This is an odd one. Ephesians and Peter use a one word term (Greek) literally meaning "chief corner" as to where all the other NT verses use two words literally saying "head corner".

Capstone seems to be an NIV choice. Everything else chooses "cornerstone" consistently or the KJV "head of the corner". Even the NLT uses cornerstone !!!!

:confused: What were they thinking?

Tony replied:I'm a little thick today, Bro. Bones. To which word is your "That" referring?

"head of the corner". I've heard my dad and grandfather use the term many times, once while building a stone smokehouse in KY. If the foundation was not 100 percent level the head of the corner was the first cornerstone laid to take a shift in weight also.

A great series of books is Joseph and Frances Gies series of medieval books: Life In A Medieval Castle, Life In A Medieval City, Life In A Medieval Town, etc. They are available in used copies on AMAZON, good readable copies going for 2-3 dollars apiece. They give castle, cathedral, and other building constuction methods and life in this period in general.

Grace and peace brother

Tony

They were thinking a "bible version" with appeal outside of "Christians" Monk. In occultism "Jesus" is an Avatar, an "Ascended Master", and through multiple lives(reincarnation)these people ascend up the ladder to "godhood", with this "Jesus" as the NIV says, the "capstone", the tip of a pyramid. All this is just recycled Hinduism.

I'm doing a little study on something John Hinton put me onto, the phrase "new order" being found in several versions.

Grace and peace

Tony

This is an excellent dialogue going here, regarding the fraudulent New Age versions of the Bible. I was once engaged to a man who I found out was a 22nd degree Freemason. We were living in different states, so I wasn't aware of all of his life and what he was involved in. He was the member of a Baptist Church and seemed to be very devoted to studying the Bible.

To me, Freemasonry and Biblical Truth cannot be mixed!! I was totally caught off-guard that he would be so enmeshed in such a group. I tried so hard to show him the evidence of Freemasonry. He just kept denying it, saying that they were all "good Christians" at his lodge, and that they enjoyed doing charity work. I've read that the charity work is nothing more than a cover for the true CORE nature of the Freemasons. I've read a book "Masonry, Beyond the Light" by William Schnoebelen. He spent nine years as a Mason. Then someone witnessed to him and he became a Christian. The next time he attended his Masonic lodge, he felt a very ODD feeling. He had been involved in other evil things as well and completely LEFT it behind him and embraced his new life as a Christian. He explained in his book that there are really over 90 levels of Masonry - not just the 33 degrees that we hear about! And it gets more and more satanic, the higher you go.

Sadly, I had to break-off the engagement with this man.

How does one help someone to SEE the TRUTH and to break free from the Masons?

Jassy

Jassy, I am somewhat of an agnostic as far as "supernatural" and "occultic" things goes. While our war is spiritual, those powers and principalities were defeated at Calvary. To me, a Wicca, a spirit medium, a Congo witch doctor and a Catholic priest are all equally damned to hell. Whatever tries to obscure the gospel of Christ is "occultic" to me. For that, you have a center of occultism in every American city in your local Catholic Church.

My grandfather was 3rd Degree Mason. He was a storekeeper and quit after he got to 3rd Degree. He was also a Pentecostal holiness preacher, and found the god they worshipped was not Jesus Christ, just the all-inclusive, nebulous Grand Architect Of The Universe that Satan hides behind. That's another spiritual disease that can't resist the gospel of Christ. In practical day to day life, the Masons desire to monopolize any and all of your local legal, law enforcement, judicial, religious, and business activity. I know this for a fact because I know several ex Masons of high degree. My late father-in-law was 33rd Degree Scottish Rite who blamed me for leading his daughter off into fundamentalist Christianity. He explained they were merely a brotherhood for making good men better men. I replied then that there are two kinds of men, "good" and "better". All animals are equal, some are more equal than others I guess.

The perspective we need to maintain on these secret societies is that the Mormons, the Masons, The "illuminati" The Bilderburgers and Trilateral Commission, The Birchers and the Communists all have the same secrets. If you stand the Masons up against the Republican or Democrat Party you'll find about the same number of "saved" people in both groups: very few. The REAL conspiracy is in you local mystery of iniquity who sacrifices Christ 3 million times a day and will compromise with Islam, descended from Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, in the last days against Israel, the descendants of the child of promise, Isaac.

Preach the gospel of Christ to all of them, they are all lost and Christ died for all of them. Jew or Gentile, Mason or Mormon, I make no distinction between them.

Grace and peace

Tony

AMEN Tony!

There really is a common thread that runs through them all - going way back to the Tower of Babel. You are so right that Christ, by His sacrifice on the Cross, defeated them all. It is true that Masons often hold positions. My ex-fiance told me that there were members who were judges, sheriffs, policemen, business owners, teachers, professors, lawyers, etc. He said that it would help his career. I don't know whether these men are honestly unaware of the true nature of it, or they are willfully involved for what they might gain by it. They ought first to think about what they might LOSE by it - namely their salvation!

I had a talk with the minister of his church and asked him if he was aware that several members of his church (a large independent Baptist church) were Masons. And I asked him if that concerned him. He said, first of all, that I was right to be concerned, and that he was "working on it" in his own way. He said the most powerful way is prayer. Yet I thought to myself, if a minister is afraid to speak out against sin from the pulpit, what power does he have against evil? I think that he probably feared the high positions of these Masons in his church - not to mention their monetary contributions to the church!

I did utilize prayer and prayed often for my ex-fiance. But, in the end... I realized that my only recourse was to disconnect myself from him and remain on the right straight and narrow path - as he was stepping off onto that broad path that veers off-course.

Jassy

Jassy praise God for your devotion to Him and staying on the straight and narrow path! :)

That would have been a disasterous union. I'm sure it was a painful decision at the time. The path is narrow. And, the longer I walk on it, I find the more straight and narrow it gets.

God bless sis

Sister, a Christian can't lose salvation for joining the Masons. A Christian can't lose salvation for any reason. Some people claim because of a verse in Hebrews says salvation can be lost is the reason. Well, the verse in Hebrews says you also can't get it back once you lose it. How is this resolved? It's resolved if we see the Scriptures must be rightly divided as Paul talls us is the manner in Eph. 2. Hebrews is Ages To Come, Tribulation doctrine and we see people in the Tribulation taking the Mark of The Beast and getting eternal damnation for it. Sister, what can separate us from the love of Christ? The god worshiped in Freemasonry would like to think he can, he can't.

A personal note here Jassy: A man who don't love you more than his "career" ain't worth having. He may think being a Mason is going to help his "career"; they are just as cutthroat as any other fraternity. He could have left the Masons and still had a "career", I think he would have had a plus, and that plus would have been you. He made his decision and now has to live with it.

Many people join, as this ex-finacee' of yours, merely for expediency's sake in order to rise up the career ladder as you mention, or my grand dad, who thought he'd be able to merely help people. He quit, and nothing happened to him, my grand dad was a well liked man, and like Ananias in Acts 9, he received a well report among his fellow Christians, but you didn't mess with him.

An interesting thing in history to study is the link between Garibaldi in Italy, who founded both the Italian Masonry and the Sicilian Mafia. One thing in common runs through all these "secret" societies: They all have the same "secrets".

Grace and peace sister

Tony