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More on Jerald Tanner
The memorial service for Jerald is planned for 10:30am this Saturday, October 7, 2006, at the Salt Lake Christian Center, 4300 South 700 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84107. In lieu of flowers the family has suggested that donations be made to Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, 463 South 400 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101-2202, (801) 355-1302. Condolences can be sent to condolences@utlm.org or directly to the Utah Light house bookstore at 1358 S. West Temple, SLC, UT 84115.
Jerald Tanner is now with the Lord
Jerald Tanner of Utah Light house Ministry died peacefully yesterday evening. Here is an excerpt of an e-mail from his wife, Sandra Tanner.
“Dear friends,
Jerald entered heaven’s gates today (10/01/06) at 7:20 pm….He went into a coma last night and didn’t give any sign of knowing we were with him today.A memorial service is being planned for Sat. but not sure where–mainly
because we aren’t sure what size facility we need.
Pray for us as we grieve.
In Christian Friendship,
Sandra Tanner”
Jerald and Sandra were both generations deep in Mormonism. God in His wonderful grace led them both out of Mormonism to start a ministry providing humanitarian outreach to the Community, and printing critical research and documentation on the LDS Church. For this, they are known world-wide and looked up to by countless Christians.
I am glad for Jerald, yet sad for his family and extended family- the counter-cult community. We invite you to join us in prayer during this difficult time for Sandra, the Tanner family, and those who knew Jerald best. If you would like to know more about the Tanners and their work, visit the Utah Lighthouse Ministry web site. Condolences can be sent to condolences@utlm.org. Rest in the joy of the Lord, Jerald.
From The Jewel Box # 3
Today at the breakfast table my four year old daughter said, “Daddy, do you want to hear the new words I learned how to sound out?” We have a marker board near the table and the kids are allowed to write, draw, or color on the board. Becky wrote down a couple of new words for our daughter so now she was proud to show me what she learned. “Sure, let’s hear them,” I replied.
She looked at the first new word and said, “But.” She then moved on to the second word and said “Top.”
Evidently she didn’t say them clearly enough because our 3 1/2 year old son started to copy what he thought the two new words were. He started bouncing in his seat as he rapidly repeated, “But-talk, but-talk, but-talk!”
If you don’t get it, repeat those two words out loud really, really fast. Those kids crack me up.
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Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family. If you would like to read the other FTJB entries, click on the “From the Jewel Box” link in the side bar on the right or on the Jewel Box icon at the end of this paragraph.
Creator Christ
A couple of weeks ago Becky met with a pair of Jehovah’s Witness ladies in the Kingdom Hall. (She has met with these ladies for close to two years.) They were going through a passage (Colossians 1:16-17) in the JW’s own New World Translation of the Bible that is notorious for inserting one word four times in order to completely change the meaning of the passage. The New American Standard translation of the Bible translates this passage as follows.
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Now here is the New World Translation.
16 because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him.
17 Also, he is before all [other] things and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist,
Notice any differences? The word “other” appears four times in brackets. This passage is speaking about Jesus, and as the N.A.S. points out, all things have been created by Him. If Jesus is the Creator, then that means that He is Deity. Since JW’s believe that Jesus is the first creation, they have inserted the word “other” in an attempt to make Jesus look like a created being. In other words, he didn’t create all things, he created all other things. Jehovah God created Jesus, who then created everything else.
Becky was quick to point out that the word “other” does not appear in her New International Version of the Bible. Not only that, she showed the two JW ladies that the word “other” does not appear in the Greek either. Last year one of the ladies gave Becky a Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the New Testament. This is the Watchtower’s own publication which has the word for word Greek on the left side of the page and then the NWT on the right side. Becky brings this book with her every week and has found it to be very helpful.
Once the ladies saw that the word “other” is not in the original language, they tried to explain that it didn’t make any difference. The word is inserted for clarification, but even if the NWT did not include the word, the passage still has the same meaning. Becky had an idea and decided to see if the ladies really meant that.
Becky wrote on a sheet of paper, “By means of him all things were created,” and then asked,
“If this sentence was written about Jehovah, what would it mean?”
JWs- It would mean that Jehovah created all things.
Becky- All things? You mean that this would say that everything that
was ever created would have been created by Jehovah?JWs- That is right.
Becky- Would it leave any room for even one thing to be created by someone
else?JWs- No, it wouldn’t. If the Bible says that Jehovah created all things, then no one else created anything.
Becky- Then why does the meaning change when this sentence is applied to
Jesus?
The ladies were so caught up in defending Jehovah’s right to creation that they failed to remember that Colossians chapter one attributes the creation, all of creation, to Jesus. If you take the word “other” out of the text, Jesus is revealed as the Creator Christ.
Walker Family Slide Show
http://widget-49.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf
I came across this cool tool today so I figured I would test it out with a slide show of our family. If this works the way I hope it will, you can look forward to more slide shows of family and ministry related things.
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Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family.
18th Spiritual Birthday
Eighteen years ago today I came to Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade in Rochester, New York at about 8:30 PM. I guess a good thing about joining the Lord’s army is that you don’t have to be 18 to in-list! 😉 Happy birthday to me!
From The Jewel Box # 2
Our family was recently at a lake where we were just sitting in the water and playing with the kids. We were about to leave so I told our son to put his flip-flops back on and he looked at me and said, “No comprendo.” He is three and a half.
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Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family. If you would like to read the other FTJB entries, click on the “From the Jewel Box” link in the side bar on the right or on the Jewel Box icon at the end of this paragraph.
9-11-01 Never Forget
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the tragic events at the World Trade Center. I’m sure we all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we first heard about the collapse of the towers. I was sitting right here at my desk working on my computer when Becky called from work. She said everyone was being sent home because the towers collapsed. I remember balking at the thought because I just couldn’t believe it. I turned on the TV to watch the news. I remember the first time I saw the clip of the second plane hitting the second tower. I thought it was an animated graphic showing us what the reporters “thought” had happened. Once I saw the explosion and the wreckage of the plane coming out of the other side of the building, I knew it was for real. Too many innocent people lost theirs lives that day.
Pray for my Mom. She is going to visit my Grandmother and is flying today. I am sure the events of five years ago will be on everyone’s mind.
EM Football Pool!
You are invited to join the EM football pool. In order to join, you must register as a users at http://www.poolhost.com/ When registering, you will choose a personal username and password. Once you’ve entered PoolHost.com as a registered user, go to the ‘User Tools’ menu and choose ‘Join a Private Pool’. You will be asked to enter the Pool’s Login Name and the Pool’s Password.
For the Pool’s Login Name type: EMfootballpool
For the Pool’s Password type: football
That’s it and then you’re in! The next time you login in to http://www.poolhost.com, you can go to ‘My Pools’ and you’ll see all pools that you belong to. Clicking on a pool name will take you to that pool. You can switch to a different pool by going to ‘My Pools’ again at any time. To Register, click here: http://www.poolhost.com/index.asp?page=register.asp
If you see this post after the first week of the season, you can still join. Just send an e-mail to me of who you would have picked (be honest!) and I can add those picks in for you. As the administrator, I get lots of privileges!
Go Dolphins!
From the Jewel Box # 1
This post is the first of a new series called From the Jewel Box. This will be a regular feature where we will share with you some of the cute things that our kids say. Parents, you know your kids say some pretty funny things from time to time. Becky and I realized this as soon as our kids started to speak. We found ourselves forgetting some of these sayings and decided to keep tract of them, but we had no idea what to do or how to do it until Becky received a gift from the President of Moldova Bible Seminary.
Becky was given a beautiful hand-carved jewelry box for letting me go and teach at the seminary for five of the last six years (I teach a two week class on World Religions and Cults). We were very thankful for the gift, but really didn’t know what to place in the box because Becky really isn’t into jewelry. (Praise God she hates chick-flicks too!) Sure, she’s got earrings, necklaces, and things like that, but nothing worthy of placing into such a nice box. Then it hit me- How about writing down the cute sayings of our kids and keeping them in the jewel box? Since we treasure these sayings like some people do jewelry, it only made sense to place these little gems into the jewel box. Excellent idea if I say so myself!
We keep the jewel box on a kitchen counter and write down the sayings as we remember. A great portion of these sayings come from conversation at the dinner table. Some of them are cute, some are silly, and others are just plain unbelievable. We’ll start with one of the unbelievable ones.
FTJB #1
This one was probably one of the first quotes we recorded. Our daughter was 2 ½ years old and was eating a tortilla chip. She picked up a chip, held it up and said, “Triangle.” Becky and I were completely surprised. We had been teaching her about shapes and we were happy that she is learning to identify her shapes on her own completely uninitiated by us. What happened next blew our minds.
Our daughter took a bite out of the triangular chip. She bit the top off, held it up and looked at it again. She said, “Trapezoid.” Okay, now Becky and I are officially freaked. This example isn’t funny or cute, but is totally off the charts on the WOW factor. We knew our daughter was pretty smart, but we were not expecting this. By the way, Daddy was silently saying to himself, “So that is what a trapezoid looks like.”
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Important note: We will not reveal the names of our children on this blog. Any comment that mentions our children’s names will be deleted. It is nothing personal, we just feel that it is an important safety measure for our family. If you would like to read the other FTJB entries, click on the “From the Jewel Box” link in the side bar on the right or on the Jewel Box icon at the end of this paragraph.
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