Salvogesis

   We had a good time at the  Rally Day: Picnic in the Park  the other day. It was a really great mix of the parts of our Salvation Army group in the Valley. Many of you here today, of course, were there on Friday. There were a number of volunteers and their families; there were a number of staff and their families; there were a number of children we know from kids’ club and other places; there were customers from the store; there were some of our friends who use or have used our services over the years. It was even an outreach as some people just dropped by and I even saw one or two people I know from the community as well: it was great. It was really great to have people from these different parts of The Salvation Army family here have an opportunity to do something together and maybe get to know each other a little better. For the second year in a row this  Picnic in the Park  doubled as our Rally Day. Rally Day is a word we use in The Salvation Army to ...

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.” Did you know that some scholars consider that they are actually one book? Ezra-Nehemiah has two distinct sections pertaining to 1) the Temple (Ezra 1-6) and 2) Holiness (Ezra 7- Nehemiah 13) [1]  and some people even lump them together with 2 Chronicles as one whole work – if you flip back to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles you will notice that Ezra begins – with overlap – right where 2 Chronicles leaves off. [2] When I was going through teacher training many years ago, we were always advised to establish prerequisite knowledge prior to commencing a unit. There are a num...