3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.

  Matt 19:3-11 (NIV)

In the days that Jesus spoke these words divorce was a major social injustice, resulting in many a woman ending up in the gutter, becoming either a beggar or a prostitute. For the husband it was easy. He could give her a letter of divorce and put her on the street. But there were no laws protecting the woman. And there was little hope for such a woman of ever finding a job. Her family would not always want her back, as she was considered just an additional burden. Women were not allowed in educational institutions so there was no way that she could have learned a trade or anything like that. A woman, like a slave, was merely one of a man’s possessions. Suffer the poor woman that could not bear her husband a child….

What Jesus says here was quite revolutionary for that particular time. Proving Moses wrong was considered almost equal to blasphemy and one can imagine that Jesus’ exposure of this injustice was met with little enthusiasm from the predominantly male-orientated society in which He found Himself. Small wonder that Jesus had many female friends. He was the only man who would defend the woman caught in adultery against her male-accusers (John 8:3-11). During this incident Jesus wrote something on the ground. He then said: “He that is without sin, let him throw the first stone.” It is often thought that Jesus wrote down the sins or some of the sins of the accusers. For fear of exposure they did not start throwing the stones, as they had most certainly intended to do. Each of them then turned away, tails between the legs so to speak.

Jesus makes no mistake when He exposes the root cause of the problem on hand: “It was not this way from the beginning” (vs. 8), the “beginning” meaning Paradise off course. Very wisely He chooses to quote Gen 2:24 (vs. 5) to illustrate the argument. One flesh made up of two (equal) parts. That was indeed how it was in the Garden of Eden. It was only after man had sinned that we see the balance of equality being disturbed by a curse of God, positioning the man to “rule” over the woman. (See Gen 3:16). When referring to this passage, many of the subsequent writers of the Bible have thought that this meant that the husband must be the boss of his family and that a man must always be the head of a church. For some strange reason people thought that this particular curse could not be broken. A typical example of this can be found in 1 Tim 2:14 where the apostle Paul argues that a woman may not teach in the church because it was Eve who was deceived, not Adam.

But Jesus clearly wants marriage restored to how it was in the beginning, that is: before the fall of man! (vs. 8). He knew exactly what had happened as a result of sin. (Gen 3:16-19). But He also knew that He Himself would become sin for us so that we could be free of all curses that had resulted from sin (e.g. Gal 3:13, Deut 21:23). This we may claim, every time. That is His promise to us – that is why we believe in Him. We are free from the curse of sin! We do not have to accept anything that happened as a result of sin; not even death. (John 10:28).

So, in effect, Jesus was indeed the first man who stood up for the rights of women. No wonder that the women of those days liked to listen to Him. And that He was at home with women. They remained loyal to Him, even after His death, and this is most probably the reason why they got to see Him first after His resurrection. But mankind still took more than nineteen centuries to lay claim to the equality of male and female. It was only fairly recently that most churches have adopted the principle of equality for the sexes. Why did it take us so long? It’s a long story. In fact, it is another two chapters. Looking back now, one could argue that most of the confusion was caused by the otherwise very honest – and very truthful apostle Paul.  I think we must forgive him this oversight. One must not forget that there is a big cultural difference between the people then and modern man. Also, traditions are not easily broken and Paul was strongly influenced by the Jewish traditions.

Anyway, let us forget about the old arguments. There is light in the tunnel at last. I cannot help but get excited whenever I notice one of Jesus’ teachings finally becoming the accepted norm.

By James Taylor

One of the saddest developments that has occurred in the last decade is the extent to which mainstream media and government-run schools and colleges have acted together to deny the American public, especially young people, access to objective information about climate change.

An entire generation is being brainwashed into believing long-debunked claims about an impending “existential climate crisis,” the presence of increasingly severe hurricanes and tornadoes, rapidly rising sea levels, and countless other dubious predictions of future climate catastrophes.

Moreover, the vast majority of American youth are completely ignorant of the fact that tens of thousands of scientists believe — and, more importantly, piles of scientific evidence that shows — that humans are not creating an existential climate change crisis.

We will not stand idly by as these misconceptions continue to sing. Rather, the Heartland Institute is taking action to tell American students the truth about global warming and climate science.

You can download and read the book: “Climate at a Glance”  for free by following the link below and then clicking on the relevant button for the downloading of the whole book in pdf. format  (remember: this will take some time).

Don’t forget to save it on your computer!

https://climateataglance.com/

I think most of you have realized by now that you cannot really rely on TV, radio and your newspaper or on-line news source anymore to tell you what is really happening in the world. It is therefore better not to waste any money on it. Truth is that most of the media are now owned by either the governments or the richest people on earth and they dictate what you will read, hear, and see.

I am sure you all remember Joseph Goebbels who was the Chief of Communications for Nazi Germany. Apparently, he once said: ‘Propaganda works best when those that are being manipulated are confident that they are acting out of their own free will.’

Here is some news that you will never get to read in the media:

The skewed distribution of wealth in the world is accelerating. It leads to a world populated by the dispossessed and ‘have-nots’  who are ruled by a small financial elite. It is measured by the GINI factor. Gini Index Definition (investopedia.com)

In assessing what is happening, we can start our research by making a few assumptions that do not differ much from the current state of world affairs as measured  by trends from the available sources:

1) The total wealth of the world is now around $9.2 * 10^13. That amounts to a total average of $11500 per world resident.

2) The top financial elite consists of 2000 people, who together own 20% of the total wealth of the world, so that is $18400*10^9. That amounts to an average of 18400/2000 = $9 billion each. ($1 billion = $1000 million)

3) We assume that the wealth of the world is growing by 1% annually. After x number of years, it will therefore be $9.2*10^13*1.01^x

4) We assume that the ownership and wealth of the elite grows by 10% annually as it usually does. That wealth is therefore after x years: $184*10^11*1.1^x.

Somebody who knows the math can do the calculation and solve x for me? For x=19 years, the total wealth of the world in 3) will be equal to the wealth of the rich as accumulated in 4)

So, with these assumptions, and if the trends remain the same, the conclusion is that in 19 years’ time, all property and wealth will be in the hands of the 2000 richest. The other 8 billion inhabitants of the earth will then have nothing, and they will have nothing to say. And the funny thing is, the have-nots will think that this is good and that it has grown this way all by ‘itself’……

Last night I saw it in my dream. The well-known graph of the GINI index in the form of a cartoon and now with ropes on the curve to pull it to the straight (GINI index = 0) by people clearly from the left camp. Others stood smiling by and looking sympathetic with their hands in their pockets watching this scene. They didn’t have to do anything because they knew that the curve is determined by human character and that a mechanism of ‘money makes money’ is embedded in the current economic systems so that the curve will always tend to shift more and more stronger to 1. Without forcing it as in the dream, the curve can be determined by a change in human doing and thinking. However, this requires awareness that can only grow in a stable situation. And it is no surprise that the present time cannot be seen as stable.

A Few Ideas, to bring the GINI Index Down

• Reduce taxes for the poor, like Value Added Tax and no VAT on food and basic necessities like fridges, stoves, heaters and fuels.
• Reduce taxes for the middle income earners to stimulate the economy. They are the ones who will buy stuff and keep everyone working.
• Increase the taxes of the wealthy sliding up to 70-75% per annum depending on income
• Property taxes must be coupled to income / wealth, rather than area
  
• At the end of the tax year, wealthy people should be taxed against the value of the shares they hold, not just be taxed through Capital Gains tax if and when they sell shares.
• Salary structures inside companies, organizations and local and national government must be reviewed asap to bring the GINI index down. Senior management /directorship are mostly grossly overpaid compared to their inputs.
• Energy is the engine of all production. Be hesitant to believe in the The Green Illusion | Bread on the water
• Do not summarily believe the media in what they say. A quick and sensible way to prevent the coming slavery without much unrest is to deprive the financial elite of its control over mass communication.

Only when the masses understand in time the mechanism behind the present – and coming events –  can they act against the real evil i.e. too much power in the hands of too few people.

 If you have the time (the video is almost 2 hours long), you must watch the testimony of Nabeel Qureshi. Once I started I could not stop watching until the video had finished. I was so saddened to learn afterwards that Nabeel had passed on to be with Jesus. But now watch the video that was made after Nabeel’s death.  Note where the curse from Islam onto Jews and Christians comes from. Nabeel’s book is apparently available from Cum Books.

By the way, if you are wondering who Lee Strobel is, who is doing the introductions, watch the latest video on our CCMSA page, here:

https://breadonthewater.co.za/ccmsa/

If you are interested in the subject of global warming, you should take some time to watch this interview of a renowned and  experienced climate expert.

We all know that in the process of photo-synthesis, plants and trees need carbon-dioxide (CO2) in order to grow. What struck me were the things William Happer said about more CO2 in the air CAUSING more greening. To quote from the report that he referred to: ‘Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.

During my statistical analysis of 54 weather stations back in 2015, see Table 1, An Inconvenient Truth | Bread on the water, I came across 2 weather stations with somewhat puzzling results. In statistics, we call these results  ‘outliers’. In the case of Las Vegas (USA), I found the minimum temperature rising by 5 degrees C since 45 years ago, pushing up the average temperature by almost 3 degrees C. In the case of Tandil (ARG) we find the minimum temperature decreasing by 2.2 C over same period, dragging the average temperature also down by almost 2 degrees C.

For more details, see here:

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:79f6de4b-11f6-40e0-b1a0-2981363ef005

Now, as we know, 50 years ago, Las Vegas was a desert. There was no running water. Water was brought in from afar and gradually the desert was changed and developed for human habitation. Sure, some of the warming noticed in Las Vegas may be due to an urban heat effect as many skyscrapers were also built. But most probably not all of it. I am sure the change of the desert area into a big green oasis had something to do with it. (1)

In contrast, it appears that in Tandil many forest trees were chopped for logging or to make way for agricultural – and housing developments. A loss of about 10-15% in leaf area is apparent (see picture, area is orange). (2)

Looking again at my own results for South-Africa, I find that Johannesburg is about the only place here that shows some significant warming over the past 40 years. Here too, there was no running water or river. It used to be a savannah area. But there was gold….(3)

Note again the picture at the beginning of this post. Do you see that the leaf areas around the arctic seas all appear to have increased by more than 50%? Remember that it was here that we found most of the warming taking place? See: An Inconvenient Truth | Bread on the water  (4). We were also aware of the difference in the warming of earth where there is more land (5), i.e. in the NH, see: Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs 

In his latest report on Climate Change in Alabama, John Christy wrote:

‘Every trend calculation starting from 1895 through 2010 and ending in 2020 produces more warming in the lows than the highs’.

Which is exactly what we would expect if the trend of greening in Alabama is increasing. Indeed: It is up about 10% from 1982 (if my chart at the top of this post is correct). (6)

These 6 observations all support the argument that the extra greening [of earth] is causing some extra heat entrapment.