Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Good Morning  

 

 The big day is here. Interested to see what happens.  One interesting note -- we had a woman at our office who was due this week as well, and they induced labor yesterday -- she had said that the hospital maternity area was really crowded over the weekend and on Monday, as a lot of women wanted their doctors to induce labor early so that they wouldn't have their baby born on 6/6/06. 

 

It is also election day, so don't forget to vote.

 

Today's Reading:    Revelation 13:18 , Barclay 113-116

 

-- in the spirit of God working out all things, I don't think it is an accident or coincidence that we are reading this verse on this day.  No big sigificance to that, other than I believe that it is just God's way of showing that he is paying attention to what we are doing in this study.  We started this back at the first of the year, and with all the weekend's and travel days that I've missed, to have us end up with this verse on this date is just too coincidental to me.

 

-- With all the hoopla about 666, today's Barclay is a bit anticlimatic.  He runs through several possible meanings to 666, but in general he lands on the idea that it refers to Nero -- his name adds up to 666 (if you spell it Neron, which is how you spell it in Latin)  Even more telling is that some ancient manuscripts have the number of the beast as 616, which is the number of Nero's name without the N.

 

-- That said, if you look at Barclay's various alternative's for the 666, note that he is using different values for different words -- for instance, in some of his examples E = 5, in the Nero example E = 6.  Same thing for R -- for one name it equals 100, for Nero, it equals 500.  So there apparently is not a standard code for this letters, so the Nero answer is built on an assumption of what the numerical values of the letters are.

 

-- Note that one of the alternative explanations of 666 is that it represents man, since in the ancient world, the number 6 is "man's number" --  an imperfect number -- one less than 7, which is the perfect number in their system of numerology.

 

-- So,  if we connect with the explanation that 666 refers to Nero, then what do we have to look forward to?  As Barclay notes, the legend of the times was that Nero was going to return from the dead, and as one of the most evil men to have lived, he certainly was worthy of the title of Antichrist.

 

-- The other thing I would note is that the scriptures say that the number of the beast is a man's number.  There is a little contradiction between Barclay's call that the beast is the Roman Empire, and then for the number of the beast to be that of a man, and to be referring to a specific man -- Nero. 

Today's Scripture   

 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

 

1 Peter 3:8-9 

Today's prayer requests:      Brad's grandmother 

From Brad:

My grandmother, Doris Adair, who is in the final stages of her fight with alzheimers, has been heavily medicated and asleep since Wednesday.  She has not had anything to eat or drink since Wednesday either.  This waiting has been tough, especially on my mother, because the nurses originally said she only had 24-48 hours left on Wed.  I will keep you updated on this.

Today's class member prayer: 

Krystle Hatton 

 

Jay