Profound and Sometimes Preposterous Ponderings of Pete

     Background: There are 66 books in the Bible. 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the new Testament.   James is the 20 th book of the New Testament and falls between the books of Hebrews and 1 Peter. The author, is generally thought to be Jesus’s brother. There has been some discussion of he being another James (Jesus’s cousin via Mary wife of Clopas mother of James and Joses).   There has been discussion also that he, Jesus’ brother, was not educated enough to write the letter.   This would give support to an amanuensis, or scribe who wrote the letter but was dictated to by James. The letter was written in about 69-70 AD (possibly 62 AD) so it could not have been the apostle James who was martyred in 44 AD. There is also some speculation that his amanuensis wrote it after James’ death.   In any case, it was written primarily to the Jewish believers (see vs 1) being persecuted and probably before the Roman oppression against all Christians.   J...

 I have been re-reading the book of Romans in the Holy Bible. There is a word that occurs 14 times that God has brought to my attention.  The word is "hope."  When God, through His Holy Spirit brings a word to my attention, I research it.  Like all Bible scholars, and wannabes (me), I went to the Greek. The word used for hope, in the Greek, is "elpida, elpidi," et.al.  This word is also translated as expected or expectation. So I contemplated (picture me in an Alistair Cooke setting, LOL) the application of the word hope.  Hope can be anything from hoping for an A on a test, a Lamborghini, a kiss, a healing, a new job, etc. But hope, as the apostle Paul meant in his epistles, was that of expectation.  Not just the hope of a maybe, but the expectation of a promise to be fulfilled.  A hope that requires faith. Faith that says not just something to which we look forward, but a trust and belief that allows you to EXPECT that it will be fulfilled....