I think I’m onto something. Watching Sen. John Edwards on TV last night giving a live speech, I thought, “Who is he acting like?” Then it came to me—TV mega-church preacher Joel Osteen! Check it out.

*****

Just this second, sitting here in a Starbucks on Broadway near 3^rd street in Greenwich Village (I’ve got a friend who’s graciously given me his huge loft apartment to stay in for two weeks!), a middle-aged woman in a full-scale nun get-up, complete with a big silver cross necklace, approached me about donating to “St. Joseph’s orphanage.”

I had just seen her go through the most of the crowd, getting at least five or six people to put money in her little mock-wood salad bowl, some of them even handing her dollar bills.

When she got up next to me I immediately looked her dead in the eyes and said, “I think you’re a con artist.” She snapped back, “Yes, I’ve been one for 54 years.”

I said in a semi-shocked tone, “So you’re admitting you’re a con artist?!” She snarled, “If that’s what you say I am, that’s what I am.” Then she booked it out of the place just like the dirty little thief she was. No one in the crowd seemed to notice even slightly what transpired.

I admit my heart is still racing from the encounter! Sure reminds me of the days I lived here and had unexpected religion-related confrontations with strangers sometimes on a weekly basis. I guess I must miss it!

*****

I was in my neighborhood Jewel-Osco in Chicago the night before New Year’s Eve when a group of 20-somethings went through the checkout line in front of me, buying a bunch of six-packs of beer.

As they headed for the exit one of the women yelled out to be funny, “Onward Christian soldiers!” A guy in her group then quickly corrected her, “I’m not a Christian.” He said to her, “You’re not a Christian, are you?’ and then quickly turned around and barked sarcastically to all of us nearby, “Is anyone here a Christian?” The disgust was dripping off his tongue at the word Christian. “There’s the future,” I thought to myself.

*****

The Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament about 250 times and is alluded to some 850 times. There are only five books in the Old Testament that aren’t quoted in the New Testament: Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon.

Most people don’t know this but before the Apostle Paul died the whole New Testament had been written, collated together and authenticated in its individual books.

“Before 70 A.D., the saints had every book in their Bible you’ve got in your Bible,” confirms Jordan. “They had it just like you’ve got it in their language. Now, of course, it took 300-some years before the (religious establishment’s Church) figured that out—that there are 27 books in your New Testament that are Scripture.”

*****

At the time the New Testament was put together, the local churches had God-ordained prophets who’d been given the supernatural discernment to identify that, “Yes, indeed, these are the writings of the Word of God; this is what the Holy Spirit wrote.”

Jordan explains, “One of the prophet’s jobs was to say, ‘Thus saith the Lord . . . ’and that’s why Paul writes in I Corinthians 4, ‘If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.’

“If Paul wrote a different book to them, like he wrote an epistle to the Laodiceans in Colossians 4 and another one to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 5, it’s not in the Bible because they weren’t considered Scripture.

“Who said so? The prophets that were there! You didn’t have to wait for some church council to catch up 300 years later! The Believers had it. The church historian says it’s in the 4^th century that that happened, but the real church had it all along!

“In II Peter 3, Peter talks about Paul writing to them ‘as in all of his epistles.’ You think they collected up all of Paul’s original writings and sent them to the circumcision believers? I mean, he writes an epistle to the Ephesians—who do you think got to keep that?!

“What’d they do—bind it up and chain it to the wall in the church house down here?! No, everybody would want copies. In the first book Paul wrote, I Thessalonians 5, the last thing he says is, ‘I would that this epistle be read everywhere.’ How’s that gonna happen? Make copies, send it out.

“In Acts 15, they said about Moses, ‘He’s read in every city.’ How do you do that? Copies. Everybody’s getting a copy and that was an arduous task back then. Handwritten stuff.

“You’d need a prophet wouldn’t you to say, ‘That’s the Bible’? Now, you see, I’m not a prophet or a son of a prophet—I can’t do it that way. I have to compare the verses, but a prophet would have that ability.”