My Wednesday Bible Studies Today!

When I opened up my bible this morning before the studies this was the verse that appeared:

"The first of all thy commandments is
hear O Israel that thy Lord Jehovah is one Lord.
Thou shall Love the Lord thy God with all thy soul,
with all thy heart, and with all thy strength."
Mark 12:30 King James Bible (1611)

Every Wednesday morning I have a bible study at my house.
I study with Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and even Jehovah's Witnesses;
all denominations are welcome, but it is a close circle study.
The purpose of the study is to gain perspective at all angles
and a clear understanding of the bible.
We use as close to the original texts as possible.
And the translations from those texts.

Here is the studies from today:

I asked about a class I did in college to
get the last credit I needed to graduate.
It was a SOC400 class on LGBT.
Do I agree with people as such? No.
Would I judge people as such and put them down? No.
We cannot judge others because of their creed, color, race,
or sexual preference. If you agree with them or not.
We cannot go bashing them or putting them down.
For this is wrong to do. We should always get along with others.
For when we get along with others, we live in harmony.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."
Leviticus 18:22 KJV (1611)

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:
and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Matthew 7:1-3 KJV (1611)

The lord will teach you. All you have to do is call upon him and listen.

"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel;
I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit,
which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go."
Isaiah 48:17 KJV (1611)

 Gods word is truth!

"God Jehovah is not a man, that he should lie;
neither the son of man Jesus, that he should repent:
hath he said, and shall he not do it?
or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"
Numbers 23:19 KJV (1611)

 "And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed,
The LORD, The LORD JEHOVAH,
merciful and gracious, longsuffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth,
Keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
and that will by no means clear the guilty;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
and upon the children's children,
unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Exodus 34:6-7 KJV (1611)

The milk of Christ!  

"And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed,
The LORD, The LORD JEHOVAH,
merciful and gracious, longsuffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth,
Keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
and that will by no means clear the guilty;
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
and upon the children's children,
unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Exodus 34:6-7 KJV (1611)

Thought of the day:

When we follow the Lord Jehovah and be like his son Jesus:
have mercy, compassion, be caring and giving;
we will find our inner peace, have a fulfilled life - a life of harmony, 
and have our eternal life in Heaven one day.

Why I like President Obama!

I have nothing bad to say about Obama

he is one of the best presidents we had in a long time.

He reformed Education, raised emission standards,

reformed alternate energy;

we have more hybrid and electric cars now,

we have less oil dependence of other countries,

gas prices are finally dropping,

he stopped the Keystone pipeline for now,

he is fighting congress every step of the way just to fix this country;

to fix our infrastructure - our bridges, roads, sewers,

and electrical grid.

As an Environmentalist and member of 350.org,

I applaud him and all he did for the Environment.

The economy is bad and people are blaming it on him,

but he did do a bank bail out,

if he did not it would have been worse.

We still have much to fix,

he has job reform and veterans admin reform

that could be passed,

however there is way too much fighting among the Republicans

and the Democrats in Washington; Boehner is the worst!

Obama has lots of ideas that will fix this country,

but much of it is not getting passed.

He had to use executive orders just to get things passed.

The best thing Obama did was the Affordable Health Care Act.

Kennedy had the idea of it and started it,

Obama finally got it passed.

Now we have healthcare reform like they have in Canada

and England.

Education reform is in the works;

we are behind in many areas -

Sweden, Qatar, Jordan, Japan, and China all have better

education standards than the United States.

Obama is fighting to get things done. 

The biggist thing he did before 2014 ended,

was to reform relations with Cuba. 

This has been long past due,

and I hope that we can have good relations with a country less than a 100 miles from us. 

Hopefully he can finish what he started.

More importantly we have to get our bridges fixed.

There are way to many buses crashing and children getting killed

due to collapsing bridges. 

I wish Obama the best in year 2015, 

Go Obama! I salute you! LT Kerofsky.

History of Christmas

The History of Christmas

By: Timothy L. Kerofsky, MA

18 December 2014

My Christmas definition:

• A Christian holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas evolved over two millennia into a worldwide religious and secular celebration, incorporating many pre-Christian, pagan traditions into the festivities along the way.
• Today, Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together and exchange gifts, but this is not what it is really about. It is about giving to the poor and needy, helping others, and spreading joy and peace throughout the world and remembering what Christ did for us.

History of Christmas:

Christmas, like all so-called holidays, gets its roots from Pagan traditions.

We Christians stole most of our traditions from pagan worship.

Like the Pagans worshiped trees and nature and during their time of Saturnalia, which is in the heart of Winter Solstice, they would decorate them.

This is why we decorate Christmas Trees today.

• Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of harvest and lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. 
• In the 4th century,                                                                                                                    Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. 
• Christian leaders succeeded in converting large numbers of pagans to Christianity by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians
• The problem was that there was nothing Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.
• Popular myth puts Jesus’ birth on December 25th in the year 1 C.E.
• Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, wrote the modern calendar known as the Julian calendar; the Anno Domina, and really had no idea when Jesus was born. In fact the day and date he suggested, 733 in the Roman calendar, is four years after the time of Herald; in which Jesus was crucified during that time. This does not add up at all.
• Early Christians did not celebrate the birthday of Jesus.                                                                They celebrated his life and teachings.

Christmas Story:

• And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
• (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenious was governor of Syria.)

• And all went to be taxed every one into his own city

§         And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David :)

§         To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child

§         And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

• And she (Mary) brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn
•  
•  
•  
• And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
• And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
• And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
• For unto you is born this day in the city of David Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
• And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
• And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
• Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

There are several things wrong with this Christmas story.

• For one; if there was a decree it would not be logical. Was there really a decree? If so why would Augustus have everyone go to their own city? Think about it – the Caesar was more organized than this. He would not have everyone travel like this with all the turmoil in Rome. No he would have most likely made a head count with everyone in the city they were already in. This is not just my opinion, but that of many Christian Scholars. Was Jesus born in the City of David? I believe he was, but Joseph and Mary did not travel there because of a decree, they traveled there because they were foretold by the Angels in Heaven. Just like the “wise men” traveled because of the star formation in Heaven foretelling them of the birth of the Messiah…The star formation was not a bright star either, nor was it a comet; for the people at that time feared comets. The star formation was just that a particular formation which was seen only by the scholars and wise men.

§         For two; an inn is not what we think of what an inn is. Let me set this part straight, we as Christians picture this as Jesus being born in a stable (a barn type stable with animals all around). This is somewhat true, but let me tell you what a stable is with the buildings of the Middle East. A stable and inn are in the same building. An inn is where people ate and slept and the stable is the lower part where they keep their animals.

§         For three; “The Shepherd’s were keeping watch of there flocks by night.” If this statement is true than this is proof that Jesus was not born on December 25^th. The Shepherds stop watching their flocks and bring them into the stables at the end of September. The stable would have been way too crowded for Jesus to be born in if all the flock was in the stable. There were probably a few young sheep, the donkey, and maybe a young ox in the stable, but that would have been it. I can’t dispute the rest of the story it seems to be true.

§         In my conclusions Jesus was born in 5 BC, which is the 5^th year in the Berber Calendar. He was really a God – like man; a human with qualities deriving from God, but a human non-thy-less. Born from a Parathos – Greek meaning “Young Woman” mother, we translate the word virgin in the bible as being untouched by man. In biblical times a virgin was a young maiden. Jesus was raised by human parents; a virgin mother named Miriam from Nazarene in which we call Mary Nazareth and his adopted father Joseph from Bethlehem. Not much is said in the bible about Jesus as a young boy. The only story that relates to him is when he was found in the temple conversing with the high priests. As a teen he worked as a stone layer with his father, Joseph. Not a carpenter like we are led to believe. In reality there is not a lot of wood in Galilee. The wood was mainly used for the Roman Crucifixions’.  Therefore, a tecton built with stone. The word tecton is actually translated as a day laborer, not carpenter. Jesus was raised strictly as a Jew and followed the Torah – the Laws passed down from Moses. His father died when he was a young man and his mother Mary married the eldest brother of Joseph, Clophias. This was done in accordance with Leviticus Law. Mary then bore 6 children, four boys and two girls. The step brothers and sisters of Jesus are as follows (according to age): James, Jude, Simon, Salome, Joseph Matthew, and Jose. Jesus helped take care of the family. When his step brothers and sisters got older he left on his quest given by God.

The First Santa Claus

§         The first Santa was Saint Nikolaus

§         He was born Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra.

§         He would fill poor children’s stockings with gold coins, which follows what the mythical Santa does today.

Polish Christmas Traditions

§         12 Course Christmas Eve Feast; Pierogis, caraway soup, sauerkraut with dried peas, poppies seed noodles, pickled beets, borscht without meat, stuffed mushrooms, pickled herring with sour cream, fish with horseradish sauce, Norther Pike Polish style over baby red potatoes, rye bread, and Polish Christmas Cake 

§         Opening one present to give back to Jesus; this gets donated to an orphanage.     And opening others that are exchanged.

§         Having a polka dance

§         Listening to traditional Celtic and Polka Christmas music. 

Year end Letter 2014

Year 2014

Dearest Friends and Family:

As this year ends I reflect on what was accomplished 

and what I can do to better my next year. 

I cannot believe it is 2015. I wonder where the time went?

My son Tim has moved out and is now living with his girlfriend Rachel.

They both attend classes at Western Illinois University in Macomb Illinois.

May the lord bless them as they find their way in this world; as they learn and grow, 

may they make the right decisions. 

My son Ken is doing better in school. He has not been struggling as much this year. He looks forward to joining the soccer team or the football team next year. He also looks forward to the STEP program in which he will be working part time after school. 

My wife Jill earned her Medical Coding Specialist certificate at Black Hawk College. She is now working on her degree full time. This year she got knee replacement surgery; she hopes to get the other knee replaced as she works toward attainment in a new career. On her spare time she does many activities with the church. She works with the cookie walk, Pricilla circle, bible camp, and plans for the Liturgists.

Me; will, for the most part, this year has been pretty good. 

In July I took a trip to visit my sponsored child Jacklieth in Cartagena Columbia. 

I needed to get away for a bit and unwind. I had a fun time in Cartagena.

I stay active swimming at the YMCA and with my art and writing.

I was honorary promoted to Midoru Kyoshi –

Shichidan-ho 7^th degree black belt in Shurinju Ryu Karate Do this year.

Because of my community service to others Master Stevens honorarily promoted me.

I hope to do my martial arts full time and teach a regular karate class again one day.  

The only downfall is that I still have to deal with constant pain and tingling through my spine, shoulder and fingers. I go to the VA in Iowa City frequently for pain shots and physical therapy. Winters are always hard on me.

I pray that 2015 be as blessed as my 2014 and that one day my pain is relieved.

In the next year we are preparing our future to move and to start a new life in New Mexico.

We hope to be in New Mexico in the summer of 2016. This will be a better climate for my body ailments and a warmer place to retire.

I wish all of my friends and family a blessed year ahead.

Have a great 2015 my friends and family!

Mr. Timothy L. Kerofsky, MA and family

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015!

Cristopher Columbus

Columbus Day, what can I say?

Columbus was a brilliant sailor and navigator,

But he lacked leadership and was not a good governor.

He, like most men, took advantage of the brutality of the time.

He mis-treated slaves and tortured them.

Under the authority of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand,

He was to discover new land, and set up a spice trade route to China,

In exchange for gold and slaves for the Queen.

He departed on August 3^rd, 1492

and commanded three ships;

The Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria.

Although Columbus was in overall command,

the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón

and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón.

They stopped for supplies in the Canary Islands.

He discovered the Dominica’s on October 12^th, 1492

and named the island, San Salvador.

Then he landed in Cuba on October 28^th, 1492

thinking it was China, but it was not.

Then he landed in Haiti on December 5^th, 1492.

He named the island Hispaniola.

On December 25^th, the Santa Maria ran aground

and had to be abandoned.

Columbus himself took over as captain of the Niña,

as the Pinta had become separated from the other two ships.

Negotiating with the local chieftain Guacanagari,

Columbus arranged to leave 39 of his men behind in a small settlement,

In which he named La Navadad.

On January 6, 1493 the Pinta arrived and the ships were reunited:

They set out for Spain on January 16, 1493.

The ships arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, 1493

And they returned to Spain shortly thereafter.

Upon his return he persuaded the King to finance another voyage.

He did three more voyages between 1493 and 1504.

He was looking for the lands that Marco Polo discovered,

But never found them; the land of Nanking China.

In his failure to govern a new land, he was brought back in chains.

He died a poor lowly man...

Columbus did not discover America!

A Norse Viking from Greenland by the name of Lief Erikson

whom was the son of Americea landed in America which he named as such

500 years before Columbus sailed.

The closest Columbus got to America was the Bahamas off of Florida.

Columbus did not sail around the world!

A brilliant navigator by the name of Fernadad Magellan did.

Magellan set sail on August 10^th, 1519.

He reached the Eastern edge of the known world,

Before he was killed in the Battle of Mactan in Zebu Philippines,

by a blow to the head with a bamboo stick in April of 1521.

His crew completed the voyage to Spain.

What did Columbus really accomplish?

Not much.

He never found the lands of Marco Polo.

He never discovered America.

And he never sailed around the world.

He persevered, kept striving, and never gave up.

But in the end died a poor lowly man.

NO RESPECT

I have been having a rough few days.
My shoulder pain, tingling, and imbalance is acting up.
My wife is in the hospital.
I have bills to pay and things to deal with.
I have been under stress lately.
And all I need are people disrespecting me.
This is what I hate the most.

So today I am at the Aldi store parking lot to get some groceries.
And this lady there tells me that she hates people who take advantage of the system,
and that she can fake walking with a limp and walking stick too.
That there is nothing wrong with me.
Excuse me? 

For one I was not walking with a limp,
I use my cane for my imbalance I get.
Two I have tendinosis, tingling, and pain through my shoulder and spine.
Three she did not look disabled to me.
The way she was walking either.

The bitch got in my face and I told her to back off.
She called me a evil name which usually I ignore,
and I turned around and said, "You do not know me!"

She jumped in her car,
in which she did not have a handicap sticker displayed either,
and she was in a handicap spot.

She slammed her car door on me, as I was trying to explain my situation.
It was the last straw for me to deal with such a bitch.
I swung my walking stick at the car and I think broke a headlight.
As she sped away....

The staff manager heard the incident and talked to me to calm me down.
I sat down a moment. And then I did my shopping.
Some of the shoppers in the store chatted with me
and thanked me for my service in the U.S. Navy.
This cheered me up a bit.

My friend on Facebook sent me this quote:

 "Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.
Do not let pain make you hate.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.
Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, 
you still believe it to be a beautiful place."
 — Iain Thomas

What do you do when you always try to be nice,
but still get put down and disrespected by others?
Like today before the Aldis indecent,
I let a man driving a truck out into the street,
you know how it is to wait to get into the street from a road.

Then I held the door open for this elderly lady,
and I helped a man in a wheel chair into his car at the YMCA.
I do these nice things, and a b*tch disrespects me.
Not right; not right at all.

"Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor."
1st Corinthians 10:24 ESV

This is what I always seek to do my friends and peeps of my blog page.
That is to do good works, no matter how I am treated.
However, it pains me to be mistreated.

I will keep striving. Tomorrow is another day. 

The Struggles:

"That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind.
That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing."
1st Corinthians 1:26 NIV

Monday 08 Sept 2014:

This morning I got up at 0600;

I made me a strawberry and banana breakfast smoothie.

I then took my son Ken to school.

At 10:30 my wife Jill and I left to go to the hospital.

She got ready to have her knee replacement surgery.

I stayed there and chatted with her in the hospital room for a bit.

At noon the pastor, Pastor Flo, from the church showed up.

She went and visited Jill before surgery.

I sat in the waiting room after that until after 2PM.

I then went to go pick up my son Ken from school.

Then we drove across the Davenport Bridge to find my friends house,

my friend Joe still has to give me back my papers.

I am writing a letter to Cheri Bustos for my Social Security Disability Claim.

I have been fighting for it for nearly six years.

I was injured while in the service and have stenosis to the spine, nerve damage,   tendonitis to my right shoulder, and other damage acquired.

We never found my friend, and I am desperate to get my papers back.

At 5PM we went to the hospital to visit my wife and sons mom, Jill. 

She was not out of surgery yet.

At 6:30PM my wife was finally out of surgery and we got to see her.

At 8PM my son Ken and I had dinner at Rudy’s Tacos.

Then we went home and watched American Ninja Warrior off the DVR.

Tuesday 09 Sept 2014:

Today I got up at 0600 again.

I made another breakfast smoothie and took my vitamins.

I took my son Ken to school.

Then I took my wife some study items at the hospital.

I stayed for a bit.

Then I went home and started to field day the house.

I spent most of the day cleaning.

At 3PM I picked up Ken from the school.

Then we went to go visit his mom.

For dinner I made him spaghetti and marinara sauce.

I then cleaned up the kitchen.

Then my son and I watched YouTube videos and Netflix.

Wednesday 10 Sept 2014:

What a heck of a day.
Too long for a Hump Day Wednesday.
I got up at 0730
(fell asleep at 0200, so more sleep than last night)
I made my breakfast smoothie and took my vitamins,
then I reorganized the master bedroom,
but did not get it done before I had to pick up Ken or my wife Jill,
At 1100 I left and picked up Ken from school,
came home and went back to organizing,
then at 1430 (2:30PM) left to pick up Jill from the hospital,
she did not get to check out until 4PM,
a shout out to Kara Ade for getting a walker for my wife Jill,
after checking out and Ken bringing most of the gear down to the van,
we gave Jill's mom Jackie a ride to her car,
then went and got the prescription at HyVee,
then came home and ordered Pizza Hut,
but the driver went past our house and turned around in the cul de sak,
I was pissed and Ken and I went to Pizza Hut and complained,
they deliver to our house all the time,
so how can they say that they cannot find it?
We ended up getting our pizza for free!
At 1930 (7:30PM) we ate pizza finally.
Then at 8PM we watched the presidents address about ISIS

and then America's Got Talent.
Now it is time to sleep for a change...