Hello World! Welcome to A Jesus Salon with jar of clay, JCJ.
JCJ aka John Christopher Jorna, but usually just Christopher. (*n1)
The Web Site:
A Jesus Salon
The tag line:
A Virtual Conversation Space
Centered on the King, His Kingdom,
and the peculiar interests of one of His disciples
the “…one of His disciples” being the aforementioned JOC, Christopher.
(JOC = Jar Of Clay which, depending on how you choose to pronounce the acronym, can be taken as a somewhat lame joke based on a bad pun that I may or may not flog like a dead horse (even as I bray like a live donkey.))
<Click HERE to jump down the page to ‘How to read a Bible reference’.>
Notes:
*n1 The first initial, ‘J’ (for John) while legally accurate, is included only for rhythmic purposes:
Good beats.
The initials scan well and have a nice assonance, “jar of clay, Jay Cee Jay”.
‘Jar of clay ‘ (JOC) is of course reference 2 Corinthians 4:7 (*n2)
(I love me a nice assonance ’cause I can be a Jack Ass. Hee Haw.)
(and yes Jack is a nick name for John so we are right back at the beginning of the note. BTW JOC (if you don’t like the sound of the ‘joke’, ‘jock’ can be a nick name for John as well so again, right back to the beginning of the note.))
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*n2 How to understand a bible reference:
Bible references name the book, the chapter, and the verse.
Book C:v (where C is chapter and v is verse).
The Protestant Bible has 66 books from Genesis to Revelation.
The first 39 Genesis to Malachi are often called the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures.
The last 27 are explicitly written regarding the life and resurrection of Jesus and are often called the New Testament or the Greek Scriptures.
In most formats the Chapter is a large bold number designating a block of text and the verse is a small number designating a line or a few lines. You can see the formatting of a Bible page at the following link 2 Corinthians 4 NIV – Present Weakness and Resurrection Life – Bible Gateway or by flipping through a print Bible. Chapters and verses are not original to the text of scriptures. They were developed as a reference system over time.
Roman Catholic and ‘Eastern’ Orthodox Christians use similar systems but their Bibles are slightly larger because they officially believe that a number of helpful books protestants call ‘apocryphal’ are equal in authority to the Hebrew texts of what is often called the Old Testament or the Jewish Bible.
Jewish traditions have the same 39 books as the Protestant ‘Old’ Testament but they organize them differently.
In English the Jewish Bible is often referred to as Tanakh an acronym in Roman alphabet (the alphabet we usually use in English is Roman) for the Hebrew for Torah, Prophets and Writings.
Christians believe the Tanakh witnesses to Jesus just as much as the New Testament. It’s that the New Testament is explicit to Jesus entering history and humanity through Mary’s womb, rising from the dead, and sending the Holy Spirit to continue His ministry on earth through His Body the Church (ekklesia) (*n3).
Ask Jesus what to believe.
Or if you can’t quite get your heart around the word ‘Jesus’, ask the Creator.
As you persevere in expressing to the Creator a sincere desire to receive wisdom and revelation on the Creator’s terms,
and not according to your own personal, religious or cultural biases or the trauma associated with the way that the name of Jesus has been abused in human power games as an ideological weapon to subjugate others (looking at us fellow descendants from Christian European ‘stock’.),
the Creator will reveal to you that Jesus is in fact the Creator.
(I joke that my ancestors are indigenous to Northern Europe and became ruthlessly proficient at flying around the world in ships like flocks of ‘Finding Nemo’ seagulls singing ‘mine, mine, mine’. )
<The reader is hereby notified that the following sentences are complex and contain theological jargon.
Reader discretion is advised.
If you are under 30 you are warned to avoid reading this on the grounds that your youthful imagination will be confused as your mind is blown (this is an obscure joke on ancient Rabbi customs where certain texts were restricted until the reader was an elder over 30.
Btw this tradition may be one of the reasons why Jesus did not begin his public ministry until he was an elder over the age of 30. Jesus is not bound by human traditions but he works those angles for his purposes. (Gratuitous Eugene H. Peterson plug through the link.)
Silly me I became a ‘rabbi’, a teaching elder, at 27. No wonder I burned out.)>
Eventually, if you persevere, and are ruthless with your own self deception and baggage, the Creator will overtime somehow impress upon you the reality that He is Jesus in the eternal community of the one being of three persons without beginning or end: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Aka: The Holy Trinity.
Yes, once again I’m into theological gobbledygook. Patience padawan. Wax on Wax off. Paint the fence.
Stick to it and the Creator will sort it out. PS: It’s Trinity not Trinity.
It’s Trinity:
And if you want to dive deeper into Trinity you can listen to this semi-random guy the Youtube algorithm threw my way when I was searching for the Irish Twins above. (Geritol not included):
or this saint who went to glory in 2017:
Exactly how The Creator impresses the reality of Jesus on any individual, family or group is wonderfully various and specifically tailored to the people with whom he is dealing.
^^Click hypertext link to see ‘note 3’ now formatted as a page in its own right, entitled Ekklesia.