On the one hand, there is always a bit of noise in the Western world for the New Year observance. We talk about what happened in the past, discuss hopes for the future. Many still think it matters to play the luck games, with making resolutions, and various other rituals.
On the other hand, I see it as just another day on the calendar. I recognize the mass psychology of it, so I refer to 2008 as I predict it will be an ugly year, perhaps the most difficult in US history so far. That's because everyone else thinks New Year matters, and it's a convenient hook for me. What matters is I have some small chance of being heard in the crashing echoes of this world when I proclaim my best understanding of the Word of God. His Word talks about how governments can sin, and call down His wrath -- ours has done all those sins. How can we escape if His Word is true?
In my frame of reference, every day is a day to remove all my own resolve, and wait for His to manifest. I don't even resolve not to resolve. His grace and providence have pretty much hammered that down for me. When it rears its ugly head, I ask Him to loan me the hammer and nails again, and put Adam back up on the Cross. High and Holy Days are just a grant for us in our variable psychology. Emotions are for celebration, not decision.
So here's to your new year: Do your best to ignore it. Insofar as there is any resolving in your resolutions, endeavor to drive out self and rest in Him.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Galatians 2
Paul knew he was nothing. He never forgot his foul sin in persecuting the Messiah through His followers. However, his message took a backseat to no one else's ministry. Had the Twelve died with Christ, Paul knew it would not have changed the outcome. The Church would have been born regardless, for the power of the gospel was too great to contain. That his own calling came later did not hinder his apostleship in the least. Paul was God's chosen instrument to bring the message out of Jewish obscurity into a global faith including all humanity. Paul defended his calling and his message, not himself.
Just in case it mattered, though, his message was clearly established as consistent with that of Jesus, because it came from Jesus Himself. To insure he was not working against the surviving disciples in Jerusalem, Paul returned for a visit with the leaders some fourteen years after his first visit. While it is difficult to match this visit with the narrative in Acts, we assume here this private meeting was after Acts 11 and before Acts 15. He went primarily because the Lord commanded it. There, he shared the substance of his gospel preaching. With him were Barnabas and Titus, a Gentile convert.
As exemplary fruit of Paul's Gentile outreach, Titus was under no pressure from any of the Jerusalem leadership to observe any part of the Mosaic ritual requirements. He was accepted as an equal fellow servant of Christ. That it was even an issue was because the church there already had trouble with Judaizers. These men felt it was their mission from God to demand everyone claiming Christ must observe Talmudic Law. Anyone who knew Jesus knew He fought this very thing. Jesus made it clear time and time again, the Law of Moses was fulfilled in Him. Not simply adequately covered, but the Law was complete, closed, finished. What the Judaizers demanded was hardly anything different from Pharisaism with a few extra requirements, a hideous form of bondage Jesus bluntly condemned (Matthew 23). Paul refuted the Judaizers stoutly.
For their part, the pillars of the Jerusalem Church could add nothing to what Paul had already been doing. They recognized his having been with Jesus, too. They saw Paul was appointed to take the message to Gentiles, just as Peter had been charged to shepherd the sheep of Israel. Peter, James and John, as the primary trio of the church leadership, gave Paul their seal of approval, for what it was worth. Again, Paul warns the Galatians this was all verifiable. Indeed, their only request was for Paul to remember the poor, something Paul was doing already.
Not only did these men approve of Paul's gospel message, but had to admit he was the stronger representative at one point. Following Paul's interview with the Three Pillars, they came down to Syrian Antioch to see what Paul had accomplished and to establish a stronger bond with them. A later group came down, sent by James (Jesus' brother). At the arrival of this later bunch, Peter and some other Jewish Christians were somehow taken by a silly embarrassment over eating with Gentiles. This silliness grew until it was altogether scandalous. Paul rebuked them in front of a gathering. Paul reminded them they had come out of the Law of Moses to follow Christ. How were they then serving Christ by going back into it? If Jews were the first to hear observing Mosaic rituals could not save souls, how could they lay upon Gentiles those rituals?
Paul lays the theological foundation for declaring the Law of Moses dead. This is not about good deeds in general, but specifically about the Law of Moses, and particularly as expressed in Pharisaical teachings. While we might find the original Law of Moses symbolized a path to spiritual truth, the Law itself was not that truth. To further remove the Law by making it an empty ritualistic observance as practiced by the Pharisees was utterly pointless. That sort of religion was purely an effort by man to please a Holy God, Who made it clear that was not possible. Observing Moses had nothing to do with saving souls from damnation. For that reason, He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins, to make a path to come before Him and receive His holiness as a grant of grace. By this understanding, if Pharisaical Jews doing their best according to the Talmud, are found to be in sin, and their salvation is faith in Christ, how could returning to the Pharisaical Law bring any hope to Jews? For a Christian to cling to the Talmud was saying Jesus sponsored sin.
The Law was confined to this world -- a certain people, in a certain place, during a limited period of time. Joining Christ on the Cross, we leave this world behind. That means leaving the Law behind, as we pass into the higher realm of the Spirit, into the Kingdom of Heaven. We are dead to the old life, and dead to the Law. Christ, having fulfilled every requirement of the Law, leaving no unfinished business, now lives in the bodies of His followers. Whether Jewish or Gentile, that body is free from any ties to the Law, for they have escaped its reach. Now these bodies are living by faith, a much higher Law of God in the Heavens. It is not possible by any human means to live that Law of Heaven, but by the power of Christ, by His overpowering love and sacrifice on the Cross. If there is anything at all to gain from observing Moses, then Christ need not have come, for He accomplished nothing.
Obviously Peter and the others accepted this rebuke, and returned to good sense. However, the Judaizers were having none of it. Once Peter had departed again, these men kept the fight going. Thus, we have the conference in Acts 15.
Just in case it mattered, though, his message was clearly established as consistent with that of Jesus, because it came from Jesus Himself. To insure he was not working against the surviving disciples in Jerusalem, Paul returned for a visit with the leaders some fourteen years after his first visit. While it is difficult to match this visit with the narrative in Acts, we assume here this private meeting was after Acts 11 and before Acts 15. He went primarily because the Lord commanded it. There, he shared the substance of his gospel preaching. With him were Barnabas and Titus, a Gentile convert.
As exemplary fruit of Paul's Gentile outreach, Titus was under no pressure from any of the Jerusalem leadership to observe any part of the Mosaic ritual requirements. He was accepted as an equal fellow servant of Christ. That it was even an issue was because the church there already had trouble with Judaizers. These men felt it was their mission from God to demand everyone claiming Christ must observe Talmudic Law. Anyone who knew Jesus knew He fought this very thing. Jesus made it clear time and time again, the Law of Moses was fulfilled in Him. Not simply adequately covered, but the Law was complete, closed, finished. What the Judaizers demanded was hardly anything different from Pharisaism with a few extra requirements, a hideous form of bondage Jesus bluntly condemned (Matthew 23). Paul refuted the Judaizers stoutly.
For their part, the pillars of the Jerusalem Church could add nothing to what Paul had already been doing. They recognized his having been with Jesus, too. They saw Paul was appointed to take the message to Gentiles, just as Peter had been charged to shepherd the sheep of Israel. Peter, James and John, as the primary trio of the church leadership, gave Paul their seal of approval, for what it was worth. Again, Paul warns the Galatians this was all verifiable. Indeed, their only request was for Paul to remember the poor, something Paul was doing already.
Not only did these men approve of Paul's gospel message, but had to admit he was the stronger representative at one point. Following Paul's interview with the Three Pillars, they came down to Syrian Antioch to see what Paul had accomplished and to establish a stronger bond with them. A later group came down, sent by James (Jesus' brother). At the arrival of this later bunch, Peter and some other Jewish Christians were somehow taken by a silly embarrassment over eating with Gentiles. This silliness grew until it was altogether scandalous. Paul rebuked them in front of a gathering. Paul reminded them they had come out of the Law of Moses to follow Christ. How were they then serving Christ by going back into it? If Jews were the first to hear observing Mosaic rituals could not save souls, how could they lay upon Gentiles those rituals?
Paul lays the theological foundation for declaring the Law of Moses dead. This is not about good deeds in general, but specifically about the Law of Moses, and particularly as expressed in Pharisaical teachings. While we might find the original Law of Moses symbolized a path to spiritual truth, the Law itself was not that truth. To further remove the Law by making it an empty ritualistic observance as practiced by the Pharisees was utterly pointless. That sort of religion was purely an effort by man to please a Holy God, Who made it clear that was not possible. Observing Moses had nothing to do with saving souls from damnation. For that reason, He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins, to make a path to come before Him and receive His holiness as a grant of grace. By this understanding, if Pharisaical Jews doing their best according to the Talmud, are found to be in sin, and their salvation is faith in Christ, how could returning to the Pharisaical Law bring any hope to Jews? For a Christian to cling to the Talmud was saying Jesus sponsored sin.
The Law was confined to this world -- a certain people, in a certain place, during a limited period of time. Joining Christ on the Cross, we leave this world behind. That means leaving the Law behind, as we pass into the higher realm of the Spirit, into the Kingdom of Heaven. We are dead to the old life, and dead to the Law. Christ, having fulfilled every requirement of the Law, leaving no unfinished business, now lives in the bodies of His followers. Whether Jewish or Gentile, that body is free from any ties to the Law, for they have escaped its reach. Now these bodies are living by faith, a much higher Law of God in the Heavens. It is not possible by any human means to live that Law of Heaven, but by the power of Christ, by His overpowering love and sacrifice on the Cross. If there is anything at all to gain from observing Moses, then Christ need not have come, for He accomplished nothing.
Obviously Peter and the others accepted this rebuke, and returned to good sense. However, the Judaizers were having none of it. Once Peter had departed again, these men kept the fight going. Thus, we have the conference in Acts 15.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Life of Christ: Matthew 24
Of all the passages in Scripture, this chapter of Matthew has suffered much abuse and misunderstanding. The greatest mistake is to forget Jesus is a Jewish rabbi teaching Jewish men a spiritual understanding of real world events. In the previous chapter, we saw Jesus ended by lamenting the coming destruction of Jerusalem. As a first-rate Hebrew writer, Matthew keeps the narrative in context, one principle of teaching leading to the next, all in context. This is no different. Jesus is warning His disciples about the coming destruction in AD 70, and how they should view it.
Naturally, the Twelve are still locked into those false Messianic Expectations. Foremost in their minds is noting the rising tension as a sure sign He is about to declare Himself Messiah and establish His reign in their world in some tangible way. They still don't see the Cross, they still don't see how the rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders will bring destruction on the Holy City. Instead, they are wondering how He intends to take His throne there.
Jesus has fresh on His mind the sorrow of the City's destruction. Among His followers were residents of Jerusalem. As such, they were intimately aware of any new additions or modifications to the Temple edifice. These things they pointed out to Jesus, assuming He had not yet noticed. To these, along with the Twelve, He declared the very literal prophecy about Titus and his army ensuring no two stones of the Temple would remain vertically stacked.
They must have stared in stunned silence as Jesus walked away. How could the Temple of their God be destroyed? How could God want that? As they gathered later on the peak across the Kiddron Valley, where the Temple and the City in all its glory was visible on the opposite ridge line just below eye level, His entourage came privately and asked for a fuller explanation of the prophetic words. They asked two questions, believing they were connected. So many Christians today make the same mistake, assuming what follows are far distant events. That is, they assumed the Temple destruction, His rising in glory to declare the Kingdom, and the End of Times were all the same thing. However, they weren't sure how those things were connected, so they asked Him to explain.
Jesus takes pains to untangle what was actually three issues. He pointed out the destruction of the City was one event, and while tied to His proclaiming the Kingdom, that was not the same as the End of Times. First the Temple comes down, meaning the final nail in the coffin of Mosaic Law and the earthly nation of Israel. However, His Kingdom was not a historical event per se, but a spiritual event, because it was a spiritual Kingdom. As for His return and the End of Times, that was another matter entirely.
Jesus begins by answering the question implied, but not asked: What suffering comes with serving this Kingdom of Heaven? This is addressed to avoid confusing that answer with those for the other questions. He warns in verses 4-14 what events do not mark His Return: "See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass." Verse 7 is a known prophetic phrase (Haggai 2:22) reminding them not to be concerned with the rising or passing of any human government, nor any natural disasters. That's simply the background noise of fallen human existence: "All these things are merely the beginnings of sorrows." The next few verses (9-14) are just the typical reaction of the world to people possessed of a single-minded commitment to a Kingdom not of this world. The Final Day will come after the gospel has reached all the world; the words do not necessarily imply immediately following that accomplishment, nor is it precisely defined what that accomplishment means. It serves more to say, "It's a long way off. You need to be more concerned with your mission."
The specific prophecy of the Temple destruction we now know came true in AD 70. In this (15-22), Jesus warns them to flee the city when they see the Romans violating the Temple grounds, no longer honoring the prohibition they supported while ruling the Jews by keeping non-Jews out. Some of those living at the time would need to heed this advice, and leave town, or face being caught up in the slaughter. That it was indeed a major holocaust is not in dispute. Because Christians would certainly be still in the city, Jesus promised the Father would make it quick.
For the sake of long-term Christian teaching, Jesus warns His return will not be secret. Many evil and deranged folks would claim to be Him, but it won't be like that at all. It would be something so obvious, no human could miss it. When He Returns, there won't be any confusion whatsoever what is happening (23-28). Verse 29 is a standard prophetic statement, not to be taken literally. Indeed, it was widely known even then: On the heels of any major disaster comes a "dark ages." Again, these aren't signs of The End, but just the nature of fallen human existence.
Then Jesus turns to the second question (30-31). He describes some unmistakable earmarks of His Return, something different from the previous discussion. Every eye will see Him and recognize Him as God, and angels will be visibly present. He cautions them to fix this in their minds (32-33), to make sure they can tell the real deal as surely as they can discern the change of the seasons. The Second Coming is a distinct event, with no warning whatsoever. All these other signs mean other things. Then returning to His discussion of the Temple Destruction, He warns they would live to see it (34), so heed the signs of this one event which is clearly forecast by signs. He reinforces that warning by mentioning His words are The Word (35).
However, the Second Coming will not have any warning signs (36). The Son Himself was not entrusted to know, so it's not possible for Him to tell. It compares to the Flood in that no one (except Noah) knew it was coming (37-39). It came suddenly. Using terms commonly understood to depict a sudden coming of judgment and wrath, Jesus describes a couple of scenes depicting victims snatched up by arresting soldiers (40-41). The ones taken are the guilty, and any other meaning was unknown the Jews of that time. This will not be a convenient moment for anyone.
He launches finally into a call for faithfulness (42-51). The whole point of all this is there will be no signs. You cannot possibly predict by any digging and extracting details to establish a sequence. Get ready now, by obeying to the fullest extent. You can't know. You can't even guess. Don't try, because it's a waste of Kingdom resources.
Thus, Jesus answers the first question plainly, but warns them not to associate the second question with the same event. His mention of the Destruction of Jerusalem was quite consistent with His message of what really matters in the Kingdom: getting away from the ancient Covenant of Moses, getting away from the focus of One Place on earth (John 4:23). It would never again matter, because that covenant was about the be ended, fulfilled, completed, with no unfinished business. Every day He had tried to help break the spell of false understanding of His Disciples, teaching them the Temple would soon be just a pile of rubble. The old ritual framework would be dead, and being a Jew would mean nothing. Only those who walked Christ's path would find God's favor.
Naturally, the Twelve are still locked into those false Messianic Expectations. Foremost in their minds is noting the rising tension as a sure sign He is about to declare Himself Messiah and establish His reign in their world in some tangible way. They still don't see the Cross, they still don't see how the rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders will bring destruction on the Holy City. Instead, they are wondering how He intends to take His throne there.
Jesus has fresh on His mind the sorrow of the City's destruction. Among His followers were residents of Jerusalem. As such, they were intimately aware of any new additions or modifications to the Temple edifice. These things they pointed out to Jesus, assuming He had not yet noticed. To these, along with the Twelve, He declared the very literal prophecy about Titus and his army ensuring no two stones of the Temple would remain vertically stacked.
They must have stared in stunned silence as Jesus walked away. How could the Temple of their God be destroyed? How could God want that? As they gathered later on the peak across the Kiddron Valley, where the Temple and the City in all its glory was visible on the opposite ridge line just below eye level, His entourage came privately and asked for a fuller explanation of the prophetic words. They asked two questions, believing they were connected. So many Christians today make the same mistake, assuming what follows are far distant events. That is, they assumed the Temple destruction, His rising in glory to declare the Kingdom, and the End of Times were all the same thing. However, they weren't sure how those things were connected, so they asked Him to explain.
Jesus takes pains to untangle what was actually three issues. He pointed out the destruction of the City was one event, and while tied to His proclaiming the Kingdom, that was not the same as the End of Times. First the Temple comes down, meaning the final nail in the coffin of Mosaic Law and the earthly nation of Israel. However, His Kingdom was not a historical event per se, but a spiritual event, because it was a spiritual Kingdom. As for His return and the End of Times, that was another matter entirely.
Jesus begins by answering the question implied, but not asked: What suffering comes with serving this Kingdom of Heaven? This is addressed to avoid confusing that answer with those for the other questions. He warns in verses 4-14 what events do not mark His Return: "See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass." Verse 7 is a known prophetic phrase (Haggai 2:22) reminding them not to be concerned with the rising or passing of any human government, nor any natural disasters. That's simply the background noise of fallen human existence: "All these things are merely the beginnings of sorrows." The next few verses (9-14) are just the typical reaction of the world to people possessed of a single-minded commitment to a Kingdom not of this world. The Final Day will come after the gospel has reached all the world; the words do not necessarily imply immediately following that accomplishment, nor is it precisely defined what that accomplishment means. It serves more to say, "It's a long way off. You need to be more concerned with your mission."
The specific prophecy of the Temple destruction we now know came true in AD 70. In this (15-22), Jesus warns them to flee the city when they see the Romans violating the Temple grounds, no longer honoring the prohibition they supported while ruling the Jews by keeping non-Jews out. Some of those living at the time would need to heed this advice, and leave town, or face being caught up in the slaughter. That it was indeed a major holocaust is not in dispute. Because Christians would certainly be still in the city, Jesus promised the Father would make it quick.
For the sake of long-term Christian teaching, Jesus warns His return will not be secret. Many evil and deranged folks would claim to be Him, but it won't be like that at all. It would be something so obvious, no human could miss it. When He Returns, there won't be any confusion whatsoever what is happening (23-28). Verse 29 is a standard prophetic statement, not to be taken literally. Indeed, it was widely known even then: On the heels of any major disaster comes a "dark ages." Again, these aren't signs of The End, but just the nature of fallen human existence.
Then Jesus turns to the second question (30-31). He describes some unmistakable earmarks of His Return, something different from the previous discussion. Every eye will see Him and recognize Him as God, and angels will be visibly present. He cautions them to fix this in their minds (32-33), to make sure they can tell the real deal as surely as they can discern the change of the seasons. The Second Coming is a distinct event, with no warning whatsoever. All these other signs mean other things. Then returning to His discussion of the Temple Destruction, He warns they would live to see it (34), so heed the signs of this one event which is clearly forecast by signs. He reinforces that warning by mentioning His words are The Word (35).
However, the Second Coming will not have any warning signs (36). The Son Himself was not entrusted to know, so it's not possible for Him to tell. It compares to the Flood in that no one (except Noah) knew it was coming (37-39). It came suddenly. Using terms commonly understood to depict a sudden coming of judgment and wrath, Jesus describes a couple of scenes depicting victims snatched up by arresting soldiers (40-41). The ones taken are the guilty, and any other meaning was unknown the Jews of that time. This will not be a convenient moment for anyone.
He launches finally into a call for faithfulness (42-51). The whole point of all this is there will be no signs. You cannot possibly predict by any digging and extracting details to establish a sequence. Get ready now, by obeying to the fullest extent. You can't know. You can't even guess. Don't try, because it's a waste of Kingdom resources.
Thus, Jesus answers the first question plainly, but warns them not to associate the second question with the same event. His mention of the Destruction of Jerusalem was quite consistent with His message of what really matters in the Kingdom: getting away from the ancient Covenant of Moses, getting away from the focus of One Place on earth (John 4:23). It would never again matter, because that covenant was about the be ended, fulfilled, completed, with no unfinished business. Every day He had tried to help break the spell of false understanding of His Disciples, teaching them the Temple would soon be just a pile of rubble. The old ritual framework would be dead, and being a Jew would mean nothing. Only those who walked Christ's path would find God's favor.
Minstry Update: Location, Location, Location
Our apartment lease is up at the end of February; two months to go. We have a preliminary offer of housing after that. The location is a two- hour drive from here, in a smaller city. It's a home just big enough for my darling wife and I, and suitable for a ministry because of the built-in office. We haven't seen it yet, so details are scarce. The big draw is we won't have to pay rent. The owner will let us live there in exchange for some labor, which work is pretty much in line with my abilities. We would also have extensive control over property use and maintenance.
This also means the Missus will have to leave her current job, and probably find another in the new town. We note the ministry-on-the-ground here stagnated a long time ago, and we were already pretty sure our current location is not where we should have expected to stay. Unless I'm really deluded, I believe we are somewhat adept in the Spirit at discerning open doors and closed. They are closing here. Naturally, we'll plant our house church there.
The question will be very hard to answer until we have a visit to this new place. Pray with us to discern what's next. I'm pretty positive; it fits the parameters of what I would hope for as the tribulation advances. However, I'm not one to pack and run on a whim. Most importantly, we need to assure our hearts this all pleases the Lord, regardless of how well it fits our human logical plans.
This also means the Missus will have to leave her current job, and probably find another in the new town. We note the ministry-on-the-ground here stagnated a long time ago, and we were already pretty sure our current location is not where we should have expected to stay. Unless I'm really deluded, I believe we are somewhat adept in the Spirit at discerning open doors and closed. They are closing here. Naturally, we'll plant our house church there.
The question will be very hard to answer until we have a visit to this new place. Pray with us to discern what's next. I'm pretty positive; it fits the parameters of what I would hope for as the tribulation advances. However, I'm not one to pack and run on a whim. Most importantly, we need to assure our hearts this all pleases the Lord, regardless of how well it fits our human logical plans.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Mysteries of the Kingdom
Augh! The political campaigns have begun. As far as I am concerned, the balloting system is already fixed, and we can accomplish nothing that way. It's just possible, way far on the outside edges of possibility, something sane and right could happen, but I really doubt it. A certain female person will be our next president because that's what the real Powers That Be want. Done deal, in my opinion, never mind what you or I would like to see. But we still have to put up with the noise and campaign ads to maintain the pretense this is some sort of democratic government.
Meanwhile, we have the real deal: The Word of God. Paul says something about politics most people really miss, because they insist on reading it with Western eyes. I refer you to 1 Corinthians 2.
We seem to think this means, "the bare essentials of how to get born-again." Wrong. Paul clarifies in the following verses:
What Paul meant was he was avoiding a charismatic oratory which would move men, like a political speech or something. He came offering just a simple, bland presentation ... of the revelation of God Almighty. He relied entirely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the message to life in the souls of his listeners. No dramatic delivery, not even a bracing content. No, it was just the simple truth of Jesus Christ and what His death and resurrection means.
Had the political leaders of Jerusalem and Judea any clue what Jesus' sacrifice would accomplish, they would never have allowed His death. But no one understood except the One there on the Cross. It simply didn't make sense on a human level. Do you notice, even if we should manage to present the Ultimate Truth of things in terms humans could grasp, it wouldn't change them? But for some reason Jesus chose to communicate in parables, because He knew people moved by God could understand them without fail (Matthew 13). The whole point was to insure there was a line dividing the Kingdom citizens from those outside -- "I came to bring a sword."
You want to understand the mind of God? Let His Spirit get hold of you. Those of us in the Kingdom service can know the mind of God. Indeed, we spend our whole lives struggling to surrender ever more of ourselves to that mind. As we do so, we become ever more distant from our previous manner of life in this world.
We begin to care more and more about spiritual things, to see all things from a spiritual angle. We realize politics is just so much human posturing in pursuit of ephemeral power over a mass of sinners who will never remember what you did for them yesterday. Those of us in the Kingdom could never take such things seriously. We don't get excited when we realize this or that official lied, hid things, covered up crimes, killed this or that enemy, etc. We rather expect it. We expect fixed elections, we expect broken promises, we expect a creeping police state... We are hardly surprised when it all goes down the tubes and blood runs in the streets.
It will, you know. I firmly expect to see that this coming year. Human suffering is always a tragedy, but it's the best we can hope for in this fallen world. It's the norm. We will care, and do what is possible to do in relieving that suffering, but we hardly expect to right big wrongs through politics. The saints of God will tribulate; without the mark of suffering for the Kingdom, we know we do nothing for Him. This year, I fully expect we will be forced to take a stand, and many of us will suffer for choosing the stand with Christ.
The problem is, how many of us know what it means in today's world to "stand with Christ"? That's the mystery.
Meanwhile, we have the real deal: The Word of God. Paul says something about politics most people really miss, because they insist on reading it with Western eyes. I refer you to 1 Corinthians 2.
And I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
We seem to think this means, "the bare essentials of how to get born-again." Wrong. Paul clarifies in the following verses:
And I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
What Paul meant was he was avoiding a charismatic oratory which would move men, like a political speech or something. He came offering just a simple, bland presentation ... of the revelation of God Almighty. He relied entirely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the message to life in the souls of his listeners. No dramatic delivery, not even a bracing content. No, it was just the simple truth of Jesus Christ and what His death and resurrection means.
But, we speak wisdom among those who are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, that come to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God has hidden, predetermining it before the world for our glory; which none of the rulers of this world knew (for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory). But as it is written, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard," nor has it entered into the heart of man, "the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
Had the political leaders of Jerusalem and Judea any clue what Jesus' sacrifice would accomplish, they would never have allowed His death. But no one understood except the One there on the Cross. It simply didn't make sense on a human level. Do you notice, even if we should manage to present the Ultimate Truth of things in terms humans could grasp, it wouldn't change them? But for some reason Jesus chose to communicate in parables, because He knew people moved by God could understand them without fail (Matthew 13). The whole point was to insure there was a line dividing the Kingdom citizens from those outside -- "I came to bring a sword."
For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
You want to understand the mind of God? Let His Spirit get hold of you. Those of us in the Kingdom service can know the mind of God. Indeed, we spend our whole lives struggling to surrender ever more of ourselves to that mind. As we do so, we become ever more distant from our previous manner of life in this world.
We begin to care more and more about spiritual things, to see all things from a spiritual angle. We realize politics is just so much human posturing in pursuit of ephemeral power over a mass of sinners who will never remember what you did for them yesterday. Those of us in the Kingdom could never take such things seriously. We don't get excited when we realize this or that official lied, hid things, covered up crimes, killed this or that enemy, etc. We rather expect it. We expect fixed elections, we expect broken promises, we expect a creeping police state... We are hardly surprised when it all goes down the tubes and blood runs in the streets.
It will, you know. I firmly expect to see that this coming year. Human suffering is always a tragedy, but it's the best we can hope for in this fallen world. It's the norm. We will care, and do what is possible to do in relieving that suffering, but we hardly expect to right big wrongs through politics. The saints of God will tribulate; without the mark of suffering for the Kingdom, we know we do nothing for Him. This year, I fully expect we will be forced to take a stand, and many of us will suffer for choosing the stand with Christ.
The problem is, how many of us know what it means in today's world to "stand with Christ"? That's the mystery.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tribulation Report #005: Debt Equals Slavery
Okay, so perhaps you knew that, or believed it, already. Let's make it more concrete: With the recent changes in bankruptcy laws, you can no longer simply wipe the slate clean. Now you have to come up with some sort of repayment plan which indicates your intent to repay the whole thing. I believe filing for bankruptcy now simply locks the interest from piling up while you pay at a far slower rate than agreed when you signed originally.
The point is, this was a setup. That is, the law was changed before the mortgage crisis hit because someone knew it was coming. It was planned. The intent on the part of some of those involved in passing this legislation was to provide the means whereby millions of middle-class people could be forced into a form of slavery. They knew the economy was going to crash, because they were party to getting banks and other lending institutions to offer mortgages to folks who could not possibly pay once the "adjustable rate mortgage" (ARM) teaser rates played out. They knew these loans would crash. They aren't fools. They also bought up these loans, sliced and diced them, and repackaged them as "securitized" debt for investment. Now all kinds of funds and so forth are loaded with these bogus debt packages which will likely come up with no better than 10% of their original value.
You may have known all that, but did you know the same folks were involved in packaging up credit card debt the same way? That is, they encouraged folks to get these credit cards "pre-approved" with all sorts of nice teaser rates. Then, they slushed it all together, sliced and diced it, and sold it as securitized debt. And again, it's going to crash. Know why? The same people who expected their home values to continue rising forever were mostly the same folks who took out these new credit cards. While they can walk away from a failed mortgage (in a manner speaking) because the mortgage has collateral, they can't do that with credit card debts. It was a sort of extended bait and switch. The same people who suckered you into bad mortgages, for which the federal government will bail them out, are the same folks who suckered you into credit card debt. By the way, Americans as a whole now owe almost one trillion dollars in credit card charges.
I am hardly in a position to explain why they want you enslaved, but I suppose there are several obvious reasons. By enslaved, what I mean is they will have full legal ownership of your future productivity and labor output. Meanwhile, they don't have to feed, clothe or house you. Thus, they get a better deal than slave owners of previous generations got. Anyway, these financiers will own most of America's population very soon, perhaps in the coming year. How that leverage will be used is anybody's guess right now.
Welcome to the Fascist States of America.
The point is, this was a setup. That is, the law was changed before the mortgage crisis hit because someone knew it was coming. It was planned. The intent on the part of some of those involved in passing this legislation was to provide the means whereby millions of middle-class people could be forced into a form of slavery. They knew the economy was going to crash, because they were party to getting banks and other lending institutions to offer mortgages to folks who could not possibly pay once the "adjustable rate mortgage" (ARM) teaser rates played out. They knew these loans would crash. They aren't fools. They also bought up these loans, sliced and diced them, and repackaged them as "securitized" debt for investment. Now all kinds of funds and so forth are loaded with these bogus debt packages which will likely come up with no better than 10% of their original value.
You may have known all that, but did you know the same folks were involved in packaging up credit card debt the same way? That is, they encouraged folks to get these credit cards "pre-approved" with all sorts of nice teaser rates. Then, they slushed it all together, sliced and diced it, and sold it as securitized debt. And again, it's going to crash. Know why? The same people who expected their home values to continue rising forever were mostly the same folks who took out these new credit cards. While they can walk away from a failed mortgage (in a manner speaking) because the mortgage has collateral, they can't do that with credit card debts. It was a sort of extended bait and switch. The same people who suckered you into bad mortgages, for which the federal government will bail them out, are the same folks who suckered you into credit card debt. By the way, Americans as a whole now owe almost one trillion dollars in credit card charges.
I am hardly in a position to explain why they want you enslaved, but I suppose there are several obvious reasons. By enslaved, what I mean is they will have full legal ownership of your future productivity and labor output. Meanwhile, they don't have to feed, clothe or house you. Thus, they get a better deal than slave owners of previous generations got. Anyway, these financiers will own most of America's population very soon, perhaps in the coming year. How that leverage will be used is anybody's guess right now.
Welcome to the Fascist States of America.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Galatians 1
As in all his letters, Paul first identifies himself as the sender. In this case, he notes he is an apostle by God's calling, having received no credentials from any human agency. Further, he identifies whose apostle he is, and mentions there are with him others who believe in the same Savior. He writes to the churches he started in Lystra, Derbe, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch. His greeting is graceful, if terse. He notes on whose behalf he writes this letter. It serves as reminder what Paul is all about.
Without any niceties, Paul plunges immediately into the cause of this letter. He refers to their troubles as turning away from Christ. This is not about Paul, but about Christ and His teaching. The message Paul first brought to them was the truth (Acts 13-14), as testified by the works of power which made it possible for a lame man to walk, and for Paul to arise to life after a stoning. He had stayed in that area quite some time, long enough for them to learn the very basic truths of salvation by grace and faith. Once these new believers were established in this faith, how foolish would it be to suddenly change the essential teachings? A different teaching would hardly be "good news," for it would be slavery. Let such a teacher be accursed, regardless who it might be, including Paul himself. Surely, Paul cares nothing at all for making any other human happy, but courts God's favor alone. Should it be he cared at all about the advancement in this world among men, he would have stayed in his former life.
That original message came from no human source, unlike the Talmudic trash the Judaizers brought to Galatia. Paul was a disciple of Christ directly. What Paul had from men was the signal honor of the Sanhedrin membership of some sort, far younger than anyone before. It was all a lie, for the same God who gave Paul life gave him eternal life, too. The Lord revealed to Paul His Son. The reason was that he might carry that grace message to the Gentiles. His discipleship was not second-hand from any mere human, not even the Apostles in Jerusalem. As his Judaism was far above what theirs had been, so his training in Christ must come first hand. This occurred during three years in the Syrian wilderness, which Paul described in another place as including entrance into the Spirit Realm (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). We hardly understand what that means, but it's just the same as saying Paul studied with Christ face to face during that three years.
Thus, Paul hardly needed any training and support from the other Apostles. Yet, he did meet Peter and was received as an equal (Acts 9:26-30), and met also with James, the brother of Jesus. Anyone doubting this could easily query the Apostles and find out. Though he spent so little time in Jerusalem, just long enough to infuriate a Hellenist synagogue, no one with longer authority questioned his calling and apostleship. Instead, they praised God and gave thanks their number one persecutor had been turned to the light.
From these comments, we deduce the Judaizers who had invaded Galatia right behind Paul's mission (Acts 15:1) had slandered Paul. They called into question his apostleship, and his teaching. They made it sound as if Paul weren't a real Jew, because he didn't teach the Law of Moses. Of course, what they meant was Paul didn't teach the Talmud, for what Paul seems to be fighting here is the false, Hellenized brand of Judaism which Jesus Himself fought. Had they actually brought the true Mosaic teaching, there would have been no real conflict; as Jesus said, the Law and Prophets taught of Him. Moses was the original Hebrew of Hebrews, fully immersed in the ancient Semite culture. The greatest teacher after him, Samuel the Prophet, made it clear the only thing which really mattered was obedience from the heart (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Clearly, these Judaizers were pressing the observance of a long corrupted Hellenist Judaism, a mass of empty and pointless rituals. This destroyed the ancient faith of the Old Testament, and would destroy even more so the New Testament in Christ's blood.
Without any niceties, Paul plunges immediately into the cause of this letter. He refers to their troubles as turning away from Christ. This is not about Paul, but about Christ and His teaching. The message Paul first brought to them was the truth (Acts 13-14), as testified by the works of power which made it possible for a lame man to walk, and for Paul to arise to life after a stoning. He had stayed in that area quite some time, long enough for them to learn the very basic truths of salvation by grace and faith. Once these new believers were established in this faith, how foolish would it be to suddenly change the essential teachings? A different teaching would hardly be "good news," for it would be slavery. Let such a teacher be accursed, regardless who it might be, including Paul himself. Surely, Paul cares nothing at all for making any other human happy, but courts God's favor alone. Should it be he cared at all about the advancement in this world among men, he would have stayed in his former life.
That original message came from no human source, unlike the Talmudic trash the Judaizers brought to Galatia. Paul was a disciple of Christ directly. What Paul had from men was the signal honor of the Sanhedrin membership of some sort, far younger than anyone before. It was all a lie, for the same God who gave Paul life gave him eternal life, too. The Lord revealed to Paul His Son. The reason was that he might carry that grace message to the Gentiles. His discipleship was not second-hand from any mere human, not even the Apostles in Jerusalem. As his Judaism was far above what theirs had been, so his training in Christ must come first hand. This occurred during three years in the Syrian wilderness, which Paul described in another place as including entrance into the Spirit Realm (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). We hardly understand what that means, but it's just the same as saying Paul studied with Christ face to face during that three years.
Thus, Paul hardly needed any training and support from the other Apostles. Yet, he did meet Peter and was received as an equal (Acts 9:26-30), and met also with James, the brother of Jesus. Anyone doubting this could easily query the Apostles and find out. Though he spent so little time in Jerusalem, just long enough to infuriate a Hellenist synagogue, no one with longer authority questioned his calling and apostleship. Instead, they praised God and gave thanks their number one persecutor had been turned to the light.
From these comments, we deduce the Judaizers who had invaded Galatia right behind Paul's mission (Acts 15:1) had slandered Paul. They called into question his apostleship, and his teaching. They made it sound as if Paul weren't a real Jew, because he didn't teach the Law of Moses. Of course, what they meant was Paul didn't teach the Talmud, for what Paul seems to be fighting here is the false, Hellenized brand of Judaism which Jesus Himself fought. Had they actually brought the true Mosaic teaching, there would have been no real conflict; as Jesus said, the Law and Prophets taught of Him. Moses was the original Hebrew of Hebrews, fully immersed in the ancient Semite culture. The greatest teacher after him, Samuel the Prophet, made it clear the only thing which really mattered was obedience from the heart (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Clearly, these Judaizers were pressing the observance of a long corrupted Hellenist Judaism, a mass of empty and pointless rituals. This destroyed the ancient faith of the Old Testament, and would destroy even more so the New Testament in Christ's blood.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas
Just to clarify, wishing folks a Merry Christmas is not in my mind a matter of Christianity. Sure, it's part of the popular Americanized brand of cultural "Christianity," but it's really not connected at all to Early Church. Read up on any good history of Christmas celebration and you'll discover quickly the vast majority of what secularists complain about this time of year has nothing to do with Christ.
In my pursuit of Ancient Faith, I'll remind everyone the one major annual celebration of the Early Church was Resurrection Sunday. No, they would not have called it "Easter" -- that's just another spelling of Ishtar, a pagan goddess found in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan (Ashstarte), and eventually Europe. Scant attention was paid to the early life of Jesus, even in the Gospels. We make far too much of something which Scripture considers insignificant. It's our worldly tendency of false piety.
Spoiling your fun? Good. It's time we wept over our sins, seeing them as Christ did while hanging on the Cross. Our sins are many, and it's not legalism to note we associate far too many pagan-sourced cultural rituals with Him. Celebrating Christmas by building Babylon, the biblical symbol of materialist commerce, the shrine of Mammon, is hardly Christlike. Laugh and love and enjoy some feasting, but let's for once endeavor to leave behind the gods of this world.
In my pursuit of Ancient Faith, I'll remind everyone the one major annual celebration of the Early Church was Resurrection Sunday. No, they would not have called it "Easter" -- that's just another spelling of Ishtar, a pagan goddess found in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan (Ashstarte), and eventually Europe. Scant attention was paid to the early life of Jesus, even in the Gospels. We make far too much of something which Scripture considers insignificant. It's our worldly tendency of false piety.
Spoiling your fun? Good. It's time we wept over our sins, seeing them as Christ did while hanging on the Cross. Our sins are many, and it's not legalism to note we associate far too many pagan-sourced cultural rituals with Him. Celebrating Christmas by building Babylon, the biblical symbol of materialist commerce, the shrine of Mammon, is hardly Christlike. Laugh and love and enjoy some feasting, but let's for once endeavor to leave behind the gods of this world.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Clarifying Civil Responsibility
I keep getting queries, and they come from people who read this blog, among other things. By posting a fresh reiteration here, perhaps I can help settle some of the questions regarding my teaching on a Christian's responsibility before God in the area of civil law.
Paul says it best: "Love works no ill to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:10). In that statement, Paul refers specifically to civil law. But in a more general sense, we know the agape of the Holy Spirit fulfills the Law of God itself, and there is no higher responsibility for any human to consider. Make God happy and nothing else matters.
Obviously, "making God happy" is open to some application differences based on the human context in which you find yourself at any given moment. I've already made it clear there are some contexts in which that requires open defiance of a civil authority. We have ample example of that in Acts, and John refers to it extensively in the Apocalypse. The point in this is to note you will hardly avoid conflict with civil authorities if you follow hard after Christ. He said so, quite pointedly.
You can get into plenty of trouble over other, lesser issues. Being rude to a police officer can get you tasered. You and I know it's a pretty poor excuse for manhood to let human rudeness get to you, and it's manifestly illegal for them to use tasers for personal reasons. Yet we know quite a few times tasers have been used that way, and the the civil officials have defended such abuse. When government officials defend a lawless practice, it becomes defacto "lawful" in that sense. Christians wisdom itself says we avoid rudeness for its own sake. So, unless you simply enjoy the thrill of getting zapped, it's wise to recognize antagonizing police officers can have unpleasant results.
On the other hand, there are plenty of valid reasons for preparing in your heart and mind contexts in which resistance to government, in all the various flavors between passive up through armed revolt, may well be what's necessary to "make God happy." In a broad general sense, I teach we avoid active involvement in politics in the first place. That is, recognize human political affairs are in the hands of God, and should hardly concern us. By no means can the righteousness of God be found in human political activity. Those things fall under the Covenant of Noah, and we are under a much higher covenant. That wasn't intended for followers of Christ, but for sinners to keep other sinners in line. It affects us, but generally doesn't concern us. Thus, Romans 13 is Paul's statement to the affect we must allow civil enforcement to proceed without our interference. Pay your taxes, obtain permits and licenses, etc. If civil government gets in the way of your calling and service to Christ, pray and then proceed as you best understand the will of God.
Some things we must never agree to, regardless of the costs. I mentioned previously we should never permit any human government to assume the legal right to remove our children from our care. Child Welfare agencies are from Satan, end of discussion. Regulations about licensed day care are another matter, but you have God's command not to let any human agency get between you and the children born into your family. Generally, adopted children fall under the same rubric, but much depends on the context. If you are sinning against your children, you deserve some hassles from the community, even to the point of taking your life, but children of Christian families can never be seen as wards of the secular state under any circumstances. The Word of God trumps all other considerations.
How you go about resisting Child Welfare intrusions is between you and the Lord. Herein is the meat of the issue. When you know for certain you must resist, it all depends on your calling, the context of the conflict, your ability and inclinations at the time, and so forth. Your options before the Lord are too numerous for generalizations. This goes with every other issues where your best understanding in the Spirit is you are required to resist. Most of the time I find it hard to justify violence. I'd rather flee first. A ready hand for violence is contrary to Christ. Yes, He cracked a whip and drove out the Sons of Annas from the Temple. He surely hit some of those slimeballs, too. We have no other record of violent action from Jesus. Not in the whiney, mamby-pamby sense of not-man-enough, but in the sense of obeying the Father. He could, and did at least once, assault some men with a weapon. He told His Disciples to carry swords. Physical deadly violence was a possibility even during His lifetime.
This cannot outweigh the broad general teachings of being at peace with all men when possible. We don't look for fights. We don't stockpile ammunition and weapons of human warfare. We don't train for guerrilla tactics. At least, we don't do those things in the name of Christ. We train our hearts to see clearly the convictions and commands from God. We train our minds to discount the material possessions of our lives as having significance. We don't drill ourselves in constitutional rights, but in privileges of the Kingdom. We train our bodies to tolerate the discomfort of serving in the lowliest fashion the needs of the Kingdom in the lives of others.
When Bro. Ed posts on this blog warnings about the newest government perfidy, it's not a call to arms, but a call to prayer. Be ready to face the fascist boot of oppression in the name of Jesus. Don't ever doubt the hideous malevolence of government agents. This very day there are men and women drawing a federal government salary who are so utterly filthy, despicable, evil and downright Satanic, and they are highly valued of agents of the government's will. In case you are one of those idiots who buys Lincoln's eloquent lies about the people being the actual government, let me remind you the Founding Fathers knew that was bogus when they proposed the Bill of Rights. When you are vested with civil authority, you cease to be "of the people."
What do those last two items say, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments? They say the Federal government of the united States has no authority unless it is specifically granted by the various states. That means 99.99% of all federal government activities are unlawful. That hasn't stopped anyone, has it? No, the Constitution is just a stinking piece of paper, and it was never more than that from the day it was published. God is not found in that document, nor in any government activity. God is found in the souls of His people, the Kingdom of Heaven -- a kingdom not of this world, but simply in this world. We are wise as serpents regarding the evil of this fallen world, and harmless as lambs among the wolves of this age.
This blog assumes no plot to bring down any human government. We note others have such plans, and may even discuss the relative merits of this or that law, action, and resistance. It's an academic exercise. It's easier to face the hungry lions of the Colosseum when you know how they kill and eat the Christians. It's easier to face the suffering of oppression when you have some idea how it will affect you. The biggest mistake you'll make is clinging to this life.
Paul says it best: "Love works no ill to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:10). In that statement, Paul refers specifically to civil law. But in a more general sense, we know the agape of the Holy Spirit fulfills the Law of God itself, and there is no higher responsibility for any human to consider. Make God happy and nothing else matters.
Obviously, "making God happy" is open to some application differences based on the human context in which you find yourself at any given moment. I've already made it clear there are some contexts in which that requires open defiance of a civil authority. We have ample example of that in Acts, and John refers to it extensively in the Apocalypse. The point in this is to note you will hardly avoid conflict with civil authorities if you follow hard after Christ. He said so, quite pointedly.
You can get into plenty of trouble over other, lesser issues. Being rude to a police officer can get you tasered. You and I know it's a pretty poor excuse for manhood to let human rudeness get to you, and it's manifestly illegal for them to use tasers for personal reasons. Yet we know quite a few times tasers have been used that way, and the the civil officials have defended such abuse. When government officials defend a lawless practice, it becomes defacto "lawful" in that sense. Christians wisdom itself says we avoid rudeness for its own sake. So, unless you simply enjoy the thrill of getting zapped, it's wise to recognize antagonizing police officers can have unpleasant results.
On the other hand, there are plenty of valid reasons for preparing in your heart and mind contexts in which resistance to government, in all the various flavors between passive up through armed revolt, may well be what's necessary to "make God happy." In a broad general sense, I teach we avoid active involvement in politics in the first place. That is, recognize human political affairs are in the hands of God, and should hardly concern us. By no means can the righteousness of God be found in human political activity. Those things fall under the Covenant of Noah, and we are under a much higher covenant. That wasn't intended for followers of Christ, but for sinners to keep other sinners in line. It affects us, but generally doesn't concern us. Thus, Romans 13 is Paul's statement to the affect we must allow civil enforcement to proceed without our interference. Pay your taxes, obtain permits and licenses, etc. If civil government gets in the way of your calling and service to Christ, pray and then proceed as you best understand the will of God.
Some things we must never agree to, regardless of the costs. I mentioned previously we should never permit any human government to assume the legal right to remove our children from our care. Child Welfare agencies are from Satan, end of discussion. Regulations about licensed day care are another matter, but you have God's command not to let any human agency get between you and the children born into your family. Generally, adopted children fall under the same rubric, but much depends on the context. If you are sinning against your children, you deserve some hassles from the community, even to the point of taking your life, but children of Christian families can never be seen as wards of the secular state under any circumstances. The Word of God trumps all other considerations.
How you go about resisting Child Welfare intrusions is between you and the Lord. Herein is the meat of the issue. When you know for certain you must resist, it all depends on your calling, the context of the conflict, your ability and inclinations at the time, and so forth. Your options before the Lord are too numerous for generalizations. This goes with every other issues where your best understanding in the Spirit is you are required to resist. Most of the time I find it hard to justify violence. I'd rather flee first. A ready hand for violence is contrary to Christ. Yes, He cracked a whip and drove out the Sons of Annas from the Temple. He surely hit some of those slimeballs, too. We have no other record of violent action from Jesus. Not in the whiney, mamby-pamby sense of not-man-enough, but in the sense of obeying the Father. He could, and did at least once, assault some men with a weapon. He told His Disciples to carry swords. Physical deadly violence was a possibility even during His lifetime.
This cannot outweigh the broad general teachings of being at peace with all men when possible. We don't look for fights. We don't stockpile ammunition and weapons of human warfare. We don't train for guerrilla tactics. At least, we don't do those things in the name of Christ. We train our hearts to see clearly the convictions and commands from God. We train our minds to discount the material possessions of our lives as having significance. We don't drill ourselves in constitutional rights, but in privileges of the Kingdom. We train our bodies to tolerate the discomfort of serving in the lowliest fashion the needs of the Kingdom in the lives of others.
When Bro. Ed posts on this blog warnings about the newest government perfidy, it's not a call to arms, but a call to prayer. Be ready to face the fascist boot of oppression in the name of Jesus. Don't ever doubt the hideous malevolence of government agents. This very day there are men and women drawing a federal government salary who are so utterly filthy, despicable, evil and downright Satanic, and they are highly valued of agents of the government's will. In case you are one of those idiots who buys Lincoln's eloquent lies about the people being the actual government, let me remind you the Founding Fathers knew that was bogus when they proposed the Bill of Rights. When you are vested with civil authority, you cease to be "of the people."
What do those last two items say, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments? They say the Federal government of the united States has no authority unless it is specifically granted by the various states. That means 99.99% of all federal government activities are unlawful. That hasn't stopped anyone, has it? No, the Constitution is just a stinking piece of paper, and it was never more than that from the day it was published. God is not found in that document, nor in any government activity. God is found in the souls of His people, the Kingdom of Heaven -- a kingdom not of this world, but simply in this world. We are wise as serpents regarding the evil of this fallen world, and harmless as lambs among the wolves of this age.
This blog assumes no plot to bring down any human government. We note others have such plans, and may even discuss the relative merits of this or that law, action, and resistance. It's an academic exercise. It's easier to face the hungry lions of the Colosseum when you know how they kill and eat the Christians. It's easier to face the suffering of oppression when you have some idea how it will affect you. The biggest mistake you'll make is clinging to this life.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Life of Christ: Matthew 23
During the Passover celebration, Jesus watched the Scribes and Pharisees zealously guard their false holiness, a mere collection of man-made ritual observances offering only a vague resemblance to the Law of Moses. The ancient symbolic rituals were far simpler than the Talmudic expansions heaped up by the rabbinical colleges corrupted by Persian and Greek influences. In a drive to produce a mountain of great works by their hands, they were filled with pride. Their grand robes were filthy rags before Jehovah. Jesus offers His disciples a scathing critique of the empty suits who imagined they were the true keepers of Moses.
Standing in the vicinity of the Temple, Jesus addresses His disciples, clearly including the crowd of listeners in His audience. That it would have included Scribes and Pharisees we should take for granted. These latter held civil authority to command conduct presumably extracted from Mosaic Law. Jesus observed His nation was legally obliged to obey their rendering, but by no means should anyone assume they represented God. They delighted in making things difficult, but spared not the slightest effort to consider how things might be simplified. They were all about appearances. In observing some of the silliest customs of wearing little scrolls on their foreheads, they completely forgot to actually understand what God wanted. No one should imagine Jesus participated in such goofy displays. This is a rather blunt condemnation of the Hellenist tradition of taking Mosaic commands literally, as opposed to the Hebrew symbolism in the command (Exodus 13:16). Indeed, in their literalism they competed to extravagant measures.
The Pharisees and Scribes were all about appearances and worldly honors. They bickered over places of honor at feasts, and who ranked for which seat in the synagogues, and demanded various honorific titles meant to impress people, rather like the silly "Reverend Doctor So-n-so" of today. Seeking such distinctions among men showed the sinful heart of these men. There is only one title in the Kingdom: Messiah. Don't pursue the sort of ticket-punching which permitted men to be greeted officially as Professor, Doctor, or Dean (modern approximations of Rabbi, Master and Father). Greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven is not in titles, but in humility and service. People who need ego-stroking are the most useless before God.
Having explained the fundamental sinful nature of Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus proceeds to lay eight woes upon them. The first is easily their worst: They did everything they could to alienate all men from God's revelation, standing as guards to block the way. Having never been inside the truth, they refused to let anyone else approach it.
In the second woe, Jesus makes a reference to Salome, the widow of High Priest Alexander Jannaeus; she ruled from 78-69 BC. Alexander had opposed the Pharisees bitterly, but they seduced her to their ways. They were so lacking in wisdom and restraint, the tension they created was a primary cause for Rome taking an interest in, and assuming control of Judea in 63 BC. Meanwhile, they were composing these eloquent three-hour prayers recited in public, begging God to set them free from the Roman domination they brought down on the city.
In a third woe, Jesus notes the Pharisees have a distinct preference for Gentile converts to Pharisaism. The reason should be obvious, as those converted to a religion from the outside are the most zealous of all, embracing with a harsh fervor the most demanding silly observances. These were like a whip against the native Judeans who had grown up in the synagogues. Thus, these proselytes were more hellish and more completely removed from the faith of Abraham than before.
The fourth woe remarks upon the Pharisaical legal tricks. In business dealings, an oath by the Temple was not binding. However, by nit-picking and demanding an oath upon the gold of the Temple, the scribal lawyers considered that binding. This system of playing with words was merely an opportunity to defraud outsiders. The mere presence of any such nonsense showed an evil intent, wholly lacking in the grace of God for Whom the Temple was presumably built.
Such a hair-splitting frame of mind was totally foreign to Jehovah. The fifth woe notes how the Pharisees would tithe on herbs one might grow in a window box, bringing to the Temple a mere pinch of dried herbs. Meanwhile, they didn't even know the God to whom they owed their very lives. These same men hardly comprehended the fundamental purpose of the Law of Moses. They might sift a barrel of flour to avoid the possibility of consuming the smallest non-kosher insect, but swallow in terms of gross sins of the heart the largest non-kosher animal in Palestine.
To drive the point home, Jesus uses a Hebrew parable in the sixth woe. Their pretense of external holiness was like polishing the faintest fingerprints from the outside of their dishes, but failing to wash the putrid food and drink remains on the inside. The idea of changing the heart of man never occurred to them.
Following every rainy season, tombs were whitewashed to prevent visitors to the area of Jerusalem accidentally defiling themselves by touching these structures. This meant the brilliant white coat was fresh during Passover. In the seventh woe, the Pharisees were like these glittering tombs, pretty on the outside, but utterly disgusting inside.
Continuing on the subject of tombs, Jesus notes in His last woe the tombs of prophets and important persons were rather substantial and ornate. By dressing up their tombs, the Pharisees celebrated the prophets' deaths, not their lives. In Hebrew tradition, a great pile of rocks is raised to mark the tomb of criminals, the larger piles indicating high crimes. Indeed, it is the Pharisees who are the criminals, for their actions showed they lied in their words.
Vipers were not hatched from eggs as most snakes, but were born alive, often by bursting through their mother's sides, killing her. This is the repugnant image of the Scribes and Pharisees, destroying the Nation in their venomous rush to death. Jesus prophesied He would send prophets, teachers and Scripture writers, and the Pharisees would be responsible for murdering them. The Lord would allow this to insure the full weight of rejecting the Messiah would fall upon them. It was the same hellish nature which bore responsibility for all the murders listed in Scripture. All this would be fulfilled and finished with those living at the time Jesus spoke.
Foreseeing the destruction of Jerusalem 40 years hence, Jesus breaks into a beautiful lament over the city. In the shadow of His teaching alone would anyone find safety from the coming destruction. Indeed, in the next chapter, Jesus pointedly warns the Christians what to look for when it came time to flee Jerusalem. Those who followed His teaching would certainly have not been among the million or so Jews Titus slaughtered in AD 70. The final words of the warning here are conclusive. The Temple ("house") in which they placed so much confidence would be destroyed. It was never God's Temple, not while they profaned it with false religion. The public ministry of Christ was finished. Shortly He would die and then rise again. Only those who were His disciples would see His resurrected body. At the same time, He warns only those who follow Him would be walking in the name of the Lord.
Standing in the vicinity of the Temple, Jesus addresses His disciples, clearly including the crowd of listeners in His audience. That it would have included Scribes and Pharisees we should take for granted. These latter held civil authority to command conduct presumably extracted from Mosaic Law. Jesus observed His nation was legally obliged to obey their rendering, but by no means should anyone assume they represented God. They delighted in making things difficult, but spared not the slightest effort to consider how things might be simplified. They were all about appearances. In observing some of the silliest customs of wearing little scrolls on their foreheads, they completely forgot to actually understand what God wanted. No one should imagine Jesus participated in such goofy displays. This is a rather blunt condemnation of the Hellenist tradition of taking Mosaic commands literally, as opposed to the Hebrew symbolism in the command (Exodus 13:16). Indeed, in their literalism they competed to extravagant measures.
The Pharisees and Scribes were all about appearances and worldly honors. They bickered over places of honor at feasts, and who ranked for which seat in the synagogues, and demanded various honorific titles meant to impress people, rather like the silly "Reverend Doctor So-n-so" of today. Seeking such distinctions among men showed the sinful heart of these men. There is only one title in the Kingdom: Messiah. Don't pursue the sort of ticket-punching which permitted men to be greeted officially as Professor, Doctor, or Dean (modern approximations of Rabbi, Master and Father). Greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven is not in titles, but in humility and service. People who need ego-stroking are the most useless before God.
Having explained the fundamental sinful nature of Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus proceeds to lay eight woes upon them. The first is easily their worst: They did everything they could to alienate all men from God's revelation, standing as guards to block the way. Having never been inside the truth, they refused to let anyone else approach it.
In the second woe, Jesus makes a reference to Salome, the widow of High Priest Alexander Jannaeus; she ruled from 78-69 BC. Alexander had opposed the Pharisees bitterly, but they seduced her to their ways. They were so lacking in wisdom and restraint, the tension they created was a primary cause for Rome taking an interest in, and assuming control of Judea in 63 BC. Meanwhile, they were composing these eloquent three-hour prayers recited in public, begging God to set them free from the Roman domination they brought down on the city.
In a third woe, Jesus notes the Pharisees have a distinct preference for Gentile converts to Pharisaism. The reason should be obvious, as those converted to a religion from the outside are the most zealous of all, embracing with a harsh fervor the most demanding silly observances. These were like a whip against the native Judeans who had grown up in the synagogues. Thus, these proselytes were more hellish and more completely removed from the faith of Abraham than before.
The fourth woe remarks upon the Pharisaical legal tricks. In business dealings, an oath by the Temple was not binding. However, by nit-picking and demanding an oath upon the gold of the Temple, the scribal lawyers considered that binding. This system of playing with words was merely an opportunity to defraud outsiders. The mere presence of any such nonsense showed an evil intent, wholly lacking in the grace of God for Whom the Temple was presumably built.
Such a hair-splitting frame of mind was totally foreign to Jehovah. The fifth woe notes how the Pharisees would tithe on herbs one might grow in a window box, bringing to the Temple a mere pinch of dried herbs. Meanwhile, they didn't even know the God to whom they owed their very lives. These same men hardly comprehended the fundamental purpose of the Law of Moses. They might sift a barrel of flour to avoid the possibility of consuming the smallest non-kosher insect, but swallow in terms of gross sins of the heart the largest non-kosher animal in Palestine.
To drive the point home, Jesus uses a Hebrew parable in the sixth woe. Their pretense of external holiness was like polishing the faintest fingerprints from the outside of their dishes, but failing to wash the putrid food and drink remains on the inside. The idea of changing the heart of man never occurred to them.
Following every rainy season, tombs were whitewashed to prevent visitors to the area of Jerusalem accidentally defiling themselves by touching these structures. This meant the brilliant white coat was fresh during Passover. In the seventh woe, the Pharisees were like these glittering tombs, pretty on the outside, but utterly disgusting inside.
Continuing on the subject of tombs, Jesus notes in His last woe the tombs of prophets and important persons were rather substantial and ornate. By dressing up their tombs, the Pharisees celebrated the prophets' deaths, not their lives. In Hebrew tradition, a great pile of rocks is raised to mark the tomb of criminals, the larger piles indicating high crimes. Indeed, it is the Pharisees who are the criminals, for their actions showed they lied in their words.
Vipers were not hatched from eggs as most snakes, but were born alive, often by bursting through their mother's sides, killing her. This is the repugnant image of the Scribes and Pharisees, destroying the Nation in their venomous rush to death. Jesus prophesied He would send prophets, teachers and Scripture writers, and the Pharisees would be responsible for murdering them. The Lord would allow this to insure the full weight of rejecting the Messiah would fall upon them. It was the same hellish nature which bore responsibility for all the murders listed in Scripture. All this would be fulfilled and finished with those living at the time Jesus spoke.
Foreseeing the destruction of Jerusalem 40 years hence, Jesus breaks into a beautiful lament over the city. In the shadow of His teaching alone would anyone find safety from the coming destruction. Indeed, in the next chapter, Jesus pointedly warns the Christians what to look for when it came time to flee Jerusalem. Those who followed His teaching would certainly have not been among the million or so Jews Titus slaughtered in AD 70. The final words of the warning here are conclusive. The Temple ("house") in which they placed so much confidence would be destroyed. It was never God's Temple, not while they profaned it with false religion. The public ministry of Christ was finished. Shortly He would die and then rise again. Only those who were His disciples would see His resurrected body. At the same time, He warns only those who follow Him would be walking in the name of the Lord.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Prayer Request: Ministry Development Needs
On the one hand, we know the coming tribulation will call for making wise choices. If we can, we choose the atmosphere and location where we are most likely to prosper. This requires knowing your self and your situation in life well enough to judge righteously what is most likely to meet your household's needs.
However, we should all know calling trumps all other considerations. If you are quite certain where God wants you, it hardly matters whether it seems wise. Wisdom is obeying the call of the Lord. In pursuit of that, I perceive the future of my ministry will include running my own server and webservices.
Sometime in the coming spring months, we will likely move to another domicile. Whether that happens or not, we will need to obtain a server grade computer. I'm not concerned too much with specifics, just a machine capable of carrying the load. We will also have to obtain a professional Net connection. I'm content to work through business DSL, cable, or whatever is available.
Obviously, the details are immaterial, and I'm sure the Lord can work them out without my input. What I'm seeking is your prayers, dear readers. Whatever it is He plans for the future shape of this ministry, it will require whatever is necessary to self-host a library/study website, a blog or two, perhaps a discussion forum, and some email accounts. These things I feel certain I can setup eventually. What we don't yet have is the machine, the connection, and the location. Pray for the Lord's guidance, some insight into the location, and for obtaining the hardware within our budget.
However, we should all know calling trumps all other considerations. If you are quite certain where God wants you, it hardly matters whether it seems wise. Wisdom is obeying the call of the Lord. In pursuit of that, I perceive the future of my ministry will include running my own server and webservices.
Sometime in the coming spring months, we will likely move to another domicile. Whether that happens or not, we will need to obtain a server grade computer. I'm not concerned too much with specifics, just a machine capable of carrying the load. We will also have to obtain a professional Net connection. I'm content to work through business DSL, cable, or whatever is available.
Obviously, the details are immaterial, and I'm sure the Lord can work them out without my input. What I'm seeking is your prayers, dear readers. Whatever it is He plans for the future shape of this ministry, it will require whatever is necessary to self-host a library/study website, a blog or two, perhaps a discussion forum, and some email accounts. These things I feel certain I can setup eventually. What we don't yet have is the machine, the connection, and the location. Pray for the Lord's guidance, some insight into the location, and for obtaining the hardware within our budget.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Urgent: SSL Mail Hosts Compromised
Read it yourself. In case you are wondering what this is all about:
The NSA has ownership/full access to all email handled by several major providers of secure mail services. It's a good bet they have similar access, or will soon, with other providers.
If you wish to use secure email, you'll have to do it yourself with something like PGP or GnuPG from your own system. For those who have no clue, one or the other must be installed on both ends of the traffic, and you have to exchange a key with everyone to whom you wish to send encrypted messages.
Also, the message indicates the most popular security software is wide open to NSA snooping. Yes, that means the NSA can basically walk into your computer any time they like and see whatever they wish. Maybe now is a good time to mention Linux, or BSD, as a secure alternative to running Windows on your computer.
As a side note, I recommend you read up on the definition of "fascism" -- the US is now a fascist country.
The NSA has ownership/full access to all email handled by several major providers of secure mail services. It's a good bet they have similar access, or will soon, with other providers.
If you wish to use secure email, you'll have to do it yourself with something like PGP or GnuPG from your own system. For those who have no clue, one or the other must be installed on both ends of the traffic, and you have to exchange a key with everyone to whom you wish to send encrypted messages.
Also, the message indicates the most popular security software is wide open to NSA snooping. Yes, that means the NSA can basically walk into your computer any time they like and see whatever they wish. Maybe now is a good time to mention Linux, or BSD, as a secure alternative to running Windows on your computer.
As a side note, I recommend you read up on the definition of "fascism" -- the US is now a fascist country.
Galatians: Introduction
If we understand correctly, the Twelve spent three years with Jesus before His Passion. Apparently Paul had his three years with Christ, as well (Galatians 1:15-18; 2 Corinthians 12:2-4). However, his experience came after Pentecost, and he had the advantage of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Further, he had the advantage of PhD in Judaism. While I find no direct comment regarding the matter as we have with Jesus, Paul knew instinctively the Judaism of his day was far, far off the path. But the substance of his comments indicate it didn't matter much to him that Judaism was no longer Hebraic in outlook, it was dead anyway.
His letter to the Galatians is probably his oldest writing, and it is loaded with sharp criticism for having adopted Judaism-flavored Christianity. Having turned from zealous persecution of Christians, he was equally zealous in fighting the dead Covenant of Moses. He knew all too well exactly what sort of slimy, corrupt thinking was behind these Judaizers. It would hardly have mattered these teachers insulted Paul personally; he took the insult to Christ far more personally. The Lord who went to such great lengths to reach Paul, and to turn him around to the truth, was to be defended at all costs.
This was easily the one thing which Paul fought hardest early in his ministry. I take the view he wrote his letter shortly before he attended the Jerusalem Conference about AD48. He came to that meeting with a powerful vehemence regarding the attack on justification by faith. Because this battle continued for some years, showing up in other letters he wrote, it would be easy to mistake his teaching for the cerebral distinction between faith and works so popular today. That such a distinction arose in the debate testifies to the falseness of the Hellenist mindset of the day. From or distance today we so easily miss the places where Paul demands conduct befitting a true faith in Christ. What he was combating was not the importance of works, but works of the Law of Moses.
While the writer of Hebrews argues the Old Covenant is inferior to the New, Paul in Galatians pointedly says the Old is dead. Being of the old Nation of Israel has absolutely no meaning any longer in God's plans, and as man born a Jew, he was in a unique position to say that.
His letter to the Galatians is probably his oldest writing, and it is loaded with sharp criticism for having adopted Judaism-flavored Christianity. Having turned from zealous persecution of Christians, he was equally zealous in fighting the dead Covenant of Moses. He knew all too well exactly what sort of slimy, corrupt thinking was behind these Judaizers. It would hardly have mattered these teachers insulted Paul personally; he took the insult to Christ far more personally. The Lord who went to such great lengths to reach Paul, and to turn him around to the truth, was to be defended at all costs.
This was easily the one thing which Paul fought hardest early in his ministry. I take the view he wrote his letter shortly before he attended the Jerusalem Conference about AD48. He came to that meeting with a powerful vehemence regarding the attack on justification by faith. Because this battle continued for some years, showing up in other letters he wrote, it would be easy to mistake his teaching for the cerebral distinction between faith and works so popular today. That such a distinction arose in the debate testifies to the falseness of the Hellenist mindset of the day. From or distance today we so easily miss the places where Paul demands conduct befitting a true faith in Christ. What he was combating was not the importance of works, but works of the Law of Moses.
While the writer of Hebrews argues the Old Covenant is inferior to the New, Paul in Galatians pointedly says the Old is dead. Being of the old Nation of Israel has absolutely no meaning any longer in God's plans, and as man born a Jew, he was in a unique position to say that.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Next Study: Galatians
Naturally, I have to confess I have an agenda in my choices: I want to show beyond all doubt Scripture gives zero support to the Dispensationalist notion that Israel has any relevance after the Cross. This one heresy has already done more damage to faith and human life than just about any other in Church History.
In short, Galatians is Paul's letter to Christians who have been taken with a similar heresy, promoted by a fiendish group we today call "Judaizers." They tried to enslave the Gentile believers in a heresy which kept a false Judaism alive. Oddly, I fight that one, as well, despite all my ranting about learning the Hebrew mind. It's not always an easy distinction to make, because people are mentally lazy. That's what makes traps possible.
So, let's exercise our brains for all they are worth, and understand what God's Word really says!
In short, Galatians is Paul's letter to Christians who have been taken with a similar heresy, promoted by a fiendish group we today call "Judaizers." They tried to enslave the Gentile believers in a heresy which kept a false Judaism alive. Oddly, I fight that one, as well, despite all my ranting about learning the Hebrew mind. It's not always an easy distinction to make, because people are mentally lazy. That's what makes traps possible.
So, let's exercise our brains for all they are worth, and understand what God's Word really says!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Not Standing Alone: Hebraic Christianity
I had always hoped I was not trailblazing new territory when I embraced the necessity of understanding Hebrew culture for reading the Bible with clear eyes. It turns out there's at least one website devoted to helping people across the chasm which separates the culture of Our Savior from our modern Western world.
You'll find it all at Follow the Rabbi. The above quote can be found in an introductory article here. You may be a little confused by the site layout, so be patient in your exploration. Also, it uses a lot of flash, which I dislike very much. As for the content, you can be sure there are some differences between them and me. In fact, I don't go with some of Ray vander Laan's theology, but his historical and cultural research deserves attention. One of the troubling things about Ray is he fails to notice the rabbis of Jesus' day were no longer very Hebraic, but thoroughly Hellenized. Thus, he puts too much stock in the Talmudic material. He is associated with the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research, which includes some folks who are anti-trinitarian, among other things. I'm not promoting that school, just the research into Hebraic cultural understanding.
The language of the Bible is bound by culture and time. Therefore, understanding the Scriptures involves more than knowing what the words mean. We need to understand those words from the perspective of the people who used them. The people God chose as His instruments—the people to whom He revealed Himself—were Hebrews living in the Near East. These people described their world and themselves in concrete terms. Their language was one of pictures, metaphors, and examples rather than ideas, definitions, and abstractions. Where we might describe God as omniscient or omnipresent (knowing everything and present everywhere), a Hebrew preferred: "The Lord is my Shepherd." Thus, the Bible is filled with concrete images from Hebrew culture: God is our Father and we are His children. God is the Potter and we are the clay, Jesus is the Lamb killed on Passover; Heaven is an oasis in the desert, and hell is the city sewage dump. The Last Judgment will be in the Eastern Gate of the heavenly Jerusalem and will include sheep and goats.If we are to understand the language God chose for the people of the Bible and for the text itself we must be familiar with the everyday images it employs.
You'll find it all at Follow the Rabbi. The above quote can be found in an introductory article here. You may be a little confused by the site layout, so be patient in your exploration. Also, it uses a lot of flash, which I dislike very much. As for the content, you can be sure there are some differences between them and me. In fact, I don't go with some of Ray vander Laan's theology, but his historical and cultural research deserves attention. One of the troubling things about Ray is he fails to notice the rabbis of Jesus' day were no longer very Hebraic, but thoroughly Hellenized. Thus, he puts too much stock in the Talmudic material. He is associated with the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research, which includes some folks who are anti-trinitarian, among other things. I'm not promoting that school, just the research into Hebraic cultural understanding.
Monday, December 17, 2007
The Sorrows of Modern Education
Linda Taylor addresses a favorite hate of mine, group learning. First, let's establish that a great many things we learn can and should be done in a peer group setting. That is generally limited to non-intellectual learning, such as sports, vocational training, etc. It is the worst possible setting for individual advancement intellectually.
However, when I was involved in public education, I found team learning was about the only way I could satisfy the demands made by the paganized philosophical foundation of public education. We have everything in the educational world fighting the idea man must come to God and learn to face Him on His terms. It assumes there is no God, and man must face all things himself. Since it is not the individual before God, the role of education is not to make men fit servants of the Lord, but servants of the State. The State is the false god, and servants of the State must learn to work as teams, as a community, to provide the veneer of "it's for our good."
This is the underlying foundation of modern public education. You can research it most quickly by reading anything written by John Taylor Gatto (Google is your friend). What keeps teachers from seeing this are the layers of obscurity between the actual plans and the "carefully researched" pedagogy methods for education in government run child-warehouses. All those private foundations which fund such research insist the work all be done in only those projects which yield the findings they want. Thus, I was taught to grade the class as a whole, and to see their raw scores as my own grade. We can't let any fail, you know -- never mind they don't know what they really need to know.
So assigning them into small groups is the only way to satisfy the educational objectives. Note the phrase "educational objectives" itself slants things away from actual intellectual development. The kids have to produce a measurable performance, which includes saying with their mouths the proper attitudinal assent to equalitarian philosophy. It is lip-service only when educators talk about personal development. What they mean is will the kids act like they are part of the group. If not, there is something wrong with them. The State loves and demands uniformity throughout. Thus, much as I hated it, I found the only way to achieve said goals was to use groups and peer learning. The outcome was pretty much what the State demanded.
Had I pushed them individually to intellectual growth, I would not have been able to produce documentation to show what an effective teacher I was. Kids who excel in understanding things would have inevitably been at war with the system, because they would recognize how wrong it was. How do we measure the changes which affect the whole life of a human? We recognize it, but can't quantify it, except in small bits and pieces. Public education makes those small bits and pieces, those snapshots of behavior, the whole goal. Humans are born unable to learn all at the same speed. Governments hate the variabilities of individuals with individual needs. Better to make them all equally stupid, because it is cheaper than having to vary policy to meet unique individual needs.
Let me say it again, more bluntly: Church, the fundamental nature of public education is at war with Christ. You cannot claim to obey God while letting the State teach you children. Nor can you claim to obey God when their whole intellectual life is purely classical Western rationalism, which is still man-centered. That makes the individual a virtuoso, a self-god, one who must take on the whole world and win by their superior abilities. It is not man against the world, it is the world against Christ.
However, when I was involved in public education, I found team learning was about the only way I could satisfy the demands made by the paganized philosophical foundation of public education. We have everything in the educational world fighting the idea man must come to God and learn to face Him on His terms. It assumes there is no God, and man must face all things himself. Since it is not the individual before God, the role of education is not to make men fit servants of the Lord, but servants of the State. The State is the false god, and servants of the State must learn to work as teams, as a community, to provide the veneer of "it's for our good."
This is the underlying foundation of modern public education. You can research it most quickly by reading anything written by John Taylor Gatto (Google is your friend). What keeps teachers from seeing this are the layers of obscurity between the actual plans and the "carefully researched" pedagogy methods for education in government run child-warehouses. All those private foundations which fund such research insist the work all be done in only those projects which yield the findings they want. Thus, I was taught to grade the class as a whole, and to see their raw scores as my own grade. We can't let any fail, you know -- never mind they don't know what they really need to know.
So assigning them into small groups is the only way to satisfy the educational objectives. Note the phrase "educational objectives" itself slants things away from actual intellectual development. The kids have to produce a measurable performance, which includes saying with their mouths the proper attitudinal assent to equalitarian philosophy. It is lip-service only when educators talk about personal development. What they mean is will the kids act like they are part of the group. If not, there is something wrong with them. The State loves and demands uniformity throughout. Thus, much as I hated it, I found the only way to achieve said goals was to use groups and peer learning. The outcome was pretty much what the State demanded.
Had I pushed them individually to intellectual growth, I would not have been able to produce documentation to show what an effective teacher I was. Kids who excel in understanding things would have inevitably been at war with the system, because they would recognize how wrong it was. How do we measure the changes which affect the whole life of a human? We recognize it, but can't quantify it, except in small bits and pieces. Public education makes those small bits and pieces, those snapshots of behavior, the whole goal. Humans are born unable to learn all at the same speed. Governments hate the variabilities of individuals with individual needs. Better to make them all equally stupid, because it is cheaper than having to vary policy to meet unique individual needs.
Let me say it again, more bluntly: Church, the fundamental nature of public education is at war with Christ. You cannot claim to obey God while letting the State teach you children. Nor can you claim to obey God when their whole intellectual life is purely classical Western rationalism, which is still man-centered. That makes the individual a virtuoso, a self-god, one who must take on the whole world and win by their superior abilities. It is not man against the world, it is the world against Christ.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Religious Politics: Branding and Bandaids
Now that I am firmly planted in the House Church Movement, it is far easier to stand back and observe institutional church politics from afar. It is not possible to have an organization composed of humans without politics. Thus, you must prayerfully choose your politics, knowing it will at some point come apart. The biblical view is organization as a tool, which tools eventually wear out. Invest too much into the tool, and you lose too much when it inevitably breaks.
In some sense, the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) is broken. They have branded the Acts 29 Network as "Emergent" -- but define "Emergent" in completely unwholesome terms. It's the typical Baptist knee-jerk, "ain't doing it here" mentality. At least, that's what we get in writing from the documents published by the MBC. However, from their actual comments, it's more about alcohol. Even Baptists are starting to realize the prohibition on moderate consumption of beverage alcohol is not in the Bible, and simply reflects the historic association of Baptists with the frustration of a failed Prohibition. It's petty, childish, unsupported by Scripture, and shows the nature of Baptist politics: "If we don't get our way, we'll pull funding." Let `em. God has much more, and if He chooses not to make up the difference in dollars, His servants will still accomplish the mission of building effective ministries. The MBC will miss out on the blessing. The difference is petty, not at all essential to Christian living.
Simply papering over deep and fundamental differences will not solve the Anglican Schism. This is not petty. The issue of human sexuality goes all the way back to Genesis. The first clear statement is cloaked in Hebrew symbolism: Noah's son Ham raped his drunken father (Genesis 9:22ff). The term "to uncover someone's nakedness" is a euphemism for sex. It was a crime then, and remained so throughout the Scripture. Jesus didn't have to talk about it because it was obvious to everyone in Israel. Paul certainly talks about it because it was not so obvious to the Gentile churches. At no time is there anything indicating a change in the Old Testament teaching on it, neither expressed nor implied. Sexuality is tied to the very essence of what makes us human. There is no license to do what one desires. The Bible offers only one avenue for sexual gratification: One man, one woman, under the holy covenant of marriage. End of discussion.
I suspect the fallout from both of these will be ugly. The MBC is going to alienate strong fellow believers needlessly over something they can't justify by the Word. The Archbishop of Canterbury will promote the Schism because he refuses to take the scriptural path. I look for formal split in the Anglicans worldwide very soon. With some humor I note it will be rooted in African leadership; the new geographical center of Christian faithfulness. I look for the MBC to remain entrenched, and participate in the cultural hardness -- elevating a mere cultural preference to "holiness" -- which has already helped destroy the fundamenatlist Independent Baptist movement. The SBC is already in decline because of this hardened attitude. While numbers don't prove much by themselves, you can't tell Baptists that. It's their own standard which shows they are failing. The real issue is they are sliding into irrelevance; they are selling a religious expression which is tied too much to a passing fashion within a doomed nation.
In some sense, the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) is broken. They have branded the Acts 29 Network as "Emergent" -- but define "Emergent" in completely unwholesome terms. It's the typical Baptist knee-jerk, "ain't doing it here" mentality. At least, that's what we get in writing from the documents published by the MBC. However, from their actual comments, it's more about alcohol. Even Baptists are starting to realize the prohibition on moderate consumption of beverage alcohol is not in the Bible, and simply reflects the historic association of Baptists with the frustration of a failed Prohibition. It's petty, childish, unsupported by Scripture, and shows the nature of Baptist politics: "If we don't get our way, we'll pull funding." Let `em. God has much more, and if He chooses not to make up the difference in dollars, His servants will still accomplish the mission of building effective ministries. The MBC will miss out on the blessing. The difference is petty, not at all essential to Christian living.
Simply papering over deep and fundamental differences will not solve the Anglican Schism. This is not petty. The issue of human sexuality goes all the way back to Genesis. The first clear statement is cloaked in Hebrew symbolism: Noah's son Ham raped his drunken father (Genesis 9:22ff). The term "to uncover someone's nakedness" is a euphemism for sex. It was a crime then, and remained so throughout the Scripture. Jesus didn't have to talk about it because it was obvious to everyone in Israel. Paul certainly talks about it because it was not so obvious to the Gentile churches. At no time is there anything indicating a change in the Old Testament teaching on it, neither expressed nor implied. Sexuality is tied to the very essence of what makes us human. There is no license to do what one desires. The Bible offers only one avenue for sexual gratification: One man, one woman, under the holy covenant of marriage. End of discussion.
I suspect the fallout from both of these will be ugly. The MBC is going to alienate strong fellow believers needlessly over something they can't justify by the Word. The Archbishop of Canterbury will promote the Schism because he refuses to take the scriptural path. I look for formal split in the Anglicans worldwide very soon. With some humor I note it will be rooted in African leadership; the new geographical center of Christian faithfulness. I look for the MBC to remain entrenched, and participate in the cultural hardness -- elevating a mere cultural preference to "holiness" -- which has already helped destroy the fundamenatlist Independent Baptist movement. The SBC is already in decline because of this hardened attitude. While numbers don't prove much by themselves, you can't tell Baptists that. It's their own standard which shows they are failing. The real issue is they are sliding into irrelevance; they are selling a religious expression which is tied too much to a passing fashion within a doomed nation.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Life of Christ: Matthew 22
Where the Jewish leaders of Jesus' stood was so very far removed from the original ground of Moses; they would have been foreigners to him. Their religious views and practices bore at best a superficial resemblance to what Moses taught, and built on none of the ancient Hebrew conceptual framework. With such a handicap, it was no surprise they could not recognize the Messiah when He appeared.
Jesus took His next parable from rabbinical sources, a story line He used more than once. The Parable of Prince's Wedding recalls well established ancient customs. Many kings would vest the heir to their throne on the prince's wedding day. It was the duty of every vassal to appear and swear an oath of fealty to the royal heir. Failure to do so was treasonous, deserving of death and worse. It implied the vassal had chosen to serve some other ruler. For such a grand occasion, the king would spare no expense. He would calculate the length of time required for his messengers to arrive at the various vassals' locations, plus the time it would take each guest to make their way to the royal palace. Each messenger was sent with a sizeable honor guard which would then escort the guest's entourage back to the palace. This marked the caravan as being on the king's business. Let no one seeing them pass doubt the importance of the persons, nor the mission! All Jesus' hearers would have recognized the imagery.
The response of the various nobles in the story would have horrified anyone listening. The second round of urgent messengers, it is implied, would have actually carried fresh samples of the food prepared. It is ready now; come immediately! The response was beyond scandalous. Sending an army to execute the scornful vassals and destroy their noble cities would have become a legend repeated far and wide for centuries to come. Lacking proper nobles to attend, the king called for any stranger to take their places, not just at the wedding feast, but as his new vassals and lords. And since the king always provided festive wedding garments as gifts to his guests, there was no excuse for the one who failed to wear it. It would be an inexcusable breach of protocol, a grand insult. Such a one would be tossed into the dungeon.
Jesus makes the clear case He is the Prince Regent of Heaven. The Jewish leaders had refused to acknowledge Him, in spite of numerous heralds sent before to warn them. Like nobles who could no longer recognize their Lord's coat of arms, the Jews had as a nation rejected their Messiah. Their city, Jerusalem, was to be destroyed, and they would be killed. Their place in God's Kingdom plan would be taken by others. Further, any who seek to enter later must accept the Lord's garment of holiness, something they did not yet possess. As they were, they would hardly be welcome in the Kingdom. Jesus makes this all so plain, ordinary bystanders would have understood it completely.
Now the different political groups in the Jewish leadership prepared to ensnare Jesus in something He said. From ancient times, the prophets had used parables presented as court cases for their target's judgment. It was designed to catch them in their own sins (2 Samuel 11-12). The structure of such exercises were designed to highlight moral culpability. Hellenized Jews of Jesus' day practiced a rather cheap form of such debate, based more on words and cold logic, lacking the moral depth of the Hebrew style. Unable to match Jesus on His own terms, they sought to catch Him on theirs.
For once, the Pharisees actually worked with their erstwhile enemies, the Herodians (Jewish partisans supporting Herod's dynasty, whose Jewishness was in serious dispute). The point of debate would force Jesus to choose either the Pharisaical position that it was a sin to pay taxes to a pagan usurper on behalf of evil Rome -- giving God's blessings to sinners -- or to support the Herodian position of paying taxes which were pragmatically legal. Jesus bluntly calls them hypocrites for their fulsome speech and asks for the coin of the realm. The denarius, was a Roman coin with images Jews considered idolatrous; the shekel was without such imagery. However, the tax was paid to Rome in denarii. Since the Pharisees consented to use Roman money, they had to recognize Rome could take it at her whim. Whether a denarius or a shekel, mere material possessions hardly matter among the more important things to which we owe God.
The Sadducees fared no better. Materialist and secular to the core, they utterly missed the point of marriage laws. The stern command from Moses was a man must raise up heirs on behalf of a deceased brother to prevent greed from displacing God's provision. A man's estate should support his widow, but given she was most likely from a different clan or tribe, she could not inherit her husband's property, lest it pass illegally to another clan or tribe. Tribal boundaries were sacrosanct, and ultimately no clan or tribe could hold land inside another's grant from God. Should the man simply take his brother's estate for himself, it would be a sin. Thus, he was to, if necessary, impregnate his brother's widow to give a reasonable chance there would be sons with his brother's name. The Sadducees' story makes a mockery of the sharp divide between worldly material concerns, and spiritual moral concerns. We note in passing Jesus points out angelic beings are without human sexuality. But the heart of the question was the Sadducees' rejection of Scripture. If there is no afterlife, there is no God, so what's the point of having priests such as they?
The Pharisees took another turn, sending Scribes who would have a precisely memorized catalogue behind their question. Of the 600 or so specific laws noted in their Talmud, which would Jesus favor? They were ready with a hundred different ways to catch Him wrong no matter what He answered -- or so they thought. Instead, Jesus based His answer on the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), which summarizes the First Table of the Decalogue regarding duties to Jehovah. He added a summary of the Second Table, which sums up the responsibility to fellow humans. They could hardly object to this, and it clearly implies they had all failed to observe it.
While the council of Pharisees yet stood nearby, Jesus offered His own question to show they would never be ready to face Him in debate. He notes the Messiah is called "Son of David," yet David called the Coming One his Lord. How could a descendant be Lord over the quintessential King of Israel? He would be God in the flesh. Any further questions?
Jesus took His next parable from rabbinical sources, a story line He used more than once. The Parable of Prince's Wedding recalls well established ancient customs. Many kings would vest the heir to their throne on the prince's wedding day. It was the duty of every vassal to appear and swear an oath of fealty to the royal heir. Failure to do so was treasonous, deserving of death and worse. It implied the vassal had chosen to serve some other ruler. For such a grand occasion, the king would spare no expense. He would calculate the length of time required for his messengers to arrive at the various vassals' locations, plus the time it would take each guest to make their way to the royal palace. Each messenger was sent with a sizeable honor guard which would then escort the guest's entourage back to the palace. This marked the caravan as being on the king's business. Let no one seeing them pass doubt the importance of the persons, nor the mission! All Jesus' hearers would have recognized the imagery.
The response of the various nobles in the story would have horrified anyone listening. The second round of urgent messengers, it is implied, would have actually carried fresh samples of the food prepared. It is ready now; come immediately! The response was beyond scandalous. Sending an army to execute the scornful vassals and destroy their noble cities would have become a legend repeated far and wide for centuries to come. Lacking proper nobles to attend, the king called for any stranger to take their places, not just at the wedding feast, but as his new vassals and lords. And since the king always provided festive wedding garments as gifts to his guests, there was no excuse for the one who failed to wear it. It would be an inexcusable breach of protocol, a grand insult. Such a one would be tossed into the dungeon.
Jesus makes the clear case He is the Prince Regent of Heaven. The Jewish leaders had refused to acknowledge Him, in spite of numerous heralds sent before to warn them. Like nobles who could no longer recognize their Lord's coat of arms, the Jews had as a nation rejected their Messiah. Their city, Jerusalem, was to be destroyed, and they would be killed. Their place in God's Kingdom plan would be taken by others. Further, any who seek to enter later must accept the Lord's garment of holiness, something they did not yet possess. As they were, they would hardly be welcome in the Kingdom. Jesus makes this all so plain, ordinary bystanders would have understood it completely.
Now the different political groups in the Jewish leadership prepared to ensnare Jesus in something He said. From ancient times, the prophets had used parables presented as court cases for their target's judgment. It was designed to catch them in their own sins (2 Samuel 11-12). The structure of such exercises were designed to highlight moral culpability. Hellenized Jews of Jesus' day practiced a rather cheap form of such debate, based more on words and cold logic, lacking the moral depth of the Hebrew style. Unable to match Jesus on His own terms, they sought to catch Him on theirs.
For once, the Pharisees actually worked with their erstwhile enemies, the Herodians (Jewish partisans supporting Herod's dynasty, whose Jewishness was in serious dispute). The point of debate would force Jesus to choose either the Pharisaical position that it was a sin to pay taxes to a pagan usurper on behalf of evil Rome -- giving God's blessings to sinners -- or to support the Herodian position of paying taxes which were pragmatically legal. Jesus bluntly calls them hypocrites for their fulsome speech and asks for the coin of the realm. The denarius, was a Roman coin with images Jews considered idolatrous; the shekel was without such imagery. However, the tax was paid to Rome in denarii. Since the Pharisees consented to use Roman money, they had to recognize Rome could take it at her whim. Whether a denarius or a shekel, mere material possessions hardly matter among the more important things to which we owe God.
The Sadducees fared no better. Materialist and secular to the core, they utterly missed the point of marriage laws. The stern command from Moses was a man must raise up heirs on behalf of a deceased brother to prevent greed from displacing God's provision. A man's estate should support his widow, but given she was most likely from a different clan or tribe, she could not inherit her husband's property, lest it pass illegally to another clan or tribe. Tribal boundaries were sacrosanct, and ultimately no clan or tribe could hold land inside another's grant from God. Should the man simply take his brother's estate for himself, it would be a sin. Thus, he was to, if necessary, impregnate his brother's widow to give a reasonable chance there would be sons with his brother's name. The Sadducees' story makes a mockery of the sharp divide between worldly material concerns, and spiritual moral concerns. We note in passing Jesus points out angelic beings are without human sexuality. But the heart of the question was the Sadducees' rejection of Scripture. If there is no afterlife, there is no God, so what's the point of having priests such as they?
The Pharisees took another turn, sending Scribes who would have a precisely memorized catalogue behind their question. Of the 600 or so specific laws noted in their Talmud, which would Jesus favor? They were ready with a hundred different ways to catch Him wrong no matter what He answered -- or so they thought. Instead, Jesus based His answer on the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), which summarizes the First Table of the Decalogue regarding duties to Jehovah. He added a summary of the Second Table, which sums up the responsibility to fellow humans. They could hardly object to this, and it clearly implies they had all failed to observe it.
While the council of Pharisees yet stood nearby, Jesus offered His own question to show they would never be ready to face Him in debate. He notes the Messiah is called "Son of David," yet David called the Coming One his Lord. How could a descendant be Lord over the quintessential King of Israel? He would be God in the flesh. Any further questions?
Friday, December 14, 2007
Biblical Arts: Mixing Families Under One Roof
Just outside the Garden of Eden, life was a bit different than it is today. Mankind is inherently tribal. We like living next to our blood kin, and are suspicious of outsiders. This is the essence of surviving in a fallen world. The ancient tales of Genesis assume this sort of tribal living, with one male family member serving as head-of-household. He need not be the eldest, but the most powerful in the broad sense of able to serve and protect the family. The essential image is that of a shepherd.
The living conditions would find folks huddled in whatever housing best suited conditions. In the mountains, that would be a cave. In the flatlands, more likely a tent. In the woods, it would be closer to a cabin. Shelter would be more extensive in places where the weather is rough, and more outdoors where climate is mild. All of this should be obvious, but describing these things puts us in the proper frame of mind to understand what God expects of us.
The ancient tribal living assumes rather uncivilized conditions, but need not exclude civilization. Let's remind ourselves "civilization" means the cultural habits necessary to live in close quarters with lots of people to whom you are not related. That assumes you live with them, not killing them. With family, you start killing and human instinct will take over -- the rest of the family will try to find a way to kill you, or drive you away. However, with civilization and the attendant economic prosperity, we develop also a divergence of habits, necessary for our specialization, which further enhances economic well-being.
Arriving at the current day, we have all become highly specialized in ways which are totally non-essential for anything. That is, we have habits merely because we have them. Within a single household we have variations which we treat as utterly sacrosanct, and find it exceedingly difficult to compromise. Our shallow Western Post-modern culture encourages that. We are a very, very long way from the biblical assumptions, and often find them incomprehensible after they are declared and explained.
Our recent experience with ice storms in here in the OKC Metro have forced more than a few families to sample tribulation living. That is, disasters mimic the general experience of tribulation and turmoil for so long as it takes to clean up. With the coming economic decline, we might see a lot more. We must prepare our minds to view disaster as the norm. A primary element in this is recovering the basic biblical culture of rather tribal living. If we cannot adapt to the cramped quarters, mixed habit regimes, and attendant stresses, we are not ready for tribulation. Indeed, one might allege we are not ready for Kingdom living in the first place.
This would serve as the introduction to what I had hoped to address earlier. The fundamental nature of the spiritual congregation is that of an extended family. If the best we can do is gather in spacious buildings briefly as good acquaintances, running through scripted exercises we call "worship" and then flee in all directions to our homes and various pursuits, I just can't call that "church." If the bond does not follow us outside the door, if the overlap of lives and activities don't extend beyond the walls of the special-purpose buildings, we do not have a biblical congregation of Christian believers.
Nor is this a simple matter of building skills. Any sinner can conform to social expectations. Something about the way churches behave internally should make it impossible for anyone not fully reborn in the Spirit. Not as an artificial barrier, but as a natural result of our unity in Christ there should be something demanding a miraculous change in the soul which makes real church possible. It should be something which nonetheless draws sinners because it's just too much of what they really need. Miracles of grace at work in the congregation is the best evangelism tool we could ever have.
I sincerely hope I can raise a few questions, and actively solicit your comments.
The living conditions would find folks huddled in whatever housing best suited conditions. In the mountains, that would be a cave. In the flatlands, more likely a tent. In the woods, it would be closer to a cabin. Shelter would be more extensive in places where the weather is rough, and more outdoors where climate is mild. All of this should be obvious, but describing these things puts us in the proper frame of mind to understand what God expects of us.
The ancient tribal living assumes rather uncivilized conditions, but need not exclude civilization. Let's remind ourselves "civilization" means the cultural habits necessary to live in close quarters with lots of people to whom you are not related. That assumes you live with them, not killing them. With family, you start killing and human instinct will take over -- the rest of the family will try to find a way to kill you, or drive you away. However, with civilization and the attendant economic prosperity, we develop also a divergence of habits, necessary for our specialization, which further enhances economic well-being.
Arriving at the current day, we have all become highly specialized in ways which are totally non-essential for anything. That is, we have habits merely because we have them. Within a single household we have variations which we treat as utterly sacrosanct, and find it exceedingly difficult to compromise. Our shallow Western Post-modern culture encourages that. We are a very, very long way from the biblical assumptions, and often find them incomprehensible after they are declared and explained.
Our recent experience with ice storms in here in the OKC Metro have forced more than a few families to sample tribulation living. That is, disasters mimic the general experience of tribulation and turmoil for so long as it takes to clean up. With the coming economic decline, we might see a lot more. We must prepare our minds to view disaster as the norm. A primary element in this is recovering the basic biblical culture of rather tribal living. If we cannot adapt to the cramped quarters, mixed habit regimes, and attendant stresses, we are not ready for tribulation. Indeed, one might allege we are not ready for Kingdom living in the first place.
This would serve as the introduction to what I had hoped to address earlier. The fundamental nature of the spiritual congregation is that of an extended family. If the best we can do is gather in spacious buildings briefly as good acquaintances, running through scripted exercises we call "worship" and then flee in all directions to our homes and various pursuits, I just can't call that "church." If the bond does not follow us outside the door, if the overlap of lives and activities don't extend beyond the walls of the special-purpose buildings, we do not have a biblical congregation of Christian believers.
Nor is this a simple matter of building skills. Any sinner can conform to social expectations. Something about the way churches behave internally should make it impossible for anyone not fully reborn in the Spirit. Not as an artificial barrier, but as a natural result of our unity in Christ there should be something demanding a miraculous change in the soul which makes real church possible. It should be something which nonetheless draws sinners because it's just too much of what they really need. Miracles of grace at work in the congregation is the best evangelism tool we could ever have.
I sincerely hope I can raise a few questions, and actively solicit your comments.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Daniel 12
Daniel already knows his people will finally turn against the truth of God. He knows they will completely lose the ability to understand the Word by their exposure to the Persian and Greek cultures. He knows the Covenant of Moses will come to a close, replaced with some other covenant under the Messiah. That new covenant will include all the world, and Israelites must enter in the same as everyone else. Their unique standing before God will end. He has been warned there is a great evil spirit working through his people, and will next manifest himself via a future King of the North, who will attempt to destroy the Law of Moses, and will have allies within Israel helping him. This one will oppose the Messiah, too. He understands Israel will reject the Messiah, aligning themselves with this evil ruling spirit, that a final battle will destroy Jerusalem, but Satan will not win.
During this last end of Israel and Jerusalem, Michael will arise to take special care over the nation. This final testing will be like nothing Israel has experienced before. Only those who embrace the Messiah, and whose names are written the Lamb's Book of Life will be alive at the end. When the Final Judgment comes, and the dead are called up to face God, some will meet His approval, and some will not. It will not be on the basis of dying in Moses, but in the Messiah -- simply being of Israel will mean nothing. Those who make the transition to the Eternal Kingdom will shine like stars, a witness to the truth revealed in the Messiah.
Daniel was obliged to keep the vision sealed, wrapped up in symbolic and parabolic language. While human knowledge will grow exponentially, and travel across the face of the earth will be easy, it won't help them understand the parabolic language of the Kingdom. Daniel saw in the climax of the vision two attendants with the Messianic figure floating above the Tigris. He swore on the Life of God Himself there would most certainly be a deep and sorrowful time of tribulation when Israel was finally destroyed, tribulation symbolized numerically as three-and-a-half. This final declaration Daniel didn't quite understand, as it was worded. He wanted to know what came after that, but it was not for him to know. They would only make sense to those who came after Christ had inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven. In due time, those of Israel who were wise would see and understand, but the great many would not, because their hearts would be darkened by sin.
The final verses are cryptic to us because we don't operate under the Hebrew calendar system. Again, it's not a matter of counting off days between two events, but recognizing the numerical reference in the context of Hebrew life and culture. Without burying the reader in details of how this works out, it's enough to note the reference is to a time of tribulation (3.5 years) as it would be counted in Sabbath Years and Jubilee Years, because extra days and months are added to account for the drift in the Hebrew year of 360 days. Jeremiah had prophesied about catching up on the missed Sabbaths (2 Chronicles 36:21). Since we know Daniel was told Israel had not repented, and had earned an additional punishment of 70x7 (chapter 9), this refers to the hope God's wrath will finally be turned away once the Temple is destroyed. To live beyond the destruction of the Temple is to enter a truly blessed Jubilee.
The last verse is one of the earliest clear references to the notion physical death is just a waiting state, a time of rest, after which is the eternal reward. It's the same as telling Daniel his name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
During this last end of Israel and Jerusalem, Michael will arise to take special care over the nation. This final testing will be like nothing Israel has experienced before. Only those who embrace the Messiah, and whose names are written the Lamb's Book of Life will be alive at the end. When the Final Judgment comes, and the dead are called up to face God, some will meet His approval, and some will not. It will not be on the basis of dying in Moses, but in the Messiah -- simply being of Israel will mean nothing. Those who make the transition to the Eternal Kingdom will shine like stars, a witness to the truth revealed in the Messiah.
Daniel was obliged to keep the vision sealed, wrapped up in symbolic and parabolic language. While human knowledge will grow exponentially, and travel across the face of the earth will be easy, it won't help them understand the parabolic language of the Kingdom. Daniel saw in the climax of the vision two attendants with the Messianic figure floating above the Tigris. He swore on the Life of God Himself there would most certainly be a deep and sorrowful time of tribulation when Israel was finally destroyed, tribulation symbolized numerically as three-and-a-half. This final declaration Daniel didn't quite understand, as it was worded. He wanted to know what came after that, but it was not for him to know. They would only make sense to those who came after Christ had inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven. In due time, those of Israel who were wise would see and understand, but the great many would not, because their hearts would be darkened by sin.
The final verses are cryptic to us because we don't operate under the Hebrew calendar system. Again, it's not a matter of counting off days between two events, but recognizing the numerical reference in the context of Hebrew life and culture. Without burying the reader in details of how this works out, it's enough to note the reference is to a time of tribulation (3.5 years) as it would be counted in Sabbath Years and Jubilee Years, because extra days and months are added to account for the drift in the Hebrew year of 360 days. Jeremiah had prophesied about catching up on the missed Sabbaths (2 Chronicles 36:21). Since we know Daniel was told Israel had not repented, and had earned an additional punishment of 70x7 (chapter 9), this refers to the hope God's wrath will finally be turned away once the Temple is destroyed. To live beyond the destruction of the Temple is to enter a truly blessed Jubilee.
The last verse is one of the earliest clear references to the notion physical death is just a waiting state, a time of rest, after which is the eternal reward. It's the same as telling Daniel his name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Daniel 10-11
Updated: I've been forced upon further study to reconsider certain points near the end of this lesson, which have been changed to reflect that better understanding.
It becomes necessary here to remind ourselves of the basic principle of Christian understanding of prophecy, particularly in the Old Testament: The primary reason for preserving the Old Testament in the first place is because it points to Christ (1 Peter 1:10-12). Further, we are compelled to read the Old Testament in the same fashion as the New Testament writers. They invariably took a Hebraic Mystical view, what is often called "spiritualizing" the text. Finally, the clues to what particular reading we should have are not wide open to any subjective impulse, but are clearly laid out in Scripture, and amplified by external sources taking the same view. Among the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament, Daniel raises to a high art form the mystical, symbolic and parabolic form, which the Apostle John does well to emulate in his Revelation, both in style and in content.
The reason John links his Revelation of Last Things to Daniel's prophecy is because Daniel was given such a clear understanding of the gospel truth well before it came. It was first a stone cut without hands, which became a mountain filling the whole earth. Then it was a vision of the Ancient of Days establishing His Kingdom on the destruction of the Fourth Beast. Closely connected to this new Kingdom of Heaven would be the demise of Daniel's own nation, which Daniel was shown in the influence of the Persian and Greek religious cultures. Then Daniel is shown in the Seventy Weeks how the Restoration would be an empty gesture, lacking any restoration of faith, ending in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple ritual. Now we approach the final vision, showing in some detail the events of how the last vestige of Israel as a people would become so wrapped up in politics and materialism, they would even go so far as to compromise with someone seeking to wipe away every trace of Mosaic Law. Daniel struggled not with discernment of the message, but in making sense of it, in light of his youth under the reforms of Josiah, and reading his fellow prophets. That all this effort would come to naught, that the Restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple meant nothing in the long run, that all his hopes had hung on the wrong objective was a bit hard to internalize.
Thus, we learn immediately Daniel most surely understood the message in the vision. Daniel had been in mourning, seeking some consolation from the Lord, seeking to understand all he had learned so far. Three weeks into this deep mourning, as he stood by the Tigris River, he encountered an eternal presence. He has a vision of the final revelation of Jehovah, a manifestation of the Messiah, floating above the river. We need not understand all the ways in which this caused so much distress to Daniel. Anyone in the presence of God is immediately stricken with a powerful realization of their sinful nature, and it affected Daniel's entourage the same way. Daniel cannot proceed with the matter at hand until the angels intervene to strengthen him. We assume reasonably this is Gabriel again, bringing the manifestation of Messiah with him.
We learn in passing Daniel heard a lot of things, from the Messiah and from Gabriel, which he does not appear to record for us. We also get a partial image of the way things work in the Spirit Realm, between demons and angels. We discover all the gods of the nations are actually demons, and they have a valid authority which can affect the way God answers prayer, at least to delay things as we count time here in our world. We learn Michael is the name for the angel of Israel. So just what is this matter Gabriel brings to Daniel which calls for such an intense battle in the Spirit Realm? The demons who rule the kingdoms don't what Daniel to know what comes next. They don't want him to write his prophecies regarding the final end of Israel as a nation of on earth. Yet, we see Michael finds it part of his mission to make sure Daniel hears this description of how Israel commits the final betrayal of her Covenant with God.
It would be so very easy to get wrapped up in the historical details of Gabriel's narrative, but that misses the point. Indeed, from a historian's point of view, we must note some really important stuff gets passed over quickly. Several major Persian Emperors get a passing mention, and Alexander the Great gets one sentence. We are then treated to a quick review of some truly minor squabbling between the Seleucids and Ptolemies over Judea. While the details are accurate, it's odd the things included and the things unmentioned. Rather, we notice the tone seems to place a great deal of emphasis on how the battles are endless, mixed with petty political wrangling, all devastating to the Jews trapped in between. Marriages, alliances, betrayals, territory, troops, gold -- and none of it really accomplishes anything. Finally, we are introduced to a fellow we now know is named Antiochus IV, and he gets half of chapter 11, yet historically is quite insignificant. Further, we see no mention at all of the Maccabees nor the Hasmonean Kingdom, nor the beginning of Roman domination in 63 BC. The lesson is drilled home in the words of Gabriel, God's own Messenger Angel: The spiritual understanding of human events little notes what men see, but makes much of the spiritual forces behind them.
What exactly is the spiritual importance of this petty monarch named Antiochus, his crumbling kingdom, and his mad persecution of the Jews? He is a symbol of Satan. As Jesus manifests the Father, so Antiochus manifests Satan. This is the demonic man who brings to reality the thing Daniel most dreads: the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple and its services, and the Law of Moses itself. And he does it all with an alliance of Jews. The few who cling to the truth (11:32-35) will make their presence felt, but they can't stop the relentless fall of the nation. The rest of the chapter cannot be easily matched to known historical events, simply because it recounts the spiritual events behind the whole narrative. This spirit is described in previous visions as the blasphemous horn of the Fourth Beast and as behind one of the four horns of the Goat. His purpose is to destroy the Nation of Israel, to shatter the Law of Moses. This will end in one final battle of spiritual forces, symbolized by the gathering of troops outside Jerusalem, a battle Satan will lose. The actual historical event will be the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. However, that will not give Satan any victory, but will the beginning of the end for him.
The Apostle John makes of this Final Battle something to celebrate, and elaborates the spiritual symbols at length in the Apocalypse. John connects this vision to a wider context of explaining this is how Satan operates. As there will be a New Israel, so Satan will try again to destroy the New Jerusalem of Christ. For Daniel, just trying to assemble a mental framework for the complete tectonic shift from what he has known to a world where such massive spiritual warfare results in countless thousands of lives lost, it's all too much. Yes, he understood it. He knew much of it stretched before him by many years. Had the Returnees bothered to retain their Hebrew cultural orientation, they would have understood it, too. But Daniel had already been warned they would lose it to Persian and Greek influences, becoming steadily wrapped up in human politics and materialism, as if such things could somehow reflect what really mattered. The darkest part of the vision for Daniel was the realization his own people would reject their Messiah.
It becomes necessary here to remind ourselves of the basic principle of Christian understanding of prophecy, particularly in the Old Testament: The primary reason for preserving the Old Testament in the first place is because it points to Christ (1 Peter 1:10-12). Further, we are compelled to read the Old Testament in the same fashion as the New Testament writers. They invariably took a Hebraic Mystical view, what is often called "spiritualizing" the text. Finally, the clues to what particular reading we should have are not wide open to any subjective impulse, but are clearly laid out in Scripture, and amplified by external sources taking the same view. Among the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament, Daniel raises to a high art form the mystical, symbolic and parabolic form, which the Apostle John does well to emulate in his Revelation, both in style and in content.
The reason John links his Revelation of Last Things to Daniel's prophecy is because Daniel was given such a clear understanding of the gospel truth well before it came. It was first a stone cut without hands, which became a mountain filling the whole earth. Then it was a vision of the Ancient of Days establishing His Kingdom on the destruction of the Fourth Beast. Closely connected to this new Kingdom of Heaven would be the demise of Daniel's own nation, which Daniel was shown in the influence of the Persian and Greek religious cultures. Then Daniel is shown in the Seventy Weeks how the Restoration would be an empty gesture, lacking any restoration of faith, ending in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple ritual. Now we approach the final vision, showing in some detail the events of how the last vestige of Israel as a people would become so wrapped up in politics and materialism, they would even go so far as to compromise with someone seeking to wipe away every trace of Mosaic Law. Daniel struggled not with discernment of the message, but in making sense of it, in light of his youth under the reforms of Josiah, and reading his fellow prophets. That all this effort would come to naught, that the Restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple meant nothing in the long run, that all his hopes had hung on the wrong objective was a bit hard to internalize.
Thus, we learn immediately Daniel most surely understood the message in the vision. Daniel had been in mourning, seeking some consolation from the Lord, seeking to understand all he had learned so far. Three weeks into this deep mourning, as he stood by the Tigris River, he encountered an eternal presence. He has a vision of the final revelation of Jehovah, a manifestation of the Messiah, floating above the river. We need not understand all the ways in which this caused so much distress to Daniel. Anyone in the presence of God is immediately stricken with a powerful realization of their sinful nature, and it affected Daniel's entourage the same way. Daniel cannot proceed with the matter at hand until the angels intervene to strengthen him. We assume reasonably this is Gabriel again, bringing the manifestation of Messiah with him.
We learn in passing Daniel heard a lot of things, from the Messiah and from Gabriel, which he does not appear to record for us. We also get a partial image of the way things work in the Spirit Realm, between demons and angels. We discover all the gods of the nations are actually demons, and they have a valid authority which can affect the way God answers prayer, at least to delay things as we count time here in our world. We learn Michael is the name for the angel of Israel. So just what is this matter Gabriel brings to Daniel which calls for such an intense battle in the Spirit Realm? The demons who rule the kingdoms don't what Daniel to know what comes next. They don't want him to write his prophecies regarding the final end of Israel as a nation of on earth. Yet, we see Michael finds it part of his mission to make sure Daniel hears this description of how Israel commits the final betrayal of her Covenant with God.
It would be so very easy to get wrapped up in the historical details of Gabriel's narrative, but that misses the point. Indeed, from a historian's point of view, we must note some really important stuff gets passed over quickly. Several major Persian Emperors get a passing mention, and Alexander the Great gets one sentence. We are then treated to a quick review of some truly minor squabbling between the Seleucids and Ptolemies over Judea. While the details are accurate, it's odd the things included and the things unmentioned. Rather, we notice the tone seems to place a great deal of emphasis on how the battles are endless, mixed with petty political wrangling, all devastating to the Jews trapped in between. Marriages, alliances, betrayals, territory, troops, gold -- and none of it really accomplishes anything. Finally, we are introduced to a fellow we now know is named Antiochus IV, and he gets half of chapter 11, yet historically is quite insignificant. Further, we see no mention at all of the Maccabees nor the Hasmonean Kingdom, nor the beginning of Roman domination in 63 BC. The lesson is drilled home in the words of Gabriel, God's own Messenger Angel: The spiritual understanding of human events little notes what men see, but makes much of the spiritual forces behind them.
What exactly is the spiritual importance of this petty monarch named Antiochus, his crumbling kingdom, and his mad persecution of the Jews? He is a symbol of Satan. As Jesus manifests the Father, so Antiochus manifests Satan. This is the demonic man who brings to reality the thing Daniel most dreads: the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple and its services, and the Law of Moses itself. And he does it all with an alliance of Jews. The few who cling to the truth (11:32-35) will make their presence felt, but they can't stop the relentless fall of the nation. The rest of the chapter cannot be easily matched to known historical events, simply because it recounts the spiritual events behind the whole narrative. This spirit is described in previous visions as the blasphemous horn of the Fourth Beast and as behind one of the four horns of the Goat. His purpose is to destroy the Nation of Israel, to shatter the Law of Moses. This will end in one final battle of spiritual forces, symbolized by the gathering of troops outside Jerusalem, a battle Satan will lose. The actual historical event will be the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. However, that will not give Satan any victory, but will the beginning of the end for him.
The Apostle John makes of this Final Battle something to celebrate, and elaborates the spiritual symbols at length in the Apocalypse. John connects this vision to a wider context of explaining this is how Satan operates. As there will be a New Israel, so Satan will try again to destroy the New Jerusalem of Christ. For Daniel, just trying to assemble a mental framework for the complete tectonic shift from what he has known to a world where such massive spiritual warfare results in countless thousands of lives lost, it's all too much. Yes, he understood it. He knew much of it stretched before him by many years. Had the Returnees bothered to retain their Hebrew cultural orientation, they would have understood it, too. But Daniel had already been warned they would lose it to Persian and Greek influences, becoming steadily wrapped up in human politics and materialism, as if such things could somehow reflect what really mattered. The darkest part of the vision for Daniel was the realization his own people would reject their Messiah.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Taking Passage
On the way to our final episodes in Daniel, I note in passing the last three chapters are all a single event. That is, one final panoramic view of the demise of Israel as a worldly entity among nations of mankind, replaced with a New Israel of the spirit. The Kingdom of Heaven no longer has any link to any political entity on the earth, and is rooted in the Heavens. All who belong to it will do so as a spiritual identity only. It's going to take some time before the Lord has clarified for me what to write.
Meanwhile, I'm living in the middle of my own dramatic scene of destruction. The OKC Metro suffered a major ice storm. That's the result of a wet air mass surging up from the Gulf, colliding with a cold front roaring down from the Arctic. As is usually the case, the colder air was denser, and slid under the lighter warm air. Being forced upward, the Gulf air has been steadily dropping its moisture on us. Starting Sunday afternoon, that meant freezing rain. Precipitation drops as water, lands on whatever surface, and freezes. Because this was our first real freeze, the ground did not turn cold uniformly, so the ice formed in patches. However, every bridge became a sheet of ice, and most vehicles resembled the cartoons of something stuck in a huge block of ice.
Over the past few weeks, before all this mess, most electric utilities were out, as well as numerous contractors they hired, cutting tree limbs down away from electrical lines. Here in this idiot state of Oklahoma, where we almost never have earthquakes, but frequent storms, we have all our electricity transmission lines strung above ground where they are sure to be destroyed often. Only a few rare places see the lines buried as they should be around here. Well, the ice storm made it one big joke.
Picture this: The area where I live is a network of minor streams and creeks. We have a great amount of riparian tree growth, and the area is known for frequent dense shady areas. These thickets of trees look like a war zone without the bloody carnage. Where a tree has shallow roots, it is leaned over, pulled out of the ground. Of the more solid trees, most large limbs are broken off at the trunk, snapped off by the massive weight of ice which formed up until late last night. Most of the parks are impassible, because the trees are "upside down" with limbs, many fully intact in a single piece, now reaching into the mud, instead of into the sky. Tree removal will be a growth industry in this area for at least a week.
The air temperature has risen a bit over the past 12 hours, and remains above freezing. However, it is only just above that line. Rain falls as water, and helps thaw a few things here and there, but ice packed thickly remains ice in many places. Tomorrow I will probably go out and do some volunteer clearing of park paths. I use them, so I should be willing to help. Since I lack power tools, I may not be able to much more than simply move limbs to one side. I've plenty of experience with hand tools and working solo, so I don't mind it. I doubt the city will interfere, but they will not be especially happy, since they have this unreasoning fear of lawsuits. However, they lack the resources to do much about guys like me, and I would never dream of suing them for something I did to myself. Hey, it's my park, too.
Finally, I note the falling trees cut off power to most of the OKC Metro until late yesterday. At that point, roughly half the city had electricity restored. Some will be waiting up to ten days or more. My younger brother's house was hit with a falling limb which struck precisely at his electric utility box on the side of the house. This means a licensed electrician has to do the reconnect for reasons of city codes, and the utility companies tend to shy away from helping in cases like this. So his wife and kids are packed in here in our apartment. I dearly love kids, and have no trouble taking them seriously, no matter how annoying. However, it's a real world shift in my routine, and stuff I did in one or two ours in solitude now takes all day. Resentment of such would be a sin. Our Lord has always been generous and patient with us; how could I not pass it on?
Meanwhile, I'm living in the middle of my own dramatic scene of destruction. The OKC Metro suffered a major ice storm. That's the result of a wet air mass surging up from the Gulf, colliding with a cold front roaring down from the Arctic. As is usually the case, the colder air was denser, and slid under the lighter warm air. Being forced upward, the Gulf air has been steadily dropping its moisture on us. Starting Sunday afternoon, that meant freezing rain. Precipitation drops as water, lands on whatever surface, and freezes. Because this was our first real freeze, the ground did not turn cold uniformly, so the ice formed in patches. However, every bridge became a sheet of ice, and most vehicles resembled the cartoons of something stuck in a huge block of ice.
Over the past few weeks, before all this mess, most electric utilities were out, as well as numerous contractors they hired, cutting tree limbs down away from electrical lines. Here in this idiot state of Oklahoma, where we almost never have earthquakes, but frequent storms, we have all our electricity transmission lines strung above ground where they are sure to be destroyed often. Only a few rare places see the lines buried as they should be around here. Well, the ice storm made it one big joke.
Picture this: The area where I live is a network of minor streams and creeks. We have a great amount of riparian tree growth, and the area is known for frequent dense shady areas. These thickets of trees look like a war zone without the bloody carnage. Where a tree has shallow roots, it is leaned over, pulled out of the ground. Of the more solid trees, most large limbs are broken off at the trunk, snapped off by the massive weight of ice which formed up until late last night. Most of the parks are impassible, because the trees are "upside down" with limbs, many fully intact in a single piece, now reaching into the mud, instead of into the sky. Tree removal will be a growth industry in this area for at least a week.
The air temperature has risen a bit over the past 12 hours, and remains above freezing. However, it is only just above that line. Rain falls as water, and helps thaw a few things here and there, but ice packed thickly remains ice in many places. Tomorrow I will probably go out and do some volunteer clearing of park paths. I use them, so I should be willing to help. Since I lack power tools, I may not be able to much more than simply move limbs to one side. I've plenty of experience with hand tools and working solo, so I don't mind it. I doubt the city will interfere, but they will not be especially happy, since they have this unreasoning fear of lawsuits. However, they lack the resources to do much about guys like me, and I would never dream of suing them for something I did to myself. Hey, it's my park, too.
Finally, I note the falling trees cut off power to most of the OKC Metro until late yesterday. At that point, roughly half the city had electricity restored. Some will be waiting up to ten days or more. My younger brother's house was hit with a falling limb which struck precisely at his electric utility box on the side of the house. This means a licensed electrician has to do the reconnect for reasons of city codes, and the utility companies tend to shy away from helping in cases like this. So his wife and kids are packed in here in our apartment. I dearly love kids, and have no trouble taking them seriously, no matter how annoying. However, it's a real world shift in my routine, and stuff I did in one or two ours in solitude now takes all day. Resentment of such would be a sin. Our Lord has always been generous and patient with us; how could I not pass it on?
Monday, December 10, 2007
Politics: Just One Slice, Please
Just a short item. I really don't think politics will ever accomplish anything useful, certainly not from the Kingdom viewpoint. Still, it can be awfully entertaining if you understand the way things work.
People who track politics without any real interest in outcomes will note Bush pretends to be conservative, and the Intelligence Community acts rather liberal. That's an artificial dichotomy, in reality. It's more like two thugs fighting for the same choice dope dealer's spot on the corner. They portray themselves in whatever fashion they believe will win them some local support, and don't you believe a word of it. Neither would hesitate to kill you if you got in the line of fire. I mean that literally, too.
So when Bush forced the CIA and friends ("Legion of Spooks") to back him in his lies about Iraq, they were waiting for a chance to get even. They did it by releasing a report which shows he's been lying about Iran, too. Now, let's make this clear: The NIE showing Iran isn't working on nuclear weapons does agree with the objective estimates of experts. The Legion of Spooks can tell the truth when it suits their purpose. Bush might, but don't count on it. I doubt any other president has lied so much in office, especially by simply refusing to give a straight answer.
However, Bush is mostly a figurehead. The Neocons actually run the show. Their master is Israel, but they cater to the big corporations: Oil, Pharma, etc. At any given time, policy will reflect who pays the Neocons the most money, but will always home in on obeying the political wishes of Israel. Every now and then we'll have someone seeming to represent the Arab/Palestinian interests, sometimes even effectively, just so the facade of democratic government is maintained and the sheeple can be kept distracted. So we should expect some give-and-take in this big put-on, but know it doesn't really alter the long-term course of events. On rare occasions, you can find a few surprises, and it'll make a big splash, and the two teams will scramble to regain their control. It all serves to keep us from seeing the bigger picture.
The end result is someone out there makes a ton of money from warfare, whether it be a shooting war or a cold war. Somebody out there knows enough to profit when a national currency goes down the tubes, too. They know how to profit from confiscating the entire combined wealth of a large nation's middle class, enslaving them in the process, and raising up some other nation for awhile. Yes, most of this is manipulation from a small core of people, people who pass their power down through generations, all having the same vision. It's not a pleasant vision for you and I. The Lord will permit them some license to do their evil until it suits His purpose to shut them down. I rather doubt that will come during my lifetime.
So keep your head down, your eyes on the Cross, and know that suffering in this life is what we do. If we don't suffer, it's because Satan is pleased with us.
People who track politics without any real interest in outcomes will note Bush pretends to be conservative, and the Intelligence Community acts rather liberal. That's an artificial dichotomy, in reality. It's more like two thugs fighting for the same choice dope dealer's spot on the corner. They portray themselves in whatever fashion they believe will win them some local support, and don't you believe a word of it. Neither would hesitate to kill you if you got in the line of fire. I mean that literally, too.
So when Bush forced the CIA and friends ("Legion of Spooks") to back him in his lies about Iraq, they were waiting for a chance to get even. They did it by releasing a report which shows he's been lying about Iran, too. Now, let's make this clear: The NIE showing Iran isn't working on nuclear weapons does agree with the objective estimates of experts. The Legion of Spooks can tell the truth when it suits their purpose. Bush might, but don't count on it. I doubt any other president has lied so much in office, especially by simply refusing to give a straight answer.
However, Bush is mostly a figurehead. The Neocons actually run the show. Their master is Israel, but they cater to the big corporations: Oil, Pharma, etc. At any given time, policy will reflect who pays the Neocons the most money, but will always home in on obeying the political wishes of Israel. Every now and then we'll have someone seeming to represent the Arab/Palestinian interests, sometimes even effectively, just so the facade of democratic government is maintained and the sheeple can be kept distracted. So we should expect some give-and-take in this big put-on, but know it doesn't really alter the long-term course of events. On rare occasions, you can find a few surprises, and it'll make a big splash, and the two teams will scramble to regain their control. It all serves to keep us from seeing the bigger picture.
The end result is someone out there makes a ton of money from warfare, whether it be a shooting war or a cold war. Somebody out there knows enough to profit when a national currency goes down the tubes, too. They know how to profit from confiscating the entire combined wealth of a large nation's middle class, enslaving them in the process, and raising up some other nation for awhile. Yes, most of this is manipulation from a small core of people, people who pass their power down through generations, all having the same vision. It's not a pleasant vision for you and I. The Lord will permit them some license to do their evil until it suits His purpose to shut them down. I rather doubt that will come during my lifetime.
So keep your head down, your eyes on the Cross, and know that suffering in this life is what we do. If we don't suffer, it's because Satan is pleased with us.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Blind as the Sanhedrin
When folks insist God still has a plan for Israel, I keep having to wonder how they ignore verses such as the following from yesterday's lesson:
What it was Israel had before Jesus, it was gone. They had produced none of the spiritual fruit God had demanded when He gave them the Law. They were the barren fig tree in full leaf, the vinedressers who refused to render the fruit from God's vineyard.
The modern state called "Israel" has no connection to the folks Titus ran out of town in AD 70. First of all, they share almost none of the DNA. Modern Jews, particularly those ruling in Israel, are Ashkenazim, and quite racist and hateful to the Sephardim. Whatever it is they've built, they inherit nothing from the Old Covenant. Indeed, they make much of rejecting it.
It gets really old when I show people all the things pointing to Israel losing their place, Jesus being the only way to God, the Covenant of Moses closed off and completely finished, only to have them say at the end, "But I think God has a plan for them separate from us." I suppose there's a small sense in which I know how Jesus felt, getting people to see the truth.
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. (Matthew 21:43)
What it was Israel had before Jesus, it was gone. They had produced none of the spiritual fruit God had demanded when He gave them the Law. They were the barren fig tree in full leaf, the vinedressers who refused to render the fruit from God's vineyard.
The modern state called "Israel" has no connection to the folks Titus ran out of town in AD 70. First of all, they share almost none of the DNA. Modern Jews, particularly those ruling in Israel, are Ashkenazim, and quite racist and hateful to the Sephardim. Whatever it is they've built, they inherit nothing from the Old Covenant. Indeed, they make much of rejecting it.
It gets really old when I show people all the things pointing to Israel losing their place, Jesus being the only way to God, the Covenant of Moses closed off and completely finished, only to have them say at the end, "But I think God has a plan for them separate from us." I suppose there's a small sense in which I know how Jesus felt, getting people to see the truth.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Life of Christ: Matthew 21
Jesus built His case for claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of God. He had no doubts it would be rejected by the Jewish leaders. That in itself should have been an argument in His favor, but Jesus was not concerned with mere human perception. He proceeded on the basis of truth. He would do what the Word of God required to establish the testimony to His identity.
Having already accepted the public testimony of the two blind beggars in the previous chapter, we see Jesus going directly to His planned public announcement in Jerusalem. There is no need to see a miracle at every step of the way. The false piety of making miracles of mundane events is the same lie of Satan which makes of miracles nothing. The Gospel writers assumed the readers of their times would remember details not included in the narrative. Jesus had friends and supporters scattered throughout the area near Jerusalem. No doubt some were those He had healed, or relatives of the healed. It's not hard to imagine a standing invitation from wealthier supporters to stay as guests in their home during the Passover Feast. Nor is it outrageous to suppose another had already agreed to provide the beast of burden for His use. Jesus had planned this festive entry to Jerusalem. Not in the cynical sense of forcing the hands of His opponents, but in faithful obedience to the Word of God. Jesus declared Himself the Messiah according to what God had spoken through the prophets long before.
What so many seem to miss here is not how the Jewish leaders rejected their Messiah, but God was pronouncing His final rejection of the Nation of Israel. Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9 regarding the Messianic prophecy of entering the city through the gate every king used in a symbolic parade, where the newly crowned king is conducted to His throne by the people. The ultimate King of Israel rode the most humble beast of burden possible. The same crowd which had accompanied Him from Galilee, now swollen many times larger, obeyed ancient custom by throwing their cloaks and leafy branches on the path under His mount. The phrase including hosanna is intentionally ambiguous, saying both "God save the King" and "O King, save us."
This huge crowd accompanying Jesus were folks from the countryside. The people of the city were a wholly different bunch, and asked what in the world these bumpkins were yelling about. The multitudes identified Him as a prophet whose name was already well known, even in Jerusalem. The crowd itself believed falsely Jesus was about to establish an earthly, political domain, sitting on the traditional throne of David. When it later became clear this is not Jesus' intent, they turned on Him. For now, it would be a heady atmosphere of hope and joy.
The Bazaars of the Sons of Annas were a monopoly service protected by the High Priest, Annas. Only the official Jewish shekel was permitted for payment of the Temple Tax, and Jews visiting from other lands had to pay an outrageous premium to exchange their native coins. Further, a very corrupt practice was to reject any sacrificial animal brought in from outside the city as not meeting priestly standards laid down by Moses. It didn't matter how perfect the animal was, it wasn't going to pass. Instead, animals bought from the Bazaars would always pass, regardless how imperfect they might be. Naturally, they were always sold at outrageous premium prices. Worst of all, these Bazaars were packed into the Court of the Gentiles, the portion of the Temple complex reserved for those not allowed to proceed further inside. This activity prevented Gentiles getting close enough to observe any of the rituals. Symbolically, it meant they were unwelcome before the God of Israel, the smug racial hostility the Jewish leadership was known to express often. There are indications it was common for reformers to drive these Bazaars out from time to time. It was a symbolic act, and the question Jesus faced from the Temple authorities was both a political issue -- "Who gave You authority to do this?" -- but implied the wanted to know what He was "selling" as His particular reform.
Jesus drove them out with a rough quotation of Isaiah 56:7, pointing out these Bazaars violated the clear command of Jehovah. The Nation of Israel was created in part to reveal God's Word to the nations, to be a kingdom of priests to the world. They had utterly failed this, and Jesus points that out. Then, with the Court of Gentiles cleared of obstruction, He proceeds to use the Temple as it should have been all along, the heal anyone who approached with a need. Instead of using the Temple as the refuge of thieves, implying the priesthood were just that, He showed what the priests should have been doing instead of making fat profits. The blind and lame were forbidden to enter the Temple courts, so Jesus healed them and made them fit to go inside, to draw near to God. The symbolic contrast is easily lost on us today: the priests had done all they could to prevent men coming to God; Jesus did all He could to bring them nigh.
That His cheering section made Him out to be the Messiah was blasphemous to the Sanhedrin's deaf ears. Noticing it is mostly young boys making the noise, Jesus quotes David's Psalm 8:2. Since the leaders refuse to hear from God, it falls to the most insignificant to do the work of God, to speak His revelation. The symbol of the Fig Tree carries this further. These give fruit some ten months of the year, and should at least have offered something a bit green with the leafy foliage. Israel had failed to produce the fruit God had intended, barren of all but show. Jesus cursed it, symbolic of the curse God had placed on Israel for their lack of spiritual fruit. In just forty years, the Nation of Israel would wither away, and cease to exist, just as the fig tree which had rejected God's purpose. When the Disciples marveled at the tree, but missed the symbolism, Jesus noted miracles such as that were tied up in commitment to God's purpose. He cites a rabbinical image: a teacher particularly deft at reconciling difficulties and unraveling paradoxes was called "an uprooter of mountains." It didn't matter that the task seemed utterly hopeless; a devotion to obeying God would result in the authority to do anything necessary for the task. If Mount Zion stood in the way of the Kingdom, Mount Zion would be removed. So it was, a few decades later, symbolically removing the last earthly vestige of Jewish ritual, and replacing it with the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven.
The Jewish leaders insist on Jesus declaring the authority to clear the Bazaars from the Court of Gentiles, just in case He had some valid warrant unknown to them. He refused to answer until they dealt with the question of John the Baptist. Was his authority from God for from humans? The whole point was to get them to confess their actions were more about politics than about truth. Refusing to answer was actually the answer. If they can't tell the difference between the works of God by His Word and the works of men in politics and hucksterism, they would hardly understand why Jesus did what He did. To press the point, Jesus gave them the parable of the Two Sons. The Jewish leaders were all show, but lacking any useful service to God. When John called for repentance, the Jewish leaders hardly noticed, aside from the political opportunity. Those the leaders had tagged as heathens, torn from the Nation, in coming to repentance showed they were the true Children of God.
Without mercy, Jesus drives ahead with another parable of indictment. The Parable of the Wicked Vineyard Keepers recalls an ancient reference to the Nation of Israel as God's vineyard. Typically, renters would send to the landlord some contracted percentage of the wine they produced. These greedy fools insisted on keeping the entire season's produce for themselves. The Jewish leadership had always been guilty of consuming God's largesse on themselves, excluding the world with snorting contempt. That this depicted the Sanhedrin as inheriting Israel's past rejection of the prophets was not lost on them. That He equated Himself with the landlord's son as the Son of God was also obvious. He backed them into a verbal corner, forcing them to pronounce their own doom. By rejecting the Messiah, they were bringing God's rejection upon their nation. When David wrote in Psalm 118:22-23 about the rejected stone, it was a note about Israel being rejected by all, but taken up by God as His own people. Jesus showed their place with God was in His hands. Given their complete failure to obey God's plan for them, that fell to Him to fulfill. Now, He was the Cornerstone of a New Israel.
Jesus makes His claim utterly clear: He was God's Son, the Messiah. He was the embodiment of God's will, the ultimate expression of Jehovah's revelation. They rejected His claim. Therefore, their place in God's divine administration was gone. The Kingdom of God was taken from them, and given to Jesus, who would build a new Kingdom. Anyone who encounters Him as Cornerstone would meet one of two fates. Some would be broken, reshaped and included in the building of the Kingdom. Others would refuse to be broken, refuse to repent of their sins, and so would be crushed into powder. They would become something so small and insignificant as to be carried away on the wind, dispersed and forgotten. This prophecy was fulfilled in full measure in 70 AD, with the destruction of the Temple. The Nation of Israel as it had been up to that point no longer had any meaning, no part in God's plans.
Having already accepted the public testimony of the two blind beggars in the previous chapter, we see Jesus going directly to His planned public announcement in Jerusalem. There is no need to see a miracle at every step of the way. The false piety of making miracles of mundane events is the same lie of Satan which makes of miracles nothing. The Gospel writers assumed the readers of their times would remember details not included in the narrative. Jesus had friends and supporters scattered throughout the area near Jerusalem. No doubt some were those He had healed, or relatives of the healed. It's not hard to imagine a standing invitation from wealthier supporters to stay as guests in their home during the Passover Feast. Nor is it outrageous to suppose another had already agreed to provide the beast of burden for His use. Jesus had planned this festive entry to Jerusalem. Not in the cynical sense of forcing the hands of His opponents, but in faithful obedience to the Word of God. Jesus declared Himself the Messiah according to what God had spoken through the prophets long before.
What so many seem to miss here is not how the Jewish leaders rejected their Messiah, but God was pronouncing His final rejection of the Nation of Israel. Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9 regarding the Messianic prophecy of entering the city through the gate every king used in a symbolic parade, where the newly crowned king is conducted to His throne by the people. The ultimate King of Israel rode the most humble beast of burden possible. The same crowd which had accompanied Him from Galilee, now swollen many times larger, obeyed ancient custom by throwing their cloaks and leafy branches on the path under His mount. The phrase including hosanna is intentionally ambiguous, saying both "God save the King" and "O King, save us."
This huge crowd accompanying Jesus were folks from the countryside. The people of the city were a wholly different bunch, and asked what in the world these bumpkins were yelling about. The multitudes identified Him as a prophet whose name was already well known, even in Jerusalem. The crowd itself believed falsely Jesus was about to establish an earthly, political domain, sitting on the traditional throne of David. When it later became clear this is not Jesus' intent, they turned on Him. For now, it would be a heady atmosphere of hope and joy.
The Bazaars of the Sons of Annas were a monopoly service protected by the High Priest, Annas. Only the official Jewish shekel was permitted for payment of the Temple Tax, and Jews visiting from other lands had to pay an outrageous premium to exchange their native coins. Further, a very corrupt practice was to reject any sacrificial animal brought in from outside the city as not meeting priestly standards laid down by Moses. It didn't matter how perfect the animal was, it wasn't going to pass. Instead, animals bought from the Bazaars would always pass, regardless how imperfect they might be. Naturally, they were always sold at outrageous premium prices. Worst of all, these Bazaars were packed into the Court of the Gentiles, the portion of the Temple complex reserved for those not allowed to proceed further inside. This activity prevented Gentiles getting close enough to observe any of the rituals. Symbolically, it meant they were unwelcome before the God of Israel, the smug racial hostility the Jewish leadership was known to express often. There are indications it was common for reformers to drive these Bazaars out from time to time. It was a symbolic act, and the question Jesus faced from the Temple authorities was both a political issue -- "Who gave You authority to do this?" -- but implied the wanted to know what He was "selling" as His particular reform.
Jesus drove them out with a rough quotation of Isaiah 56:7, pointing out these Bazaars violated the clear command of Jehovah. The Nation of Israel was created in part to reveal God's Word to the nations, to be a kingdom of priests to the world. They had utterly failed this, and Jesus points that out. Then, with the Court of Gentiles cleared of obstruction, He proceeds to use the Temple as it should have been all along, the heal anyone who approached with a need. Instead of using the Temple as the refuge of thieves, implying the priesthood were just that, He showed what the priests should have been doing instead of making fat profits. The blind and lame were forbidden to enter the Temple courts, so Jesus healed them and made them fit to go inside, to draw near to God. The symbolic contrast is easily lost on us today: the priests had done all they could to prevent men coming to God; Jesus did all He could to bring them nigh.
That His cheering section made Him out to be the Messiah was blasphemous to the Sanhedrin's deaf ears. Noticing it is mostly young boys making the noise, Jesus quotes David's Psalm 8:2. Since the leaders refuse to hear from God, it falls to the most insignificant to do the work of God, to speak His revelation. The symbol of the Fig Tree carries this further. These give fruit some ten months of the year, and should at least have offered something a bit green with the leafy foliage. Israel had failed to produce the fruit God had intended, barren of all but show. Jesus cursed it, symbolic of the curse God had placed on Israel for their lack of spiritual fruit. In just forty years, the Nation of Israel would wither away, and cease to exist, just as the fig tree which had rejected God's purpose. When the Disciples marveled at the tree, but missed the symbolism, Jesus noted miracles such as that were tied up in commitment to God's purpose. He cites a rabbinical image: a teacher particularly deft at reconciling difficulties and unraveling paradoxes was called "an uprooter of mountains." It didn't matter that the task seemed utterly hopeless; a devotion to obeying God would result in the authority to do anything necessary for the task. If Mount Zion stood in the way of the Kingdom, Mount Zion would be removed. So it was, a few decades later, symbolically removing the last earthly vestige of Jewish ritual, and replacing it with the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven.
The Jewish leaders insist on Jesus declaring the authority to clear the Bazaars from the Court of Gentiles, just in case He had some valid warrant unknown to them. He refused to answer until they dealt with the question of John the Baptist. Was his authority from God for from humans? The whole point was to get them to confess their actions were more about politics than about truth. Refusing to answer was actually the answer. If they can't tell the difference between the works of God by His Word and the works of men in politics and hucksterism, they would hardly understand why Jesus did what He did. To press the point, Jesus gave them the parable of the Two Sons. The Jewish leaders were all show, but lacking any useful service to God. When John called for repentance, the Jewish leaders hardly noticed, aside from the political opportunity. Those the leaders had tagged as heathens, torn from the Nation, in coming to repentance showed they were the true Children of God.
Without mercy, Jesus drives ahead with another parable of indictment. The Parable of the Wicked Vineyard Keepers recalls an ancient reference to the Nation of Israel as God's vineyard. Typically, renters would send to the landlord some contracted percentage of the wine they produced. These greedy fools insisted on keeping the entire season's produce for themselves. The Jewish leadership had always been guilty of consuming God's largesse on themselves, excluding the world with snorting contempt. That this depicted the Sanhedrin as inheriting Israel's past rejection of the prophets was not lost on them. That He equated Himself with the landlord's son as the Son of God was also obvious. He backed them into a verbal corner, forcing them to pronounce their own doom. By rejecting the Messiah, they were bringing God's rejection upon their nation. When David wrote in Psalm 118:22-23 about the rejected stone, it was a note about Israel being rejected by all, but taken up by God as His own people. Jesus showed their place with God was in His hands. Given their complete failure to obey God's plan for them, that fell to Him to fulfill. Now, He was the Cornerstone of a New Israel.
Jesus makes His claim utterly clear: He was God's Son, the Messiah. He was the embodiment of God's will, the ultimate expression of Jehovah's revelation. They rejected His claim. Therefore, their place in God's divine administration was gone. The Kingdom of God was taken from them, and given to Jesus, who would build a new Kingdom. Anyone who encounters Him as Cornerstone would meet one of two fates. Some would be broken, reshaped and included in the building of the Kingdom. Others would refuse to be broken, refuse to repent of their sins, and so would be crushed into powder. They would become something so small and insignificant as to be carried away on the wind, dispersed and forgotten. This prophecy was fulfilled in full measure in 70 AD, with the destruction of the Temple. The Nation of Israel as it had been up to that point no longer had any meaning, no part in God's plans.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Tribulation Report #004: Staying Alive
No, we aren't going to seek a theological statement in the movie tune of some guys singing like girls. Rather, we are confronting something completely opposite of the sort of life promoted in that film. Why bother surviving tribulation, when going home to Heaven would be so much better?
There's only one reason for bothering with the explanations of why we are in tribulation, what we are likely to experience as it deepens, and practical tips on handling the situation: our calling. Until the Lord is finished with your calling, you have a responsibility to make sure you have done all that calling requires. In a broad general sense, our greatest witness is the love Jesus shows through us for folks who typically aren't too lovable. In so doing, we portray the difference between what this world does, and what God does. In other words, we participate in revealing Him.
I keep saying we have no responsibility for convincing anyone of anything. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Our purpose is simply to make sure people have gotten the message. By our actions first, then perhaps by our words later, we speak the gospel truth. We live in ways this world doesn't accept, often hardly comprehends, but ways clearly consistent with the revelation of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. We stay alive because we are His chosen tools for that revelation.
As tools, we focus not on some doctrinal purity of health and fitness, of economic efficiency, or defense from government abuse. We may well include those things, but only as means to the end that we live for that one purpose. It is utterly insane, from the Kingdom viewpoint, to struggle so hard to survive, with such a high level of comfort, when those things in themselves are not the purpose. Frankly, many from whom I gain information for living in hard times are quite determined to stand up for their rights, kill aggressors regardless of what's behind their aggression, and survive and prosper with their families. That is not us.
Saving my skin is not a major preoccupation in my reading. Keeping it attached to my body until the mission is complete is just a method, a means. As with one current popular email making the rounds, I intend skid into death with a body all used up and barely in one piece, deeply grateful for the wild ride. Given what I know of statistics, history and God's calling on my life, I expect to die right in the middle of doing something which requires all the physical power I can develop between now and then. That means eating as well as possible on what budget God provides, working out every day my body can be driven to cooperate, keeping an eye on the economic trends, keeping up with communication technology, and most especially maintaining an awareness of what various government entities are doing. Defending myself against government abuse is only viable if doing so serves God's purpose.
More important than all of this is the most pragmatic thing I've ever done: I began the struggle to clarify my own convictions. Given the theology which says convictions are from God, the direct result of the Holy Spirit's presence in my soul, that they are the manifestation of His eternal will and character viewed through the limited understanding of my feeble mind, I have to obey them. Doing that means becoming fully acquainted with what really matters when everything else comes apart. Some of it will not be fully clarified until the moment comes to act on them. But those which can be discerned are the anchor of my existence. I live by their dictates, by making sure I see as clearly as possible just what it is I must do, that from which I can never walk away.
Go ahead and ignore my drivel on everything else about tribulation, but get that one thing: Know your own convictions. Know them well. Everything else will take care of itself, will fall into place in God's calling on your life. You are staying alive so you can serve.
There's only one reason for bothering with the explanations of why we are in tribulation, what we are likely to experience as it deepens, and practical tips on handling the situation: our calling. Until the Lord is finished with your calling, you have a responsibility to make sure you have done all that calling requires. In a broad general sense, our greatest witness is the love Jesus shows through us for folks who typically aren't too lovable. In so doing, we portray the difference between what this world does, and what God does. In other words, we participate in revealing Him.
I keep saying we have no responsibility for convincing anyone of anything. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Our purpose is simply to make sure people have gotten the message. By our actions first, then perhaps by our words later, we speak the gospel truth. We live in ways this world doesn't accept, often hardly comprehends, but ways clearly consistent with the revelation of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. We stay alive because we are His chosen tools for that revelation.
As tools, we focus not on some doctrinal purity of health and fitness, of economic efficiency, or defense from government abuse. We may well include those things, but only as means to the end that we live for that one purpose. It is utterly insane, from the Kingdom viewpoint, to struggle so hard to survive, with such a high level of comfort, when those things in themselves are not the purpose. Frankly, many from whom I gain information for living in hard times are quite determined to stand up for their rights, kill aggressors regardless of what's behind their aggression, and survive and prosper with their families. That is not us.
Saving my skin is not a major preoccupation in my reading. Keeping it attached to my body until the mission is complete is just a method, a means. As with one current popular email making the rounds, I intend skid into death with a body all used up and barely in one piece, deeply grateful for the wild ride. Given what I know of statistics, history and God's calling on my life, I expect to die right in the middle of doing something which requires all the physical power I can develop between now and then. That means eating as well as possible on what budget God provides, working out every day my body can be driven to cooperate, keeping an eye on the economic trends, keeping up with communication technology, and most especially maintaining an awareness of what various government entities are doing. Defending myself against government abuse is only viable if doing so serves God's purpose.
More important than all of this is the most pragmatic thing I've ever done: I began the struggle to clarify my own convictions. Given the theology which says convictions are from God, the direct result of the Holy Spirit's presence in my soul, that they are the manifestation of His eternal will and character viewed through the limited understanding of my feeble mind, I have to obey them. Doing that means becoming fully acquainted with what really matters when everything else comes apart. Some of it will not be fully clarified until the moment comes to act on them. But those which can be discerned are the anchor of my existence. I live by their dictates, by making sure I see as clearly as possible just what it is I must do, that from which I can never walk away.
Go ahead and ignore my drivel on everything else about tribulation, but get that one thing: Know your own convictions. Know them well. Everything else will take care of itself, will fall into place in God's calling on your life. You are staying alive so you can serve.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Daniel 9
The context of this chapter, the whole focus, is Daniel confessing the sins of his nation, Israel. We note immediately he dates his event during the first year of the ruler he calls "Darius," appointed to manage Medo-Persian affairs in the district of Babylon, the flat plain at the southern end of Mesopotamia. We generally place that around 538 BC. This was nearly 70 years after the first exile under Babylon, affecting the royal family of Judah, including Daniel himself. Daniel had been reading Jeremiah's prophecy (25:11-12) which mentioned the approximate span of 70 years for the Exile. Daniel's confession on behalf of his nation is poetry beyond compare. In it, he clearly emphasizes God is just, Israel sins recklessly even yet, but asks God to keep His promise.
The answer brought by the angel Gabriel, now familiar to Daniel, was dispatched immediately upon Daniel beginning his prayer. The answer is cryptic to us, but not to Daniel. If all we read here are numbers, to which we feel compelled to match dates with anything approaching precision, we understand nothing. In Hebrew prophecy, numbers are first and foremost symbolic. We read the Old Testament all too often forcing a literal meaning to numbers where it is plainly wrong to Hebrew eyes. God Himself makes it entirely too clear He does not set dates for things, but moves when the time is right, or when things are ready. There's no question whether He knows the dates of future events; Hebrew literature never considers the question in the first place. All things come from God's hand "in the fullness of time." Whatever Gabriel means here, the numbers are primarily symbols within an answer to what Daniel is asking: that Jehovah keep His promise. Daniel does not realize at first the return to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple won't accomplish what he hopes, but it does fit into God's plan, so it will happen. Twisting the obvious meaning of the prophetic statements to match some pre-determined use of the numbers does violence to God's Word. We must first see Gabriel's message in the context of Daniel's prayer.
Israel had sinned. The Northern Tribes were exiled permanently; gone forever, lost to history, because of open rebellion against Jehovah, from which they steadfastly refused to repent. Judah didn't go so far, but certainly did evil enough. During the long reign of Manasseh, things had gotten so bad people no longer remembered the Law of Moses. Indeed, until the priests had stumbled across an old copy hidden in the Temple, Josiah would never have known just how to lead the nation in repentance. As it was, he was warned it was too late, in the long run, but the hammer would fall only after his reign. His reign was cut short by a fool's errand because God was ready. In the last few days, Jeremiah had warned them not to resist the conquest by Babylon, for it was the hand of God. The Exile lasted about 70 years, but more importantly it ended when God was ready. According to Daniel's prayer, it appears they hadn't really repented, so there was some other reason. Surely, there were good people, and they would do good things, but the nation as a whole had failed to repent as God required. Still, He was keeping His promise, in that they would return to their earthly home because He was ready to do it.
The word translated "week" is actually "seven" as there was no specific Hebrew word for "week." A basic principle is "seven" refers to sacredness, a concept which sometimes included a completion of things. Seven also would represent an element of wrath (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28). Realizing they had failed to repent, God was going to up their punishment seven-fold -- 70 years of Exile becomes 70x7 years of survival as a Nation. At the end of that time, they would finish their sins. Their time would pass, and the passing national ritual purity would be replaced with eternal righteousness without a nation. This would see the end of Israel receiving any further prophecies, and the Most Holy would be anointed -- the root meaning of "Messiah." At the same time, we see whereas the Exile was a time of God's patience at work, so the 70x7 would be a further patience of God giving His people one last chance to be repent.
That the period between this message and the life of Jesus is more than 500 years is not important at all here. We can argue from now until the Second Coming what is meant by "the decree to restore and build Jerusalem" and miss the point entirely. The period of 7x7 is a reference to the Jubliee Year. Until Israel complied with the Mosaic rhythm of existence, with their Sabbaths, and Sabbatical years, and Jubilee Years, etc., all the building they could do would mean nothing. Indeed, because they only paid lip-service to genuine obedience, it would barely serve as ritual purity. As it was, from the year Cyrus released the exiles (538 BC), until they began actually operating under the Law of Moses under Nehemiah's reforms (445 BC) took about another 70 years. That decree to rebuild Jerusalem was supposed to be a reference Daniel understood, so most likely points to the initial Return. Let us not forget this message was to Daniel, the man asking in prayer to hear from God. An important point was this rebuilding would not be easy, and we can refer again to Nehemiah's account to find a literal fulfillment of that. Whatever we make of the "sevens," we dare not lose sight of the prophetic message regarding the end of the Nation of Israel.
For it would be Israel who works to cut off their own Messiah. It would be wholly unjust, for the Messiah would be guilty of no sin. He would suffer willingly on behalf of others. Indeed, because of Israel cutting Him off, their rebuilt city would be destroyed one last time. That destruction would come at the hands of the prince of those who would come to rule during Messiah's time: Rome. In AD 70, Titus, then son of the Roman Emperor, destroyed the city of Jerusalem. The warfare was long, and many hundreds of thousands had died by the time the soldiers swarmed into the city. The Temple was destroyed completely, and Jews were forbidden to enter even the suburbs. Here, it is tied directly to Israel's rejection of their Messiah. Notice no amount of tweaking the "sevens" will make sense here.
Until John the Baptist, the Law of Moses stood. Once John began his ministry, the Law was being fulfilled. No unfinished business remained except the Messiah Himself. Thus, John called to a final chance to renew the Old Covenant as the path to the New Covenant. During the last "seven" the New Covenant would begin -- "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" At the mid-point, the Messiah would offer Himself and complete the Old Covenant. At His death, it was gone. There could be no further sacrifice; that was done. The Temple was meaningless. However, for the duration of that "seven" the Jews would continue as the focus of the message of the New Covenant. The rest of that verse is quite hard to translate. What is clear is God will judge sin. It would seem what follows after the final Messianic sacrifice will remain a great many horrifying things, which would continue until God was through. Keep in mind the Early Church was convinced whatever this all meant, this chapter of Daniel was fulfilled by AD 70, and the business of the last "week" was completed. Given their proximity to living memories of the Apostles' teaching, it takes incredible arrogance to somehow decide we have found something they missed.
The contention here is to warn the modern reader: If we must see the "weeks" as periods of time, then we must be prepared to see things through the very relaxed concept of time held by Hebrew culture. When dealing with the work of God, time is a very flexible, elastic concept. Trying to read the sevens as precise time periods is insanity, and serves only to obscure the actual prophecy. The whole issue was the utter failure of Israel to be faithful, to actually translate a simplified ritual and legal code into a faith in the Redeemer who brought them out of slavery. They were offered freedom, but hardly accepted the mere earthly version of it. Eventually the spiritual freedom would be offered to the whole of humanity. That would be the final end of the Law of Moses. Daniel's prayer was for the restoration of Israel as she could have been. Gabriel related God's message it would not happen. What God had promised, both blessing and curse, would most certainly be fulfilled.
The answer brought by the angel Gabriel, now familiar to Daniel, was dispatched immediately upon Daniel beginning his prayer. The answer is cryptic to us, but not to Daniel. If all we read here are numbers, to which we feel compelled to match dates with anything approaching precision, we understand nothing. In Hebrew prophecy, numbers are first and foremost symbolic. We read the Old Testament all too often forcing a literal meaning to numbers where it is plainly wrong to Hebrew eyes. God Himself makes it entirely too clear He does not set dates for things, but moves when the time is right, or when things are ready. There's no question whether He knows the dates of future events; Hebrew literature never considers the question in the first place. All things come from God's hand "in the fullness of time." Whatever Gabriel means here, the numbers are primarily symbols within an answer to what Daniel is asking: that Jehovah keep His promise. Daniel does not realize at first the return to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple won't accomplish what he hopes, but it does fit into God's plan, so it will happen. Twisting the obvious meaning of the prophetic statements to match some pre-determined use of the numbers does violence to God's Word. We must first see Gabriel's message in the context of Daniel's prayer.
Israel had sinned. The Northern Tribes were exiled permanently; gone forever, lost to history, because of open rebellion against Jehovah, from which they steadfastly refused to repent. Judah didn't go so far, but certainly did evil enough. During the long reign of Manasseh, things had gotten so bad people no longer remembered the Law of Moses. Indeed, until the priests had stumbled across an old copy hidden in the Temple, Josiah would never have known just how to lead the nation in repentance. As it was, he was warned it was too late, in the long run, but the hammer would fall only after his reign. His reign was cut short by a fool's errand because God was ready. In the last few days, Jeremiah had warned them not to resist the conquest by Babylon, for it was the hand of God. The Exile lasted about 70 years, but more importantly it ended when God was ready. According to Daniel's prayer, it appears they hadn't really repented, so there was some other reason. Surely, there were good people, and they would do good things, but the nation as a whole had failed to repent as God required. Still, He was keeping His promise, in that they would return to their earthly home because He was ready to do it.
The word translated "week" is actually "seven" as there was no specific Hebrew word for "week." A basic principle is "seven" refers to sacredness, a concept which sometimes included a completion of things. Seven also would represent an element of wrath (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28). Realizing they had failed to repent, God was going to up their punishment seven-fold -- 70 years of Exile becomes 70x7 years of survival as a Nation. At the end of that time, they would finish their sins. Their time would pass, and the passing national ritual purity would be replaced with eternal righteousness without a nation. This would see the end of Israel receiving any further prophecies, and the Most Holy would be anointed -- the root meaning of "Messiah." At the same time, we see whereas the Exile was a time of God's patience at work, so the 70x7 would be a further patience of God giving His people one last chance to be repent.
That the period between this message and the life of Jesus is more than 500 years is not important at all here. We can argue from now until the Second Coming what is meant by "the decree to restore and build Jerusalem" and miss the point entirely. The period of 7x7 is a reference to the Jubliee Year. Until Israel complied with the Mosaic rhythm of existence, with their Sabbaths, and Sabbatical years, and Jubilee Years, etc., all the building they could do would mean nothing. Indeed, because they only paid lip-service to genuine obedience, it would barely serve as ritual purity. As it was, from the year Cyrus released the exiles (538 BC), until they began actually operating under the Law of Moses under Nehemiah's reforms (445 BC) took about another 70 years. That decree to rebuild Jerusalem was supposed to be a reference Daniel understood, so most likely points to the initial Return. Let us not forget this message was to Daniel, the man asking in prayer to hear from God. An important point was this rebuilding would not be easy, and we can refer again to Nehemiah's account to find a literal fulfillment of that. Whatever we make of the "sevens," we dare not lose sight of the prophetic message regarding the end of the Nation of Israel.
For it would be Israel who works to cut off their own Messiah. It would be wholly unjust, for the Messiah would be guilty of no sin. He would suffer willingly on behalf of others. Indeed, because of Israel cutting Him off, their rebuilt city would be destroyed one last time. That destruction would come at the hands of the prince of those who would come to rule during Messiah's time: Rome. In AD 70, Titus, then son of the Roman Emperor, destroyed the city of Jerusalem. The warfare was long, and many hundreds of thousands had died by the time the soldiers swarmed into the city. The Temple was destroyed completely, and Jews were forbidden to enter even the suburbs. Here, it is tied directly to Israel's rejection of their Messiah. Notice no amount of tweaking the "sevens" will make sense here.
Until John the Baptist, the Law of Moses stood. Once John began his ministry, the Law was being fulfilled. No unfinished business remained except the Messiah Himself. Thus, John called to a final chance to renew the Old Covenant as the path to the New Covenant. During the last "seven" the New Covenant would begin -- "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" At the mid-point, the Messiah would offer Himself and complete the Old Covenant. At His death, it was gone. There could be no further sacrifice; that was done. The Temple was meaningless. However, for the duration of that "seven" the Jews would continue as the focus of the message of the New Covenant. The rest of that verse is quite hard to translate. What is clear is God will judge sin. It would seem what follows after the final Messianic sacrifice will remain a great many horrifying things, which would continue until God was through. Keep in mind the Early Church was convinced whatever this all meant, this chapter of Daniel was fulfilled by AD 70, and the business of the last "week" was completed. Given their proximity to living memories of the Apostles' teaching, it takes incredible arrogance to somehow decide we have found something they missed.
The contention here is to warn the modern reader: If we must see the "weeks" as periods of time, then we must be prepared to see things through the very relaxed concept of time held by Hebrew culture. When dealing with the work of God, time is a very flexible, elastic concept. Trying to read the sevens as precise time periods is insanity, and serves only to obscure the actual prophecy. The whole issue was the utter failure of Israel to be faithful, to actually translate a simplified ritual and legal code into a faith in the Redeemer who brought them out of slavery. They were offered freedom, but hardly accepted the mere earthly version of it. Eventually the spiritual freedom would be offered to the whole of humanity. That would be the final end of the Law of Moses. Daniel's prayer was for the restoration of Israel as she could have been. Gabriel related God's message it would not happen. What God had promised, both blessing and curse, would most certainly be fulfilled.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Being and Doing, Continued
Hebrew minds understand faking it. They know it is possible for people to simply go through the motions without the least commitment. Try reading Malachi. They also understand one often fails to act according to their best understanding of things. Try some of the Psalms. What they don't understand is the artificial concept of separating the mind and soul with the sharp contrast the Greeks did. It is exceedingly difficult to use our Western framework to explain how completely wrong the Western mind goes on this.
The very idea of "works salvation" would never occur to a Hebrew mind. Given that all of human existence is wrapped up on covenants and commitments, and the fundamental fact you will serve someone, it is utterly incomprehensible to their minds anyone could propose such a theology. On the other hand, from our perspective, talk of obedience to the known commands of God seems to be an endorsement of it. Part of the problem is our Hellenist definition of "saved by faith" -- we are still thinking in terms of being instead of commitment. The very notion of being this or that is simply foreign to the Bible. It's not a matter of who or what you are, but whether you are accepted by God or not, and a large body of discussion on how one gains it or fails.
The entire question of "once saved, always saved" is an artificial construct pasted over the biblical teaching. The question is not whether you can or cannot lose that status. Such a question arises only when we see it as a status. The assumption in Scripture is covenant relationship, a thing alive of itself. The question of losing that relationship makes no sense. God is faithful; He kept Israel under the Covenant of Moses until the covenant no longer served His purpose. He kept them under it when they were determined to ignore and violate it. That should settle the question of how God operates within covenants, including the Covenant in Christ's Blood. Do you believe He compares it to marriage for no reason, then teaches earthly marriages cannot be broken in God's eyes?
No one pretends we easily cross the gulf of understanding between West and East. What we must not lose is the utter necessity of trying to do so, because all of Scripture is over on the East side. There was no conflict between Paul's teaching of justification by faith versus James' teaching faith without works cannot save you. It requires a Hellenist assumption and rationalist definitions to imagine there is a conflict. The phrase "faith now saves you" is too easily read with Western meaning. Faith is not a thing, nor some ill-defined force, nor some state of being; it is the living commitment of the soul. It is a covenant taken, alive and active, without discussing whether it involves the abstract concepts of free-will or destiny. The very idea of human free-will is foreign to the Bible, since it assumes a Greek mind which makes man the measure of all things. There is in Scripture no discussion of how and why, making so much of human internal dynamics, but of simply, "Do you, or do you not?"
Hebrew minds know they must accept a certain level of fakery in the fellowship of faith. If you really aren't in covenant relation with Christ, you will eventually fail in your false act. At some point, the power to live right will be missing, and in some conflict between your old self and your new self, you'll fail. Not just fail to perform -- we all do that every day, every hour -- but fail to care, and thus fail to recover. You'll show you care more about something or someone else. Caring is something we cannot hide forever. The question of ultimate loyalty within the tangled human soul is something only God knows; sometimes we are confused ourselves. But the great tests -- such as "sell all you have and give to the poor, and come follow Me" -- will inevitably clarify it for you and everyone else.
There is an assumption you can choose, but there is also an assumption it takes power to do so. The power is not rooted in man -- a Greek concept -- but in the gifts of God. How God keeps justice alive by accepting this one, but not that one, is none of our concern. Only a Hellenist wants to pry into that territory. Scan the Old Testament as a whole and you'll see God is far more lax and merciful than we would expect. Mercy is justice, as the two are inseparable in God's mind. David escaped the death penalty in the case of Uriah; we don't need to understand why. We need to understand anything can be forgiven, as Jesus said, except the inability to recognize the difference between good and evil. It requires an evil choice to walk that far away from the fundamental understanding God gave all mankind. We need to understand in our own dealings with each other, the power to concern ourselves with the welfare of others is love defined, and forgiveness is simply restoring active concern for the welfare of another. This you can choose, are required to choose. If you cannot, you lack the power to live in the Covenant; you are outside the Covenant.
Dismissing questions which have for so long consumed us is no small task. Our very mental reflexes will still want to make things human-centered, we will still want to grasp the state of being, we will still want things analyzed and abstracted, we will still keep trying to tie our spiritual understanding to our rational framework. Once we understand this is wrong, we are accountable to begin improving. There is no timetable -- that is another Western thing -- because time is measured not by consistent markings of the rhythmic beats on some arbitrary human scale. Time is measured by the completeness of things. God Himself sets no dates for things, but waits for us; not to reach some arbitrary state of being, but for us to make Him satisfied with the offering of our lives poured out before Him.
The very idea of "works salvation" would never occur to a Hebrew mind. Given that all of human existence is wrapped up on covenants and commitments, and the fundamental fact you will serve someone, it is utterly incomprehensible to their minds anyone could propose such a theology. On the other hand, from our perspective, talk of obedience to the known commands of God seems to be an endorsement of it. Part of the problem is our Hellenist definition of "saved by faith" -- we are still thinking in terms of being instead of commitment. The very notion of being this or that is simply foreign to the Bible. It's not a matter of who or what you are, but whether you are accepted by God or not, and a large body of discussion on how one gains it or fails.
The entire question of "once saved, always saved" is an artificial construct pasted over the biblical teaching. The question is not whether you can or cannot lose that status. Such a question arises only when we see it as a status. The assumption in Scripture is covenant relationship, a thing alive of itself. The question of losing that relationship makes no sense. God is faithful; He kept Israel under the Covenant of Moses until the covenant no longer served His purpose. He kept them under it when they were determined to ignore and violate it. That should settle the question of how God operates within covenants, including the Covenant in Christ's Blood. Do you believe He compares it to marriage for no reason, then teaches earthly marriages cannot be broken in God's eyes?
No one pretends we easily cross the gulf of understanding between West and East. What we must not lose is the utter necessity of trying to do so, because all of Scripture is over on the East side. There was no conflict between Paul's teaching of justification by faith versus James' teaching faith without works cannot save you. It requires a Hellenist assumption and rationalist definitions to imagine there is a conflict. The phrase "faith now saves you" is too easily read with Western meaning. Faith is not a thing, nor some ill-defined force, nor some state of being; it is the living commitment of the soul. It is a covenant taken, alive and active, without discussing whether it involves the abstract concepts of free-will or destiny. The very idea of human free-will is foreign to the Bible, since it assumes a Greek mind which makes man the measure of all things. There is in Scripture no discussion of how and why, making so much of human internal dynamics, but of simply, "Do you, or do you not?"
Hebrew minds know they must accept a certain level of fakery in the fellowship of faith. If you really aren't in covenant relation with Christ, you will eventually fail in your false act. At some point, the power to live right will be missing, and in some conflict between your old self and your new self, you'll fail. Not just fail to perform -- we all do that every day, every hour -- but fail to care, and thus fail to recover. You'll show you care more about something or someone else. Caring is something we cannot hide forever. The question of ultimate loyalty within the tangled human soul is something only God knows; sometimes we are confused ourselves. But the great tests -- such as "sell all you have and give to the poor, and come follow Me" -- will inevitably clarify it for you and everyone else.
There is an assumption you can choose, but there is also an assumption it takes power to do so. The power is not rooted in man -- a Greek concept -- but in the gifts of God. How God keeps justice alive by accepting this one, but not that one, is none of our concern. Only a Hellenist wants to pry into that territory. Scan the Old Testament as a whole and you'll see God is far more lax and merciful than we would expect. Mercy is justice, as the two are inseparable in God's mind. David escaped the death penalty in the case of Uriah; we don't need to understand why. We need to understand anything can be forgiven, as Jesus said, except the inability to recognize the difference between good and evil. It requires an evil choice to walk that far away from the fundamental understanding God gave all mankind. We need to understand in our own dealings with each other, the power to concern ourselves with the welfare of others is love defined, and forgiveness is simply restoring active concern for the welfare of another. This you can choose, are required to choose. If you cannot, you lack the power to live in the Covenant; you are outside the Covenant.
Dismissing questions which have for so long consumed us is no small task. Our very mental reflexes will still want to make things human-centered, we will still want to grasp the state of being, we will still want things analyzed and abstracted, we will still keep trying to tie our spiritual understanding to our rational framework. Once we understand this is wrong, we are accountable to begin improving. There is no timetable -- that is another Western thing -- because time is measured not by consistent markings of the rhythmic beats on some arbitrary human scale. Time is measured by the completeness of things. God Himself sets no dates for things, but waits for us; not to reach some arbitrary state of being, but for us to make Him satisfied with the offering of our lives poured out before Him.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Being and Doing
Our Western theology makes much of being. The fundamental question is: Are you born again? This carries a world of unspoken baggage, unspoken because it assumes a Western orientation, to consider first the nature of a thing. We prefer a list of descriptive elements, each following an accepted standard for such descriptions. We have well organized categories for discussing what things are. We ask first what a thing is so as to understand how we should relate to it. Often that means what we should expect it to do.
To us, it seems the Hebrew mind is much more likely to concern itself with what a thing does. We characterize the difference as: Westerners ask who or what they are, and Easterners ask what they are doing. That in itself probably misses the point, because the fundamental being of an individual in Eastern societies is probably more about whose you are. The question of doing serves to indicate to whom you give your allegiance. It's must more about roles -- you are what part you play. The play itself is already written, and you must find yourself in it.
In the spiritual mind, we don't ask if someone is born-again. We care whether they are, but we know the question simply has no answer this side of eternity. When Jesus described this to Nicodemus, he was talking about something the man must experience, not a status to be achieved. So we ask not, Are you born again? We ask, "Do you serve Jesus Christ?" Not a question of what you are, but what you do.
To us, it seems the Hebrew mind is much more likely to concern itself with what a thing does. We characterize the difference as: Westerners ask who or what they are, and Easterners ask what they are doing. That in itself probably misses the point, because the fundamental being of an individual in Eastern societies is probably more about whose you are. The question of doing serves to indicate to whom you give your allegiance. It's must more about roles -- you are what part you play. The play itself is already written, and you must find yourself in it.
In the spiritual mind, we don't ask if someone is born-again. We care whether they are, but we know the question simply has no answer this side of eternity. When Jesus described this to Nicodemus, he was talking about something the man must experience, not a status to be achieved. So we ask not, Are you born again? We ask, "Do you serve Jesus Christ?" Not a question of what you are, but what you do.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Daniel 8
Daniel has already seen the doom of Babylon in his previous vision, falling to the Medo-Persian forces in 539 BC. Two years after that earlier vision, Daniel receives in about 551 BC another vision for what follows that doom. The text here returns to the Hebrew writing, as there is nothing left to tell the Chaldeans, but much God wishes to reveal to His people. On a spiritual level, it is important to show the linkage between the next two empires, and how they form a one-two punch which sets up Israel for her final end. The vision does not clearly depict that end, but shows how it comes about.
Daniel sees himself in the future Persian summer palace of Susa, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains where the ancient Elamite Kingdom once stood. The River Ulai is actually an ancient canal. Beside that water course he saw the ancient symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire, the symbol they used for themselves: a ram with two uneven horns. The Medes had been around longer, but the Persians were stronger. No other nation could resist their conquest. That is, until they had provoked the Greeks, attempting by various means to conquer them.
The Macedonian people referred to themselves as the "goat people," and the name Aegean means "of the goat." Once united under Phillip, his son Alexander led the Macedonians to force unity across all of Greece, then advancing into the Persian Empire. Because of all the intrigue and dirty tricks played against him by the Persians, Alexander rejected all attempts at treaty or surrender. His troops maneuvered in phalanxes, slicing through the Persian formations with ease. With such incredible speed, only the exhaustion of his men kept him from conquering past the far eastern edge of Persia. Three years after his conquests began, he died in Babylon. In short order, his entire royal line died out, and was replaced by his four generals. Cassander returned to rule Greece and its neighbors, while Lysimachus held Asia Minor. Ptolemy became the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt, and Seleucus grabbed Syria and Babylon.
The latter two founded dynasties we now name after them: Ptolemaic and Seleucid. The Egyptian branch first held Judea, and were fairly benign. Ptolemy himself funded the Alexandrian Library and the attached university. His dynasty carried on in Alexander's evangelistic promotion of Hellenist culture. The Seleucids and Ptolemies fought back and forth over possession of Palestine, and eventually the Seleucids kept it. They were decidedly less kind, as they used military force to impose Hellenism. One in particular, Antiochus (175-164 BC), lost all patience with the Jewish insistence on keeping the Law of Moses. He placed a statue of Jupiter in the Temple in 167 BC, sacrificed a pig to it on the altar, and forced the residents of Jerusalem to join in a pork feast. Then he sent agents with troops across the land to force every Jewish community to follow suit. This created an uprising which we call the Maccabean Revolt, lead by the family eventually known to us as the Hasmoneans.
This abomination of desolation in the Temple lasted about three years. We note most English translations miss the point, when the angels discuss there would be a period of 2300 "evening-mornings" -- a reference to 2300 offerings (morning and evening), for a total of 1150 days, just over three years. At the end of that time, the Maccabean revolt had succeeded to the point of allowing the Temple to be cleansed and rededicated. However, it would be foolish to see the little horn as simply one man. Rather, this man's assault on Jewish religious practices was a manifestation of the one who had power to throw down stars from the sky, a Hebrew expression for leading angelic beings astray. Unlike the Mesopotamian astrologers, who saw the stars as gods, Hebrew culture regarded them as angelic beings, including those fallen as demons. The man, Antiochus IV, was empowered by Satan himself. What he accomplishes is the climax of a far greater destruction.
With the Persians and their Zoroastrian religion came the material wealth connection to faith. To the Persians, seeking the favor of the gods inevitably meant profit for the kings, in the literal sense of material wealth. We see this later in the New Testament where Jesus confronts the Jewish assumption material wealth is the primary mark of God's favor. It was under the Persians when Jews first developed their powerful banking industry, causing Jesus to remark about serving the god Mammon -- a name we understand to mean material wealth. Under the Greeks, Jews developed a powerful attachment to Western logical forms, losing touch with their mystical Hebrew roots. Greek rationalism twists the essential concept of holiness by calling it a logical ideal, and revelation is displaced by man seeking that ideal. God is no longer the initial force in redemption, by offering His grace and mercy via His mystical revelation. In the Greek mind, the ideal takes no action, but waits man to stumble upon the truth by his striving to build a rational framework. Thus, in Jesus' day the Jewish leadership were spiritually blind, utterly lacking the very mental framework for understanding the revelation of God. While the Hasmoneans do bring about a brief period of political independence, the nation was already spiritually dead. As Daniel says it, Satan had "cast truth to the ground."
The angels proceed to explain to Daniel some elements of the vision. Among the notes we see the little horn is powerful, but not by his own might, a veiled reference to spiritual sources. The power behind Antiochus IV was worked to finish off the Nation of Israel in the sense of their identity as the Holy People. In the place of their Hebrew mindset, Satan caused deception to prosper, a new understanding which blinded them. In the end, Satan will be broken when he comes against the Prince of Princes -- Christ -- and his end will not a matter of human activity, but the work of God Almighty.
For Daniel, the most startling thing was the ending of the sacrificial offerings in the Temple. From his point of view, just as the Nation of Israel was nearing their return, for the very purpose of regaining the Temple rituals, it was to be taken from them. Thus, the part of the vision where the offerings are suspended is something which would grab the attention of any Jew who read this. Once Antiochus took his oppressive measures, it was plain for anyone to see just what he was. This no doubt fired the passion of the few who dared to oppose him. However, Daniel surely senses it will be too late. The atmosphere in which the sacrifices are stopped is unchanged even when the Temple is cleansed. It looks different, and observant Jews today celebrate the Feast of Lights in honor of it, but in God's eyes it meant nothing. It was just a ritual, a blind observance of things they no longer could understand. This realization must have truly broken Daniel's heart, for it leaves him physically ill for several days.
Daniel sees himself in the future Persian summer palace of Susa, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains where the ancient Elamite Kingdom once stood. The River Ulai is actually an ancient canal. Beside that water course he saw the ancient symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire, the symbol they used for themselves: a ram with two uneven horns. The Medes had been around longer, but the Persians were stronger. No other nation could resist their conquest. That is, until they had provoked the Greeks, attempting by various means to conquer them.
The Macedonian people referred to themselves as the "goat people," and the name Aegean means "of the goat." Once united under Phillip, his son Alexander led the Macedonians to force unity across all of Greece, then advancing into the Persian Empire. Because of all the intrigue and dirty tricks played against him by the Persians, Alexander rejected all attempts at treaty or surrender. His troops maneuvered in phalanxes, slicing through the Persian formations with ease. With such incredible speed, only the exhaustion of his men kept him from conquering past the far eastern edge of Persia. Three years after his conquests began, he died in Babylon. In short order, his entire royal line died out, and was replaced by his four generals. Cassander returned to rule Greece and its neighbors, while Lysimachus held Asia Minor. Ptolemy became the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt, and Seleucus grabbed Syria and Babylon.
The latter two founded dynasties we now name after them: Ptolemaic and Seleucid. The Egyptian branch first held Judea, and were fairly benign. Ptolemy himself funded the Alexandrian Library and the attached university. His dynasty carried on in Alexander's evangelistic promotion of Hellenist culture. The Seleucids and Ptolemies fought back and forth over possession of Palestine, and eventually the Seleucids kept it. They were decidedly less kind, as they used military force to impose Hellenism. One in particular, Antiochus (175-164 BC), lost all patience with the Jewish insistence on keeping the Law of Moses. He placed a statue of Jupiter in the Temple in 167 BC, sacrificed a pig to it on the altar, and forced the residents of Jerusalem to join in a pork feast. Then he sent agents with troops across the land to force every Jewish community to follow suit. This created an uprising which we call the Maccabean Revolt, lead by the family eventually known to us as the Hasmoneans.
This abomination of desolation in the Temple lasted about three years. We note most English translations miss the point, when the angels discuss there would be a period of 2300 "evening-mornings" -- a reference to 2300 offerings (morning and evening), for a total of 1150 days, just over three years. At the end of that time, the Maccabean revolt had succeeded to the point of allowing the Temple to be cleansed and rededicated. However, it would be foolish to see the little horn as simply one man. Rather, this man's assault on Jewish religious practices was a manifestation of the one who had power to throw down stars from the sky, a Hebrew expression for leading angelic beings astray. Unlike the Mesopotamian astrologers, who saw the stars as gods, Hebrew culture regarded them as angelic beings, including those fallen as demons. The man, Antiochus IV, was empowered by Satan himself. What he accomplishes is the climax of a far greater destruction.
With the Persians and their Zoroastrian religion came the material wealth connection to faith. To the Persians, seeking the favor of the gods inevitably meant profit for the kings, in the literal sense of material wealth. We see this later in the New Testament where Jesus confronts the Jewish assumption material wealth is the primary mark of God's favor. It was under the Persians when Jews first developed their powerful banking industry, causing Jesus to remark about serving the god Mammon -- a name we understand to mean material wealth. Under the Greeks, Jews developed a powerful attachment to Western logical forms, losing touch with their mystical Hebrew roots. Greek rationalism twists the essential concept of holiness by calling it a logical ideal, and revelation is displaced by man seeking that ideal. God is no longer the initial force in redemption, by offering His grace and mercy via His mystical revelation. In the Greek mind, the ideal takes no action, but waits man to stumble upon the truth by his striving to build a rational framework. Thus, in Jesus' day the Jewish leadership were spiritually blind, utterly lacking the very mental framework for understanding the revelation of God. While the Hasmoneans do bring about a brief period of political independence, the nation was already spiritually dead. As Daniel says it, Satan had "cast truth to the ground."
The angels proceed to explain to Daniel some elements of the vision. Among the notes we see the little horn is powerful, but not by his own might, a veiled reference to spiritual sources. The power behind Antiochus IV was worked to finish off the Nation of Israel in the sense of their identity as the Holy People. In the place of their Hebrew mindset, Satan caused deception to prosper, a new understanding which blinded them. In the end, Satan will be broken when he comes against the Prince of Princes -- Christ -- and his end will not a matter of human activity, but the work of God Almighty.
For Daniel, the most startling thing was the ending of the sacrificial offerings in the Temple. From his point of view, just as the Nation of Israel was nearing their return, for the very purpose of regaining the Temple rituals, it was to be taken from them. Thus, the part of the vision where the offerings are suspended is something which would grab the attention of any Jew who read this. Once Antiochus took his oppressive measures, it was plain for anyone to see just what he was. This no doubt fired the passion of the few who dared to oppose him. However, Daniel surely senses it will be too late. The atmosphere in which the sacrifices are stopped is unchanged even when the Temple is cleansed. It looks different, and observant Jews today celebrate the Feast of Lights in honor of it, but in God's eyes it meant nothing. It was just a ritual, a blind observance of things they no longer could understand. This realization must have truly broken Daniel's heart, for it leaves him physically ill for several days.
Dislocation of the Soul
In the early `80s, near the end of my first Army enlistment, I was sent on a European assignment under the worst conditions. I was overweight, and ineligible to extend my enlistment. Because my time was short, I couldn't take my family with me. Had they gone with me, life would have been exceedingly tough anyway. As it was, life was exceedingly tough with two households on different continents. Need I mention I was depressed? So was my wife, and I knew it.
Under such jarring changes in our lives, we often seek something familiar, something which pulls us back into our comfort zone. Frankly, of all the troops in my unit, I was better prepared to live in Bamberg because I was fluent in German. Just a couple of years before I had gone through some 12 college hours of German language and culture. But that was not enough. Sure, I could have eaten off post, and often did when I took my long walks. The food in our mess hall was really quite good, as we had more recent kitchen equipment and procedures. Still, I recall often I drifted over to the snack bar on one end of the post, attached to the AAFES store. Something about the atmosphere breathed a sigh of relief, because it was the most familiar place on the post.
At the same time, I must confess it was the most evil. You might think the obvious reason would be the food served there helped to keep me overweight and unable to extend and bring my family. That was not the worst of it, though. There was a distinctive element of evil attached to that facility, something downright demonic, which is still hard for me to identify. It was there I most intensely felt far away from God. It was rather like a drug. Never mind my personal conviction the government is inherently evil for taking family separation with such a brutally casual attitude. Or that I know for a fact military fitness standards reflect a prissy expectation regarding appearances, and makes no reference at all to physical ability. Something in that facility was spiritually predatory, and it grew worse the longer I stayed there. By the time I escaped that situation, I was far, far away from God. It took a long time to recover.
This is something we handle very poorly in American churches. Specifically, we make little or no effort to teach people how to face the jarring dislocation of coming to Christ. We expect them to change, but do little to actually get involved. We make the supposed goals of change entirely too concrete. Folks, the modern secular Western life is radically far, far away from the Kingdom. Just recognizing the contrast between materialism and the fully other-worldly perspective of faith is something most churches haven't done for themselves, much less for new believers. Each step of the way through discipleship, we completely miss the ultimate importance of bringing that contrast to life. Instead, we offer overly structured, intellectual teaching on one extreme, and sloppy-syrupy sentiment on the other. The answer is not about finding a middle ground, because the whole thing is built on the wrong planet. It rejects the most fundamental spiritual nature of things, and works from mere secular-human psychology.
We don't need success, coping skills, nor good feelings. We need power, a spiritual earthquake which reshapes the landscape upon which we pretend to walk. My inner turmoil was not what made crippled me there; that was merely a thorn in the flesh. The real problem was powerlessness. Had I been trained to understand the nature of spiritual conflict, crucifying the flesh and dying to self, my time in Bamberg would have been missionary. Instead, it remains an embarrassment. We can do better. We must do better.
Under such jarring changes in our lives, we often seek something familiar, something which pulls us back into our comfort zone. Frankly, of all the troops in my unit, I was better prepared to live in Bamberg because I was fluent in German. Just a couple of years before I had gone through some 12 college hours of German language and culture. But that was not enough. Sure, I could have eaten off post, and often did when I took my long walks. The food in our mess hall was really quite good, as we had more recent kitchen equipment and procedures. Still, I recall often I drifted over to the snack bar on one end of the post, attached to the AAFES store. Something about the atmosphere breathed a sigh of relief, because it was the most familiar place on the post.
At the same time, I must confess it was the most evil. You might think the obvious reason would be the food served there helped to keep me overweight and unable to extend and bring my family. That was not the worst of it, though. There was a distinctive element of evil attached to that facility, something downright demonic, which is still hard for me to identify. It was there I most intensely felt far away from God. It was rather like a drug. Never mind my personal conviction the government is inherently evil for taking family separation with such a brutally casual attitude. Or that I know for a fact military fitness standards reflect a prissy expectation regarding appearances, and makes no reference at all to physical ability. Something in that facility was spiritually predatory, and it grew worse the longer I stayed there. By the time I escaped that situation, I was far, far away from God. It took a long time to recover.
This is something we handle very poorly in American churches. Specifically, we make little or no effort to teach people how to face the jarring dislocation of coming to Christ. We expect them to change, but do little to actually get involved. We make the supposed goals of change entirely too concrete. Folks, the modern secular Western life is radically far, far away from the Kingdom. Just recognizing the contrast between materialism and the fully other-worldly perspective of faith is something most churches haven't done for themselves, much less for new believers. Each step of the way through discipleship, we completely miss the ultimate importance of bringing that contrast to life. Instead, we offer overly structured, intellectual teaching on one extreme, and sloppy-syrupy sentiment on the other. The answer is not about finding a middle ground, because the whole thing is built on the wrong planet. It rejects the most fundamental spiritual nature of things, and works from mere secular-human psychology.
We don't need success, coping skills, nor good feelings. We need power, a spiritual earthquake which reshapes the landscape upon which we pretend to walk. My inner turmoil was not what made crippled me there; that was merely a thorn in the flesh. The real problem was powerlessness. Had I been trained to understand the nature of spiritual conflict, crucifying the flesh and dying to self, my time in Bamberg would have been missionary. Instead, it remains an embarrassment. We can do better. We must do better.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Wrestling the Snakes of Mist
I'm struggling with what I know instinctively about the biblical model of fellowship in the church setting, contrastetd with what we do now, particularly in America. I'm not sure it can be taught, that it can be described in our terms. We are so very far away culturally from the basic assumptions of Hebrew mind, there is a huge gulf to cross.
The cosmopolitan world of the New Testament Mediterranean resident was vastly different from what we find in the US. We only think we have diversity. Those people, for all their lack of travel and rapid communications, lived a much richer cultural experience. We have practically no appreciation for the tribal atmosphere, the sense of majesty in the extended family structure and the full burden of responsibility on each member of the grand household. Even in our ancient Western roots, there is little in common with the Eastern sheik.
Yet, the New Testament church bishop would be closer to an Eastern potentate than almost any other figure in human history. While a great many individual churches were mostly of a single household of extended family, the only bond which mattered was not a shared DNA, but a shared Holy Spirit. These people could not imagine the internal tensions which today characterize families scattered wide geographically as we have it in the West. It's so deeply burned into our culture and our social expectations. For the New Testament Christian, the highest loyalty was the church family. Not the institution, but the people.
The trouble comes when I realize, no matter how I formulate it in writing here, someone will object their particular church does just that. The pool of meaning by which each of the words and phrases are processed and given meaning in Western minds is utterly different than for the First Century Palestinian mind. We lack the vehicle to produce a description which Westerners expect, because the fundamental nature of the Spiritual mind from the Bible needs no such thing. The revelation of God is parabolic to the core, not descriptive and analytical.
Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping and praying I can assemble some fictional material which will serve the purpose of portraying a true biblical church atmosphere. It won't be about describing the structure, but the nature of the thing. Jesus told stories which were designed to indicate how fallen mankind had so departed from God's ways, it seemed the telling of God's way stood everything on its head. By no means would I pretend to be Jesus. How I would love to know Him better so as to emulate Him better, but the point is making the best use of what I've learned so far.
Pray with me as I wrestle with these snakes made of mist.
The cosmopolitan world of the New Testament Mediterranean resident was vastly different from what we find in the US. We only think we have diversity. Those people, for all their lack of travel and rapid communications, lived a much richer cultural experience. We have practically no appreciation for the tribal atmosphere, the sense of majesty in the extended family structure and the full burden of responsibility on each member of the grand household. Even in our ancient Western roots, there is little in common with the Eastern sheik.
Yet, the New Testament church bishop would be closer to an Eastern potentate than almost any other figure in human history. While a great many individual churches were mostly of a single household of extended family, the only bond which mattered was not a shared DNA, but a shared Holy Spirit. These people could not imagine the internal tensions which today characterize families scattered wide geographically as we have it in the West. It's so deeply burned into our culture and our social expectations. For the New Testament Christian, the highest loyalty was the church family. Not the institution, but the people.
The trouble comes when I realize, no matter how I formulate it in writing here, someone will object their particular church does just that. The pool of meaning by which each of the words and phrases are processed and given meaning in Western minds is utterly different than for the First Century Palestinian mind. We lack the vehicle to produce a description which Westerners expect, because the fundamental nature of the Spiritual mind from the Bible needs no such thing. The revelation of God is parabolic to the core, not descriptive and analytical.
Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping and praying I can assemble some fictional material which will serve the purpose of portraying a true biblical church atmosphere. It won't be about describing the structure, but the nature of the thing. Jesus told stories which were designed to indicate how fallen mankind had so departed from God's ways, it seemed the telling of God's way stood everything on its head. By no means would I pretend to be Jesus. How I would love to know Him better so as to emulate Him better, but the point is making the best use of what I've learned so far.
Pray with me as I wrestle with these snakes made of mist.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Life of Christ: Matthew 20
Matthew refreshes the theme of the Kingdom standing things on their heads from a human point of view. Serving is greatness; doing it joyfully and without complaint is leadership. An ignoble death is victory. Humility and humiliation in this world is honor. The Kingdom Army is built of cripples. Again and again, Jesus points out to His Disciples how they must see through the eyes of God. They consistently fail to adapt. Matthew begins this chapter with Jesus explaining how the world cannot grasp the mind of God.
The Parable of the Vineyard Owner has suffered much from people reading into it things which simply aren't there. The obvious meaning is drawn from the statement which appears before and after: "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first." The central element of the image Jesus paints is the worldly image of fairness and justice in compensation, contrasted with the grace and generosity standards of God. Truth and justice are whatever God says it is at any given moment for the context. While it is obvious we should expect to some day understand something of the essence of that standard, we do so only by our ability to relate to Him. It demands a living connection which grows throughout human life, because we can never really arrive. Flesh cannot get there, and fleshly understanding cannot apprehend it. The Lord decides what each of us receives, and it is always in accordance with His promise. Those who understand find faithfulness itself is its own reward. We should rather rejoice when someone barely slips under the wire of God's grace and still finds redemption. Such is the way Our Lord sees it.
Finally, Jesus tosses in an epigram taken from Roman military enlistment practices. A town or district was assembled by a newly appointed commander. Because they were told beforehand, the people present the men most suitable for military service. Perhaps some testing takes place, but only a small portion are chosen as acceptable. Taking the whole male population willy-nilly would pollute the army with useless men, possessing neither skill, nor physical ability, nor proper instinct, men more of a threat than an asset. Jehovah is altogether selective. By His own standards He decides who shall serve, and the rest go their own way. Jesus hints to Peter the Nation of Israel would find precious few entering in, because they were unfit. Wealth and political power mean nothing, nor do claims of Abrahamic blood, as the Lord sees the heart of man. Peter's question in the last chapter about what they shall have for their sacrifice as the first to follow Christ is answered by a shift in focus to the Heavenly mind, the spiritual measure of things, and away from materialism. To read much more into this parable does violence to this teaching.
The narrative follows their steps toward the Herodian palace town of Old Jericho. It is clear the time has come to approach Jerusalem, as the Passover is near. At some point, Jesus draws them aside privately, away from the crowd following Him, and talks about His coming death. He adds a few more details, that He would be whipped, and die at the hands of Gentiles. From our comfortable place this side of rebirth, we marvel at how their minds keep rejecting the impact of what He says. His Kingdom at its fullest glory will be on the other side of the grave, because it will be eternal; it will not be anchored in this world, merely manifested here. It is obvious they continue thinking in terms of something concrete. The best they can do is assume Jesus will reform the synagogue system of their land, and bring this new teaching into dominance, even if it means remaining under Roman political authority.
John and James resort to an old Hebrew custom. A female kinsman may ask a ruler for a wide range of favors, and he would be loathe to resist. We saw it with David and Solomon. The latter instituted the custom of placing a smaller throne beside the king's for the Queen Mother. In this vein, Salome, sister of Jesus' mother, comes and asks that He offer her sons -- His cousins -- places of honor and importance such as is done in synagogues. She was a part of the larger entourage often following Jesus, but not mentioned much. Jesus makes it clear the request is out of bounds, because it's not His to grant. He warns again He faces unconscionable suffering (the symbol of the cup and baptism), but their minds simply cannot process it. He prophesies they will, indeed, participate in His suffering, whether they understand it or not, as James is the first martyr of the Church, and John suffers as an exile on Patmos when he is ancient. However, it remains their request makes no sense, for it assumes all the wrong notions about Kingdom service.
That the rest of the Disciples become angry at the politicking of James and John shows they, too, don't get it. Had they truly understood the Kingdom was altogether a spiritual matter, not of worldly honors, they would have been amused or simply sad, at most. Jesus puts it in perspective again. With men, greatness is power over each other; in the Kingdom, greatness is power over self. The power to set aside the flesh and all its pretense of importance, to sacrifice it willingly, is power in the Spirit. The Messiah did not come to rule over human institutions, but to offer His life willingly, the ultimate service.
The crowd now with Jesus was huge, intent on escorting Him into Jerusalem. They rightly expected something really important was about the happen at this Passover Feast, though like the Twelve, that something was probably quite far from what actually transpired. Still, it all serves a purpose. The massive entourage had passed through the original Jericho where Herod had built himself a winter palace. A mile or two farther along the road up to Jerusalem was a much larger district of Jewish peasants, whose homes were built more recently around the Roman winter quarters and attendant barracks, the official "Jericho." Between these two, on a very busy route this time of year were two blind men, though the other Gospels only mention the more famous of the two, Bartimaeus. These two men realized Jesus was the cause of this latest surge of traffic, and called out to Him using the Messianic title, Son of David.
Jesus had warned people not to so address Him publicly. Further, these two men were hardly the recipients of honorable treatment. Anyone who begged for a living would be patronized at best, as someone who offered a chance to fulfill the Law of Moses regarding charitable giving. However, most beggars, even with working eyes, would stare into space while calling for donations, because that was proper etiquette. In this way, donors could continue to ignore them even as they dropped a coin or two in whatever the beggar held out to catch them. To call out directly for attention was an unforgivable social breach. Even peasants, if productive, were a class above them. By calling out to Jesus, they were pushing too far. Yet they rejected social custom because the only real hope they had was not in the coin basket, but the healing of their eyes. By their persistence, they showed faith in Jesus' power and authority, and it is to this faith He responded by stopping in front of them. His touch transformed them from beggars into followers, for of such was the Kingdom He planned to announce.
The Parable of the Vineyard Owner has suffered much from people reading into it things which simply aren't there. The obvious meaning is drawn from the statement which appears before and after: "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first." The central element of the image Jesus paints is the worldly image of fairness and justice in compensation, contrasted with the grace and generosity standards of God. Truth and justice are whatever God says it is at any given moment for the context. While it is obvious we should expect to some day understand something of the essence of that standard, we do so only by our ability to relate to Him. It demands a living connection which grows throughout human life, because we can never really arrive. Flesh cannot get there, and fleshly understanding cannot apprehend it. The Lord decides what each of us receives, and it is always in accordance with His promise. Those who understand find faithfulness itself is its own reward. We should rather rejoice when someone barely slips under the wire of God's grace and still finds redemption. Such is the way Our Lord sees it.
Finally, Jesus tosses in an epigram taken from Roman military enlistment practices. A town or district was assembled by a newly appointed commander. Because they were told beforehand, the people present the men most suitable for military service. Perhaps some testing takes place, but only a small portion are chosen as acceptable. Taking the whole male population willy-nilly would pollute the army with useless men, possessing neither skill, nor physical ability, nor proper instinct, men more of a threat than an asset. Jehovah is altogether selective. By His own standards He decides who shall serve, and the rest go their own way. Jesus hints to Peter the Nation of Israel would find precious few entering in, because they were unfit. Wealth and political power mean nothing, nor do claims of Abrahamic blood, as the Lord sees the heart of man. Peter's question in the last chapter about what they shall have for their sacrifice as the first to follow Christ is answered by a shift in focus to the Heavenly mind, the spiritual measure of things, and away from materialism. To read much more into this parable does violence to this teaching.
The narrative follows their steps toward the Herodian palace town of Old Jericho. It is clear the time has come to approach Jerusalem, as the Passover is near. At some point, Jesus draws them aside privately, away from the crowd following Him, and talks about His coming death. He adds a few more details, that He would be whipped, and die at the hands of Gentiles. From our comfortable place this side of rebirth, we marvel at how their minds keep rejecting the impact of what He says. His Kingdom at its fullest glory will be on the other side of the grave, because it will be eternal; it will not be anchored in this world, merely manifested here. It is obvious they continue thinking in terms of something concrete. The best they can do is assume Jesus will reform the synagogue system of their land, and bring this new teaching into dominance, even if it means remaining under Roman political authority.
John and James resort to an old Hebrew custom. A female kinsman may ask a ruler for a wide range of favors, and he would be loathe to resist. We saw it with David and Solomon. The latter instituted the custom of placing a smaller throne beside the king's for the Queen Mother. In this vein, Salome, sister of Jesus' mother, comes and asks that He offer her sons -- His cousins -- places of honor and importance such as is done in synagogues. She was a part of the larger entourage often following Jesus, but not mentioned much. Jesus makes it clear the request is out of bounds, because it's not His to grant. He warns again He faces unconscionable suffering (the symbol of the cup and baptism), but their minds simply cannot process it. He prophesies they will, indeed, participate in His suffering, whether they understand it or not, as James is the first martyr of the Church, and John suffers as an exile on Patmos when he is ancient. However, it remains their request makes no sense, for it assumes all the wrong notions about Kingdom service.
That the rest of the Disciples become angry at the politicking of James and John shows they, too, don't get it. Had they truly understood the Kingdom was altogether a spiritual matter, not of worldly honors, they would have been amused or simply sad, at most. Jesus puts it in perspective again. With men, greatness is power over each other; in the Kingdom, greatness is power over self. The power to set aside the flesh and all its pretense of importance, to sacrifice it willingly, is power in the Spirit. The Messiah did not come to rule over human institutions, but to offer His life willingly, the ultimate service.
The crowd now with Jesus was huge, intent on escorting Him into Jerusalem. They rightly expected something really important was about the happen at this Passover Feast, though like the Twelve, that something was probably quite far from what actually transpired. Still, it all serves a purpose. The massive entourage had passed through the original Jericho where Herod had built himself a winter palace. A mile or two farther along the road up to Jerusalem was a much larger district of Jewish peasants, whose homes were built more recently around the Roman winter quarters and attendant barracks, the official "Jericho." Between these two, on a very busy route this time of year were two blind men, though the other Gospels only mention the more famous of the two, Bartimaeus. These two men realized Jesus was the cause of this latest surge of traffic, and called out to Him using the Messianic title, Son of David.
Jesus had warned people not to so address Him publicly. Further, these two men were hardly the recipients of honorable treatment. Anyone who begged for a living would be patronized at best, as someone who offered a chance to fulfill the Law of Moses regarding charitable giving. However, most beggars, even with working eyes, would stare into space while calling for donations, because that was proper etiquette. In this way, donors could continue to ignore them even as they dropped a coin or two in whatever the beggar held out to catch them. To call out directly for attention was an unforgivable social breach. Even peasants, if productive, were a class above them. By calling out to Jesus, they were pushing too far. Yet they rejected social custom because the only real hope they had was not in the coin basket, but the healing of their eyes. By their persistence, they showed faith in Jesus' power and authority, and it is to this faith He responded by stopping in front of them. His touch transformed them from beggars into followers, for of such was the Kingdom He planned to announce.
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