Word pictures from The Scriptures make them come alive.

We had a most wonderful day with mom and dad yesterday. What a day it was and we look back at it and it causes us to look up in gratitude to our Great God. Amen. Now I am back in the saddle again, as we learned from that great song by Gene Autry, the singing cowboy. It is Wednesday, May 4, 2016, and I bid everyone a hearty hello as we do our best, with God's help, to make the most of the day that He has given to us. The other day when I was talking about May flowers I searched and searched for a Bible verse that said the people looked like flowers. I had remembered it from a long time ago but I couldn't find it in time to include it in that day's episode. I don't give up that easily. It is found in Mark Chapter 6, Verse 40, where we read: "They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties." This was the occasion of Jesus feeding the 5,000 men plus the women and children. What did this look like? I wonder what an aerial view would have looked like? Here is the handling of that text by the great Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, (1863-1934): "They sat down in ranks (ανεπεσαν πρασιαι πρασιαι — anepesan prasiai prasiai). They half-way reclined (ανακλιτηναι — anaklithēnai Mark 6:39). Fell up here (we have to say fell down), the word ανεπεσαν — anepesan means. But they were arranged in groups by hundreds and by fifties and they looked like garden beds with their many-coloured clothes which even men wore in the Orient. Then again Mark repeats the word, πρασιαι πρασιαι — prasiai prasiai in the nominative absolute as in Mark 6:39 instead of using ανα — ana or κατα — kata with the accusative for the idea of distribution. Garden beds, garden beds. Peter saw and he never forgot the picture and so Mark caught it. There was colour as well as order in the grouping. There were orderly walks between the rows on rows of men reclining on the green grass. The grass is not green in Palestine much of the year, mainly at the passover time. So here the Synoptic Gospels have an indication of more than a one-year ministry of Jesus (Gould). It is still one year before the last passover when Jesus was crucified." In other words, the variety of colorful clothing made them appear to be flowers arranged in beds. Remarkable, if you ask me!

I knew I had not dreamed that, but, it took me a lot longer to come up with the appropriate search components to finally locate it. I hate it when I can't quickly get my hands on something like that. Speaking of that, I read some T-Shirt inscriptions that gave me a chuckle. ~ I thought GROWING OLD would take longer. ~ Does anyone know how I can become an ILLEGAL? I could sure use the benefits. ~ Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 456,387 times, you must be the weather man. ~ Does it count as saving a life if you refrain from killing someone? ~ Every time I think things cannot get worse, THERE'S AN ELECTION! ~ I also saw a posting from one of my nieces on Facebook that I thought was both funny and instructional. "Remember how you used to have to take a photo of your food then take the film to the photo shop to get it developed so you could then drive around and hand deliver the pictures to each of your friends so they could see what you had for dinner?" For all us social media users, there's a piece of commentary in that one. By the way, did you see the size of that steak?

I will tell you one thing. My little grammar checking utility tried to work on Dr. Robertson's paragraph with all those Greek language compositions, well, I think he may have blown a gasket. He doesn't have a head scratching symbol for when he doesn't have a clue but that might be something they may want to consider. I know what some of you are thinking. It should have a caption where he could say something like, "I don't get it, it's Greek to me." Sorry. I am working here without a life vest to help me if I fall overboard. I do appreciate those who stop by each day to see what's happening here at my place. Some estimates put the total number of blogs circulating out on the World Wide Web to be in excess of 250 million. That's a lot of sharing going on. And, many different choices. Most of my monthly hits come from within the United States. Those are in addition to the 40 recipients that receive my blog each day via email. However, in this most recent reporting period, there were also accesses from the following places: Russia, Germany, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Portugal, and Australia. No doubt many if not most may have been accidental when they were searching for something else. However, I always like to think that maybe someone somewhere will see a verse or a word of encouragement that will minister to them in some way. The bottom line is the truth about the love of God for all people. ALL. "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2nd Peter 3:9) That's good news for everyone. Amen. ....More later.