Calendar proposal for the nation

Obituaries
At the start of this year I wrote two articles detailing the idol-worshipping of pagan names of the weeks and months of our calendar. Many people are disturbed by that distressing anomaly and are crying out for a correction. The Creator named the days by the numbers, the weeks by the numbers and the months all by the numbers. He gave us a numeric calendar as a format. We have deviated from that in honour of idols. Let us revert back to the original God-given format and honour the Lord’s proclaimed holy days of His calendar.

sundayword:BY PROSPER TINGINI

At the start of this year I wrote two articles detailing the idol-worshipping of pagan names of the weeks and months of our calendar. Many people are disturbed by that distressing anomaly and are crying out for a correction. The Creator named the days by the numbers, the weeks by the numbers and the months all by the numbers. He gave us a numeric calendar as a format. We have deviated from that in honour of idols. Let us revert back to the original God-given format and honour the Lord’s proclaimed holy days of His calendar.

It is a generally agreed fact that the original year calendar’s months followed the moon pattern, hence was referred to as the lunar calendar. The moon has a four-week circle translating to 28 days. It also follows a seasonal rotational pattern which completes all the seasons after 364 days; ie, a year. If we divide each moon circle of 28 days into the full seasonal period of 364 days (364 ÷ 28 = 13), it gives us a total of 13 “moons”. This is the Heavenly calendar we should follow.

The Creator of all things then proclaimed some holy days to be sanctified and observed by mankind during the course of the year. Starting with the seventh day counted from the 1st day of creation. As a reminder of the scriptures, Genesis 2:1-3 reads: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his words which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.” To maintain the seventh-day pattern and in accordance with the days of the moon’s circles, all the months of the year should end on the 28th day every month which should have four equal weeks and four Sabbath days to it. As the year has a total of 13 moons, it follows that the full year should have a full total of 52 weeks and 52 Sabbath days. It is obvious those who created the current 12-month calendar had distributed the 28 days of the erased month to amongst the retained 12 months. We now have some months ending with 30 days, others 31 days, one with 28 days and 29 days every four years. This was a distortion and a perversion of our Heavenly calendar needing an immediate correction to reverse the wrong.

Some religious people have interpreted this whole scenario in a hard-to-verify manner. They pictured that the Lord our God sought to represent His chosen people’s inheritance distribution by the number of the moons in a year. He thus created the 12 tribes of Israel by the patriarch Jacob. Each of the 12 sons of Jacob represented a moon of the Lunar year and Jacob himself completed the 13th month as the head and father of those tribes. Jacob had the whole inheritance of Israel as promised by God, and each of his 12 sons had a share of inheritance of that whole nation. Thus there were a total of 13 people involved in the creation of Israel, to match the 13 months of the Lunar year. While some agreed with this concept, others who subscribed to that line of thinking disagreed and wanted Jacob excluded, and this group prevailed. They thereafter struck off the 13th month and redistributed the days of that month to the remaining 12 months, thus the creation of the current 12-month calendar.

However, some Christian believers have also come up with their own corresponding version of why the yearly calendar was changed to the 12-month year. They are in general agreement that the original Heavenly calendar had 13 months. However, this time around, it became a representation of Jesus Christ plus his 12 disciples, thus numbering 13 in total. When Judas Iscariot betrayed Him, 11 disciples were left. On that basis they argued for the number of months to be brought down. However, this version has a flaw in that it fails to recognise the replacement of Judas. The disciples chose Matthias, as a replacement. Acts 1 v 26 reads: “And they cast lots for them (Joseph called Barabbas, who was called Justus and Matthias), and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” The number of apostles was then restored to 12. With Christ as the Head, there should then have been a restoration of the original months to 13, in accordance with the restoration of the 12 apostles. To use these assumptions to explain God’s representations of the months of year is of human creation. Only the Lord knows the answer to that.

To be included in the Heavenly calendar are the three feasts of the year’s holy days. Exodus 23:14-17 reads: “Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of suffering. No one shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the feast of harvest, of the first fruits of your labour of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the fest of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labour.”

Also to be included is the Day of Atonement, the 10th day of the seventh month in which the Lord our God proclaimed: “It shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourself, and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who works or lives among you; for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you, from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, it is a statute forever.” (Leviticus 16:29-34).

My colleague, Apostle Wilson Muzamindo, has come up with a vision of a purified calendar devoid of idols which represents the original calendar of God. We are still working on it to reflect both a Zimbabwean and universal outlook. Suggestions for improvement will all be welcome. Zimbabwe can take the lead this time, and others will follow.

l Prosper Tingini is the Scribe of God Missionary Assembly. Contact 0771 260 195 or email: [email protected]