Posted by: pastorapbell | March 26, 2026

From Passover to “Easter”: Recovering the Prophetic Power of the death of the Lamb of God and Exposing the Good Friday Myth.

Introduction

The transformation of the biblical Passover into what is widely called “Easter” represents one of the most profound theological shifts in church history. What God instituted as a perpetual memorial of deliverance, covenant, and prophetic redemption has, in many traditions, been reinterpreted through the lens of culture, reduced to symbols of fertility, seasonal renewal, and religious custom. This shift not only obscures the original intent of the feast but also distorts the prophetic timeline surrounding the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. A careful reading of Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 (NRSV) reveals that Passover is not merely historical it is prophetic, precise, and deeply connected to the Messiah’s work. When properly understood, it also challenges the commonly accepted notion of “Good Friday” as the day of crucifixion.

Scriptural integrity

In Exodus 12, the Passover is instituted in the context of divine judgment and deliverance. The Israelites are enslaved in Egypt, and God declares that He will strike down every firstborn in the land. Yet He provides a means of escape through the blood of a lamb. Exodus 12:5–7 (NRSV) states that the lamb must be “without blemish, a year-old male,” and its blood must be applied to the doorposts and lintel of each house. This act establishes a foundational theological principle: salvation through substitutionary sacrifice.

Verse 13 declares, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you…” (NRSV). Deliverance is not based on personal merit, but on the visible application of the blood. This moment introduces a prophetic pattern that finds its fulfilment in the Messiah. The lamb in Egypt was not the end of the story it was a shadow of something greater.

Equally important is Exodus 12:14: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance” (NRSV). Passover is not optional, nor is it temporary. It is an enduring divine appointment meant to anchor the identity of God’s people in the memory of redemption.

Leviticus 23 reinforces this by placing Passover within the framework of God’s appointed times. Verse 4 declares, “These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them” (NRSV). Verse 5 specifies, “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord” (NRSV). These feasts are not human traditions they are divine appointments (moedim Is Hebrew for appointed times), rehearsals of God’s redemptive plan.

Immediately following Passover is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Leviticus 23:6 states, “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread” (NRSV). Leaven, often symbolic of sin, is removed, pointing to purification following deliverance. Then comes the Feast of First Fruits (Leviticus 23:10–11), where the first sheaf of the harvest is waved before the Lord as an offering. These feasts are not isolated they form a prophetic sequence: sacrifice (Passover), sanctification (Unleavened Bread), and resurrection/first harvest (First Fruits).

This sequence is crucial for understanding the timeline of the Messiah’s death and resurrection and it directly challenges the traditional “Good Friday” narrative.

In Matthew 12:40 (NRSV), Jesus declares, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” This statement is precise. It does not allow for symbolic or partial interpretation. Three days and three nights constitute a full period of approximately 72 hours. This period also indicates that the individual was dead and according to Jewish tradition, the soul had returned to God.

The traditional Good Friday to Sunday morning timeline does not satisfy this requirement. From Friday evening to Sunday morning is, at most, two nights and one full day, far short of the three days and three nights explicitly stated by Jesus. This discrepancy has led many to reconsider the timing of the crucifixion in light of the biblical feasts.

John’s Gospel provides a critical clue. In John 19:31 (NRSV), it states that the day following the crucifixion was a “high day” not merely a weekly Sabbath, but a special Sabbath associated with a feast. This aligns with the first day of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:7), which is itself a Sabbath regardless of the day of the week on which it falls.

If the crucifixion occurred on the day of Passover (the 14th of the first month), and the following day was the high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread (the 15th), then the crucifixion did not necessarily occur on a Friday. Instead, it could have occurred midweek commonly proposed as Wednesday allowing for three full days and three full nights in the tomb, culminating in a resurrection at the close of the weekly Sabbath, just before the first day of the week.

When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

This aligns perfectly with the Feast of First Fruits. According to Leviticus 23:11 (NRSV), the sheaf is waved “on the day after the sabbath.” The Messiah, as the “first fruits” of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:20), rises in alignment with this appointed time. Thus, His resurrection is not random, it is prophetically timed according to the feast.

The Good Friday tradition, while deeply ingrained in many Christian communities, does not align with the full testimony of Scripture when examined through the lens of the appointed feasts. It represents an inherited tradition that, like the renaming of Passover as Easter, may obscure the precision and prophetic beauty of God’s redemptive plan.

The shift from Passover to Easter further compounds this issue. The term “Easter” is not found in most modern translations of Scripture and carries associations with pre-Christian fertility symbols such as eggs and rabbits. These symbols emphasize life cycles and reproduction rather than sacrifice, covenant, and redemption. While they may hold cultural significance, they do not originate from the biblical narrative.

By contrast, the Passover is centred entirely on the Lamb. It is about blood, deliverance, and divine judgment. It is solemn, intentional, and deeply theological. Exodus 12:26–27 (NRSV) anticipates future generations asking, “What do you mean by this observance?” and instructs that the answer must point back to the Lord’s act of passing over the houses of Israel in Egypt. The meaning is fixed, it is not open to reinterpretation based on cultural trends.

To replace or overshadow this with symbols of fertility is to shift the focus from redemption to nature, from covenant to culture. It risks trivializing what Scripture presents as one of the most sacred and defining moments in the history of God’s people.

Recovering the biblical understanding of Passover also restores the unity of Scripture. The Exodus is not an isolated event; it is the foundation upon which the entire redemptive narrative is built. The Messiah’s death at Passover, His sinless body represented in Unleavened Bread, and His resurrection as First Fruits demonstrate that the feasts are not obsolete, they are fulfilled. They reveal the continuity of God’s plan from Genesis to Revelation.

Moreover, the simplicity of the original observance stands in stark contrast to modern practices. The Passover meal includes unleavened bread and bitter herbs, symbols of haste and suffering. There is no emphasis on spectacle or entertainment. The focus is remembrance, reverence, and teaching. It is designed to shape identity, not merely to create an experience.

The challenge for the contemporary church is therefore not merely to critique tradition, but to return to Scripture. This involves re-examining inherited practices in light of the Word of God and being willing to realign with the biblical narrative where discrepancies exist.

Conclusion

The Passover is not just a Jewish tradition it is a divine revelation of redemption. It points directly to the Messiah, the Lamb of God, whose blood delivers from judgment. It establishes a pattern that is fulfilled with precision in His death and resurrection. To obscure this with misaligned timelines or culturally derived symbols is to lose sight of the depth and power of the gospel.

In conclusion, the renaming of Passover as Easter and the perpetuation of the Good Friday crucifixion narrative both illustrate how tradition can sometimes overshadow Scripture. By returning to Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 (NRSV), and by taking seriously the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:40, we recover a clearer, richer, and more accurate understanding of God’s redemptive work. The Passover stands as a prophetic masterpiece one that calls every generation not to cultural adaptation, but to covenant remembrance.

Leave a Comment

Posted in The Prophetic | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | March 26, 2026

From Passover to “Easter”: Recovering the Prophetic Power of the death of the Lamb of God and Exposing the Good Friday Myth.

By Pastor Alton P Bell – March 2026

Introduction

The transformation of the biblical Passover into what is widely called “Easter” represents one of the most profound theological shifts in church history. What God instituted as a perpetual memorial of deliverance, covenant, and prophetic redemption has, in many traditions, been reinterpreted through the lens of culture, reduced to symbols of fertility, seasonal renewal, and religious custom. This shift not only obscures the original intent of the feast but also distorts the prophetic timeline surrounding the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. A careful reading of Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 (NRSV) reveals that Passover is not merely historical it is prophetic, precise, and deeply connected to the Messiah’s work. When properly understood, it also challenges the commonly accepted notion of “Good Friday” as the day of crucifixion.

Scriptural integrity

In Exodus 12, the Passover is instituted in the context of divine judgment and deliverance. The Israelites are enslaved in Egypt, and God declares that He will strike down every firstborn in the land. Yet He provides a means of escape through the blood of a lamb. Exodus 12:5–7 (NRSV) states that the lamb must be “without blemish, a year-old male,” and its blood must be applied to the doorposts and lintel of each house. This act establishes a foundational theological principle: salvation through substitutionary sacrifice.

Verse 13 declares, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you…” (NRSV). Deliverance is not based on personal merit, but on the visible application of the blood. This moment introduces a prophetic pattern that finds its fulfilment in the Messiah. The lamb in Egypt was not the end of the story it was a shadow of something greater.

Equally important is Exodus 12:14: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance” (NRSV). Passover is not optional, nor is it temporary. It is an enduring divine appointment meant to anchor the identity of God’s people in the memory of redemption.

Leviticus 23 reinforces this by placing Passover within the framework of God’s appointed times. Verse 4 declares, “These are the appointed festivals of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall celebrate at the time appointed for them” (NRSV). Verse 5 specifies, “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a Passover offering to the Lord” (NRSV). These feasts are not human traditions they are divine appointments (moedim Is Hebrew for appointed times), rehearsals of God’s redemptive plan.

Immediately following Passover is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Leviticus 23:6 states, “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread” (NRSV). Leaven, often symbolic of sin, is removed, pointing to purification following deliverance. Then comes the Feast of First Fruits (Leviticus 23:10–11), where the first sheaf of the harvest is waved before the Lord as an offering. These feasts are not isolated they form a prophetic sequence: sacrifice (Passover), sanctification (Unleavened Bread), and resurrection/first harvest (First Fruits).

This sequence is crucial for understanding the timeline of the Messiah’s death and resurrection and it directly challenges the traditional “Good Friday” narrative.

In Matthew 12:40 (NRSV), Jesus declares, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” This statement is precise. It does not allow for symbolic or partial interpretation. Three days and three nights constitute a full period of approximately 72 hours. This period also indicates that the individual was dead and according to Jewish tradition, the soul had returned to God.

The traditional Good Friday to Sunday morning timeline does not satisfy this requirement. From Friday evening to Sunday morning is, at most, two nights and one full day, far short of the three days and three nights explicitly stated by Jesus. This discrepancy has led many to reconsider the timing of the crucifixion in light of the biblical feasts.

John’s Gospel provides a critical clue. In John 19:31 (NRSV), it states that the day following the crucifixion was a “high day” not merely a weekly Sabbath, but a special Sabbath associated with a feast. This aligns with the first day of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:7), which is itself a Sabbath regardless of the day of the week on which it falls.

If the crucifixion occurred on the day of Passover (the 14th of the first month), and the following day was the high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread (the 15th), then the crucifixion did not necessarily occur on a Friday. Instead, it could have occurred midweek commonly proposed as Wednesday allowing for three full days and three full nights in the tomb, culminating in a resurrection at the close of the weekly Sabbath, just before the first day of the week.

When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

This aligns perfectly with the Feast of First Fruits. According to Leviticus 23:11 (NRSV), the sheaf is waved “on the day after the sabbath.” The Messiah, as the “first fruits” of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:20), rises in alignment with this appointed time. Thus, His resurrection is not random, it is prophetically timed according to the feast.

The Good Friday tradition, while deeply ingrained in many Christian communities, does not align with the full testimony of Scripture when examined through the lens of the appointed feasts. It represents an inherited tradition that, like the renaming of Passover as Easter, may obscure the precision and prophetic beauty of God’s redemptive plan.

The shift from Passover to Easter further compounds this issue. The term “Easter” is not found in most modern translations of Scripture and carries associations with pre-Christian fertility symbols such as eggs and rabbits. These symbols emphasize life cycles and reproduction rather than sacrifice, covenant, and redemption. While they may hold cultural significance, they do not originate from the biblical narrative.

By contrast, the Passover is centred entirely on the Lamb. It is about blood, deliverance, and divine judgment. It is solemn, intentional, and deeply theological. Exodus 12:26–27 (NRSV) anticipates future generations asking, “What do you mean by this observance?” and instructs that the answer must point back to the Lord’s act of passing over the houses of Israel in Egypt. The meaning is fixed, it is not open to reinterpretation based on cultural trends.

To replace or overshadow this with symbols of fertility is to shift the focus from redemption to nature, from covenant to culture. It risks trivializing what Scripture presents as one of the most sacred and defining moments in the history of God’s people.

Recovering the biblical understanding of Passover also restores the unity of Scripture. The Exodus is not an isolated event; it is the foundation upon which the entire redemptive narrative is built. The Messiah’s death at Passover, His sinless body represented in Unleavened Bread, and His resurrection as First Fruits demonstrate that the feasts are not obsolete, they are fulfilled. They reveal the continuity of God’s plan from Genesis to Revelation.

Moreover, the simplicity of the original observance stands in stark contrast to modern practices. The Passover meal includes unleavened bread and bitter herbs, symbols of haste and suffering. There is no emphasis on spectacle or entertainment. The focus is remembrance, reverence, and teaching. It is designed to shape identity, not merely to create an experience.

The challenge for the contemporary church is therefore not merely to critique tradition, but to return to Scripture. This involves re-examining inherited practices in light of the Word of God and being willing to realign with the biblical narrative where discrepancies exist.

Conclusion

The Passover is not just a Jewish tradition it is a divine revelation of redemption. It points directly to the Messiah, the Lamb of God, whose blood delivers from judgment. It establishes a pattern that is fulfilled with precision in His death and resurrection. To obscure this with misaligned timelines or culturally derived symbols is to lose sight of the depth and power of the gospel.

In conclusion, the renaming of Passover as Easter and the perpetuation of the Good Friday crucifixion narrative both illustrate how tradition can sometimes overshadow Scripture. By returning to Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 (NRSV), and by taking seriously the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:40, we recover a clearer, richer, and more accurate understanding of God’s redemptive work. The Passover stands as a prophetic masterpiece one that calls every generation not to cultural adaptation, but to covenant remembrance.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: pastorapbell | January 17, 2025

Joining the dots… unlocking the prophecies for today’s people of God

Our teaching series will unpack the prophecies and reconcile them with historical data to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the numbers given by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Daniel and ratified by Jesus, are amazingly accurate once we know how to work them out. They are not symbolic as some scholars assert but occurs just as the angel Gabriel defined. Below, I outline a curriculum to enable all believers to benefit from this revealed knowledge.  This series started on the 15th January till 26th February 2025.

Curriculum

  1. Working out the times in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Leviticus.
  2. Understanding Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy.
  3. The sins of Israel and Judah in Ezekiel 4 and their relation to Daniel’s 70 weeks.
  4. The little horn in Daniel 7:8.
  5. The four horsemen and their meanings.
  6. The opening of the seven seals post-Roman Empire (476 A.D.) with historical context.
  7. The timeline of God’s people taken into slavery and the distress never seen before.
  8. Events during the times of distress or tribulation and their duration.
  9. The significance of the Arab slave trade.
  10. The Trans-Atlantic Chattel slave trade in the biblical narrative.
  11. The final week of Daniel’s 70 weeks and its historical context.
  12. The identity of the whore of Babylon and the 10 kings with her.
  13. The role of America and modern Israel in this context.

Leave a Comment

Posted in End Times Prophecies, The Prophetic

Posted by: pastorapbell | January 5, 2016

Sing O You Barren One!!

Isaiah 54 – the word from the Lord to His church.

Today as we reflect on the first two verses from Isaiah 54, let us hear what the lord is saying to us, His church.

untitled (12)

In verse 1 we are informed that the children of the desolate will be more than those of the Lord’s bride. Clearly this is telling us that those who are married to the Lord. i.e. His Bride the church, are in the minority. And so in 2016 this is the case. Those who stand up for truth and righteousness and endeavour to life according to scriptural imperatives are being marginalised, labelled as bigots and demonised in the UK, while every effort is made not to offend those of other faiths and to accommodate them. Today 5/1/2016, Pastor James McConnell will hear the decision from the courts in Ireland for preaching that Islam is an instrument of the devil.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUJFIMciQA8 for full message on YouTube. Whilst in Christendom, leading clergymen and clergywomen are embracing same sex marriages and the LGBT agenda to display inclusiveness. The children of the desolate woman is indeed becoming more than those who are married to the Lord!!

All is not lost. We are encouraged to sing, burst out into songs of praise and worship to our God and get ready for revival, as those who don’t know our God (the children of the desolate woman) will experience his love and the peace that comes from embracing him as Lord of all. We are encouraged to love those who persecute us, pray for those who despitefully use us (Matt 5:43ff) and to demonstrate the covenant of peace that our God has established. His kingdom is here and Jesus is the king of this kingdom. Earlier in his pronouncements, Isaiah tells us that he will be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace, his kingdom will be established on the pillars of Justice and Righteousness and will last forever (Isa 9:6&7).

As we start this New Year, let us revive the need for continued intercession and consistent bible study, rather like the first Christians did. As Clifford Hill points out in his ‘Outlook for 2016’[1], there is a great need for the people of God and followers of Jesus to understand what is happening across the globe. The political and religious leaders are blind and are misleading people, hence Jesus laid this charge against them, when he said, “This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Thought seeing, they do not see; though hearing they do not hear or understand’. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understand; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving’” (Matt 13:13-14). That same charge is pertinent for our political and spiritual leaders today, as the same spiritual blindness affects them. They do not understand the purposes of God neither do they know how to enter the council of the Lord to hear from Him.

If we understand the purposes of God which are clearly revealed in the Bible, the Holy Spirit then enables us to discern what God is doing today. When we only look and listen to the news with our human understanding we fail to realise what God is doing. In recent years God has been exposing the corruption in Western society by turning the searchlight of his Truth upon the greed and corruption in the banking industry, among our politicians and business leaders, and exposing the moral corruption of celebrities. The focus of his penetrating Truth has now swung onto Islam and the atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria which are exposing the very heart of Islam. Saudi Arabia executed more people last year by beheadings and stoning than ISIS; and all this violence is committed in the name of Allah, the god of Islam in fulfilment of instructions in the Koran.

Finally, we are encouraged by the prophet Isaiah, to enlarge the site of our tents, that is, we are to make preparation for the harvest that is coming. As we prepare spiritually by fasting and prayer, let us get our own houses in order and ask God to save our families and those whom we have influence over. Then let us cry out for our towns and cities and finally for our country and those who are facing persecution across the globe.

Let us embrace this year as the year of multiplication.

HDR-Ministries – Alton Bell

[1] See Issachar ministries UK, Issachar Comments Papers, ‘Outlook for 2016’. www.issicharministries.co.uk

 

Leave a Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: pastorapbell | January 2, 2015

The Power and Value of Forgiveness

Whilst Jesus was physically on earth, his followers, called disciples, asked him to teach them how to pray. So he taught them to pray and today many people pray in the same manner but call this prayer the Lord’s prayer.

Prayer and fastingIt is obvious to those who are discerning, that this is the disciples prayer and the most important part of the prayer is the line that says “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The reason why I think that this line is so important, is because of the serious implications that unforgiveness poses. Everyone has the power to choose and the choice to forgive or to keep things in our hearts is a personal one. The writer of Hebrews alludes to the dangers of allowing anger and bitterness to control our lives, when he encourages us to “Pursue peace with everyone”, Heb. 12:14. Since a life of peace and contentment, leads to Holiness which allows us to see God.

Conversely, a life of unforgiveness and anger, which are characterised by keeping malice, being involved in quarrels, dissensions, envy, strife and so on (see Gal. 5:19ff) leads to bitterness and regret. The root of unforgiveness when watered by anger and angry situations, produces a harvest of the flesh which exhibit themselves as various types of cancer (liver and pancreatic cancer being the most common). This limits our effectiveness as witnesses for God and reduces our life expectancy to 70 years or below (see Psalm 90 which states the fate of those who disobey God’s precepts).

In sum, as we start this New Year 2015, let us start by humbling ourselves, confessing our sins and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us things that have remained hidden for years. And as the apostle Paul reminds us, ‘love is patient; love is kind; love is not boastful or arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things hopes all things and endures all things (1.Cor.13:4ff). As soon as we forgive those who wronged us, we allow love (God) to guide us.

Verse for New Year:  Phil. 3:13; Forgetting what is behind me, I press forward to what is ahead.

 

Leave a Comment

Posted in Restoration | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | January 16, 2014

Why should I fast and pray?

At the beginning of each year we generally discipline ourselves through a time of fasting and praying. We believe it at this time that repentancethe Lord speaks to us to set the agenda for the coming months. There is a desperate need for all those who believe in a God who sees, hears and knows the bigger picture, to rebuild and repair the various walls in society, our families and our finances that are broken. Consequently, when we read the narrative of Isaiah 58, we are reminded that there is an outcome from our fasting and praying and the results should be repentance from all of us who have sinned and reparation and restoration of the various things that are not working.

These are the immediate requirements from the Christian communities. Isaiah states that the real purpose of fasting is to break yokes that ensnare us to particular life styles and remove burdensome situations or relationships that oppress us. Fasting should make us and our situation better.

As the people of God, we are called to be the conscience of the state and as those who stand up and preach righteousness and justice. However, the vast majority of our societies have lost their moral compass and are heading wide eyed toward an abyss.

Recently I visited the houses of Parliament to hear people from the local community in North London argue against the verdict given by a jury of 8 out of ten individuals regarding the killing of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, North London on the 4th August 2011.  Although it is regrettable that a young man lost his life, seemingly without having the supposed weapon anyway near him, unlike an armed gunman, Raoul Moat, who shot and blinded a traffic policeman a year earlier, and who they negotiated with until he shot himself, Mark Duggan was associated with gangs and guns rather than extolling the discipline of fasting and praying or even learning the ten commandments on which our society was built.

Moral amnesia needs to be remedied and addressed post haste. And this is what the community activists should be advocating. Let us get our children and young people back into our churches. And for God’s sake and for the sake of humanity let us preach righteousness, justice and peace. The disciplines extolled and practiced by Jesus is the only way that our young men, communities and nation will be hauled back from the abyss. As we start the New Year, let us all remember that God is real. The devil and his minions are real and that there is no repentance in the grave.  Read Isaiah 58.

Leave a Comment

Posted in God's Order, Restoration | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | October 31, 2013

Who am I, Surely not an ethnic minority!

The BibleEach individual is placed in a location and given responsibility and restriction about what they can and cannot do. Above all, the Lord has called all us to watch and pray. When humanity was created, he was placed in a particular location and given specific instructions and prohibitions.  Over time, Adam forgot those prohibitions and did the unthinkable. He disobeyed the instructions from God. The ability to forget has its merits, however, the propensity to follow simply instructions has far greater rewards.

Like Adam, we are all located in a particular place in time, to fulfill the purposes for which God in his sovereignty has called and located us. Notwithstanding that we have been displaced from our original location, there is a master plan. So wherever you find yourself, find out from the creator what his original plan was for your life and the purpose for you being located in this particular place at this particular time.

Once we have the blueprint for our existence, we are then able to do exactly what were are called and designed to do. Adam was given social, ecological and theological responsibility to ensure that the created order was maintained and sustained. In our context, we also have these moral responsibilities and must challenge injustices, malpractices and actions and practices that are designed to destroy God original plan and purposes for humanity. Structural and systemic evil must be challenges and the wrongs of the past righted.

The domination of one people group by another damages the original plan of God. The words used to describe people who are not like you is also problematic, in that these terms are generally derogatory. By displacing someone and then referring to them as the ‘ethnic’ minority suggests that they are inferior to you. since the original translation of the word ‘ethnic or ethnikos in the Greek, means heathen. Did God create heathens or is this a man-made phenomenon?

Generations of displaced Africans are still searching for their true selves. There are many who have no concept of their ‘Blackness’ and have brought into the colonial ideology of ‘pigmentocracy’ that located people in society according to the shade of their skin or their skin tone.

Each and every one of us are the children of God and have been created in his image. That image is borne and displayed by Jesus Christ and is not physical but spiritual. It is his character. And so the image we must present is found in scripture and not in glossy magazines such as Time or Ebony. The image is depicted in Galatians 5.22. do read it and practice it as best you can.

Leave a Comment

Posted in God's Order | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | October 18, 2013

Breaking the sin of slavery and putting the pieces back together again.

Today in our various western societies, many families descended from former slaves and slave owners are dysfunctional. This dysfunction stock-photo-19788392-father-feeding-son-with-mother-lookingdid not occur in a vacuum and passes down from one generation to the next generation unless the cycle is broken. The descendants from the African Diaspora inherited this legacy. And with this inheritance comes the breakdown we see in our societies and the infighting that still mars us and keeps us ‘down’ today. Many people still live in denial and suggest that, with the abolition slavery over 175 years ago in 1838, that was that and all will be normal. How wrong they were! It was not until the 1960s that the dream of civil liberties started to be realised. There is a saying that goes like this: Rosa [Parks] sat so that Martin [Luther King Jr.] could walk. And Martin walked so that Barak [Obama] could fly.

However, 175 years on, many black men have never being ‘fathered’. Many young black women are still having children for multiple men. Many children are growing up without the knowledge and understanding of what marriage is all about. Does the legacy of slavery still exist? Too right! It is alive and well and needs to be broken.

The current situation is further exacerbated by the continued problem of shadism within the black community, this is a direct legacy of the pigmentocratic stratification, [locating people in society because of the colour of their skin] in society under British colonialism in particular.

To rebuild society we need people to understand and practice the biblical institution of marriage. We need people to understand the impact that the past has on their future and the power there is in the blood of Jesus to break every curse from the past.

Read the letter to the Galatians chapter 3, focussing on v.13.

Contact  Marva and Alton Bell if you would like to attend or have us present a marriage seminar to your community.

Leave a Comment

Posted in Restoration | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | October 8, 2013

Can a man be faithful to one woman in today’s sexualised culture?

For the next couple of blogs I want to ask the question, is marriage still the best option for humanity and for the African Diaspora in particular?

Slavery ChainsA few weeks ago I asked my grand nephew when was he going to marry the mother of his young child. He said to me, “he did not believe in marriage” and that he was still living with her and looking after his child. Within my own wider family structure, there are many children produced by one man and many different women.

It this unique for my family and where does the notion that I don’t need to marry actually come from?

Firstly, let me quote Fredrick Douglas, who said, “in slavery there is no such thing as family” therefore having children and leaving them to fend for themselves was commonplace. During the period of African chattel enslavement circa 1500-1838 (1865 in America), it was illegal for slaves to be taught to read and write, to have any liaison with a ‘white woman’ or to legally marry.

The legality of marriage pans into insignificance if one does not understand the underlying principle and the premise of marriage.

The biblical narrative of Genesis 1:27, 2:23-24 & 5:2 sets out the basis on which the institution of marriage is to be built. Jesus Christ confirmed and re-iterated this, as did the apostle Paul in their New Testament pronouncements (Matt 19:4-6, Eph 5:22).

Marriage is the sexual (one flesh), emotional, psychological, financial, spiritual and cultural union between one man and one woman. If you have had sex with more than one person other than your lifetime partner (wife/husband), either before or after your legal marriage, you are an adulterer and need deliverance. The sexual bond creates a ‘soul tie’, which indelibly links one individual to the other spiritually. If this tie is not broken, then issues will appear in future relationships. [more about soul ties and their impact later].

Marriage is a God idea not just a good idea and is for life not just for a few Christmases!

Read the scriptures quoted above. Get a copy of my book from http://www.hdr-ministries.co.uk

Leave a Comment

Posted in God's Order | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: pastorapbell | September 9, 2013

Yesterday evening I went to see the film, ‘Songs of Redemption, breaking the chains” and participate in the post screening debate, at the seventh ‘I will tell’ film festival in Pimlico SW1V. The film graphically show the experiences of several men incarcerated in a prison in Kingston songs-of-redemption-02Jamaica, serving sentences from three years to life. The majority of the inmates pass their time by writing, composing and singing songs in which they share their stories. For them this is cathartic, as it gives them an opportunity to reflect on their crime, come to terms with their lot and hope for a better future.

This is a chilling reminder of the restorative work that needs to be done among the African Caribbean Diaspora to bringing about healing, deliverance and restoration. What we see in this film, is the fruit of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its continued impact six generation after manumission.  The inmates present human faces that belie the atrocities they have committed. One young man in particular, speaks about his crime of killing his ‘baby mother’ after being intoxicated with alcohol and marijuana and then feeling to hang himself.  These actions are typical of those inflicted on their ancestors hundreds of years ago. Emasculating the male, using the female as a ‘breeder’ to produce ‘picaninnies’, creating a disconnect between fathers and their children, instituting a cycle of poverty and depravity, causing folks to hate themselves and to beat their off-springs like animals are the back drop to all that is going on.

This documentary highlights the reason why the community needs to work together to deal with the real issues of systemic evil. As the slavers did 180 years ago, the penal justice system seeks to destroy the creativity and the God given ability that these people possess, but somehow they are still alive to tell their story.

Thank God for Jesus, the liberator of humanity!

 

Leave a Comment

Posted in Restoration | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Older Posts »

Categories