I’m currently reading a book by Carl Gallups, Gods & Thrones, and I wanted to preserve my notes and thoughts as I pray through this book, asking for God’s wisdom, truth and discernment in what I read. And I thought it would be good to share this with you as well, since we will be delving into the supporting scripture. It will be an on-going post, with new content added as I continue through the book. So here we go.
There are numerous questions posed at the beginning of this book which the author will address. Some of those I’m most interested include the following:
- Did you know that God’s Word describes a heavenly governing council that has surrounded God’s throne since before God created the Earth? And did you know this heavenly council is actively involved in the affairs of men?
- Did you know that angels can sin? Did you know that angels can die like men?
- Did you know that a certain group of angels have already been judged by God and are marked for death at a future date?
- Did you know that the Bible teaches about an ancient heavenly insurrection which gave rise to the Nephilim before the flood in Noah’s day?
- Have you ever noticed in the Old Testament the numerous references to other “gods”?
- Have you ever wondered why God ordered the ancient Israelites to “kill them all!” in reference to the Canaanites and other tribal groups living around God’s people in the Promised Land?
- Did you know that several times in the Bible God appears to describe Himself as “us”?
- Are you familiar with the modern scientific proof of the existence of multiple realities?
- Was the serpent in the Garden of Eden really a talking snake, or something else?
- What exactly was the deadly knowledge imparted to Adam and Eve that caused a literal cosmic upheaval?
- Have you ever wondered why the world is so infatuated with the possibility of UFOs and alien visitations? Could the world be in the process of being prepared for a demonic deception?
- Have you ever wondered why Jesus “showed Himself alive” after the resurrection for a period of 40 days?
Something very important worth noting, and this is so important I’m going to quote it directly from the book (emphasis mine): “One of the most important contextual considerations when it comes to properly interpreting the Word of God is the cultural framework in which the text was first created. Without a grasp of the life philosophy of the early biblical writers and its first audiences, our westernized worldviews often overlay their prejudices upon the original meaning of the biblical text. There’s nothing like entrenched tradition, forced paraphrasing, political correctness, closely guarded sectarian creeds, and blindly accepted denominational dogma to conceal the truth of what God’s Word actually intends to reveal.” Have I piqued your interest yet?
So how do we get around this? We let the Bible contextually interpret itself first. This means we delve into the biblical languages it was originally written in (Hebrew and Greek) and allow those words to speak plainly to us without preconceived notions. And we put those words into proper historical, grammatical and cultural frameworks to see what they have to say. We don’t want to read into the Bible what we think it says. We want to strip all that away and just read the Bible to see what it does say, and then we understand, believe and act accordingly.
- Reality/Creation is multi-dimensional
- There are two realms of physical existence – the seen and the unseen. Most of us have probably heard this before, but I would guess that many people don’t think about this regularly as part of their daily lives. If we are going to be successful in our spiritual walk, we need to become more aware of this fact. This would explain how God can be omnipresent (everywhere all the time) and omniscient (knowing all things, past and future) – humans are limited to a 4-dimensional existence: length, width, height and time. But God exists outside of those limitations, so time and distance have no effect on Him. God exists outside of time, so He knows and can see what will happen in the future. This is where we get into such exciting fields as quantum physics and quantum mechanics.
- “For in him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:16
- “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood (people), but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12
- “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'” Matthew 28:18
- There are two realms of physical existence – the seen and the unseen. Most of us have probably heard this before, but I would guess that many people don’t think about this regularly as part of their daily lives. If we are going to be successful in our spiritual walk, we need to become more aware of this fact. This would explain how God can be omnipresent (everywhere all the time) and omniscient (knowing all things, past and future) – humans are limited to a 4-dimensional existence: length, width, height and time. But God exists outside of those limitations, so time and distance have no effect on Him. God exists outside of time, so He knows and can see what will happen in the future. This is where we get into such exciting fields as quantum physics and quantum mechanics.
I’ll continue to update this post as I read through the book, so I’m going to leave off here.
Until next time – be blessed!
CHOOSE YOUR ETERNITY 