{"id":351,"date":"2026-01-18T13:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T04:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/?p=351"},"modified":"2026-02-01T18:52:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T09:52:44","slug":"fiest-luke-ch2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/?p=351","title":{"rendered":"First Luke \u2461\u3000By Sea \u2461"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/?p=347\">\u21d2\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u30da\u30fc\u30b8\u306f\u3053\u3061\u3089\u3092\u30af\u30ea\u30c3\u30af\u3057\u3066\u306d\uff01<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Dina spoke slowly, thinking carefully as she chose her words.<br>Above them, seagulls flew freely, gliding past the ship as if racing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI want you to believe in the God of the Jews too,\u201d she said quietly.<br>\u201cI know it may seem selfish, since He is the very God I once tried to forget. But so many things have happened, and I\u2019ve come to realize something. We cannot live by forgetting God\u2014and we must not try to. God is the One who gave us life.<br>Our God loves people the way a father loves his children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen I learned about the Greek gods, I couldn\u2019t help thinking how impossible it was for such careless, unfaithful beings to be the true God. Alex and I talked about it often. He was uncertain too. He used to say again and again, \u2018There must be a true God somewhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe sometimes told me,\u201d Luke said softly, \u201c\u2018Maybe my mother\u2019s God is the true God.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYes,\u201d Dina replied. \u201cAlex was truly a good man. I wanted to live longer\u2014with him, together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For a while, Dina fell silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Luke stood up, gently placing his hand on his mother\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMom, I\u2019m still a child,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m my father\u2019s son. I\u2019ll protect you in his place. I promised him I would.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">He remembered his last conversation with his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd I\u2019ll find what Father couldn\u2019t. I\u2019ll find out where the true God is. I want to know whether what the Greek philosophers say is really true or not. It may take a long time\u2014but one day, I promise, I\u2019ll discover the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In her heart, Dina whispered a short prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Thank you, God.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Dina sent a letter to her father and mother, though she did not know whether it ever reached them. She did not know whether they would forgive her. Since losing her husband, scenes from the days she had tried so hard to forget rose vividly in her mind, like a flame that could not be extinguished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Talking with friends by the village well\u2026<br>The joyful journeys to Jerusalem for the yearly festivals\u2026<br>Singing and dancing together after Sabbath gatherings at the synagogue\u2026<br>Praying to Jehovah, even as a small child\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I want to go home. I will accept any punishment\u2026<br>Let me return\u2026<br>Mother, Father\u2026<br>I want to see you\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In her letter to her parents, Dina quoted words from the Book of Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Ruth, a woman from a foreign land, said these words to her mother-in-law Naomi after losing her Israelite husband:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-9405df871d1ea54777b986274dd4c2f6 wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYour people shall be my people,<br>and your God my God.\u201d (Ruth 1:16)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The God Ruth sought was the God Dina had known since childhood.<br>The God she had tried to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>How are you?<br>I am returning to Jehovah, the God of my father and mother.<br>Will you forgive me?<br>Please keep me and my son Luke close to you.<br>I wandered in a foreign land, but now I am returning to my God.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">These words came straight from Dina\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-green-cyan-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d41aa046aa96ebb579cd1f52bad38a0f wp-block-paragraph\"><span class=\"bold-green\">Please leave a comment !<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u21d2\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u30da\u30fc\u30b8\u306f\u3053\u3061\u3089\u3092\u30af\u30ea\u30c3\u30af\u3057\u3066\u306d\uff01 Dina spoke slowly, thinking carefully as she chose her words.Above them, seagulls flew fr [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-long-novels"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primitivechristianitystudy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}