Posts of Timothy Yeghian RSSWed, 06 Apr 2022 18:47:37 GMTJust the other night there was a knock on my door.  I opened it and there they were, two young men petitioning me to visit their "church," and seems to me that it was the "Mother of the Holy Something or Other."  I used to engage in friendly conversations with other people about how they came to be lost in the jungles of "cult-world" who call themselves "Christians."  However, I am not 67, and only God knows how much time I have left here.  I will share here what I told them.  I live in Redding, CA where there are more cults than Goodyear has tires.  I keep a UBS Greek New Testment right there by my door, and when they naively tried to "lamp fish" me, I just picked it up.Brothers and Sisters, I have been reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in Greek for over 40 years, every day, sentence by sentence, word by word.  However, I missed something.  I cannot find it.  I need your help.  Where in any of the Gospels of Christ did Jesus say that you may " .... not, never, ever, no way, no time, in any form, do that?"  Where is it?!  Where?!  Let's splice hairs, and then splice them again.  Jesus' conversations on divorce, good arguement:  Yet, I ask Jesus himself this question.  He can read this, "Is saying that I lead someone to sin" exactly the same thing as saying"never, ever, under any circumstances, do X, Y, or Z."   To Jesus himself, I offer that his "warning" is strong, but it is not as powerful as his "utter ban."So, dear brothers and sisters of the world, all of you, please help me find the place in the four Gospels that in the Koine Greek, not in the anemic translations, that is a stronger, more direct order from God, to never, ever do something, that is stronger than Jesus' utter ban in Matthew 23 on any Christian calling him or herself, " ... priest, rabbi, pastor, doctor, minister, father, or religious-big-kahuna."   Take another look at Matthew 23:8-12.  The professional clergy do not want you to really look at that too closely.One of these above pirataes onc... Read more

]]>Wed, 06 Apr 2022 18:47:37 GMTI get asked this all the time, not just from Christians but from a lot of unbelievers too.  Why do I waste my time learning and reading my New Testament in Greek?  I was just asked that question again.   I'll be direct.To begin with, there are over 340 denominations registered with the World Council of Churches. That is the tip of the confusion-iceberg; it is only the number that is registered. So, in addition to that for every street corner in America there is someone potentially there poking their finger into the air and preaching a Gospel of Destruction.Nevertheless, in Revelations, in Greek, John's Revelation, in the oldest manuscripts, note that I said that, uses a very, very different word for "sword" as found in most of the New Testament. It is found nowhere else. The word in Revelation 19:15 for "sword" is ῥομφαία, or our Roman friends, romphaia, the sword that the Coming Christ uses to slice whole nations in half.Scholars who love to research these things are not sure. Did the romphaia originally come from Thrace, Thessaly, or Dacia?  There is a strong argument for Dacia.  It isn't the Roman gladius, a single hander, nor is it the usual Greek word in the New Testament, a machira, also a single hander.  The romphaia was a very long double hander and the user did not carry a shield.  The romphaia was more like the Japanese naginata, but it was a shorter version.Both the Roman legion and the Greek phalanxes could pack their shields into impenetrable walls, thus with one of those marching in step towards your general, or even your king, was by the time that one wall of shields got that close it was then relatively undefeatable. Accordingly, whoever invented it the designer dropped the soldier's shield and went for double-handed, raw, unstoppable cutting power. It was a long, double-hander, with a long blade, made of the best steel the king could be. Have you ever seen the movie where there are only two guards at the door of the Hollywood king and both of them a... Read more

]]>Fri, 11 Feb 2022 20:46:17 GMTTo Brothers and Sisters in Christ:Yes, BEING the body is what Christ wants, and I am fully confident that Jesus didn't suffer the cross and the brutality of the Roman soldiers so that the faithful could spend their lives practicing "Pew-Yoga."I made my friends something:Over the course of many years my friends have told me that they "wished" that they could access Greek dictionaries, grammars, and lexicons so that they could see these things for themselves and for their small, Home Fellowships. Moreover, cults get planted because English doesn't always make things clear. There are 20, 000 denominations in North America.  Seminaries are the perfect model of boring, so I made this for all my friends. Then they can look these things up for themselves once the Biblical Greek alphabet becomes as easy as the Roman one.If it serves, here, for my friends"Yeghian, You Tube Video #3: Learning to read the Greek Alphabet with some words from the Koine Greek New Testament - YouTube.(I made it as fun as the Spirit would let me!)In His name,Your friend and Brother in Christ,Timothy in NorCal

]]>Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:43:59 GMTDear Team House Church Network:I am sorry to trouble all of you, but I cannot figure out how to make my and fellowship location appear on the global map. Yes, I have selected the "Make Location Public" switch, but that didn't make it public.If anyone has any tips, it would be a blessing.  Thank you,Timothy

]]>Tue, 01 Feb 2022 20:50:36 GMTI will share one more thing with my brothers and sisters of the House Fellowship Network.When I was a very young boy my mother would take me to our Armenian church there in Glendale, CA.  We were all refugees in those days.  Let's just say that we were Christians, and to be gentle about it, we were not welcome in Anatolia.The people of Armenia converted to Christianity around 400 AD, and thus the first translation of the New Testament from the Greek was into Armenian.  We used to have well over 1, 000 churches all across central and eastern Turkey, but all of them, except those in Eastern Armenia, which was protected by the Russian army, were destroyed during the 19th century.  Yet, there is a blessing in everything.  Even a heart attack can be a blessing, lol.Because our churches were set on fire and laid down stone by stone, we escaped with only our prayers and music.  In all of our music we praise God, even while running.  Much of what we sing is actually memorized passages of the Bible.  Returning to America after so many years, I find my country men and women so ... stressed from life.So come, I invite you to walk with me and my family's goats on the slopes of Mt. Ararat, the resting place of the Ark, and hear us sing our praises to God.  In Old Persian, they called us the "Hayastani," or, the People who Sing to God. We ran for the boarders, but because our praises were in our hearts, we brought our songs to God with us. It is all we came to America with.God bless your family, God bless you, and God bless those whom God has put before you.Armenian brothers:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmhzvp0NbF8

]]>Sat, 29 Jan 2022 03:56:58 GMTIt is really quite funny if you have this kind of sense of humor.  It is funny because when you take a brother or sister who has studied some Greek in school or maybe even seminary, put an old manuscript in front of them, and they will almost feint.There are no paragraphs.  There are no breaks between sentences.  There is no punctuation, not even a "s" to show that it is Paul's or Matthew's, or John's.  When you read accounts of authors who lived in the ancient world you can in fact find this phrase that in English reads something like this."My teacher gave me a tablet to read.  While I was trying to find its meaning, I had I thought ... "  One of the things this person is saying is that he or perhaps she is saying that the individual cannot tell where a sentence stops and where another one begins.  Periods hadn't been invented yet!In English we write like this:There once was a cat named Paul.He loved to chase mice down the hall.But one day he slippedAnd crashed his cat lipAt full speed right into a wall.Now if you read that in first century Koine Greek, and could think in Greek and English at the same time, if would look something like this in Jesus' day:THEREONCEWASACATNAMEDPAULHELOVEDTOCHASEMICEDOWNTHEHALLBUTONEDAYHESLIPPEDANDCRASHEDHISCATLIPATFULLSPEEDRIGHT INTOAWALLIf you didn't go to seminary, don't worry about it.  They don't teach the really fun stuff, but they don't teach it because very, very few of them know it.  

]]>Sat, 29 Jan 2022 00:23:54 GMTMy Most Recent Miracle, 2021-22Over a year ago I was praying about what Fellowship the Lord wanted me to step into.  At that time I was relocating with my wife to CA from Alaska.   My experience with Christian fellowship in Alaska was that it is very, very legalistic.  Pastors have left their homes in mostly the South who wanted to built something they felt called to do. In either case, we lived up there for 15 years, and when the time came we packed up and left.  We bought a house here in Redding, CA.  We had just signed, so we took each other out to a picnic to celebrate and thank God.  I was sitting in my wife’s truck when suddenly I felt extremely dizzy.  I told my wife that, and pushed the seat back telling her, “I’m fine.  I just put the chair back and ….. “The next thing I remember was looking up to see helicopter blades spinning in the air.  From my days as a paratrooper I came to learn that a helicopter blade spinning over you means somebody has called you a limo.After the emergency room visit, and as I was waking up there I could hear the voices of nurses freaking out, “Push this, turn that, give him this, watch that … !”About an hour later a doctor came to see me.  The first thing he said was this.  It was a question, “What did you see?!”  I answered, “What?  See what?   Where?”  Then he very seriously, but in a tone of amazement, “Mr. Yeghian, you were legally dead for almost 7 minutes.”   My heart had completely stopped.  But …Next to the door of my wife’s truck on her side were, oddly enough, two nurses who had come all the way from New Zealand because they had heard that Northern California looked in places like New Zealand. Their rented car was next to my wife’s truck’s door. They heard my wife losing it and they jumped out of their car in seconds. But they couldn’t get me out of the truck to get me on the ground for CPR.   I was essentially dead, and they didn’t have the muscles to pull me up in my seat, and then through the truck door frame.  It wa... Read more

]]>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 23:39:34 GMTThe Second Miracle in My Life, 40+ years ago.  People are still in lock-down across the country, so I will share here.  I will skip over the first miracle of my life and how I became a Christian some 40-something years ago.  I will move forward to the second one.  At that time, the Vietnam War was tearing our country apart.  Yet what God put before me was that the soldiers in the middle had become the lepers of our society, and related to that, many young men both in the service and out were committing suicide.  So, one day I got on my knees on the floor and prayed about it.  What could I do about it?  My prayer was very specific, and the guidance that I received was, “Yes, sign up.”   I did and I asked for the army Chaplain’s Corps.   At the time, however, I was thinking, you know, working in chapel, typing, polishing cool high-end candle sticks.  That wasn't the assignment God gave me.Well, the next thing I knew I was in South Carolina doing push-ups.  It wasn’t all that difficult to be honest about it, and I have always had a very active prayer life that helps me deal with things.So, one day in basic training they cattle-herded us into a huge airplane hangar.  However, they had turned the lights out and we were led by sergeants holding red, nightlights.  Then, with about 300 of us there they turned all the red lights out to make it completely pitch black.   Then slowly they turned on the sound of a C-130 cargo plane.  And just as quickly, they turned it off.  Then, a spotlight in the center of the stage, “Pop!”   Then the sound of boots with taps on then walking in the dark towards that spot, “Click, click, click.”They shined the spotlight on the man’s boots, and then the voice over, “Men!  How many of you have volunteered to be paratroopers for your country?!”  The room was dead silent.Me?  Well, … inside I busted up laughing!  A paratrooper?!  Me?  I am from California.  Are there surfboards in it?  Campfires?  Pretty girls on the beach sitting around playing g... Read more

]]>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 23:04:47 GMTWell, let's see, where was I?Right, - I was having a conversation with an orthodox atheist, after he explained why he didn't believe that there was a God, I explained to him why I did.  His advice, "Put that on Youtube."Now, anybody who knows me knows that I know more about the 1st to 4th centuries than I do about these times.  It isn't my thing.  However, he "double-dog," not a single dog, but a double-dog dare to put it on that thing called Youtube.  I assure you, I am much more comfortable with vellum and papyrus.In either case I gave it a go.Here it is, Youtube, why "I believe in God" for the devoted, orthodox sceptic:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpTTCdjfoaM 

]]>Fri, 28 Jan 2022 21:49:30 GMTGreetings to all my Brothers and Sisters here in the House Church Network.My name is Timothy Yeghian.   Isn't it tough to introduce yourself.   Folks want to know who we are, but it isn't about us; it is about Jesus.I'll just tell you who I am and if people fall asleep ... well, serves me right?I am 66 now and came to Christ in ... I am looking up, which means I don't remember.       Let's see, ... 1973.I am not from the Catholic side of the fence or the Protestant sea of denominations.   Nope.   I am one of the few Christians whom you might meet who comes from the Oriental Orthodox.  And the largest of that is the Armenian branch.   We kicked Rome to the curb in 451 AD.  I don't think we helped them carry there bags either.   The first New Testament that was translated from the Hellenistic Koine Greek was called Gabar, or scholars call this "Classical Armenian."   If I ever get to meet a group of believers I will sing one of our chants for you from the 3rd century.   1974 the Vietnam War was winding down and after prayer I joined the army and asked for the Chaplain's Corps.   I told God to put me anywhere, and He did.   Without agreeing to it on paper, lol, God assigned me 2nd / 504 of the 82nd Airborne Infantry.   I don't know how many night jumps I made with the men I served.  I lost count after "2."   Familiar with the Armenian text, that was when I started to study Greek.   Men were coming to me with one version and another with another version and asking me questions I couldn't answer.   As not many folks read our scribbles, I started learning Greek in 1974.  I survived the 82nd Airborne and started college as a double major, almost triple major:   Greek for one, with minors in Chinese and Japanese, and Ancient History, with minors in Russian and Astrophysics.The Japanese government hired me right out of college, nobody was hiring veterans in those days, and the Japanese shipped me to Japan where I lived for 17 years, and street witnessed in Japan on the weeke... Read more

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