Another Pop Theology Heresy

We struggle to speak ultimate truth because human language is inherently limited to human comprehension. We cannot comprehend Eternity, so we use parables, after the teaching model of Jesus and all the great teachers of the Word before Him.

From time to time I like to make feeble attempts to be a bit more literal, just to show why parables are superior. A popular heresy is to twist the meanings of 1 Peter 3: 19; Ephesians 4:9; Romans 10:7; Matthew 12:40; and Acts 2:27, 31. You can read a more scholarly address here [PDF], but the sum of it is this: To say Jesus went down into the Devil's Hell is a heresy, and a goofy one, at that.

Try to understand in Hebrew thinking, sheol (often translated with the Greek word hades) was "death" in every form. Going to sheol might mean your body has expired and your soul has left it, or maybe you really did go to the place of eternal punishment, and maybe you just sort of feel like your life is hellish. Do we not use the phrase these days, "putting me through Hell"? Yet no one takes it literally, so why should we assume the Bible is somehow different? Context is everything.

Let's get this straight: From where you and I stand here in a fallen world, we are inside a box. Everything outside that box of temporal existence is Eternity. What makes it Heaven or Hell is how you relate to God. If you never embraced His revelation, when you stand in His presence it will be Hell. The parable of Lazarus the Beggar (Luke 16:19–31) was a parable. The gulf or chasm fixed between the redeemed and the lost in Eternity is a spiritual one. Insofar as Hell and Heaven are a "place," they are spiritual realities transcending all our logical categories.

Jesus did not drop down into Hell for any particular reason during His time in the grave. He went to His Father. His "descent" was to come to us here in our fallen world from His home in Heaven. In that sense, we are the spirits in Hell, for we were lost in our sins, imprisoned by Satan. He entered "Hades" in the sense of dying and leaving His body behind, to be buried in the ground. Reading through Psalms with Hebrew eyes will tell you quickly David used those terms with just that meaning.

Geesh, the silly things people say in the Name of Christ. Stuff like this will bring my bald head down to Sheol.

No Wisdom Today

If you came looking for erudite discussion, spiritual revelation or just wise counsel, you are out of luck today. My brain is mush, my head and my knees hurt, and my system is still working on building the new FreeBSD desktop. I'm posting this from the eMac.

Of course, you may well suggest I have no wisdom to offer any day, but that's another matter.

Computer Geek Time Again

I'm writing this from my Debian laptop. The ancient 300Mhz machine is capable of running with a lightweight GUI and everything. Meanwhile, it won't work at all on my desktop/server machine. So I am currently building FreeBSD 7.0. It's that time again. Since the promised nVidia driver for 64-bit never came to reality, I'm going to run it in 32-bit for now.

My assessment of things so far is 7.0 presents nothing tremendously new on the surface. I'm quite sure there are big changes under the hood, and they may become more apparent later. For now, I'm must tickled to find drivers for my board are built into the basic installation.

I've got the basic installation done, the first optimizing system rebuild, and I'm currently building the GNOME interface. It will take quite a while because I'm adding extra packages for comfort and convenience by choosing the meta-package called "Gnome2-Fifth-Toe".

Tomorrow I'll be zipping off down the Lawton first thing so I can rebuild my associate's computer. It needed a new harddrive, and I got my hands on a valid XP license, so I'm upgrading her computer at the same time. It will take a couple of hours at least, but I have the advantage of carefully designed slip-streamed install disk already updated to XP SP3. It will be the first time I tried using one like this. Lord willing, it will cut off lots of time from a typical install. All the more so since this gal runs AOL dialup. (*shudder*).

Reminder: This Is Tribulation

I can't recall who said it, but the quote fits today so well: "The Saints of God will tribulate." If our faith does not compel us to act in ways which provoke some sort of suffering in our lives, that faith is dead.

Of course, now we are seeing a general tribulation. Unless you are completely blind, you know our nation is going broke, as a whole and individually. Prices are soaring and the dollar is almost worth less than the paper on which it is printed. We now have more enemies than we've ever had in our past. It's only going to get worse.

Rather than waste a lot of space discussing how we got here, and who's to blame, I'm asking readers to focus on what to do next. I'm praying those with a small measure of faith will commit to that and grow some courage. When things get desperate, part of what people do is seek scapegoats and prey. If we are true to our calling, we will be targeted by these folks. As things get more difficult, our faith will be challenged directly.

Can you say you are honestly ready to face confiscation or theft of property, be driven from your home, risk arrest or other harm daily? Can you face what happened to the FLDS in Texas? Stuff like this is coming. Your savings could disappear overnight, in many different ways. Jobs will simply disappear. There will be riots and blood in the streets.

Will you cling to your faith? Is your faith so important you can easily embrace suffering and sorrow because you know where your soul is headed? Heaven is sounding sweeter all the time -- it's not just the line from a song. That other-worldly perspective is the foundation of Scripture.

Life of Christ: Mark 12

False expectations are surely among the greatest curses to afflict mankind. Mark draws a stark contrast for his readers between what was expected by the various parties opposed to Jesus and what He actually taught and did as Messiah. In Jerusalem at that time, the status quo was the real god of the Jewish leaders.

In our last chapter, we saw how the priests and nobles were questioning the authority of Jesus. Having tied Himself to the message of John the Baptist, He told a parable which clarified the sort of sin John was addressing. The Parable of the Wicked Vine Dressers was all too obvious to the Jewish leaders standing present. To them it was clear Jesus lambasted them for rejecting every messenger from God. Now the time had come for God to send His Son, who would be executed. The wrath of God would follow quickly against His murderers.

While it isn't clear they understood Jesus referred to Himself as the Son, they did get the point Jesus was saying they had defied God. More than anything else, any public criticism of their rule, given to such a large crowd who so gratefully heard it, made them indignant. Not only had He verbally trapped them in their own cowardice before the mob, He twisted the blade of embarrassment in their wounded pride. For all this, they still only half-understood, for they believed He intended to stir up a revolt against them.

While the crowd probably thought so, too -- and surely the disciples did -- Jesus plainly intended to let His Father take care of the problem. His revolt would be spiritual. Any conflict with current leadership in the performance of their duties would be entirely incidental to preaching a Kingdom of Heaven, not of earth. Rather, Jesus was pointing out their place in God's plans had come to an end. They had utterly failed the spiritual requirements, completely dismissing the other-worldly perspective inherent in ancient Hebrew culture and religion. Turning away completely from faith and embracing the ritual and symbol as the thing itself, they had made Judaism an empty cult practice. Again, Jesus pointed to complete lack of spiritual fruit. Therefore, they would simply cease to matter.

Instead, the spiritual outlook and faith in God, as taught by the Son, was completely rejected, but would become the foundation of God's new Kingdom. So trying to draw Jesus into their debate about whether paying taxes to Rome was treason, as the Pharisees taught, was a waste of time. Nobody wanted to pay taxes, and surely Mark's readers understood this, if nothing else. Jesus pointed out the common currency was just a tool. Produced by Rome, it belonged to Rome. Things of this earth are simply the background against which the faith life is lived; taxes and politics were not important. What really mattered was whether God got His offerings in the currency which really mattered: souls committed to live His Law.

The highly paganized Sadducees also tried to trip Him up with questions regarding marriage and Jewish laws of inheritance. Their entire assumption was eternity was just an extension of their current temporal existence. This Jesus firmly rebuked that. Their highly Hellenized outlook was unable to grasp the ultimate reality: people in Heaven would not need to procreate, so spiritual beings were asexual. Angels were in their eternal form, and sex was not any part of their existence. The needs answered by the typical family household structure did not exist in Eternity. Furthermore, all the saints of old were living and standing in the presence of God right at that moment, in an afterlife the Sadducees denied. God is a living God; to deny the afterlife was to deny God.

Apparently one of the lawyers standing there realized whatever else one might say of this troublemaker, He was very wise. Not simply sharp minded, but had a solid grasp on truth. So for his own curiosity, he asked Jesus to declare the first commandment, the fundamental starting point of knowing God. Jesus answered with the shema found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, a ritual quote many Jewish men repeated daily. Then Jesus adds a quote from Leviticus 19:18 about placing the needs of your fellow man on a par with your own. In these two commands, Jesus summarized the essence of what the Law of Moses was all about. What many miss is Jesus indicates this is the essence of the higher Law of God itself. Everything else was just an expansion on these two concepts. Get those two right, and everything else takes care of itself. The lawyer agreed, and Jesus noted he was on the threshold of entering the Kingdom.

With that exchange, the Jewish leaders ran out of ammo for verbal sparring. Meanwhile, Jesus continued pointing the way to the other-worldly nature of truth, by pointing out the failures of the lawyers. He presented what would be a paradox to human logic, particularly as evinced by these lawyers, but completely acceptable to Hebrew mysticism. How could the Messiah to come be both Lord over David and his descendant, too? Ultimate truth can never be explained, it can only be demonstrated. In the very act of doing so, one cannot avoid demonstrating how it defies mere intellectual grasp.

Not content with that, Jesus went on to show the moral bankruptcy of those who managed to memorize vast stores of intellectual content. They truly understand the nature of Moses' Law as law, but completely missed the point of it all, as demonstrated in the previous discussion. These men demanded respect as powerful figures, but merely used their position to hurt people for their own profit. They were phonies, knowing the Law but not the God who gave it.

In contrast to such greed, Jesus pointed out the Kingdom measure of wealth. While observing the Temple offering drop-box, Jesus and His disciples noted the showy gifts of the wealthy, contrasted by the pitiful offering of someone poor. While the wealthy were hardly sacrificing anything, this poor widow gave painfully, never mind how little it was in terms of cash value. She preferred to live in want because her faith declared a bit of human misery didn't matter. She had already given her whole self to God, which the others would hardly consider.

The Jewish leadership had utterly failed the intent of the Law of Moses. They had led Israel down a dead end path. Worse, they had utterly denied the higher Law of God by denying there was anything beyond human grasp. It was a tiresome blasphemy to have told the world God Almighty was nothing more than a slot machine for worldly gain. They forfeited what little comfort the Law offered in this world, and locked everyone out of the embrace of faith which made this world's goods of little importance.

Tribulation Report #011: Learning from the Russians

The best way to understand how to survive our impending economic collapse is to take a look at those who have been through their own. Today I would like to highlight a couple of items we might learn from the shards of the USSR. First is a look at basic survival, offered by Dmitry Orlov. While I hardly agree with his assessment about the virtues of socialism/communism, I note the underlying cultural orientation of Russians was more about the family, clan and tribe, with friends included. This is the very best fallen man can hope for in this world. Socialism without that substrate will collapse, as our silly attempts show even now. We are hardly capitalist, we are corporate-socialist. I really like the overall presentation, and highly recommend it.

The other issue is religious. Things are not all that rosy in the recovering Russian Republics. We do have a nationally dominant religion in terms of political influence: Christian Zionism. Just try one time stating the facts about Zionist influence on our politics and see if you don't take flak. All major political decisions in the US over the past few decades, at least, have been made in light of what Israel believes is to their benefit. The only thing which keeps the Christian Zionists from persecuting us any further is the lack of a formal organizational base such as the official Russian Orthodox church has in Russia. The bulk of members and leadership in most Evangelical denominations today are dangerously rabid against anyone who dares to suggest the Palestinians might have a valid complaint against Israel. Among my own former affiliates -- Southern Baptists -- I am fortunate indeed to find a civil discourse on anything touching Israel.

Thus, we see we are really in for a rough ride economically. In the aftermath, it remains to be seen if any particular national church will arise. Those of you who somewhat agree with my teachings here on this blog will realize the very practical implications of eschewing organizational religion. When you don't have a denomination, when there is no leadership and no uniformity of practice, only a common thread of spiritual understanding, there's almost nothing to attack. You can officially be a member of most any denomination you like and still agree with me on a lot of things. I'm not in the business of founding a religious movement, but of simply opening people's eyes about what the Bible actually says on its own terms.

Hebrews 11

The Roll of Faith, and the Role of Faith -- so popular is this chapter people quickly forget the context. It's more than a hymn honoring the faith of the Patriarchs, but a note to our Jewish Christian readers the legacy of their best examples are more about faith than about Judaism. From the very beginning, it was not rituals and Law which made these people memorable, but their commitment in faith to what God had commanded and promised. From the very beginning, it was faith which distinguished saints from the rest of humanity.

Faith cannot be defined by its meaning, but by its results. This is the standard spiritual understanding of things. Thus, it is roughly equivalent to the term "commitment." It is rooted outside human space, and does not yield to logical probing. When God commands and promises, we assume its truth and act accordingly. It matters not what we gain from our senses; we defy them even. Its call to action is ultimate, and is the measure of what truly matters. We do what we must, regardless of cost. As a spiritual exercise, it is directly tied to God's act of creation, partakes of the same stuff of God Himself.

Everyone in the record of Scripture held up as a model of obedience and reliance on God is also a record of faith. Whatever else we may say of Abel's offering compared to Cain's, it was a matter of faith in God. That was the key; the substance of the offering by Law was hardly the issue. Abel's faith cost him his life. By contrast, Enoch didn't die at all. His faith made him too holy for this world, a holiness measured by desire for God. While Noah's faith didn't keep him from eventually dying, it was a rather mundane death of old age, long after he and his family survived as the only souls to walk on the earth after the Flood. Their faith was an active condemnation of the sin of the world.

Faith compelled Abraham to leave behind everything that mattered to him. His faith was the power to obey blindly in traveling to a far land. Not just a land he was told he would inherit, but because he knew the promise to his descendants was a mere symbol of something far greater, a place in Heaven above. He and Sarah had the audacity to believe God's promise they would bear a son so very late in life. That son became the grand nation of Israel, and far more, for his true descendants are those of faith, which outnumber any mere human census. Faith compelled them to leave that beloved homeland in Mesopotamia and live as wanderers in a place they never held. To them, it hardly mattered in light of the spiritual inheritance, for they were strangers to earth itself. Faith embraces that Spirit Realm which has no boundaries.

Because of that conviction, Abraham was not troubled at the impending death of his only son on that altar on Mount Moriah. If God wanted Isaac's life, surely he would give it back since He promised that life was Abraham's future. God could not fail. That faith was passed down through Isaac, who foresaw his sons' destiny. Jacob in old age prophesied his family would bring his bones back from Egypt to the land Abraham never owned, escaping the slavery of Pharaoh.

Faith demanded Moses forsake his Egyptian adoption and join his people in slavery. It was that same faith in his parents which kept him alive when others his age were sacrificed to the Nile gods. He knew even if they never left that land, a Messiah was coming to set them free to ignore their bondage and set their eyes on Heaven. That was good enough to leave behind all the good things Egypt might have offered had Moses reigned there. So they celebrated the Sparing of their lives not with sneering at the dying Egyptians, but as a symbol of things much higher than this world. So when commanded to walk into the sea, they obeyed, and God's plan for their rescue slaughtered the Egyptians, all without any swords or weapons of any kind.

Faith also knocked down the massive walls of Jericho, but held up that portion which sheltered Rahab. And on and on, through the Period of Judges and Monarchy, faith made all the difference in choosing to believe and obey God's promises, whether it meant living in safety or dying without mercy. It mattered not either way, for faith rises above life itself, and outlives death. There is no logic to what faith demands, nor what it brings. Rather, it is its own logic, a perspective which treats this world and its delights with contempt.

Judaism had sold its birthright of faith and symbolic logic for the pottage of human insight. Jews had ransomed their other-worldly perspective for shiny metal and dirt -- wealth and lands. By human standards there was nothing greater, but by spiritual standards it was all foolishness. Did these readers believe the trappings of their old religion were really so valuable? Did they blanch at mere human misery when they stood to lose Eternity? Everything they thought they knew and had as their legacy was more about faith and Christ than about Law and ritual.

Academic OS

For those who are curious, my ministry plans still include self-hosting a website by turning my desktop computer into a server. The hardware is ambiguous enough to be used either way, but I must confess I find the idea of using openSUSE as the server OS isn't looking all that good. I'll probably install something like CentOS or some other RedHat clone. SUSE is just too heavy, does too much which is distinctly desktop-oriented, too much of the consumer multimedia bloat, and too much friends with the Borg of Redmond.

I still haven't found anything to make me happy with the old Toshiba Satellite 4020CDT my brother is letting me use. With a 300Mhz CPU and only 160MB RAM, there's not much he could have done with it, anyway. I tried Win2K, eComStation 1.2 and 2.0, several kinds of Linux, even running Debian on the console. Everything which uses the Knoppix boot process will not work at all: DSL, Puppy, and Knoppix itself. Xubuntu was simply far too bloated. Then I ran across something I'd not seen before: Scientific Linux. This is a RedHat clone specifically repackaged to appeal to the academic community. Some of the packages are slightly improved for stability and the RedHat branding is completely removed.

This runs on a huge collection of servers at Fermilab and allied institutions. It was intended to bring some uniformity to simplify administration. I'm currently letting the installer run on version 3.0.9, which is taken from RedHat Enterprise Linux 3. It's a little dated, but not nearly as old as the laptop. Hopefully, it will just about run usefully without bogging down too much.

Whether I keep this laptop all that long is not important. I'll probably be using one laptop or another once this desktop machine goes live as a server. Meanwhile, it's just a toy to see what the folks at CERN have done to this.

Update: It was a bust. While it appears to work well enough, they no longer support extra repositories of software I would really have to have for the wireless. Too bad; it seemed to be working okay otherwise. The time investment would be something like two or three days playing with it because the information is rather scarce on how to get around the conflicts and problems.

Hebrews 10

A Hebrew mind should have realized long ago the sacrificial system commanded by Moses was only ever symbolic. Yes, it was surely commanded by God. But it takes a hard-headed fool to never make any effort to understand why. God is not a closed book, but had from the very first moment of Creation sought to reveal His very nature to any creature who sought to know Him. If so very many people prior to Moses understood the blood ritual of making a covenant was entirely symbolic of a much higher truth, how is it the Jews lost sight of that? It was a concerted effort they made not to know, largely because empty ritual was a whole lot easier than commitment in faith. So our write bluntly states what should have been obvious: The blood offering on the Day of Atonement was an empty gesture if you didn't bring your heart to God.

David saw it so clearly in Psalm 40, when he prophesied on behalf of the Messiah, his own descendant, the clear declaration of what really mattered. And just like dead-hearted Jews of Jesus' day, we could argue all day long whether the proper reading of the Hebrew text in Psalm 40:6 is "a body you have prepared for me" (Septuagint) or "you have bored my ear" (Masoretic), and thus easily lose sight of how little difference it made from a proper biblical Hebrew point of view. Frankly, our author passes right over that phrase to point out the obvious: God never cared about the details of ritual offerings if He had your faith. When the Messiah came into the world, says David, He would come offering the only thing acceptable to God in the first place -- the whole self. So whether it's a matter of hearing clearly, or reflects a public ritual marking entrance into permanent slavery (Exodus 21:1-6), or it was a reference to the Virgin Birth of Christ, it really doesn't matter. In the Hebrew mind, they all result in the same thing, because it was never about precise wording any more than it was about precise ritual observance. If God owns your ears, your lifelong service, or your body on the Cross, each is a mere image of what He demanded from the beginning.

So in following Christ to the Cross, we fulfill all God ever commanded of anyone anywhere. This is the summation, the ground of truth to which the author was taking his readers all along. Going back to the Temple and slaughtering an animal was worse than wasteful, for it would support a system which had far removed itself from the original meaning given by Moses, and even that original was meant to pass away. Jesus paid it all, and the Temple was just a neat pile of rocks on a far away ridge in a land of no great significance any more. The Law of Moses was a poor shadow of the much higher Law of God. That higher Law of God can be written only in human hearts. Where it is written, no other law is binding, because God has declared that heart acceptable in His sight -- He is the Law.

Faithfulness to God now is defined in walking with Christ. He is the ultimate High Priest, He has brought us Himself individually into the Presence of Almighty God in the only real Temple in Heaven. How can we not in Christ have full assurance His Father will receive us gladly? The only thing left is to remember a part of us is stuck temporarily in this fallen world of human flesh, and we need to keep an eye on each other. Not in terms of behavior, but in terms of fruit of the Spirit. This requires by its very nature we meet together regularly to celebrate this grace and love we share in Christ, all the more so when we consider He's coming back.

Even though the Law of Moses was a mere shadow of God's Law, we note those who defied it died without mercy. But they lost only their earthly life, and who's to say they went off into Hell afterward? People entrusted to execute the Law of Moses were hardly perfect. But if we defy the Law of God, it's no longer a matter of mere physical death, but an eternal death. We don't even have words for what happens to someone who treats God's own Son with contempt. If, after all you've tasted in this life of the life to come, you heap contempt upon God's living Word of Grace, where can you go to escape God's wrath? What happened to that strong stand of faith you first took when you turned to Christ? You seemed quite willing to stand with others who suffered oppression for that declared faith. Even our writer was arrested for it. And everyone had all their stuff confiscated, but everyone also had the riches of faith by which measure stuff was of no significance. Is persecution from Rome so different? Where did that bold confidence go in the face of persecution from Jewish leaders?

Habakkuk said it so well in chapter 2 of his prophecy: God does not operate on a human scale of time. A couple of years loom large for us, but in His eyes it's just a moment. We should be striving to make our senses adjust to His. The ancient biblical concept held time was not a thing to divide into regular units of measure. You did not schedule events by counting those units, but by counting the completion of spiritual marks in the soul. If your faith is not complete, then it falls to you to climb a little higher. Take that gift of grace which empowers the firm stand in trying times, and wait out God's schedule. God sees your sorrow; you need to see His power. You won't escape human sorrow until He's finished remaking you. It's not God delaying things; it's our sin. Cut off another chunk of fallen nature and grip your faith a little tighter. To draw back now into the false womb of Judaism is the road to Hell.

As a historical note, we see the writer refers to the Temple as present reality in his world, still standing. We know Jesus warned His disciples it would all be destroyed, and there would be a day when His followers must flee Jerusalem. Historical records indicate Rome invaded in force around 67 AD, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It's not hard to imagine our writer sees this on the verge of coming true. As tensions in Palestine heated up between Rome and the Jews, it would be easy to see Roman soldiers harassing Jews and Christians alike, so Jewish Christians were hardly exempt. All the more so, living as they did in the imperial capitol of Rome. Soon there would be no Temple service to which they could return for the sake of familiarity and comfort. They were literally on the verge of being cast adrift into Christ alone, and they needed to see this as their new home of the soul.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevercool"

They wore "LOVE" on their clothes, but had precious little of it in their hearts.

If you don't have childhood scars, you grew up without a childhood. Rooting about in my own, I ran across one of those situations where I was used but completely unvalued. In the early `70s I joined the school choir at East High in Anchorage, Alaska. It was what I wanted to do. I knew I'd never letter in it, but it seemed like something worthy of my efforts. There were some good singers there, and I wanted to learn some of their skill.

That hope, at least, came true. But I had almost no friends. They wanted me there because there was a shortage of baritones, and my voice was just good enough and loud enough to be useful. Still, I wasn't "cool." Perhaps the cool people had their own sorrows; some of them seemed to, but then did their best to keep the façade in place. A few just didn't seem to have any problems at all. I'm pretty sure my problems stood out like a sore thumb, or perhaps I just didn't matter.

So when we weren't deep in singing, and those moments for bonding became possible, I didn't get much bonding. It hurt. The touchy, artsy music "personalities" scene wasn't my place, but I got a big dose of it. Later, I came away knowing I could never have been a part of that. The reason is because I cared too much about people, and not enough about music.

For them, music was the god and goddess, the object of love and devotion. For me, music was the means to making love real to people. Granted, I was so twisted in knots with depression and the standard adolescent psychosis induced by our hellish shallow American culture, but I knew something in all this was just wrong. Lord knows, I tried to do it their way, but it hurt me more than the people I must have hurt trying to be passionate about music. So I grew up. Instead, when in charge and "cool" I opted to bring in everyone I could touch. If they were awkward, I did all I could to give them moxie; I encouraged whatever music talent there was.

In the end, I gave up on artistic passion and settled for mediocrity, or even bad music. That was far less important than my passion for souls touched, and the beauty of a heart warmed by grace and love. Today, I'm still a nobody in this world. My musical talent is quite limited. I won't be forgotten in the this world when I die, I'll be never known. All the fame or notoriety I need is in Heaven.

Life of Christ: Mark 11

It was an extraordinary climb hiking up from Jericho to the ridge line east of Jerusalem. It easily took the whole day, and the foot traffic would have been pretty dense even without Jesus and His entourage. Near a high spot on that ridge nestled the village of Bethphage, which stood close to Bethany. Jesus pointed out the cluster of buildings, directing two of His disciples to fetch an onager colt. The only reasonable explanation is this was prearranged, for Jesus had many supporters all over this area. It's not important at this point to name who it was, only that the story makes the most sense if we realize Jesus set out intentionally to fulfill prophecy.

Reminding ourselves Mark writes for a mixed Jewish and Gentile congregation in Rome, it is important to realize the emphasis on the pagan background. The basic concept Jesus was teaching a spiritual kingdom, not political at all, was by now clearly established, even in Gentile minds unfamiliar with Jewish history. The symbol of setting aside something which has seen no other use for a religious ritual purpose was in those days fairly universal. Furthermore, it would not be lost on the audience Jesus chose an onager instead of a chariot with white horses. It reinforces the point Mark makes Jesus had no political ambitions, but His mission was entirely spiritual in nature.

Thus, the people tending the colt were holding it for this very purpose. What the disciples said as they untied the colt was pretty much a password, a prearranged signal. Spreading cloaks for Him to sit or ride over, as well as leafy branches, was always seen in ancient times as welcoming a new ruler. This context was undeniably the grand welcome of a spiritual king, over a spiritual kingdom. Oddly, it would have been a large number of Jews there who would have missed the point, including Jesus' disciples. To the very last moment they were still expecting some miraculous overthrow of at least the Jewish leadership, if not the Roman.

Perhaps it would be taken as a tour of inspection, for Jesus didn't say or do anything noteworthy once inside the Temple grounds. This was rather late in the day, and the Jewish leaders would not have had time to react to the news of His symbolic entrance and all the "Lord, save us!" -- which was the literal meaning of Hosanna. Again, it would seem obvious the crowd were only superficially celebrating, because the majority of them completely missed the significance of this symbolic entrance. He didn't inspect the palaces and fortifications of the city, but only the Temple. His interests were clearly on spiritual matters, but the majority were still looking for a political Messiah.

A subtle clue comes in the episode of the fig tree. In this part of the world, fig trees bear fruit year round, even without leaves. All the more so since this one probably grew down in the Kidron Valley where the water table would be higher than most other areas. The fruit would appear in cycles, and this being five days before Passover, the fruit would have been green at best. Still, it was a powerful symbol of the Jewish nation, covered with leaves, but bearing no fruit -- a simulation of life, but actually useless. We see no unreasonable anger here, merely a symbolic denunciation of Judaism itself. While educated readers in Rome probably caught on, the disciples standing there did not. The Jewish people were all flash, but completely barren. Their time on earth as God's fig tree was ended.

Pagans had surely experienced, either directly or by observation, religious shrines where priestly hawkers charged a premium for "worthy" offerings. When you brought your own from home, they never seemed to pass inspection. This sort of cynical corruption could be found all over the Roman Empire. For Jesus to drive out this corrupt market had an obvious significance to anyone outside Judaism. The Temple was meant as a place to meet God, not be plundered by the Temple staff. The portion of Jesus' teaching Mark quotes makes this obvious. This would easily make Him popular with the country folk coming into Jerusalem, for they would be treated worse than the savvy locals in these Temple Bazaars. The officials didn't have enough manpower to take any action against Jesus for such a popular act.

In the minds of His disciples, things were shaping up for a fine showdown with the Jewish leadership. They followed Him with this sense of awe, wonder and expectation. How would He deliver the coup de grace to these corrupt fat-cats? On the way, they passed the same fig tree, and remarked it had withered and died. Whom their rabbi cursed was in deep trouble, so the priests had better watch their steps! As they stood facing the Temple Mount, Jesus was surely thinking about faith, that full commitment to His Father, and how lacking it was in His People. The irony must have made Him laugh even as it made Him sad. The disciples, as did most other Jews, saw the mere externals, missing the deeper spiritual meaning of things.

One day in the near future, that fig tree withering would become obvious to their new spiritual minds. For now, it was enough they would hear teaching which passed completely over their heads. The Holy Spirit would bring it all back in the proper light. The nation of Israel had remained unfruitful because they had been unfaithful. The Lord had come to visit, and they weren't ready. Too late; they were accursed, about to wither and die. Their purpose on earth was ended. The Temple and all its trappings were about to fade into history, a dim memory of symbols badly abused by a people whose hearts were hardened against the truth. Pointing to the Temple Mount in front of them, Jesus said full commitment to Jehovah's revelation would easily displace not only the Jewish leadership, but could toss the whole Mount Zion in the sea. That would have been the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah had been tossed for their sins -- whose ruins were still visible in Jesus' day. Faith in the Lord of Heaven would empower removing sin all the way down to the foundations.

It was for this sort of miracle they were to pray, that the Lord should remove anything which stood in the way of His truth: Jewish leaders, Roman soldiers, the empty rituals, the whole racist nationalism of the Jewish rabbis. That includes impediments inside our souls, too. There was no room in the Kingdom of Heaven for grudges. Those who carried bitterness, such as the disciples surely felt for the Jewish and Roman powers, would not find a place in the Kingdom. Let the Father handle sin on the earth, just as He did with Sodom and Gomorrah. Come out of it because love and grace will not let you stay, but leave your anger behind with such a place.

The priests hardly carried such noble motives in their hearts. Seeing the raucous entry one day, the bazaar shut down the next, they were determined Jesus should declare Himself as the Messiah He obviously pretended to be. Just who did He think He was shaking things up this way? It was not yet time to give them that lever, so He answered them with a question of His own. It was obvious He implied the two questions had the same answer. Did they reject John's message? They surely had in their hearts, but would not do so publicly. For now, it was enough they knew Jesus tied His message to John's. Their own dishonesty and hypocrisy would frustrate them a little longer.

Waco Day

Is Your Church Government Approved?

RIP 76 souls, along with the facade of Liberty
Mount Carmel, Waco, TX
April 19, 1993

The naked aggression of the state against her own citizens. Something essential in the character of our nation died that day, and we cannot get it back. While fascism was born here long before that, you might think of that as the "coming out party."

It still matters.

AT&T: Listen to Us

I sent this message to my ISP today, minus the story link to ZDNet:

---

The bigshots at major ISPs across the US are very touchy about this thing called "Net Neutrality." In a nutshell, it works like this: There are users and content providers (simply another kind of user) attached to the Internet via ISPs. They pay the ISPs for this service. They want to meet each other on the Net on equal terms. Nobody gets special treatment; we all agree to connect as a network of relative equals. The ISPs complain some users consume more resources than others, and would like to charge them a little extra, particularly because they make profits from this extra traffic, and aren't giving the ISPs a fair cut.

There's already a problem with this. IPSs are not supposed to make shares of profit. They charge for a service; they get paid. If they aren't making sufficient profit, let them charge more. If that makes them less competitive, they need to find some other way to make a buck. The nature of the beast does not permit them to demand a share from those who happen to get rich. By the same logic, they should be charging less for those of us who actually pay, and take a loss, to get our content on the Net. Charge by the unit of service, IPSs, and stop trying to piggy back on someone else's intelligent business.

As for yelling about wanting the government to stay out of it -- forget it. Here's why us ordinary users are prodding the government to demand you remain neutral about traffic instead of letting you handle it your way: We don't trust you, and for good reason. You've lied, swindled and raped us plenty in the past -- remember all those federal subsidies you took for building extra capacity, and didn't build it? You've made lots of money off selling our information to outside parties. You've censored us when you didn't like the things we had to say about you. We hate government, too, but the best we can hope for in this world is to use one evil power against another, trying to keep a balance.

Stop pretending you care about our needs. It's cheap propaganda. When the government wanted to tap your entire traffic load and spy on us without warrant, you readily set it for them all over the country. When the possibility of government action threatens your corporate freedom, you cry like a baby. If you don't like us users calling for government restrictions, stop screwing us. We aren't interested in how you view this; we demand you understand how we view it.

---

The point I would add here is this: It's okay to throttle traffic that should never have been there in the first place -- movies, for example. That is not a valid use of the Internet. If people want movies, let them obtain them from the regular cable TV services. Or, charge extra to connect to video content and start using those millions of miles of fiber you ISPs laid long ago and now refuse to activate.

Yes, I know you have that fiber out there. I lived in a rural community where a big, huge phone line terminal box stood just off a minor highway, and residents still remember in the late 1990s when your people put it there, explaining to them their driveways were being dug up to lay Internet fiber lines. As late as 2006, you still refused to discuss activating those fiber lines so folks out there could get broadband. Instead, they dealt with 24kbs dialup speeds on copper lines laid in the 1960s. That, AT&T, is hateful fraud, because the US government gave you billions of tax dollars to make those lines available to customers.

Let This Not Die

Somehow, the word "hypocrisy" is too weak. I can't add anything of significance to Will Grigg's second chapter on the FLDS child snatching in Texas. The State of Texas is much more abusive to their wards than even the most nightmarish wild accusations against the FLDS.

No, we probably can't do anything about it now. I fully expect Texas officials to cut off their nose to spite their face, as it were. They'd rather destroy than admit they might have made some mistake. It's not about children and their real needs; it's about control no man should have. This is why God is judging the US, because of gross violations of the Covenant of Noah.

What we can take from this is two things. One: Don't ever support, defend or trust the state with your children, nor anyone else's children. Advertisements using the images of battered children to get you enraged enough to further empower the state's kidnapping habits are grand lies, because regardless what happens in hellish homes with homicidal maniacs, the children will always be worse off in state custody. For Christ's sake, keep your children out of the hands of the state.

Two: Don't ever condemn anyone acting against the state to defend their children. Don't ever mourn the loss of these fine valiant officers of the law unless you mourn more over the sufferings of those who killed them. When this stuff gets worse, as it must surely do, condemn all violence, as Christ surely did. Do all in your power to stay out of it. But know we are now in the time when the state is the aggressor, the first to draw blood and the last to promote justice. Americans, you now live under a fascist dictatorship. The Covenant of Noah demands the state promote and keep peace, not actively seek to destroy it.

What God has united, let no man seek to sunder. That's not just pretty words to tag on the end of a marriage ceremony, but a warning straight from God's own mouth to anyone who dares enter the household uninvited.

Hebrews 9

There are no words to explain it. What troubled the audience of our writer troubles us still today. We are fallen. There is a vast gulf separating us from Eternity and eternal things. We can posit terms such as "the Spirit Realm" but have no means to understand it. This was the whole point when Jesus explained the necessity of using parables to teach the Kingdom of Heaven. While the mind of necessity must capture something of the truth, else the will cannot choose any proper obedience, ultimate reality largely bypasses the human consciousness, and operates on a wholly different level. Logic will only get you so far before it fails utterly. When presenting higher truths, it is necessary to use symbols, far more complicated than mere types and allegories. The ultimate truth of God's revelation escapes human faculties, so all Platonic and Aristotelian categories of pure logic fall far short. Truth is not taught; it is caught.

Everything which matters in the end is from God's own hand. Unless and until He reaches out to you, you cannot turn to Him and embrace His revelation. The greatest minds in apologetics and debate cannot change a single thing in any human soul, because it's not a matter of logic. It's far above logic. To assume faith must be reasonable is to cripple its power. To accept the notion anything other than logic is mere subjective wishfulness is to surrender. True faith is utterly unreasonable, because it demands you surrender everything you are and following One you cannot experience directly. We make the most audacious claims in the world, utterly without sufficient evidence to prove anything at all. The death of some obscure man in an obscure little corner of history's greatest empire is somehow the means to saving all mankind. If God doesn't plant that in your spirit, you'll never accept it.

Judaism and the Covenant of Moses died on the Cross with Jesus. Jews got really comfortable with their rituals, their rules, the glorious trappings of their national character and religion. The physical structure and layout of the Tabernacle was symbolic from the start. For all its rigorously enforced separation from mundane use, it was never more than a mere symbol. If you want the details, you can read them in the Pentateuch. For all the beauty of the Ark of the Covenant, only one man saw much of it, and that once in any year. Just for that one peek, he had to carry a blood sacrifice, still warm from the animal. This blood was the ritual covering for his sins, and the sins of those he represented outside. It only covered unintentional sins. It could by no means change the heart of any man.

The way to God's cleansing power of forgiveness was never actually opened by that ritual and apparatus. It was little more than a call to behavior modification. It gained what little could be gained by human effort. Not that it was completely unimportant, but it was never more than a symbol of things which mattered eternally.

Christ came as the final Heavenly High Priest. His coming was prophesied in every detail of the symbolism built into the Tabernacle's design. The Tabernacle where Christ serves was not built by human hands, required no service of maintenance by an army of Levites. He did not enter this Tabernacle with blood from some poor unfortunate goat, lamb or bull, but with His own blood. He only had to do it once. If all that animal gore could have actually accomplished anything, it was mere ritual purification of things temporal. Could the priest's inspection of an animal really find any sort of perfection? Could he truly know the inherent nature of the victim about to die? Yet, we know Jesus Christ came before God with God's own purity, sinless and spotless because His nature defined holiness.

The power of that offering was real in the Spirit Realm, more real than here on this temporal plane. It has the power to reach inside a soul and completely change any human, to remake him into a new creature, to fit him for an eternal life not confined to his earth. Not just making his sin hidden from God, but removing it, overpowering it, rooting it out from his very nature. A gap is inserted between the flesh and soul, and widens as God's Spirit redeems ever more of the life, until the soul is ready to dismiss the flesh. Thus, God sees not the awful evil in which we are all born, but He sees His Son. In making that great sacrifice, His Son inherited everything God had desired to offer in Creation in the first place.

We know an inheritance requires someone die before it is passed. Until death, a man's will is just a piece of paper. The Covenant of the Law given through Moses was God's will in that sense. It had no real power. While in all grave seriousness it was inaugurated with the sacrifice of many animals, and a long ritual of dedication, it did not grant actual physical control to anyone. It had tremendous potential, concerning the inheritance of all Creation, but no power to make it happen until someone involved in making the will died. Moses didn't make it; he just passed it on as an attorney, a junior law clerk. Someone in the godhead must die before anything changed. The Law was a mere promise, which Israel was to keep as one locks such documents up in a safe. In due time, when the death took place, the will would be executed and the estate would pass.

In ancient times, a covenant was solemnified -- purified, set apart, made holy -- by a blood sacrifice. It was pretty well understood that was a symbol of the seriousness of the matter. You might have paid in the blood of an animal you owned, but it implied you expected to pay with your own blood if you failed to keep the covenant. Given all the physical symbols of the Law were solemnified in this way, with animal blood, what would be the source of blood for solemnifying the real stuff in Heaven? Again, we note the real Tabernacle/Temple of God is in Heaven. The earthly Tabernacle carried and maintained by Israel, and the Temples later, were never more than a mere shadowy symbol, a physical model of the God's Heavenly Courts above. Christ brought His own blood.

In this fallen world, the human mind continually slips back into sin. It requires a constant reminder of God's standards, brought home forcefully, to keep us on track. Not to keep us faithful -- no external force on earth can do that. Rituals and laws only keep us conscious and aware of our sinfulness. Heaven isn't like that. Once a thing is done, it is eternal. Jesus didn't have to keep dying every year in Heaven like sacrificial animals here on earth. You'll note here on earth any given victim could die only once. Once Jesus brought His blood before the Throne as the only possible sacrifice acceptable for human sin, it was done. Then He sat down on that Throne Himself, unlike the human high priests who simply splashed a little blood on the symbolic Mercy Seat. Jesus eternally took His place on the Mercy Seat in Heaven.

A fundamental principle of human existence is you live only once. You die and then face God's judgment. Jesus died and faced that judgment for us, since there was nothing in Him to judge. He has inherited the Kingdom. We are used to images of heirs taking the bequest before a judge, paying a tax, and having the judge validate their inheritance. At some point, the heir returns to the property in question and takes physical ownership. As Heaven counts time, it will be only a short passage between Christ taking His throne in Heaven and then returning to actually rule and reign physically. He won't come the second time in the form of fallen mankind, but in His true form. When He comes, He will change all things into that same Heavenly form.

Scratching at the Door

Pay no attention to the muttering fool. He's just blabbering about private nightmares and voices in his head.

August.

It may not do much to your world, but mine is changing. The next big shift comes in August.

August will be august, indeed. The following winter will be very, very hard for many.

I'm not a prophet, but my calling is prophetic in nature. What's the difference between God's punishing hand of wrath, and His blessing hand of redemption? It's the same hand. The difference is you and I. If we are His, wrath may splash over on us, but we rejoice to see His glory. Sin is being purged; what better blessing is there?

Beware of August; cling to Him now.

See? I warned you he was out of his mind.

I'm Next

It wasn't so long ago the US Marshals were still officially calling me a "shaved head cult leader" -- you can read about that here (especially Part 2). I was under surveillance for awhile, but I suppose these days they are too busy. If all this bothers you, feel free to avoid my blog in the future.

Meanwhile, I note with grand contempt the thundering silence from mainstream Christian leaders and organizations about the recent raid by Texas on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community. Those are some of the weirdest people, I've ever seen. Jeffs is a flake. They practice polygamy, marry their girls off young, and dress funny, too. For all this, it appears they have done far less harm than just about any part of any government, and certainly no worse than the average community anywhere in the US. Frankly, I'm pretty certain some of those alleged Christian organizations are behind this persecution.

Let's get one thing straight: Where in God's Word is there a set age when females are ready for marriage? It has always been a mere cultural question. They aren't taking your daughter for an early marriage, just their own. Tell me about some real harm they've done. If there's any fraud regarding that land, investigate and file suit, or prosecute. Looking for some silly excuse to destroy their community because they are strange is just plain evil. An unjust law begs to be broken.

The anniversary is only four days away. The bumper stickers said it best right after Waco: "Is Your Church BATF Approved?" In other words, what ever happened to "separation of church and state?" Just being weird did not justify the murders at Waco, and it won't justify the recent action. If they don't find the alleged teenager who they claimed made that phone call complaining of sexual abuse, they won't have a leg to stand on in court for any of this. But not to worry, they'll find a shill. Yes, I have no doubt the great State of Texas will do whatever it takes to cover this up.

It's only going to get worse. In the next few years, they are going to go after just about anyone who doesn't fit some secret government definition of "normal" Christian practice, and you'll see all sorts of vilification in the mainstream press about how awful those people are. Since I'm not part of any group with significant political clout, I expect to be rounded up in the next few years. House church folks are easy to pick off, and they already have a file with my name on it.

Update: I got in the first lick, but Will Grigg caught up and surpassed with me the usual vastly larger pool of information for background. Of course, my basic position is unchanged, but Will says it better:

It's really difficult to say which of these two cults -- the FLDS Church, or the Imperial Regime -- is worse, in principle. In practice, the Regime's evil easily outstrips that of the Mormon offshoot, since the latter is commendably disinclined to impose itself beyond its own ranks. The Regime, of course, eagerly inflicts its armed benevolence on distant lands with the slightest provocation, or none at all, when it can get away with doing so....

Any state that would invent a pretext to seize children from loving mothers is one that is the enemy of all decent human beings, and those who carry out orders to do so are not non-combatants.

Every parent has the God-given right to kill someone who has come to abduct his children. Texas authorities know this. That's why this "child protection" action was carried out with military hardware supplied by the Department of Homeland security....

Tell me, which is more depraved: The FLDS doctrine and practice of polygamy, or the efforts by the State of Texas to force all of "its" 11-12 year-old schoolgirls to undergo an exceptionally risky vaccination for a sexually transmitted disease? Rick Perry, the polystyrene poseur who plays the role of Texas Governor, behaved in a fashion worthy of Warren Jeffs, or any other dictatorial cult leader, when he bypassed the legislature to order those injections by executive decree. The assumption behind that policy (which just happened to benefit certain pharmaceutical interests connected to Perry) was that all Texas schoolgirls were likely to be promiscuous.

You'll notice he holds the same position I do about God's command we protect His gift of children from non-believers.

Lying in the Name of Jesus

Chances are someone you know includes you on their list for junk e-mail hoaxes they like to pass around. Yeah, that crazy stuff which superficially sounds good, but only if you lack any solid grounding in the Word. When you study the real thing, counterfeits are conspicuous.

The latest comes with the subject line: "DID YOU KNOW THESE FACTS?" It purports to offer proof mocking God is dangerous. While that is true, they get there by running roughshod over the truth. First, they quote Galatians 6:7 out of context. We've examined Galatians here on this blog, and it warns about letting false teachers sucker you. That verse comes from a paragraph where Paul warns the readers not to be stingy with the love offerings for preachers faithful to the Word. The point is you can mock God by refusing to recognize His sovereignty over your resources. As for verbal mocking, Jesus promised there would be a lot of that, and it's not our problem.

Then the letter goes on to cherry pick supposed examples of those who died because they dared to mock God verbally in public. Now, I suppose we can say none of these people were paragons of Christian virtue. No argument there. However, the message misquotes, lies, and some of it is clearly fictitious. For example:

John Lennon (Singer): Some years before, during his interview with an American Magazine, he said: "Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple, today we are more famous than Him" (1966). Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.

No, it didn't happen that way. It as a UK paper, the London Evening Standard, who printed an interview written by a friend of John's. A partial quote did appear on the cover of Datebook, which was published in the US. The firestorm was the typical silly, jihad-style reaction from those who somehow have lots of time and money to waste on burning Beatles albums, which seriously pollutes the air, but can't be bothered to find out exactly what Lennon meant to say. Sadly, Lennon was correct that his band had more impact on teens than religion. Is that so hard to grasp? It's a clear condemnation on the religious subculture which substitutes for genuine Christian faith.

That deception alone makes the whole message a lie. However, we'll cover one more item: Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn Monroe (Actress): She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show. He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her. After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said: "I don't need your Jesus". A week later, she was found dead in her apartment.

A lie. Graham never got to speak to her. Never mind my dispute with Graham's theology and practice, it simply never happened. And Bon Scott did not die choking on vomit; that's a popular legend. And the story from Campinas, Brazil is not supported by any official record anywhere, it seems. And as for Thomas Andrews, builder of the Titanic, the quote is not his, but of someone on the ship's crew -- a quote remembered after the ship sank, so it's dubious even then.

At the end of this message is the usual manipulative sewage making God out to be a slot machine. "You have to pass this on, or you won't get your miracle!" Somewhere in the pits of Hell are a bunch of people who wrote stuff like that. Let's set this one straight: As soon as we are born on this earth, we deserve to die for the presence of sin written into our very DNA. We deserve a short and miserable life, a lingering painful death, and eternity in Hell. That anything short of this actually happens is a miracle of God's grace. That a few of us actually come to know Him when His Holy Spirit enters our souls is the greatest miracle of all.

Messages such as the one I quoted are not helping the Kingdom, but specifically designed by Satan to make it that much harder to hear the truth. Don't pass that manure on; correct it and kick it back.

Links which may help to clarify this post:

Pink Ingrid (warning: painful color scheme)
Kyle Manning (see the second comment down the page)
Encyclopedia Titanica (a forum which chases minutiae regarding the Titanic)

An Experience Remembered

Coming from a lower class background, my family is of the peasant stock. In broad terms, it implies a higher moral frame of reference than urban proletarians generally exhibit. It's a standing joke among historians which notes civilization -- the cultural habits necessary to live in a city -- survive best where there is no city. We had precious little material goods, but willingly shared it with folks who didn't go out their way to harm us. We placed a higher value on something else.

There is always a windfall, even for the most poverty stricken. It might not be much, but for those who budget close to the bone, any slack is a blessing. Our family instinct would include in such circumstances purchasing something durable and helpful in bringing human comfort, but always we kept a portion for sharing. If the windfall was of any significance, we were more likely to spend it on something experiential than on material goods.

For example, we might take a trip to some landmark we had always wanted to see, but could not afford to visit. We considered it educational if we could afford to pay for some expensive forms of entertainment, which in my youth included a lot of things cheap today: riding in an airplane or train, eating at a restaurant offering food we'd not otherwise taste, or simply visiting an amusement park with rides.

Our experience as members of the downtrodden class made us suspicious of well-meaning advice from any social class above us. It always seemed like they were selling something for which they could garner an unjust profit at our expense. Having experienced "lawful" confiscations of this or that property in the past, we often avoided saving up to buy anything we couldn't take with us when moving on from a bad situation. So we might buy a nice vehicle, but rent a ratty little trailer house.

The overall effect of such an upbringing makes some biblical values easier to grasp. A fundamental element of Hebraic culture is the importance of what a man knows and can do, not so much what he has. There is an underlying assumption evil forces can take all your stuff, and sometimes God simply decides you don't need it, but no one can take from you what's inside. No, not the Western notion of "what kind of man you are" but what kind of things you have power to do. My family took great pride in ability, as demonstrated by accomplishment, not so much in the material rewards of it.

After saving grace, one of the most valuable gifts Scripture notes coming from God's hand is an experience remembered.

Nah, Thanks

It would be so easy. More than one organization has offered me training and ordination. After passing through their hurdles, I could get a job as full time pastor somewhere. It would be a career, and lots of people would huddle around me for spiritual guidance.

Doing so would require I drop some of that guidance I am most likely to offer. You can characterize it any way you like, but I call it "lying" -- I would be deceiving them, and perhaps myself. Further, it would be contrary to conviction, things which I cannot walk away from. I would cease being Ed Hurst, and I'd be somebody else.

If it means dying in obscurity, talking to a crowd never larger than I can count on one hand, I cannot simply step away from the vision. It holds me. It burns inside me. I will pass on the mainstream route, thank you.

Life of Christ: Mark 10

The calm assurance displayed by Jesus regarding His fate was lost on His disciples. To the very end, they steadfastly confused His divine office with something dreamed up by nationalist zealots who never understood the very nature of their God.

Skipping over several months of ministry, Mark summarizes a period when Jesus left Capernaum on the north shore of Galilee, and traveled down to Judea, then crossed the Jordan over into Perea, the domain of Herod Antipas. Mark's Roman audience would not likely have been aware of the dispute between two rabbinical schools regarding marriage. For them, it is enough to recognize the harassment of the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus stood in the domain of the ruler who had executed John the Baptist over preaching about marriage. The topic would naturally arise as Jesus taught near the area where His cousin John had preached a few years before.

Asking if divorce was lawful implied a much larger question of whether it was right and just. First, Jesus dispatched the surface issue by asking His examiners to quote Moses on the matter. What many in that day realized was the significant improvement Moses offered to the condition of women in the Ancient Near East. The passage in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 actually demanded a man present to the local courts a very serious charge short of adultery, not some frivolous distaste. Nor could he play her like a yo-yo. Women had been at a grave disadvantage until the Law of Moses. Still, Jesus showed how even that was really not very strict. Jewish men tended to see the whole issue as trading cattle, an investment in breeding and service, with little or no commitment on their part.

Going back to the very first mention of marriage, Jesus quoted Genesis verbatim in declaring marriage was binding before God two lives into one. There was no proper reason for separation, unless the cause was sufficient to warrant execution -- in every way a vow "until death part us." This covenant was binding before God Himself, a divine act for a divine purpose, not human convenience. Once two humans joined sexually, what was changed could not be put back. Later, as they convened in their lodgings there in Perea, the disciples asked for a fuller explanation. Jesus pointed out divorce, if allowed, was no more than a separation from the only spouse you would ever have. If you can't abide your marriage, you lost your only chance. Marrying again was adultery so long as both spouses lived.

Jesus took family seriously, so naturally the product of such a union was important. People were bringing children with them to visit Jesus and the disciples. The Twelve were grumpy at what they saw was a waste of their Master's time and energy. Jesus sharply rebuked them for trying to keep the little children away. He reminded them once again of the principle of childlike faith. If you do not come to the Kingdom with that absolute trust like a child, bearing no expectations and demanding no conditions, you do not enter. Jesus blessed the children with grand affection.

Mark doesn't bother explaining the details of the young man's background, he simply tells us a fellow knelt before Jesus on the road and asked how to find eternal life. Even the Roman readers would grasp the man's question was about finding that mystical spiritual enlightenment Jesus taught. The young man called Jesus "good." In a subtle reference to His divinity, Jesus reminded the man only God could be called "good," so he must recognize Jesus spoke for God. From that ground, Jesus began with the obvious, summarizing the Ten Commandments. The man not only knew them, but was certain he had obeyed from the moment he understood them. Yet it was obvious from his question this scrupulous observance did not bring him spiritual peace, did not quell his doubts about his standing before God Almighty.

That anyone should come to the place of conviction over sin has always been a miracle of grace. Where grace was working, so was love. This seeking heart was lovely to Jesus. He could only answer with absolute honesty. The one thing which would set the man free was to renounce his worldly attachments, sacrifice himself, and join Jesus in His impending execution. The truth of God crushes sin, and apparently the man was too wedded to his wealth to avoid being crushed with it. He could not divorce the false belief his prosperity and power were the primary evidence of God's favor. How could he throw aside the only blessings he knew? He left deeply saddened because he could not make the leap into the spirit realm. His god was too much of this world.

As the young man walked away, Jesus noted how hard it was for those of means to embrace spiritual truth. Jews around the world had become infamous by this time for serving the god of worldly wealth. It was easy to see their words about their faith were just words. For them, the one mark of God's favor was wealth, and anyone not wealthy was accursed. So the disciples had been taught. They were stunned with the idea their future with the Messiah would not be filled with this world's treasures. In the Jewish mind, it was incomprehensible anyone could enter the Kingdom if the wealthy were not favored by God.

Using a well known image of unloading one's baggage to enter a security gate -- "eye of the needle" -- Jesus noted the necessity of leaving this world and its goods behind to enter eternity. A man, by his accomplishments in this world, could not change his eternal standing one bit. It would require a miracle of God. The price for embracing that miracle offering was to leave behind all that holds us here. The Messiah did not come to save political Israel, but to save souls of men.

Peter noted they had readily left behind their careers and homes to wander the land with Jesus. While many generously supported Jesus' ministry, there was no earthly assurance they would not be sleeping in the open and waking to a breakfast of dust. Jesus responded this was a small price to pay for the riches of the Kingdom. Everything a man might value must be set aside for the calling of the Kingdom. In return, even in this world, he would receive back far more as Kingdom abundance. The spiritual family of grace would outnumber any clan, tribe, or nation. The real estate of the Kingdom was all of earth. But it was also persecution, because the world would reject that claim. But after it was all over, eternity stood at the end of the sorrow.

The nature of the Kingdom reversed everything. Fallen humanity had so perverted the true nature of things, everything which mattered here was trash in the Kingdom. Those who would lead in the Kingdom could be found among the lowest in this life.

Such talk was deeply disturbing to the disciples. As they approached what should have been their moment of triumph over evil in the world, the dawning of a new age under King David reborn, they were confronted hourly by earth shattering concepts. Once again, Jesus talked of His death, in ever more explicit details. Not only would He not vanquish the Jewish leaders and the Romans, but the former would abuse Him and hand Him over to the latter. Again, He spoke of rising the third day.

Always missing the point, brothers James and John privately asked if they could take the two highest offices in His Kingdom. Jesus warned it would be a high price to pay just being involved at any level. He used a common reference to group execution by poisoning, everyone in turn drinking from the same cup, sharing the same guilt before the law. And could they immerse themselves into this hard life of purity and sacrifice, of self-denial and asceticism, just to be on the team? They thought so, and Jesus promised they would pass through those things, dying literally and figuratively. But what they asked was hardly what they thought it was.

When word of this request got back to the other disciples, they acted like it was some dirty trick, because they weren't included in the negotiations. Jesus turned and warned them all. Rulers among Gentiles often regarded themselves as demigods. Were their expectations any less disgusting? In the Kingdom of God, serving is the measure of greatness. The most important thing is not sitting on thrones and making grand decisions, basking in the awe of others. The most important thing is how utterly one can set aside the self and serve others. Yes, even the Messiah did not come to be great in this world, but to serve everyone else, and to die for their spiritual ransom.

The next anecdote proved it. In the First Century Christian community, a legendary name was Bartholomew (another spelling of Bartimaeus). When he first met Jesus, he was blind, a beggar sitting along side the road up from Jericho to Jerusalem. He called out to Jesus using the kingly Messianic title, Son of David. While the crowd tried to shush him, this giant of faith simply got louder. When Jesus called for the man to brought to him, gamely playing at being royalty, the man tossed aside the only thing of consequence he had. In that part of the world, having a cloak was necessary for survival, and beggars kept this thing like a small tent over them while sitting and calling out for donations. Whipping this cloak off, the beggar ran to Jesus. Still playing at the kingly role, Jesus asked the man what was his petition. Bartholomew called Jesus "Great Master" and asked to receive his sight. Since he was already by faith spiritually enlightened, it was a small thing he should be physically made to see. It was his faith that brought the healing.

Having clarity of vision and purpose, the man did what the rich young man could not: He followed Jesus. Nothing else in his life mattered. Obviously Mark remembered him, as his is the only record to offer a name for the man. Because he shares a name with one of the Twelve, it is hard to sort out the stories from the First Century Church, but one of them died in India, and the other in Armenia. Both died carrying the gospel message as the greatest treasure on this earth. This was greatness as measured by the Kingdom.

Hebrews 8

Judaism is dead, a false religion. It has no God, because the only true living God no longer recognizes it. It cannot ever be resurrected or Christ must die yet again.

Christ is the ultimate High Priest of all Creation. He need not enter briefly the Holy of Holies every year and stand before the Mercy Seat. Instead, He sits upon that Mercy Seat. Further, His Mercy Throne is in Heaven, the one true Temple -- the one built by God's own hands. This is unlike the one Moses ordered. While it was indeed commanded by God at that time, it was but a model made by human hands, a copy of the real thing.

His offering is the one true offering, the only one which could actually bridge the chasm separating a Holy God and sinful men. Were Christ on earth, He could not be a priest of any sort, since the only priesthood appointed by God for the Nation of Israel was that of Aaron and his sons. They are but a symbol, the shadow cast on the ground by the brilliance of God's glory shining onto the real thing. Their Temple was but a shadow of the real thing. At that, it was merely a conceptual model of God's Courts above. Christ's ministry is better, for He offered the one acceptable sacrifice -- Himself. He brought about a better covenant, with better promises.

That earlier Covenant of the Law was hardly perfect. It was a collection of mere symbols, a far lower "reality" pointing to something much higher. It was mundane. It was a shadow cast on the ground. The true Covenant of God Almighty was always a matter of mystical spiritual truth, something inexpressible on earth. So He granted to this one nation of people a shadowy ritual observance to create a consciousness of something requiring a work of faith, something which no man could do in his own power. In theory, at least, the requirements of the Law were always within reach of human power. But the best you could hope to get from such ritual observance was a shadowy paradise of earthly proportions. It offered the best any man could obtain in this life, but could not change an evil heart. That required faith, something the Law could only hint at, not create.

So this imperfect copy of real religion was never meant to be the end of the matter. Jeremiah warned shortly before the Fall of Jerusalem there would be a new covenant sometime in the future. God had already decided long ago the Law of Moses could not accomplish much. It was never meant to, for while it was well within the reach of any willing heart, the nation routinely failed even that simple demand. So the covenant established by the Exodus, the Covenant of the Law, could not write the will of God on man's heart. It required something altogether different to do that. A new covenant which did not require people whipping up a frenzy of human discipline, God would find a way to put Himself in the hearts of men. There, His mercy and grace would manifest itself directly in the human soul, something the Law could never do.

Even back then, in the day of Jeremiah, the days of the Law were numbered. It had a distinct end point. It would become obsolete. For the people addressed by this writer, it was time to leave that behind, for Christ left this earth with the Covenant of Moses dead. The covenant in His Blood offered a much higher blessing, a blessing of spiritual and mystical redemption too grand for words, too grand for any mere material Temple, too grand for any mere ritual observance. The Law was dead.

Tribulation Report #010: Learning to Learn

The first few years of life, the human mind absorbs a tremendous amount. God in His mercy made us able to learn a great deal subconsciously, or we would go insane. In a certain sense, humans do not sleep so much for the body to rest, but because the brain needs down time to sort through and organize all it has absorbed in the past few hours. Kids sleep often for this reason.

Once a framework of memory forms, further learning takes place much more quickly. All new learning is association with old learning. The framework is refined and detail is added over the years. While older minds may lack somewhat the creativity and flexibility of younger, those older minds have a far better established framework for hanging new knowledge. Older adults going back to college typically do well, provided they were somewhat intellectual during their younger years. Their brains have a much larger, and more detailed framework for handling new information in high doses, which is a fair definition of what college does.

It still takes energy. Older adults often invest a good deal more time in checking their own ability to recall information for testing. This is work. This is partly because older adults are fully aware of the costs of failure in terms of time and hours spent, if not dollars. Younger minds which catch that vision are also pretty serious about grades. Most that age may be attending college simply because it's expected, the thing to do socially. Their orientation is just having a good time in a place where things remain rather predictable. It's a stretching of the cocoon years of youth. They are absorbing experiences, and learning only incidentally, not working at it that hard.

In the normal workaday world, people do what they have to do to get what they want. If they like promotions and pay raises, they'll try to find that path. If they are content with their status, they'll simply learn what they have to learn. Once they've got the framework, they'll refine things until they can do the job with less effort. This manifests either as doing the job with true expertise and experience, or getting it out of the way so there's more time and effort to spare on something they like better. Most people are not that creative, just perceptive to things which loom large in their personal value system.

So we should hardly be surprised when people who do their jobs grouse if management changes the conditions for no obvious benefit. For example, some salesman shows a manager all kinds of nifty things you can do -- "You really want to do them; trust me!" -- with this new machine, or this new software. The people actually doing the work know the only difference is now they have to learn a new system, but new tricks are hardly adding anything to the product.

Yes, a part of the upgrade cycle did bring us the GUI, the mouse, drag-n-drop, etc. Yes, the learning curve for neophyte employees was much less steep, and like playing handball instead of other sports, there is an instant attainment of mediocrity. However, what you gain in productivity with new hires, you lose in the required learning for current staff. Try telling a Unix geek, who has become expert at Vim, you can make him more productive with a GUI text editor. By the time you have moved your hand to the mouse, he has already made the edits you planned on making with the mouse. That includes some of the most complicated reformatting, and probably some things you simply cannot do easily with a GUI editor.

In other words, most advancements in computers and software have served only to increase mediocrity, because actually doing more is often lost, buried in the menu system no one takes the time to explore in detail. The means to learning older software encouraged exploration. This is borne out by testing done with both and old and young neophyte computer users (in less developed countries, of course) whose first exposure was a console environment. Once they passed the initial high learning curve for a keyboard-based environment, they were more productive in the long run, and preferred what they learned first.

Very few fields of operation require a computer GUI. While fancy graphical layouts are de rigeur with pitchmen, real buyers of a product are quite willing to examine the claims in very ordinary text presentations. Indeed, they prefer it. The only buyers moved by glitzy pitches are those who are buying for others, or who don't really understand what they are buying. Those who run small businesses built long ago on the likes of Enable/OA for DOS or Word Perfect for DOS are still happily running it on their XP machines. They aren't impressed with fancy presentation, but actual performance and adaptability. It still does everything they want on a console window.

The only reason they run XP is because DOS is no longer supported, and they find their business requires an Internet connection. Many are now seeking other platforms with a DOS emulator, because Windows viruses and other malware seem to be outpacing the defensive measures. What they do not specialize in (Internet) is not something they've invested a lot of time learning. What is central to their work is where the vested interest lies. To learn and adapt their operations to the latest software would be burdensome, and in some ways may not be possible.

It is important to note for the most part, word processing is not about formatting things for electronic transmission, except only incidentally. The whole idea is to provide formatting to content which must be printed. If the only purpose is to create something readable on a computer screen, HTML -- or even plain text with proper formatting -- is more than adequate. However, spreadsheets and database operations are another matter. For the vast majority of offices, the basic use and purpose of a spreadsheet hasn't changed enough from the days of Lotus 1-2-3 to justify updating to a GUI. The newer functions aren't used in the vast majority of places running them. As for database programs, a vast number of them are still DOS-based running on newer computers. Once these data bases are created with vast archives of data sets, there is little incentive to move up to a GUI interface when the old one still works.

Indeed, if there was a high initial investment in high quality hardware to run this stuff, there is a great deal of reason to avoid the bloat factor of updated operating systems. Even now you can find large businesses just getting around to retiring their pricey file servers running at a blazing 200Mhz. The 300 pounds of steel and wiring had three different power supplies to prevent failure, even as their buildings had some sort of internal emergency power generator. Failure was not an option. Frankly, too much of the newer stuff isn't as good, either in hardware or software.

A primary distinction between humans and gorillas is the latter must start almost from scratch with each new generation. Learning from the previous generation happens very little at all. Oddly, too much of what humans do seems to be along those lines. In the rush to improve productivity, we often hamper it, but have a glorious appearance of high productivity simply because it's newer and takes less effort to get started. Actual expertise is almost discouraged any more. This breeds a cultural bias for avoiding solving underlying problems, and simply applying palliatives to the symptoms. We only think we have it figured out. Nobody takes the time any more to be sure, because we refuse to invest the necessary resources to get there. Our religious institutions reflect it a great deal. Such foolishness, though, might be an overreaction to the foolishness of thinking only tradition is worthy of support.

As our economy and our social stability crumbles, we will quickly find ourselves forced to confront the need to find what actually works in more and more areas of our existence. Specialization will decrease, and we will all need to gain a much broader set of skills. In the need to quickly learn what we have to know to survive, we still must take the time to discern what actually works, not what simply looks good. Those who lack that big, extensive mental matrix for handling new learning will pay dearly.

GM Foods Will Kill You

I've grown quite cynical by the attitude man can always fix and improve what God has done. We see it in Purpose Driven/Seeker Sensitive ecclesiology and we see it in the brutal profit driven motives of the likes of Monsanto. Their determined efforts to re-engineer nature is now linked to the sometimes dubious Morgellon's Disease.

As it always does, the allopathic community of Western, drug-oriented physicians labeled sufferers as delusional. As a physician, I have a great deal of difficulty explaining how a delusion can produce colored fibers which protrude from the skin and continue to grow in a petri dish. Be that as it may, the multicolored fibers produced by the “delusion” have been analyzed and we now know that Morgellon’s Disease is no longer rare, nor is it mysterious any longer. A study of the fibers shows that they contain DNA from both a fungus and a bacterium which are used in the commercial preparation of genetically modified foods and non-food crops (such as cotton). The fibers themselves are primarily cellulose, which the human body cannot breakdown or manufacture. So GM technology apparently has, like Professor Frankenstein, found a way to animate the non living. These fibers twist and twine, grow and divide. In short, living beneath the skin of people, they form parasitic lesions out of what should be non-living material but which, through the horror of genetic modification, has taken on the characteristics of a living thing.

And in the US, you aren't even allowed to ask if a particular item of food is genetically modified. Monsanto and friends have brutally suppressed any effort to have truth-in-labeling on this.

Rough Day, Stormy End

Started early this morning trying to install the older, stable version of eComStation 1.2R on the same test box as I had 2.0 RC4. No dice. It rejected the default RAM setting on the motherboard, which allows some 32MB of system RAM for use by the video chip. Claimed it found only 512KB. Meanwhile, that's 32MB which is still reserved on the system and not usable for anything else.

Worse, as I fiddled with the 2.0 install that was working, nothing I did would give me readable fonts in any web browser. The old OS/2 system fonts work fine on OS/2 applications, but all the browsers are trying to use anti-aliasing, which just does not work.

When I tried to install FreeDOS just for fun, it locked up trying to detect the network. So I quit messing with it all and decided to try the external modem a friend sent me to setup Hylafax as a service on my computer. First, the config scripts insisted on creating a device with did no exist -- faxCAPI. Then, when I got rid of that, and had the thing working down to the last item, I discovered I had to create a dialrules file. Now, this is by far the most complicated config file I've ever seen on Linux, and the instructions are even worse.

And not a single human on earth appears willing to share one which is even remotely similar to my situation here in Oklahoma. Oh, but there is a nifty default one for all of Europe.

So I uninstalled Hylafax and built efax from source. I haven't tried it yet, but I do know the modem works.

A few minutes ago I got a bogus response to my Craigslist ad hoping someone would trade me a decent Thinkpad for my eMac. The phone number is in Texas somewhere. No dice.

And finally, as I write this post, a serious thunderstorm is passing over the area. Lightening, high winds and lots of rain.

I think I'm going to go to bed. At least I can return to my normal life tomorrow with a client in Lindsay, OK. People make a lot more sense to me than computers.

Another OS

This post comes to you from yet another computer operating system I am testing. The machine is donated, cobbled together from spare parts. The OS is officially called eComStation, and is essentially IBM's OS/2 with a lot of updates. IBM licensed Serenity Systems and Mensys to make the most of the OS/2. I have been asked to test their newest release, currently version 2.0 RC4.

This is nothing particularly miraculous. Frankly, it's just a bit cranky about some hardware. OS/2 has always been that way, and many hardware manufacturers aren't too friendly about it. For the time being I will tell you this reminds me of something nearly like Windows, perhaps what Windows could have been and should have been. The interface is not particularly cute, and resembles a mix of old Linux and old Windows. I'm fine with that.

Internally, I suppose a lot of what is used does indeed come from Linux. A lot of Open Source applications and some drivers have been ported over for use with this system. It appears they work quite well. Perhaps we can say it has many of the things which made Windows pretty good, but without viruses and other malware.

Should this thing prove itself of any significance, I'll probably be reporting on it further.

Life of Christ: Mark 9

In a microcosm, the conflict between Jesus' teaching versus the instinctive expectations of His disciples which twisted that teaching, represented the coming conflict between His teaching and the political leaders of His people. For the previous five centuries, the spiritual nature of the Hebrew frame of reference had been corroded and replaced with shiny new rationalist assumptions adulterously adopted from Hellenism. It would never be enough to simply teach the Twelve the difference, because it had never been a matter of human understanding, but the divine revelation of God. This revelation in many ways bypassed understanding, and dwelt in the spirit, with truth for which no words exist. That the Jews had completely lost all this guaranteed they would miss the whole point of Jesus' ministry, as reflected in the slowness of His disciples to grasp just what He was saying.

Jesus bluntly announces this Kingdom He has been preaching would appear during the lifetime of some of those standing there with Him there in region of Ceaserea Philippi. As far as we know, only Judas missed out, but the point was His preaching pointed to an event which would manifest itself in real time and space very shortly. There would be real angels, and real heavenly glory seen with human eyes. While this declaration continues the teaching of the previous chapter, it also begins a series of lessons in just how thoroughly unprepared these men were to grasp what was coming. As soon as the words left Jesus' mouth and entered their ears, the words took on a wholly different meaning and connotation. They persisted in assuming the nature of the Kingdom was merely a change in politics.

A foretaste of that spiritual Heavenly Kingdom was in store for at least the inner circle of the Twelve. After about a week in that area, Jesus led Peter, James and John up a rather high mountain, isolated away from other human company. There, Jesus took on the divine form which was His nature, a nature manifested by glowing brightly in this dull and sin-darkened world. Two others appeared there, holding a discussion with Jesus in a like glorified form. From the context, the three disciples knew it was Moses and Elijah. Both of these men left no grave on earth; Jesus would leave one empty. Moses had seen God, and conversed with Him often, and clearly supported as Lawgiver what Jesus had been teaching and doing. Elijah, as the most legendary prophet of miracles and pure character, knew all too well what Jesus faced in hearts closed to the truth. Their discussion centered on Jesus' soon suffering and death.

Did the three disciples pick up on this? Apparently not at that point, for instead they began babbling about setting up a temporary lodging for the divine trio so this could continue. Surely this must be part of the plan to take over the world! But no; God the Father showed His presence in the form of a heavy cloud, as He had done since time began on this world. He pointedly identified Jesus as His very Son. His voice commanded the disciples pay attention to what Jesus said, to rebuke them for running off at the mouth with their own desires and plans. With that, the scene faded back to its previous mundane, weather scarred mountain top.

Had it been real? On the hike back down from the peak, Jesus warned the three not to mention this episode until after He had risen from the dead. Ever missing the point, they tossed around what "rising from the dead" had to do with their work. Then, they seized upon the fact Elijah had been standing there, and wondered if this was fulfillment of the Scribes' teaching from Malachi 4:5. Jesus confirmed that as one of the few things the Scribes got right, then linked it to Isaiah's teaching the Messiah must suffer and die. Why did they keep shutting out the part of God's Word they didn't want to deal with? At any rate, Elijah had come, and they treated him poorly, which was hardly new for anyone preaching truth. The disciples never seemed to grasp they were in the same company as those who killed the prophets, because they refused to move beyond their childish dreams of political change.

The scene which welcomed their return was the usual crowd of peasants, with the remaining nine disciples and the others in Jesus' entourage in the middle. Sadly, they were having a loud argument with a detachment of those Scribes previously mentioned. Even in the far northern reaches of Jewish territory, these oppressive busybodies hounded Jesus. The crowd was stunned by this unexpected appearance of Jesus, and mobbed Him enthusiastically. Upon reaching the center of activity, Jesus asked the Scribes what this was all about. Before anyone else could answer, someone in the crowd told Jesus he had brought his demonized son for deliverance, but the disciples failed. A primary manifestation of the demon was keeping the boy from hearing or speaking properly.

Jesus was deeply torn by the meaning of this failure. Not just His disciples and their own lack of commitment to truth, but the whole nation had strayed from the truth for centuries. By embracing the delights of Hellenistic rationalism, and the human pride of assuming all things could be understood by the mind of man, the leadership of the Jews had corrupted the unquestioning reverence and and dependence on a mysterious God to right things they never could understand. This failure was the very cause of so many in Israel being demonized. Upon being led near Jesus, the demon convulsed the boy much like an epileptic seizure. Jesus asked how long the boy had been like this, and man described how since early childhood the demon had tried to kill the boy by causing seizures near fire and water. The man was desperate for his son's relief.

He requested Jesus to help if He could. Jesus seized up those words. It was not a matter of what Jesus could do, but of what the man's faith would embrace. The man tearfully admitted he was crippled in that respect. Seeing how the scene was getting out of control, Jesus ordered the demon to depart, and not to return. The boy collapsed, seemingly dead. Jesus pulled the boy to his feet and all was well. When they returned to their lodging, the disciples asked Jesus why they could not dispatch the demon. Mark records a brief answer which most people today miss for much the same reason Jesus' disciples probably did. It's not the rigors of discipline, but the kind of commitment to truth which leads people to sacrifice themselves in death of self to overcome. The whole issue of shedding this world for Heaven was still a foreign concept to the Twelve, and its exclusion from the nation's teaching was what brought the demons among Jews in the first place. The stubborn insistence all God's blessings were strictly material, and perhaps intellectual, had left the nation exposed to spiritual forces excluded from reckoning by such teaching. Thus, the only remedy was to recover the spiritual powers of God by death of the self.

As they journeyed back toward their home in Capernaum, Jesus returned to the teaching which dominated the trip out to Ceaserea Philippi. The Messiah must suffer betrayal and execution. The third day following He would be raised. The whole image was so foreign to their worldly Jewish teaching, it passed over their heads. On the journey, they lapsed into an animated discussion amongst themselves. When they got home, Jesus asked them what it was about, but they were too embarrassed to admit they had been debating and bickering about their relative positions in the Messiah's royal court, which must be settled now because surely this Kingdom thing was, as they had been preaching, right on top of them. Jesus patiently showed how they had it all wrong: Serving is greatness.

Theirs was a worldly perspective, and leading meant greatness, honor, and power. Jesus brought a little child into the group discussion, then hugged him close. Explaining the action, Jesus told them the nature of the Kingdom service was to reach out to the least important, the most powerless. Building barriers to keep out the nobodies of the world, like the Jewish leadership, was a sin. If any of them failed to find the importance of loving the most unlovable in this world, they were unfit to serve in the Kingdom. Rejecting the lowly meant rejecting Jesus, for He chose to ignore the world's estimation of what made men important. And rejecting Jesus meant rejecting the Father who created all things. The only ones fit to lead in the Kingdom were the ones who led the way in the path of sacrifice.

The mention of "in My name" caught at something else in John's memory. He mentioned repeated run-ins with a fellow who insisted on casting out demons in Jesus' name, but didn't travel with them as a disciple under their leadership. Jesus explain, like leadership, the Kingdom definition of following was different from theirs. Any man who manifested Jesus' power in faith was hardly an enemy. Such a man was following Jesus' teaching, or no miracles would happen. He went on to warn them hindering someone's faith because they didn't follow some artificial rules of membership was a grave sin, worthy of a horrifying execution.

Indeed, embracing death in this world in favor of life in the next was the one absolute requirement for the Kingdom. To drive the point home, Jesus used graphic images of self-maiming, should that prove to be the only way they could conquer sin in their lives. It was typical Hebrew hyperbole, but the principle was all to literal. Hell was not simply a scare tactic to keep children in line. The Valley of Hinnom, where trash and rot were abundant, and the fires were kept burning by adding rock sulfur, was a fit symbol for Hell. It was almost a song the way Jesus phrased it, with a refrain repeating the warning of Isaiah 66:24. Fire purified away sin, and if all you had was sin, you had a terrifying expectation of eternity. Whom the fire does not destroy will be utterly changed. Welcome the fire of God, for it will make you more like Him.

Salt was included in Temple sacrifices. It also preserved things which tended to rot. We know today it makes the food inhospitable to bacteria and putrefying agents. Salt in that land was minded from exposed rock faces, and included a wide range of impurities we don't find in our stores these days. The salt itself could become corrupted, and would turn colors, losing its salty taste. It was then tossed out into the gutters like the worthless dirt it had become. What would happen if the preserving power of God was missing from society? It had nearly been lost by the time Jesus came along. As with all Hebrew symbols, the point was not to identify salt as an allegory for a particular thing, a single quality, but to understand by its influence and effects. Truth preserves what matters. What cannot preserve is hardly truth. A primary manifestation of truth is peace, peace which comes from dismissing the cares of human ambition and dreams. When people of God commune in self-sacrifice, debates are absent, because no one seeks his own, but seeks God.

Hebrews 7

While we must acknowledge the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a new thing on this earth, we make a grave mistake if we assume faith and grace were not in operation before Christ. The Jews assumed the Covenant of Abraham was fulfilled in Moses. It was not. Moses was on a wholly different level, an earthly symbol of a higher reality, with earthly requirements, and earthly promises and blessings. Those things have their place, but they are mere symbols of a deeper reality. Since before Abraham, people gained right standing before God not by rituals, nor obedience, for all failed at those things. Rather, they stood before God on the basis of faith embracing His grace.

So what was this Priestly Order of Melchizedek for which Jesus was the final member? First, his name is Hebrew for "King of Righteousness" and his title means "King of Peace." Abraham knew this man. On his return from defeating the kings of Mesopotamia up north of Galilee, he was dragging a massive load of spoil these kings had taken. By ancient custom in every land in that region, it all belonged to Abraham by right of conquest. He was met by Melchizedek as a fellow worshiper of God Almighty, who brought out some refreshments. This was a very strong symbolic gesture, and Abraham gave recognition of Melchizedek's priesthood of his own God by granting the priestly king a tenth of the spoils. The rest of the spoils Abraham righteously returned to the kings of the Pentapolis near the Dead Sea.

In this, Abraham operated by faith that such wealth would not benefit him, and actually would harm him. He had more than enough, anyway, regarded in those parts as a prince in his own right, and now a proven master in battle, a battle by no means insignificant. It was all by faith, not by any human desire to dominate. Abraham would have been just as happy to keep a low profile and hold a reputation as no troublemaker. The Jews proudly pointed out how all their wealth was a gift from God, not taken from the likes of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet in all this pride, they failed to grasp the significance of Abraham giving a tithe to Melchizedek.

This priestly king was unknown, no official genealogy. All we know about his priesthood is Abraham's recognition of it. We have no idea who his parents where, when or where he was born, nor where he died and was buried. Symbolically, that means his priesthood is eternal, since no one can pinpoint the terminus of it. If the Jews had long recognized David's prophecy of the Messiah as being of that order, and Jesus was the Messiah, we must realize this order of priesthood never ended. Was not David King of Salem? David touched the Ark without being struck dead. Was not this a sign his righteousness and reign were at least theoretically marking him as a Priest of the the Order of Melchizedek? Was not Jesus of his lineage, proven by pedigree? And was He not the Messiah, also of the Order of Melchizedek?

If the Levites, who receive the tithes of Israel under the Law of Moses, were born of Abraham, then while yet unborn they paid tithes to Melchizedek. Does not the lesser pay tithes to the greater? Surely, it isn't that hard to grasp! Jesus the Messiah, Priest of the Order of Melchizedek, belongs to an order which is greater and older than that of Aaron.

If the Law of Moses had been the final fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, then there would have never been any prophesies of a new priesthood rising from an ancient order. Changing from Aaronic DNA and pedigree to some other means of passing office means that Levitical Law was not meant to be permanent. David's prophecy in Psalm 110 was a subtle declaration Moses had an endpoint. Indeed, we already have said Jesus was not a Levite, but of the Tribe of Judah, of which not a single man ever stood as priest under Moses. For a man of Judah to now stand as High Priest -- prophesied by David as all Jews agree -- it requires doing away with the Law of Moses. That Covenant of the Law ended in Christ. His priesthood was not about law, but faith. It returns things to the original covenant of redemption, to which both Abraham and Melchizedek adhered. It was a covenant marked by Eternal Life, not rooted in this world.

This Law of Moses is dead. Christ closed it forever, by opening the door for us all to come into the Presence of God. It was His promise long before. Priests are sworn in, passing through a very rigorous background check. Jesus was sworn in by His Father, having already established His background by divine birth. Notice how every Aaronic priest eventually died. There were a bunch of them. Jesus is a spiritual priest, standing in a spiritual realm, a spiritual temple, in the very presence of God Almighty, never again to die. His priesthood is eternal.

Unlike the Sons of Aaron, who have to keep offering sacrifice for themselves first, then are ritually permitted to offer the sacrifices of others, Jesus is His own sacrifice, once and for all. He needed no sacrifice for Himself, because He was already sinless and pure, unlike every priest of Aaron. The Law of Moses placed in office men who were morally unfit, but as long as they and the nation met the ritual requirements, the system continued to work. And what was that work? Mere earthly blessings. Jesus was the one and only perfectly sinless man, the only one truly fit to be priest. The result is pulling the whole business up into the spiritual realm, which is the only place to find God. Everything else is just symbol.

Don't Know Why

It began as just a hobby. I had used computers in the Army, and enjoyed the way they enhanced my efforts to write. Of course, I could never afford good stuff, so I was always using junk computers ready to be thrown out. I ran Windows 3.1 when 98 came out, and thought I was lucky to have it. It was useful, and I was working hard on my Bible History stuff. It went from hobby to critical tool in ministry.

So it still is a tool. The Lord has not seen fit to show me His grand plan regarding many things, and my use of computers appears to be occluded as well. I do know I am driven to experiment, to understand what there is, often from a different angle than intended. I'm always looking for something which better serves the drive to write, format for archiving, communicate with others, all the while keeping the system secure from various threats.

I have often tried a lot things which worked poorly, or failed completely. When I run across something new, I often look it over, seeking to find some way to harness it to the calling which holds me. I'm aware there is a lot of sin in the software writing business, and maybe even more in Open Source. Comments in the Linux kernel source code can be downright obscene, filthy, and quite ugly in general. Still, God uses me, and I'm hardly any better at times. So I keep poking, experiencing slightly more failures than successes.

With my successes, I'm not always sure what I'll do with it. Last night I dragged out my old Gateway Solo laptop one last time to see if I could make it useful. I installed something called DSL, in part because many just won't use the whole name signified by that acronym. I chose it because it promised to run well on ancient hardware with low power specifications. Turns out the laptop was more than enough, but I really had to add a bunch of packages not normally included. I'm not through testing the limits. Even odder, I'm not really sure what I'll do with it when I'm done. I suppose I can give it away if someone wants it.

None of this hardware-software business really matters nearly so much as the purpose. I have more stuff than I'll use, and know more about it than I can use, but when I pray, I'm still driven to keep working with it. Lots of things in life are like that. That's the way the Kingdom operates. We don't have to know where it will lead, only obey and follow.

Tribulation Report #009: In Your Debt

I wanted to highlight how critical it was to reduce or pay off all debts as we head into this economic depression. It's a little difficult to articulate without sounding all fearful. This is not about fear, but being as ready as you can before the Lord. The more issues you resolve, the more free you are to sacrifice on your cross without hurting others.

Sometime around 1992 my wife and I paid off our last commercially provided loan. We paid off early a bank loan for a used car. After that, we have been indebted only to individuals who offered personal loans as a ministry, not for profit. We never asked for these loans, simply discussed our needs with people who loved us. We have refused several offers when they didn't seem appropriate. In every case, there was general agreement regarding the biblical teaching of debt slavery.

As our nation slides off into the economic abyss, dragging several others along with us, there is an added element: Handing our Enemy extra leverage. There is a sense in which we cannot fully escape Satan's influence on our lives because we live in fallen flesh, in a fallen world. We can reduce it, and our whole life of Kingdom service is an effort to find new ways to occupy the conquered territories of our existence and close down Satan's encampments. Being in debt to any agency (except a fellow Christian) where profit is the primary motive, places that much more of you under Hell's authority.

There is a sense that's what debt slavery is all about. However, with the increasing likelihood of oppression rising, Christians need not fling a challenge in the face of God by ignoring measures which reduce the targets painted on us. Our principled resistance to evil will certainly put us in the crosshairs, but a heavy commercial debt serves as "the weight which so easily besets us." It's hard to move at His command, and drop everything which matters only to this world when our promise and bond to repay with interest holds us back. Should a future government seek to control us too much, consumer debt becomes a primary means of leverage to keep us under that control.

Sometimes the debt free life is painful. My wife and I waited over a year with ill-fitting eye glasses because we just couldn't afford the exams and glasses. With my recent rise in income, we have placed a priority on such things. We bought tires for the little pickup. I fixed up my bicycle to ride legally day and night. Today we paid for exams and glasses. Should the Lord maintain this measure of prosperity a little longer, we will do teeth and a new bed. These are the Kingdom's priorities in our lives for now, our stewardship of His resources.

While we are at it, I'm seeking a good used (or new) computer for a fellow servant of the Lord in a foreign country. Pray that we find something we can send him, with something newer than a 450Mhz processor.