evidence in a court of law, the
resurrection of Christ would be an established fact. The witnesses
(the authors of the Gospels, for example) are credible witnesses.
It has been said, "History is written by the
conquerors." The Old Testament is different. It is obviously
not written by biased Jews who only wanted Israel to look good.
The Old Testament is in a sense the most "anti-semitic"
book ever written. It paints a picture of a group of people who
were chosen by God and given every favor, and still rebelled and
failed. They are portrayed as history's most faithless losers. And
yet their story was meticulously and faithfully copied over and
over by those very same folks.
This is because they believed the Bible was the Word of God,
not just the word of some man.
But one element of the story these credible witnesses report is
that God moved them to speak and to write exactly what God wanted
written. That's their testimony. I believe it. I believe it
because I like the idea of living in a universe that's lovingly
controlled by a personal and sovereign God. There are no credible
reasons given by atheists why I should not accept this entire worldview.
Peaceful and loving people want the Bible to be true. Rational
people believe the Bible is the Word of God.
Let's Be Honest about Jesus and the Bible
Most people -- especially those who deny that He is God
incarnate -- will say that Jesus Christ was "a great
religious teacher." But they lie. They really HATE Jesus
Christ. If you were to quote some of His
more offensive lines, and attribute them to Jerry Falwell or
some other well-known controversial Christian figure, that figure
would be accused of bigotry, hate-crimes, and delusional behavior.
What would be the value of your life if you lived in Germany in
the years 1935-1945, and the only thing you had to say about
Adolph Hitler was "He's a really talented public
speaker." You did not challenge his rise to power. You did
not criticize his evil reign. The only thing your children and
grandchildren know about you and what you thought about Hitler,
National Socialism, anti-semitism, and genocidal totalitarianism
was that Hitler was "a great public speaker."
Or suppose you lived in Calcutta, India, and like most others,
ignored the lepers and the dying. Your only comment about Mother
Teresa is that she kept her sari "appropriately
laundered."
To deny that Jesus was God and affirm that He was "a good
teacher," is as irrational and morally vapid as the
assessments of Hitler and Mother Teresa above. If Mother Teresa
claimed to be God she would be reduced from a Nobel
Prize-winning humanitarian to a nut-case. Indeed, she
(rightfully) would have been denied the Nobel Prize. If Hitler
were to claim to be God he would be elevated from dictator to
anti-Christ.
So why let Jesus off the hook?
The Jews of Jesus' day were not dumb. The Jews executed
Jesus because He claimed to be the Christ, the Anointed Messiah,
equal with God. If Jesus was not equal with God, then He was nuts.
Whatever other nice things He said, things that might sound good
on a Hallmark® Card, If Jesus was not who He said He was, then He
was a liar or a lunatic.
A few atheists have logically concluded that Jesus Christ was
evil, not good. They see Him as a mere man who claimed to be God.
Jesus predicted His own assassination, and said that all His
claims would be verified by His resurrection from the dead. If you
are willing to exercise your human abilities to study history,
evaluate evidence, and reach conclusions, you will conclude that
Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, that His claims are true,
and that the Bible is reliable. One of the architects of the
Harvard Law School, whose 3-volume treatise on the Law of Evidence
was the standard authority on the subject for generations,
investigated the historical records which we call the Gospels, and
concluded that Christ's Resurrection was an historical fact and
could be proven so in any court of law. More
here.
Any court, that is, which is Christian. A court that refuses to
accept the claims of Christ is a court which is committing
suicide. Christianity is the necessary presupposition of justice,
the foundation of the very concept of "proof." The Bible
is the chronicle of human rebellion against logic, facts, proof,
reason, justice, and life itself.
Is Bible "outdated?"
Modern Americans have been trained to believe the Bible is
"outdated" or "primitive." The modern world,
by comparison, is "sophisticated,"
"scientific" and "secure." Who would ever want
to go back to the world of the Bible?
It only takes a little thought to realize that "the modern
world" is not all it's cracked up to be, and the world of the
Bible -- the world of Vine & Fig
Tree -- may have much to teach us. It is the
"experts" of the modern world who have taught us to
pooh-pooh the Bible.
They are wrong.
They say we can't believe in miracles. They are wrong.
They say Biblical Morality is "harsh" and the God of
the Old Testament is "cruel." They are wrong.
The Issue Is Authority - "We Will Not
Have This Man Rule Over Us!" (Luke
19:14)
The
Failure of Non-Christian Ethics
Are we being "Judgmental?" Yes,
definitely!
From Moses to Malachi, the Bible sets forth an unchanging
standard of Justice,
Mercy, and Faith (Matthew 23:23). When faithfully taught and
obeyed, observance of Biblical Law mends the torn fabric of life.
Bringing our lives under the total jurisdiction of the Bible is
the key to social renewal, not reforming the lives of others
through the impersonal violence of
statist bureaucratic regulation. Biblical Law is God's pattern for
peace, justice, and harmony.
Theonomy
vs. Autonomy
- The Comprehensive Scope of Biblical Law: Every
Area of Life, Every Activity
- Obedience in Life pleases God more than Ritual
and Sacrifices in Church
Can you be a Christian if you don't “worship” God?
Can
you “worship” God if you don't worship
the Bible?
The Word of God is Divine. Not the paper and
ink. The Word.
The Gospel Message is a Word from God. Every
Word of God is Law.
As we explain the "Vine &
Fig Tree" vision, there are many
non-Christians who are attracted by the vision of a decentralized
society which beats its "swords
into plowshares." But as we examine with searching detail
the words of
the Prophet Micah, many of them will ask,
Why bother trying to understand the Bible and
some peasant religious nut who lived three thousand years ago? I
am "modern" and "scientific" and I have no
interest in church or religion. Please don't give me the
Bible. What do I need with the Bible?
This is a question everyone asks. And I do mean everyone. Not
just those who are actively working to brainwash Christians and
prop up their "New World Order" military dictatorship,
but church-going Catholics and Protestants too. Even
Evangelicals and Fundamentalists — for all their
Bible-thumping — are a product of their culture, and our culture
is at war with Micah.
And
Isaiah.
And
Abraham,
Moses
and Jesus.
Our culture is at war with the Bible.
Most "Bible-believing Christians" are part of this
culture. They are not aware of the fact that Jesus wants His
followers to be "extremists."
So Third, we want to convince atheists and
non-Christians that they should seriously consider the Bible.
Vine & Fig Tree is
a movement in solidarity with Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and
millions of working-class families who have given their lives to
protect copies of the Scriptures from the violent institutions of
church and state, attempting to live that revelation out in their
homes and in the world. This is part of what we refer to as Patriarchy.
It goes back to the book of Genesis, the Patriarch Abraham, and
ultimately back to the Creation
of the World.
If you're an atheist or if you're a modern Christian who
believes the Fundamentalists are
totally out to lunch on their view of the Bible, then this page is
for you. You won't be convinced in the 15k that makes up this web
page, but hopefully the dialogue can get started. I hope you email
your comments to me at "KevinCraig @ KevinCraig.us."
There are two accounts of the Creation and Purpose of Man
competing for your loyalty.
THE BIBLE SAYS that the human race was created
by a loving, Infinite-Personal God, Who placed Man into a
beautiful Garden to live in families and take care of the planet.
MODERN SCIENTIFIC DEMOCRACY SEZ there is no God,
except as you decide to create him/her/it. Man is the random
mutation of genetic material, emerging without purpose and without
meaning from a "primordial soup" of chemicals and
energy. Marriage and families are "oppressive," and the
planet is to be (a) worshipped
[the "left"] or (b) exploited, "for
tomorrow we die" [the "right"].
What are the results? What has "modern"
actually delivered?
These words come to mind:
|
*
violent * superficial * selfish * materialistic *
conflict * secular *
* cheap * undisciplined * lust
for power * corruption * illiterate *
* instant
gratification *
* dictatorship * pollution * war *
*
loneliness * disposable * kickback * hopelessness *
|
People everywhere feel it:
Something's not right.
People everywhere feel powerless:
What can be done? To whom
can we turn?
Who are our heroes? Where are true
leaders?
People everywhere feel lost:
Are there no absolutes?
Are there
no values worth living for — worth dying for?
The Christmas
Conspiracy — as seen in
Micah's Vine & Fig Tree
prophecy — is a movement which self-consciously defends the
Bible as an infallible revelation of the hope, values, and love of
God. The "Enlightened" Empire of the Status Quo
is at war with the Bible and with followers of Christ who for
centuries have believed it to be the Word of God.
The
Christian Patriarch accepts as bedrock fact the Bible's
historical chronicle of
Eden
vs. Empire
Patriarchy vs. Politics
The Kingdom of God vs.
the kingdom of Caesar
To ignore these choices is to choose to die at the hand of the Status
Quo.
But can I trust the Bible?
And, really
now, PATRIARCHY!?!
I answer: Can we trust those who say we can't trust the
Bible?
I'll say it again: I can't convince you to become a Fundamentalist
in one web page. All I can do is infect you with a desire to
rethink your opposition to the Bible, and indicate my own
willingness to continue to dialogue with you.
Let's take one of the most controversial issues surrounding the
Bible: Creationism vs. Evolutionism.
I'm a six-day Creationist.
You take the Bible literally?
You
believe the world was created in six days?!?
What are
you, some kind of obscurantist?
DON'T YOU
LISTEN TO SCIENCE?
It is precisely because my eyes are wide open to what
"scientists" have done to us that I reject their lies. I
find it far more comfortable to side with peasants who stood
against powerful, violent Empires — quite apart from any faith
that God used them as mouthpieces of His revelation to us.
Anyone who's honest will admit that scientists were not
"forced" to abandon Creationism by "the
facts." Evolution was a "scientific"-sounding
philosophical rationalization for a hatred of the Bible which
resulted from an unwillingness to submit to its Authority. It is
simply not a case of "The
Facts" vs. the Faith. The issue is ethics, not
knowledge. The unwillingness of scientists and philosophers to
bridle their wills under the Standard of God's Commandments
resulted in the "Military-Industrial Complex," the
technocratic institutionalization of violence; the quest for
god-like power.
What do I think of when I hear the word "science"?
|
* The Atomic
Bomb * monosodium glutamate * smog * MTV * HMO's *
*
"The Death of God" *
* "safe"
abortions * "safe" sex * "assisted"
death *
* The Death of Man *
|
Pretty impressive.
But it's not the inventions; it's the ideology. It's the
religious values upon which modern science is built.
Yes, religious.
The powerful and well-trained minds of the military leaders and
politicians who plan their wars and turn the wheels of their war
machine in an unmovable path toward death and destruction are
dominated by a view of the world — indeed, of the entire
universe — which is self-consciously at war with reality — God's
reality as it is described to us by God through Jesus and the
Prophets.
Scientists want all the world to believe as they do, to accept
their view of the universe — its origin, nature and destiny —
and, having accepted this view, to place our trust in them as
those who understand best the path to health, prosperity, safety,
security — in short, to salvation.
Everybody wants "salvation." Call it "the good
life," or "the American Dream." The question is,
How do you get it? Modern science says, "Better living
through chemistry." Politicians have learned the lesson: Salvation
comes through the barrel of a gun. Urban twelve-year olds
carry machine guns in pursuit of this faith. The structures of our
society teach Salvation through Power. Members of The
Christmas
Conspiracy are committed to
resisting their propaganda.
There are some people today who consider themselves
"radicals" or "resisters." They have not
resisted as they should have. Most people in the "Peace
Movement" believe that the universe is as the President and
his generals and scientists describe it. Conservatives listen
dutifully to the prophets of the Empire, and spend great sums of
money to send their children to their seminaries (Harvard,
Stanford, Yale, etc.).
The priesthood of the Bush/Clinton regime — in their white
coats or silk ties, working in their university degree-lined
offices — has convinced nearly everyone that Jesus and the
Prophets of God are hopelessly misinformed concerning reality.
Rather than accepting their Word as an Absolute Authority, we have
been taught to choose for ourselves. We are all
"liberals" now, not "Fundamentalists."
The simple fact is that there are two
competing religions here: Biblical Christianity, and an idolatry
which we might call "neo-Baalism."
We must understand these two religions, see that they are in
complete opposition, discern which one leads to life, and then
begin to live in terms of the one we choose.
Who believes in Neo-Baalism?
|
Who believes in Creationism?
|
Scientists
|
Moses
|
Generals
|
Micah
|
Politicians
|
Mothers
|
Professors
|
Those who work with their hands
|
Industrialists
|
Farmers
|
Technocrats
|
Nearly everyone before 1776
|
BATF / FBI / IRS
|
Jesus
|
What is the True Religion?
The Apostle James says,
If any man among you seem to be
religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own
heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from
the world.
James 1:26-27
As a conservative Bible-thumper, it took me a while to realize
that True Religion is not a mind full of facts and crafty
arguments ready for rapid deployment in a theological debate. I
still believe that we ought to strive for "doctrinal
purity," but the ultimate goal is to be "unspotted"
from the Empires of the world. A bridled tongue and compassion for
the weak are among the Christ-like
character traits we must develop. The
Apostle Paul says that when we develop these traits, we will not
be "carried about" by the Modern
World, by defenders of the Status Quo, which is founded on
"the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful
plotting."[12]
I want my children to choose Micah's religion, not Caesar's. I
want them to look forward to a day — indeed, to make today
the day — we beat swords into plowshares. I want them to resist
those who hypnotize us all into forging spears for killing instead
of hooks for pruning. I want to see them live in terms of Micah's Vine
& Fig Tree vision. I am naive if I expect them
to be indoctrinated in this vision in any institutional church or
Empire-run school.
To the extent our thinking has not been clarified, and as we
are not consistent with our foundational principles, we will not
experience the harmony that God intends for us and described
through the words of the prophet Micah.
We have already seen this in the 20th century. We have seen it,
but we refuse to see it. Over 200
million people have been deliberately killed in this century
alone; a greater percentage of the population than any previous
century. The century of atheism is the century of mass death. Evolutionism
means Genocide.
But modern man seeks the Tempter's fantasy: "to be as
gods" (Genesis 3:5). Anything is better than admitting that
God is God and we are not. Even death.
All they that hate Me, love death. Proverbs
8:36
And so I write with a sense of urgency.
And yet I don't write all I could because I don't have the
strength to face the battle. When a known adulterer and crack user
becomes President and tells a nation that "I didn't
inhale," and when the nation can apathetically view televised
scenes of the government bringing tanks against Waco, Texas
citizens whose only "crime" is non-conforming thought,
we are only days away from the time when those same viewers will
hear the televised call to take up arms against any and all who
will not confess that man is god and the State is his savior.
Jesus said His followers must be willing to "take up your
cross." In our day He would have said, "take up your
firing squad."
I am ready.
Are you?
Is
Modernism a Force for Peace?
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today
against you,
that I have set before you
life and death
blessing
and cursing
T H E R E F O R E C H O O S
E L I F E
that both you and your children
may live;
that you may love the LORD your God,
that you may
obey His voice,
and that you may cling to Him,
for He is
your life and the length of your days.
Deuteronomy 30:19
Vine & Fig Tree
is my choice; the Bible, not
the Status Quo.
Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in
truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the
other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it
seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this
day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of
the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my
house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:14-15
