All Posts by Mark Morgan

The End of Babylon

By Mark Morgan | Daniel

Babylon is handed over to the Medes and Persians

The empire of Babylon (the Neo-Babylonian empire) was built almost entirely around around one man – Nebuchadnezzar II. God used it to punish many nations – including Judah – but after seventy years, the time came for the end of Babylon.

This article has taken a very long time to write because of the uncertainty in archaeology, history and Bible interpretation.  I take the Bible as my first basis for evidence, but often the Bible gives very little historical detail.  This should be no surprise.  After all, recording historical detail is just a side effect of the Bible’s goals of offering salvation and truth.

Many’s the time, however, that Bible believers have rejected discoveries of science, not because they were wrong, but because our understanding of the Bible was simplistic.  The interface between science and the Bible can be difficult at times.  Sometimes scientists and Christians can each jump to unwarranted conclusions about the other.  I’ve been trying hard to avoid doing this regarding the historical setting of the book of Daniel.

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Kings in the time of Daniel

By Mark Morgan | Daniel , Jeremiah , Timelines

While writing a story about Daniel over the last five years, I knew that I would finally get to the stage where I needed to make decisions about the later kings of Babylon in the time of Daniel.  The history in the early parts of Daniel’s life is fairly much agreed upon and fits well with the Bible.  However, the agreement fades away as we consider the following fifty years of history.  After a lot of study of the Bible’s records – which I consider to be the inspired word of God – I cannot embrace the generally-accepted lists of kings of Babylon, Media and Persia during the sixth century BC (eg. List of Kings of Babylon (Wikipedia) or List of Kings of Babylon (Jatland).

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Follow Me!

By Mark Morgan | Jesus

Have you ever done anything completely unexpected, unplanned, sudden, extreme?  Something that others would think crazy or irrational – and perhaps your husband, your wife or your parents might agree with those others!  Let’s look at some people who did that sort of thing because Jesus called them to follow him.

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How to greet a king

By Mark Morgan | Daniel

In Australia, where I live, there are many common greetings, including “G’day”, a greeting made internationally famous by the film Crocodile Dundee.

However, we all know that our greetings vary.  Family and friends may receive one type of greeting while new acquaintances may warrant another.

We may greet employers, teachers, government officials, doctors, academics, religious leaders or army officers in various other ways.

If, however, we met the leader of our country, we might think very carefully about how address them. And if you live in the British Commonwealth, do you know how to greet a king?

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Harmony of Bible records of appearances of the resurrected Jesus

By Mark Morgan | Harmonies , Jesus

Several books and letters in the Bible report Jesus’ interaction with many different people after his resurrection. However, since no one record includes all of the information, we need a harmony of Bible records of appearances of the resurrected Jesus.

The Bible passages which record events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, the subsequent 40 days during which he met with his disciples and his ascension are as follows:

• Matthew 28:1-20
• Mark 16:1-20
• Luke 24:1-53
• John 20:1-21:25
• Acts 1:1-12
• 1 Corinthians 15:4-7

Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection are discussed in another article (Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection), but the current article tries to put the records of the appearances before Jesus ascension in chronological order.

Parallel records from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (and Acts)

The gospel records can be interleaved with some effort and many have attempted to do so. Here is another attempt. Determining exactly when some of the events took place during the 40 days in which Jesus met with them is impossible. Some of the gospel records summarise these events or some of these events, in a paragraph or two, so the harmonisation of these passages is simply guesswork.

The harmonisation is most easily shown in a table format and is best viewed on a screen that is wider than it is high.

The Bible text in this harmony of Bible records of appearances of the resurrected Jesus is taken from the World English Bible (WEB) which has been released into the public domain.

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Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection

By Mark Morgan | Jesus

Early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead – to the dismay of his enemies and the complete surprise of his friends! Each of the four gospels records different details of that morning and the forty days that followed, leading finally to his ascension. Putting those records together into one coherent narrative is not easy, but I hope to present a harmony of the gospels for this time in another newsletter. For the time being, we’ll just look at the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection.

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The Land of Pathros

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Maps

After the flood, Noah’s descendants spread across the world.  Noah’s youngest son, Ham, had a son called Egypt, some of whose descendants were called the Pathrusim (Genesis 10:14).  Many believe them to be connected with the Land of Pathros, a part of Upper Egypt (see map below).

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The working age of Levites

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

What is the right age to start our life’s most important work? Some people begin to excel in their chosen profession at a very early age (for example, Mozart began composing at four or five years of age), while others shine much later (Oscar Swahn won his first Olympic gold medal at the age of 60).  The Levites helped with the worship of God – who has killed people for flouting his rules of worship.  For everyone’s good, the job had to be learned thoroughly. So what was the working age of Levites?

We still have rules today about the age at which one can start or stop work, and the same was true for priests and Levites in Israel.

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A Bumper Harvest

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Jeremiah had prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Jerusalem.  The destruction happened, just as God had said, but straight after that, Judah had a bumper harvest.  This is a very unusual situation.  When a nation is attacked and pillaged, a famine normally follows, further increasing the survivors’ sufferings.

Let’s explore what happened at that time, and perhaps we can find out why.

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Timeline of the prophet Daniel’s life

By Mark Morgan | Daniel , Timelines

Daniel was an extremely godly man, presented by Ezekiel the prophet as an example of righteousness along with Noah and Job (Ezekiel 14:14, 20).  Angels also say that he is “greatly loved” (Daniel 9:23; 10:11, 19).  In short, Daniel is a wonderful character and reading his life’s story in the Bible is very valuable.

Timeline

This timeline of the prophet Daniel’s life is a rough overview because most of the events cannot be located exactly in his life.  Some can be located in history, but we are not told Daniel’s age at any time.
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The Stewardship of Money

By Mark Morgan | Miscellaneous

Based on a booklet “The Stewardship of Money” written in England during the 1940s by F. Mitchell and revised by Mark Morgan, November 2021.

Chapter 1 – Why Should We Give?

a.    Because we ourselves, and all we have, are God’s

The Christian life begins when we receive Jesus Christ as our personal saviour. It was by his coming into our lives that we became Christians at all. No doubt when we first came to him, it was with a sense of frustration or a burden of sin and helplessness, and our conscious need was to receive forgiveness, peace and power. These, we discovered, were available only in Christ, and, receiving him, we enjoyed the gifts he always brings.

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How should Christians use money?

By Mark Morgan | Miscellaneous

Money is mentioned more than 200 times in the Bible, starting with God’s requirement that even slaves bought with Abraham’s money had to be circumcised as part of God’s covenant with him (Genesis 17:12-13).

Money in the Old Testament

In the Old Testament we are often told of God blessing those whom he loved by giving them riches: Abraham (Genesis 13:2; 24:35); Isaac (Genesis 26:12-13); Job (Job 42:10); David (1 Chronicles 29:28); Solomon (1 Kings 3:13; 10:23); Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 17:5; 18:1); Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:27). In fact, there is frequently a connection between righteousness and the blessing of riches, particularly in Psalms and Proverbs (Proverbs 10:4, 22; 22:4).

Yet in all of them, there is the repeated warning not to set our heart on riches. There is a warning that if riches are too important to us, we will fail (Psalm 62:10; Proverbs 11:4, 28; 27:24).
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