Good Morning I'll try this again this morning. Well the animal with no brain but lives just by electrical impulses is the Jellyfish. By the way, while you are thinking along theses lines, How tall is the tallest man alive? Is it 7'8"; 8'3"; 8'10"; or 9'1" make a guess & see if you get close. I'll tell you tomorrow.
I'll give you a hint: His hands are 11.22 inches, wow, talk about getting a grip on things.
Wednesday 1/25
Prov. 27:13 Get security from someone who guarantees a stranger's debt. Get a deposit if he does it for foreigners."
This verse is speaking about two differing issues: dealing with an unknown Hebrew and then dealing with a Gentile.
First dealing with a Jewish debt. The warning is to "expect a security". In the Hebrew culture the debt was made secure, or the evidence of a contractural agreements was many times the shoe of the borrower. You say why a shoe? Well, first of all what good is a single shoe, and secondly if there was a need to prove their contract, a leather shoe is a long lasting living proof. This symbolic collateral was returned upon repayment.
A loan to a poorer person who didnt have more than one pair of shoes, the collateral could be a coat or shirt, by the way that's where the saying "lose the shirt off your back" came from. Also to note, is that should a loan be struck and a coat was taken in security, if the weather turned cold the lender was to lend the coat to the borrower overnight for warmth & then the borrower was to return it to the lender in the morning.
One other principle to take note of, was that a Jewish contract with another Jew, was to never expect interest to be charged.
Second principle was dealing with lending to a foreigner, this isn't only talking of a person from another country, but more importantly to a Gentile. Note, the Jewish lender was to take a deposit, this was due to the fact that the Gentile mindset was that land being able to be sold, traded, with no thought of its heritage was common thought.
However, to a Jew, land was considered a thing of inheritance, never to be totally lost, each 50 years, the year of Jubilee brought the land back to its original family.
Now for the issue of a deposit required from a Gentile, it was to be of greater value than a shoe or coat, or shirt, it could be a ring, a precious stone, or even a futures: crops yet to be harvested, or animal yet to be born. This principle is today some what like an earnest deposit, required when you take out a contract on land or a home. The contingency was that if the decision was made to not follow through on the sale, then the earnest money would be kept by the person, or the financial institution reserving the earnest money to be given to the seller to recover his inconvenience.
Sound complicated? Well it is, the primary message being sent is... to the Jewish person land was the only thing that was seen as an eternal ownership. It couldn't be taken from its rightful owner, the original family.
This was to reflect on our salvation, we can never lose it, its eternal. Our place in heaven is secured, through the birth right of Jesus.
It has such great importance that this concept of an eternal inheritance is spoken of over & over in the New Testament. Such as your name written in the Lambs Book of Life, etc. Never to be removed.
Isn't it interesting the correlation of earthly ownership & heavenly ownership. Just as land is our inheritance in this life, so also is our salvation in eternity. What a precious gift it is, it is transferable from our earthly life to our eternal presence in glory.
So Go With God just as He will never leave us, nor will His salvation ever be taken, or torn from us. It is secure in the hands of our loving Saviour in Jesus' Book of Life.
A wonderful Savior isJesus our Lord, a wonderful Savior to me ... He hideth me in the cleft of His nail scrared hand.