A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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One Recent Day in the Hospital
I visited the ACE (Acute Care for the Elderly) unit of the hospital today and tried to get them to take comfort in the beautiful Lennon song Imagine, and the line in which there is “no religion, too,” and “above us only sky.” They all told me to go to hell. So I switched Beatles and brought up the song lyric. “And when the broken-hearted people…
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Not Giving Up. Not Hardening One’s Heart
Three times Joseph would have been within his rights to give up. Three times he suffered reversal so serious as to think life had betrayed him. And maybe, since God was in charge of life, that He had betrayed him, too. At each instance, the circuit overseer paused to ask how Joseph would have felt at that moment, what prospects would he have just then…
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Isaiah 48:22: “There is no Peace for the Wicked”
Jarringly out of place at the end of Isaiah 48, so it would seem, is the final verse: “There is no peace,” says Jehovah, ‘for the wicked.’” Who’s he talking about? Just who is “wicked?” Is he referring to the same as, whenever the younger brothers took to squabbling, the older bro would tilt back in his chair and say, “It’s amazing what Jehovah can…
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You Almost Never Have all the Facts
Lot was a righteous man. The Bethel speaker said so. Three times 2 Peter 2:7-8 says he was. So, he must have been. “And [God] rescued righteous Lot, who was greatly distressed by the brazen conduct of the lawless people—for day after day that righteous man was tormenting his righteous soul over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard while dwelling among them.” It…
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GB Update: Use of One’s Own Blood (under construction)
who is accountable for the lives lost under the blood doctrine? Who is accountable when a Christian gets killed in war? Who is accountable when a missionary is kidnapped or killed? Who talked them into so putting their lives at risk? I am surprised that this atheist argument—which holds that loss of life is permanent and irreversible calamity—is picked up on a Christian forum. I…
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The Owner’s Manual
This thought I liked from yesterday’s Watchtower Study and compared it to an ad for online therapy now making the rounds in my neck of the woods: “After they rebelled, Adam and Eve immediately experienced the consequences of their violating God’s law—a law that was “written in their hearts.” (Rom. 2:15) They could sense a change in themselves—and not for the better. They felt compelled…
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Paul—“An Insolent Man”
Early Christians were afraid of Paul. He’d been a violent enemy. When he turned around, they didn’t believe it. Barnabas (always good for that sort of thing) had to escort him around and ease the way. Some of those Christians probably always were afraid of him. The Watchtower study of last week (3/15/26) included the printed point: “Can you imagine how Paul must have felt…
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Manipulating Cyrus the Great King
Pulverizing Sennacherib was a big deal? Turns out that it was just a warmup for a greater deliverance, that of Babylon being defeated but not before it had conquered and strutted around insufferably. So the Sennacherib experience would serve as faith strengthening groundwork for that other deliverance in store. The one who did the conquering is pre-named in the Book of Isaiah. Chapter 44 ends…
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Who are the Witnesses: Isaiah 43
Half of [the chopped-down tree] he burns up in a fire; With that half he roasts the meat that he eats, and he is satisfied. He also warms himself and says: “Ah! I am warm as I watch the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, into his carved image. He bows down to it and worships it. He prays to…
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The Language in Which God Wrote the Universe
If Isaiah 40:22 is not a lesson in science, all the more so 40:26 is not. But could it be another example of the Bible being accurate when it happens to touch on matters of science? “Lift up your eyes to heaven and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who brings out their army by number; He calls them all by…