Manna from Heaven. What the Grossness? (Ex. 16)

The actual identity of manna is unknown, it could be the sap of trees, the secretions of bugs like aphids or something totally unknown today. The important point is how it is used in the various tales in the Bible.In Exodus, it is a bread substitute and the purpose of the story is to reinforce the tale about resting on the Sabbath. That is the significance of Exodus 16.In Number 11 it is again a bread substitute but the point of the story is slightly different. Here the point is to appreciate what you have been given and quit bitching.In Joshua manna disappears. Once the folk arrived back into settled areas where crops were grown, it was no longer necessary to use substitutes, the grains themselves were available, and so the substitute disappears from the story.But in none of the tales is manna the important thing. It is simply a less than satisfactory substitute for bread, a plot device used to make more important points.That God does provide.That we should take time to rest and reflect.That we should give thanks for what we do have because we really could have less.And finally, that better things may become available than what we have now.When all the attention is on the substance manna, we tend to lose sight of the important underlying purposes of the stories. It is not about what manna is, or even if it existed or even if the stories are true, but rather "What can we learn about ourselves from the stories?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

In response to the contribution of jar, (an answer which I suspect he will not like ): Manna in the Bible, is a type of Christ as the incarnated God Who came down for man's sustenance, nourishment, life supply, and to change man's constitution from Egyptian food to heavenly food.The leeks and garlic of Egypt for which the Israelites longed for represented the "food" for their souls which they derived from the fallen world under Satan.The manna was the mysterious "What Is It" that came from heaven. After eating Egyptian food the Israelites were constituted in the fibers of their body with Egyptian food. After the Exodus God changed their diet to heavenly "What Is It?" - the Manna.By eating this manna for forty years the very tissues of their body were constituted with this heavenly food. This is a type of God imparting Christ into those whom He has redeemed from the fallen Satanic world. Christ fills them up and saturates their beings through their repeated ingestion of Him as the incarnated "food" from heaven. I think it is more a stress on daily and faithfully eating God incarnate. Taking in the incarnate God-Man Jesus Who said that He was the bread of life that came down to give life to the world.It is not a matter of once for all being saved. It is a matter of contacting Christ everyday to "eat" Him in His word. And then to be constituted and saturated with the living Christ that we take into our souls daily.To wait and not be up to date in contacting Christ is to be religious. This is trying to live by yesterday's experience of Christ. He is new and fresh every morning. To only try to live on yesterday's experience is like breeding worms in God's site.It is ugly to be religious but without the fresh experience of Christ. This is the typology suggested in saving the manna and trying to eat it the next day. It breed worms and stank.Rather each day was a fresh new day to experience the Bread of Life Jesus. In the wilderness it is the manna that typifies Christ. After they enter into the good land it is the fruit of the land which they labor on that represents Christ again. The manna is replaced by the riches of the good land which they Israelites labor on. Christ spent much of chapter 6 of John to emphasize the significance of the manna. The problem of the world is that it does not have the divine life of God. Fallen man, Paul writes, is "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18)This alienation from the life of God produces a kind of spiritual hunger deep within people. Christ is God incarnated who "came down". He did not come down by parachute or elevator. He did not come down by way of airplane or helocopter. He "came down" so to speak, by being God incarnated in a human man from Nazareth. He "came down" by way of incarnation - "The Word became flesh and taberbnacled among us" (John 1:14)To eat His flesh and to drink His blood is to fully believe and receive that God has become a man in Jesus Christ. In John Six it is really God Himself speaking that He has come down to us and we must receive Him as a God-man. We must eat His flesh and drink His blood. This is God Himself speaking to the world of His incarnation.Towards the end of the chapter we learn that the practical way to eat Him as the manna, and to eat His flesh and drink His blood is to receive His words which are spirit and life: It therefore practically comes down to man's need to daily take into himself by acceptance and belief the words of Jesus. The words are spirit and life and impart the life of God into our being when we receive them in faith. God wanted to changed the people's taste. He wanted to re-constitute them with the heavenly diet. He wanted this heavenly bread to so fill them every day that they would be constituted in the fibers of their being with the heavenly diet.The typology is of God transforming fallen sinners from being Satanified to being Christified. That is from being of this fallen age of Satan dwelling in man to the eternal age of God dwelling in man. That's a good meditation also. The topmost blessing in all the universe throughout all eternity - is that God gives to man Himself as eternal life. For God to dispense Himself into man is the topmost blessing." ... the word of Jehovah came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid Abram, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward." (Genesis 15:1)God tells Abraham that He Himself is the exceeding great reward to him. To give life; to give eternal life means to give God Himself to us to live within us. This is the thing that we must understand."The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) This means Jesus Chrirt is in a form in which He can convey God into man; dispenst God into man, impart God Himself into man. There is no higher gift. There is no greater reward.This is so against the human natural concept that it is hard to grasp. All the speaking of Chirst about giving eternal life or giving life means to give God Himself INTO man's being that man and God might be united in an "organic" union.To put it another way - for Christ to give life to man is for Christ to cause man to enter into the process in which God DUPLICATES many sons of God to be brothers of Christ - divinity and humanity united together to be a mingled reality. Christ, is what man hungers for. Christ is what sustains and nourishes this dying man. Christ is what man must take into himself and Christ is Who he must be filled with and re-constituted with.Think of the process of petrified wood. The wood remains in the flow of water until it is completely replaced by minierals. Where there was a piece of wood there is now a stone. The wood has become petrified through the long process of being in the flow of mineral rich water.This is similar to the process of Christification. God became a man to die for our redemption. Then this man became the life giving Spirit. "...the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor .15:45)As this life giving Spirit regenerates man and daily flows through man it gradually contitutes the person to be filled with the divine element of God Himself. He is Christified. God is dispensed into his or her being replacing the old damaged and fallen corrupted man. The Adamic nature is transformed through the dispensing of the Triune God into man.The final outcome of all of God's causing man to "eat" Christ as the Manna and to receive Christ as the life giving Spirit, is the New Jerusalem the city of God.The manna is again mentioned as the hidden manna in the book of Revelation. But I will not expound on that now. But it hails back to the same principle - that of the incarnated God imparting Himself to man for his "food", his nourishment in the divine life, and his reconstituting with the element of God to produce New Jerusalem the city of God in the end of the Bible.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I'm sorry but never has so little been said in so many words.Thanks for playing.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So manna is actually God, and, if we follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion...They ate their deity?? Isn't that worse than cannibalism?Anyway.

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The leeks and garlic of Egypt for which the Israelites longed for represented the "food" for their souls which they derived from the fallen world under Satan.

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Where does it say this? Or is this some interpretation again? Satan and his wily ways, eh?

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By eating this manna for forty years the very tissues of their body were constituted with this heavenly food. This is a type of God imparting Christ into those whom He has redeemed from the fallen Satanic world. Christ fills them up and saturates their beings through their repeated ingestion of Him as the incarnated "food" from heaven.

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Again, where does it say this? And why don't you find anything wrong with this eating of a god?

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To wait and not be up to date in contacting Christ is to be religious. This is trying to live by yesterday's experience of Christ. He is new and fresh every morning. To only try to live on yesterday's experience is like breeding worms in God's site.

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It is ugly to be religious but without the fresh experience of Christ. This is the typology suggested in saving the manna and trying to eat it the next day. It breed worms and stank.

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Rather each day was a fresh new day to experience the Bread of Life Jesus.

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I think you're preaching at us now, but damned if I can understand what you're trying to say.The rest of your post is the same. This is your interpretation of the bible, yes? Metaphorical and all that, because actually eating a divine being is probably a crime against, duh, the god you're eating.I can't see a reason to interpret these passages or take them as meaning other than exactly what they state. Moses took a bunch of Israelites off into the desert, and when they were hungry they found this manna stuff to eat and attributed it to their god providing for them. Seems straightforward enough. Your post looks like a rationalisation after the fact due to you believing that your god came to earth and fed his flesh and blood to his followers (yuck), and you want to project the same theme onto a passage that was apparently written before said god came to earth etc. etc.IRH

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Mat 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

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There may be a reference to Communion there.
(I don't know if that's what jaywill is driving at - my hip waders are at the cleaners.)

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels

The manna is does not represent the "raw" God. But the "cooked" God. Now I know this sounds funny. But this is the matter - the manna represents the God who has gone through a process by which He can be received by man and into man.By the processes of incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and becomming the life giving Spirit God Himself prepared Himself into a form in which He could be taken into man's being.Man is a vessel. Man is created to contain God. This is so that God and man might be mingled together in a life union.From Genesis when God placed the created man Adam before the tree of life, He hints to us that man was created to "eat" God. Or of you will take God into himself.Man is a vessel. Man is created not merely to be a God worshipper. He was created to be a God LIVER. That is that the uncreated divine Person of God would live in man and be expressed from within man.Do not scoff. And don't jeer. But consider. The invisible and uncreated Divine Person of God created a universe and a living vessel called human being. God's eternal purpose is that He, as the Invisible Uncreated I AM, would enter into this living vessel Man and live out through him in an organic incorporation. This is for God's expression and man's enjoyment.In other words - God's eternal desire is to mass produce Jesus Christ the God-Man. He is God / Man by way of incarnation and resurrection. The saved of Christ become God / Man by way of salvation. That is by way of redemption, regeneration, sanctification, transformation, conformation, resurrection, glorification, and deification.We are VESSELS. We were created to contain the Uncreated Divine Person of the Triune God. Yes. Before man ate of the tree of life he was deceived and sidetracked and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is in Genesis 3.In other words, before man took into his being the uncreated divine life of God represented by the tree of life, he was seduced to take into himself "the Other Way". That other way, the tree of tree of the knowledge of good and evil -constituted man with the Satanic nature. Instead of God entering into man as eternal life Satan entered into man as sin, death, corruption, rebellion against God.The thing which you must understand is that man became Satanified. Man received a foriegn element into his being. Man received Satan's indwelling instead of God's indwelling. Today, the man spontaneously expresses the enemy of God -the Devil.An evil cosmic parasite has attached himself to man: There is a "ruler of the authority of the air" who is the "spirit" operating in the fallen descendants of Adam. He is operating in man to cause man to spntaneously express the Satanic nature of rebellion against God.The Apostle Paul tells us that fallen man is alienated from the life of God. He is not only at emnity against God or estranged from knowing God. He is alienated from THE LIFE OF GOD. The fallen man, the scoffing and unbelieving man is "darkened" in mental understanding. He is "alienated from the life of God". That means God, as eternal life, is not in man in his unregenerated state. Man is hardened in the heart. He is stubburnly set against not only God but against receiving the Spirit of God, and especially against receiving the Savior of God - Christ.These things are profound and were presented to us in types, shadows, and symbols in the Old Testament. The manna from heaven changes the diet of those held in the Iron Furnace of Egypt which in typology signifies the fallen Satanic empire of the world.Concerning the history of Israel in the wilderness the Apostle Paul writes: While God does definitely have a plan for the Jews, in this new testament age these histories are for the education of the new covenant community the church - redeemed by the Son of God.Again Paul writes about the lust of the Isralites in the wilderness: So you see that the lusting of the Israelites for meat to eat instead of the manna which they despised and grew weary of, and thier murmoring and whinning about the food they left in Egypt was a type of the new testament saints lusting for "evil things." The "eating" of God is the expression used to explain that man is a vessel meant to take God into himself.You must grasp the deep and profound principle put forth in Genesis at these sentences: The tree of life was central to the garden, being in the middle. Man was created and placed before the tree of life. This represents God's eternal purpose that He dispense His uncreated divine life into man's being. We were made to contain God that He might be expressed from within us in a harmonious and incorporated mingled union of life.After Eve and Adam had taken into them instead the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were joined to Satan, God's enemy. Man became fallen mankind.And he was "alienated from the life of God:" Man was alienated from the eternal life of God. And the story of the Bible is God's salvation to bring man back to receiving His uncreated and divine life as his content and "food".For any who can receive it, there was a threefold demand placed on man keeping him away from the eternal life of God:1.) The cherubim represent the glory of God. Man has fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore he cannot partake of the life of God.2.) The sword which turned every direction represents the righteousness of God. Man has fallen, become Satanified and become a sinner. He is not only not glorious. He is not righteous. The sword of the righteousness of God is there to execute the sinful man. Man has fallen short of the righteousness of God.3.) The flame of the flaming sword represent the holiness of God. God is holy. God is separate from all other things. The fallen man has become Satanified and fallen short of the holiness of God.The neutral man has now become the Satanified man under the three-fold demand of God. Man is short of God's glory. Man is short of God's righteousness. Man is short of God's holiness.And this threefold demand keeps the sinful man away from the eternal purpose of God dispensing His life into man.Christ, the Son of God, even God incarnate, has come to fulfill the righteous requirement of God's law, express the glory of God, and fulfill the holiness of God on behalf of the fallen mankind.And then He Himself is the life of God to be dispensed into man who "eats" Jesus. That is who takes into himself the resurrected Christ who became the life giving Spirit: "...the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) Maybe that is just my style.Tonight consider just this much, that we are created vessels to contain God:Look at this: You see? God created man to be a vessel of His glory. That means a container to express the splendour of His divine life from within.Here again we see the Christians are earthen VESSELS containing the treasure of the resurrection life of Christ: God desires to impart Jesus Christ the treasure of eternal life into the earthen vessels of our beings.Here again we see Christ, God incarnate trying to work Himself into man's heart through faith. This too is God being put into the VESSEL of man's being: Faith is the means whereby Christ wroughts Himself into man's inner being and into man's heart.Here finally is a passage showing that the Triune God desires to live in man. Christ and His Father as the Holy Spirit; as the life giving Spirit, will come and make an abode within the vessel of the one who keeps His word.In a coming post I perhaps will show that the same thought is expressed in the Old Testament indeed. That is that God looks to man to live within man.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The things written in the Bible are in layers of wisdom which revelation and experience will explore and uncover.God is moving on. He is moving on. The Old Testament is the picture. The New Testament is the caption undernearth the picture of the Old Testament.

Looks like I was wrong in Message 18. We have a new record.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jaywill, the next stage of your revelation will bring you to the suppository god. You are getting close. Very close.

Would that be his Assumption?

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Real things always push back.
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Footnote from the Recovery Version on Exodus 16:4 The feeding of the manna is a type of God dispensing Christ into His redeemed people to qualify them to enter into the all-inclusive Christ (typified by the good land) to build the habitation of God (typified by the temple in the good land in the city Jerusalem). Here again is a picture of God imparting Himself into man so that man may become a corpotate dwelling place on the earth in which God may live and be expressed from within the man into whom He has dispensed Himself as divine life.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Now let us take a close look at the re-mention of the hidden manna in the book of Revelation. The wise ones among us will see the consistency.The blind will get nothing. But we are praying for them.I would ask the interested to prepare by reading chapter 2 of Revelation verses 12 - 17. This is the resurrected Christ's letter to the church in Sardis. Here to overcome is specifically to overcome the Christian churches union with the Satanic world. Pergamos represents the EKKLESSIA which is still trapped in the world "where Satan's throne is" (v.13)Manna is a type of Christ as the heavenly food that enables God's redeemed people to go His way - out of the fallen empire of Satan and into the good land of the all-inclusive Christ. That is the Christ to be man's everything.A portion of the manna was preserved in a golden pot concealed in the Ark (Exo. 16:32-24); Heb. 9:4). The open manna was for the Lord's people tp enjoy in a public way; the hidden manna, signifying the hidden Christ, is a special portion reserved for His overcoming seekers, who overcome the degradation of the worldly church.The Holy Spirit uses the hidden manna to represent the concealed and hidden enjoyment of Christ deep in the inner man of the believers in the midst of the worldly environment which seeks to infiltrate and ruin the Christian church.While the church goes the way of the world, these overcomers come forward to abide in the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, where they enjoy the hidden Christ as a special portion for their daily supply.The critics lambast and make accusation against the Christian church because she appears identical to the world in many ways. Yet in every age God reserves some overcomers who secretly enjoy the hidden Christ in the presence of God. This strenthens them in the face of the attacks of Satan, the ruler of the world, who seeks ever to destroy the Lord's church.As Satan seeks to dilute the church by its contact with the world his deceived flunkies stand without accusing the Lord's church of failure with slanders.The result of eating the hidden manna is to be given a white stone. Stone is mentioned in relation to building. God is building a habitation where He dwells within man. God, by dispensing HImself into His redeemed and regenerated people is building up a habitation of God in spirit. He is building up a dwelling place where God lives in man and man in God.The white stone represents the believers approved by His salvation.In the Bible a stone signifies material for God's building (Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:5; 1 Cor. 3:12). In our natural being we are not stones but clay. Because we need to be born of God to receive the divine life with its divine nature. Regeneration changes our nature and allows God to transform man into building material for His dwelling place; for His habitation of God within man.By being regenerated and enjoying Christ as the life supply, though the world is against us, we may be transformed into an approved component for God's building. If after being born of God we do not follow after the worldly church but enjoy Christ deeply and inwardly, we will be justified and approved by God, as indicated by the color white, to be built up in love into His habitation.The new name written in the white stone represents transformation also. We know that Christ changed the name of his leading disciple from Simon to Peter - a stone. This changing of Simon's name to Peter prefigured His action to transform the man Simon into a living stone for the building of God.The Apostle Peter therefore informs all the believers in Jesus that they also are "living stones", like himself and Christ who is the Cornerstone, intended by God to be built up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood: Peter was transformed and became a living stone in God's building. And likewise those who eat Christ as the hidden manna will be given a white stone with a new name written in it. This signifies that they are rewarded to have the same experience like Peter - transformation and approval to be a constituent in the dwelling place of God.God is building Himself into His people.I said, God .. is building Himself into His redeemed and regenerated people to transform them - give them new names. Now only the one who receives the stone knows the new name: God directs the experiences of all His believers. And in the end only that person knows what experiences God has brought him or her through in order to transform them into the image of Christ for His building. All the experiences are tailor made to afford God a way to work Himself into the being of the believer.He is approved. He is transformed. He is built up. And He becomes an intragal living stone in the living temple of God where God dwells in man on this earth for eternity.We can see now the consistency of the typology of the hidden manna. It is a symbol of Christ as the believers food to constitute
him material for the eternal purpose of God to build Himself into man.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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The manna is does not represent the "raw" God. But the "cooked" God. Now I know this sounds funny. But this is the matter - the manna represents the God who has gone through a process by which He can be received by man and into man.

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Whoah there mister, we're supposed to take the bible literally. Also, your long rambling explanations of your weird interpretation don't really help your case. You should be quoting us the verses that talk about manna, like everyone else is, and not random verses that support your interpretation.

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The "eating" of God is the expression used to explain that man is a vessel meant to take God into himself.

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You must grasp the deep and profound principle put forth in Genesis at these sentences.

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Look, I get what you're trying to say. I just don't find it especially profound. I still say you're trying to project a theme from the new testament or whatever onto verses that don't indicate they should be taken at anything other than face value.

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Maybe that is just my style.

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Tonight consider just this much, that we are created vessels to contain God.

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Oh enough already, jaywill, you are trying to convince me of your personal belief that "God created man to be a vessel of His glory". Phrases you use, wording - all indicate that you are, in fact, preaching at me. Just don't bother. I don't know if you've noticed, but other people on this thread are mocking you. I at least am trying to debate you, and I'd appreciate if you'd take me seriously.Let's go back to the manna verses. Let's examine them in detail. Forget quoting these other verses; they're not relevant at the moment.

Heaven forfend. Not mocking jaywill, just his theobabble.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Perhaps you feel that the discourse of Christ on Him being the true bread from heaven is not relevant. If so, I don't think I can help you.But just in case you missed it, much of my discourse was enfluenced by these words and more from the sixth chapter of John: Now if you feel that these words of Jesus are irrelevant to the topic of the "what does the Bible really mean" in Exodus concerning manna, then I don't think I can help you. It sounds to me that you do not realize the the whole Bible has Christ and His salvation as its underlying major theme.It may not sound profound to you. But your reaction above sounds particularly obtruse and dull to me. That is because you seemed to not have grasped the there was forethought and foreknowledge on the part of God when He performed certain acts.The entire line of God sending a savior Moses, the Passover lamb, the crossing of the Red Sea, the traveling through the desert to the good land, the miracles and lessons of the wilderness stay have relevance to God's overall plan of salvation.I am sorry that you seem not to grasp even a glimmer of this. But just in case you missed it, the Apostles apparently did not. Peter, Paul, and John assure us that God had Christ's salvation on His mind in many many historical acts found in the Old Testament.I admit that I am verbose. I admit that I am thrilled to ramble on and on about types and shadows of the Old Testament pointing to Christ. I write here not only for your sake but for the sake of others who might pick up some helpful explanations related to the discussion.Some of us choose not to dumb down the Bible for the dull and even less for those who mock. It may be my personal belief. But it is also related to the proper interpretation of the manna. Anything you eat enters into you and becomes part of you.Again you are only revealing you dullness in grasping some major spiritual themes in the Bible. Sorry, the Bible is a spiritual book in case you didn't notice.I tried to take you back to Genesis to show you that even the tree of life as food has tremendous significance to divine life entering the vessel of man's being.I tried to relate the basic principles of Adam's creation to the ongoing principles of Israel's being fed by God by strange "manna" from heaven. I'm sorry that you see no relationship with the ongoing theme of God wanting to put something heavenely or divine INTO man's being. No, I didn't much notice.I don't care about their mocking. I care for the few who may be reading along who will receive some help in grasping the Bible's meaning. Even if they do not agree with everything I wrote. I trust that some open people will get some help to understand these things. That is where you are dead wrong. We believers interpret the Bible with the Bible and by the Bible.You see no overall scheme and no overall plan of salvation. That is your problem. You want me to take you seriously? Why do you not take seriously a man who authored 13 or so books of the Bible, Paul when he helps the Christians to understand by writing: Christ has something to do with the interpretation of the stories of the Israelites eating and drinking in the wilderness. Paul calls the manna "spiritual food". He calls the water from the rock "spiritual drink".He also comes out to say that rock was Christ, meaning that there is a strong significance about that rock pointing to Jesus Christ.The question I have is do you have a "spritual" interest? I see some talk here about what the manna was which is good to tickle the curious mind. I thought some participants might want to get the "spiritual" significance of these matters. And I bet some do if you the mockers.Anyway, I am talking about the spiritual significance of the spiritual food and hoping that some spiritually seeking people will be spiritually helped to know what the Bible ( a spiritual book ) Really Means concerning these things.I don't you have a case of any kind to counter at least that Jesus taught that He was the antitype of the manna. If you do have a counterpoint that Jesus was NOT that reality of the bread from heaven, then I can't see where you stated it as the bases of a debate.And once again, if not you, many of us do take seriously Paul's word here: So a Christian, myself, is trying to assist some readers of the Bible (supposedly) about things written for our admonition.You received nothing at all. Too bad? But it doesn't change the healthy teaching and interpretatation of the Bible.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.