Truth Be Told: A Blog by Pastor Bill Alderson

  For whatever is born of God overcomes [ nikao ] the world [ kosmos ] , and this is the victory [ nike ] that has overcome the world — our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?       1 John 5:4-5 Merriam-Webster defines victory as: 1. the overcoming of an enemy or antagonist and 2.   achievement of mastery or success in a struggle or endeavor against odds or difficulties. In both cases, it is a triumph over some enemy, either a person or persons, or some challenge of life. The above verses suggest enemies against every believer represented by the world, the cosmos, the organized system that governs the physical world in which we live. John explains in an earlier passage that any love for the world or anything in it is an insult to one’s relationship with God:   Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all...

Enoch was the seventh generation from Adam, the son of Jared, and was followed by his son Methuselah. He lived to be 365 years old, and then God took him without seeing death (Genesis 5:24). Enoch pleased God since he lived his life by faith (Hebrews 11:5-6). Enoch means “dedicated.” His son’s name, Methuselah, is made up of two Hebrew words, meth meaning “death” and selah meaning “to send.” The spelling suggests the name can be translated as a Hebrew sentence, meaning “when he is dead, it will be sent.” Since Methuselah died the same year as the flood (actually one week before the flood according to the Ancient Book of Jasher and the same day Noah entered the Ark – Genesis 7:1-4), it can be speculated that Enoch named his son with an eye to the coming disaster. Enoch addressed many of his statements in this book to Methuselah and prophesied about the flood (Enoch 91).   If legends are to be believed, Enoch passed his book and other writings to Noah, who preserved them in the A...