The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

really?

Three reasons why you do not want Jeremiah 29:11 to be about you

​Have you ever seen a conversation like this take place between two believers?

​Believer 1: How is life going, Believer 2?
Believer 2: Oh, life is terrible! My dog left me and I stepped on a LEGO. Things will never get better. Blah blah blah.
Believer 1: Oh no. Be encouraged! The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Believer 2: Oh, wow! You’re right! Everything is just swell. I think I’ll ride off into the sunset now.

​Believer 1 has just quoted Jer 29:11. If we look at the context of this passage, I think we’ll find that he has actually misused this particular verse (though, I’m sure his intentions were good).

​Now, Jer 29:11 is a source of encouragement for many believers and I don’t want to rob anyone of encouragement. So, I have compiled a list of three reasons why we should rejoice that this passage is not about us. If Jer 29:11 was indeed about us, then:
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How we got the term, “The Abominable Snowman”

Our story begins on the 1921 British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. The British Empire was at its territorial peak and a team of explorers were commissioned to snoop around the mountains of Tibet to find a route to access Mt. Everest. Political and personal differences were causing schisms among the group and a younger explorer with no former experience in the Himalayas had fallen ill. As you can imagine, tensions were pretty high on this death-defying journey. Fortunately, the team was able to find Lhagba La (meaning, “Windy Gap”), which gave future expeditions access to Mt. Everest. The mission was a success and the team returned home safely.
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Joktan: The First Creole Speaker

I enjoy nondogmatic speculation on issues where the Bible isn’t entirely clear. Did Jews build the Trojan horse? Did Elijah use Ba’al’s myths against him? We probably won’t know for sure on this side of eschatology, but they are fun things to think about. They can also be edifying topics for discussion because they force us to analyze what is written in the Word and give it precedence over what isn’t written in the Word.

I have developed a hypothesis that Joktan was the first creole speaker in recorded history. This hypothesis begs a few questions: 1) What is creole? 2) Who was Joktan? 3) Why did Joktan speak creole? and 4) Are you sure?
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Knowing is half the battle

Videos of Jews who have converted to Christianity have been emerging on the internet. There seems to be a common thread among many of them: they were taught at an early age that the New Testament was an evil book and they should stay away from it. I don’t even blame them for thinking Christianity is evil; just look at the atrocities committed against the Jews in the name of replacement theology. But, I don’t think that Jews, nor Christians for that matter, should avoid reading something on the account of it being heresy. As a minimum, we need to be prepared to give an answer to objectors and we need to hear the objection before we can respond.
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Faith, Believe, Fides, Credo, and Gelēfan

The way we speak affects the way we think and the way we think affects the way we speak. And the way we speak is affected by centuries of geopolitical conflict and linguistic changes. Check out this map with translations of the word, “faith,” in various languages around Europe:

Picture

(From http://ukdataexplorer.com/european-translator/)

If you look at the map, you can see certain words that are similar and clumped together. The Slavic languages have something like “vera” (in the Cyrillic alphabet, “вера”). Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are all from the North Germanic branch, so they are all similar, whereas German and Dutch are from the West Germanic branch, so they look like each other.
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How to count to 31 on one hand

C​hristians should constantly be learning the Bible. Learning is part of a healthy Christian lifestyle. But, there’s no reason that the learning  lifestyle should be restricted to the Bible, so here’s a nerdy trick that I learned years ago: How to count to 31 on one hand.
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