Commentary by Jack Kelley

Whether you’re following commentaries by prophecy scholars on the nearness of the rapture or predictions by financial experts on the nearness of the world’s economic downfall, the message is the same. This could very well be the last time we celebrate Christmas as we’ve come to know it.

A Bible Study by Jack Kelley

I have always been a strong advocate of the idea that there is much to be learned about our Christian faith by studying the Old Testament, and especially the  commandments and traditions surrounding the Feasts of Israel.  Having served for a time as the leader of a Messianic congregation where we observed these feasts in their prescribed manner,

Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights above. Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the LORD,

Praise the LORD. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel.  He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. 

Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.  He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge,  who subdues peoples under me.

Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day.  They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s; the poison of vipers is on their lips.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept  when we remembered Zion.  There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”  How can we sing the songs of the LORD  while in a foreign land?

Praise the LORD. Praise the name of the LORD;  praise him, you servants of the LORD, you who minister in the house of the LORD,  in the courts of the house of our God.  Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good; sing praise to his name, for that is pleasant. 

My heart is not proud, O LORD,  my eyes are not haughty;  I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.  But I have stilled and quieted my soul;  like a weaned child with its mother,  like a weaned child is my soul within me.  

They have greatly oppressed me from my youth — let Israel say, they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. But the LORD is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.