Month: April 2020

Caring temperatures slump to 32°F

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When we buy the popular mantras of religion or politics we can end up with our feet in our mouths. Our parents’ word was supreme when we were children and even the word of any elder in the community was functionally acceptable. Not any more. Who cares what the neighbour in By teenage we discard much of what they tell us, if not officially and conscientiously, at least experimentally, just to see what the other side of the tracks look like. If we are in adulthood the spitting image of our teenage and preteen personas we deserve the fate of pillars of salt. Love songs and family traditions are killing us while caring for each other slides to a cold 0°.

We cannot ignore those cultures that dig in their heels to keep intact and unchangeable everything received in their traditions from the cradle to the grave. It is common knowledge that no change, no growth is deadly. So says Malachi, Moses, and John the Baptist.

  1. Did God ever say to His son, behave youself?
  2. Was the law given to the world or to the only nation the Bible calls an evil nation, seed of evil-doers?
  3. Since sins and its lure come from within a person, what was Jesus’ struggle?

Can you imagine an Elijah who would tell you “Keep going! Everything’s gonna be alright!”? The world is on the rocks of its traditions of racial purity, exclusive religions and clubs, imperial aspirations, and false ideas about God.

Why does anyone suppose that religions are vigorously trying to shape their profile as insiders and stakeholders with the very powers that have denied what most people know about good and evil, the goodness of all creatures and the common debt to each other and God? If our attitudes to our neighbours ever include “I do not care” or “It does not matter” we are in the fridge. God does not accept a standard of love that treats people as not worth the whole universe. Law and order is a phony agent of love.

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Matt. 24:12

Is now a good time?

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  • To turn swords into farming implements
  • To turn profits into medical care for all
  • To turn genocide into protection from bigotry

If not now, when, uncle?

  • To turn dens of thieves into houses of prayer
  • To turn thieves and robbers into shepherds of God’s people

Is now a good time to turn the Holy Land into the whole land?

A fatality we could have foreseen

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33) In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34) “Let us alone! What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are–the Holy One of God!” 35) But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people, he came out of him without doing him any harm. 36) And amazement came upon them all, and they began talking with one another saying, “What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out.”

Luke 4:33-36

Did it ever dawn on anyone that people die on Sundays and Saturdays, that abominable things are said and done in church?

People are dying in church, dismissed by the cloud of noxious weeds. Bad doctrine is responsible for sleeping saints. Neither Christ nor his blood are commodities at our disposal.

29) For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30) For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.

1 Corinthians 11:29-30

The sleeping saints will say amen on cue. Please do not join them.

How quickly we forget how the media has contributed to hard attitudes towards the poor and people with disabilities! How can we rush to expose our fellowship to the abuses that seem to be okay on the worldwide web?

The last time I checked the church was not an arm of secular government and governments all over the globe will not hesitate to do to us what was done to our glorified leader if we say what he used to say. The assembly of the saints has turned into a circus of good boys and girls pretending to be seasoned warriors. Remember, please, how the media used a misguided 33% of the public to put a bigot and criminal business man into executive power in the United States.

Why you should avoid digital church

I have been an advocate for genuine fellowship for a long time. It is an insult to have anyone – especially an unfamiliar person – talk to the church without an understanding that the audience is not a collection of robots who will rubber stamp every thing being said. No preacher, pastor, teacher or prophet should expect to minister apart from a vigorous participation of the “audience”.

26) What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27) If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; 28) but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God. 29) Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. 30) But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. 31) For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; 32) and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; 33) for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

1 Corinthians 14:26-33

Just imagine what church can become and do not forget what she is.

Pants down, great johns and jobs

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If you are thinking that this post is about sexual activity forgive yourself. That title is inspired because the most intense developments in sacred environments have the character and terms of legit and illicit intimacy.

We can be sure the guys hanging around the halls of power have only heard the alternate facts about Cyrus the Persian (the ancient Iranian). Does Iran need a western power to tell it where its capital is? Why are Jews not taking the highway of reconciliation with the desendants of the power that bankrolled and protected the return of Jewish exiles from exile in Persia? Who can believe that the people in power have not heard that Britannia (the United Kingdom) used to rule the waves and do they not see where that little island is right now?

I suspect that the only sane head on the planet is going to be a monarch, likely one of the Solomonic dynasty or Her Majesty QE2. I hear people like vice president of United States Mike Pence and the little bigot potus45 talking about great jobs and it seems to me that no one notices that all the great powers have been caught with their pants down when it comes to taking care of the vulnerable people in society.

What reason is there for believing that the pandemic will be anything beside a profiteering opportunity?

No backbone at all

Someone must have bought the backbone of the hundreds of warriors and patriots, because the only enemies they seem to target are vulnerable immigants, women, children, Black people with no real estate, and states across the globe who think they need the United States to survive. Where was the Great Uncle Sam prison house and demon strnghold when Herod sought to kill the Christ child? Where was Russia and China when Abraham was a great prince in Canaan in the middle of an ocean of bandit city states?

For the love of God and humanity, people, smell the coffee. Do you want your nation to be a replica of Great Britain, the selfish little brat, brexiting when the world needs unity. The signs of solidarity with the prophets of old have faded and the new kingdom ways are even more remote. It is sheer madness for cities to want to imitate New York, London and Paris. Why? The crumbs for the poor and the discrimination against poor, Black and Brown people are not that attractive? It is plain to see how the dogs are eating the dogs, the men and women with backbones get persecuted and fired- every one of them- for saying the truth. How little has the world changed. It is hard to find someone who really thinks his nation deserves a thumbs up. Pants are down and shame is on display in every trade agreement and transaction at the “convenience store”. Everything is for sale including the human mind. Let us understand that being either pimp, prostitute, or john does not become us.

A piece of eternal justice

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It should not surprise us that an episode created a statute – a standing order with consequences. We have seen how women protested to Moses the practice of male- only inheritance and obtained a nod from Yahweh

THE PROTEST

Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers.”

Numbers 27:4

No differential treatment

1 Samuel 30:22

A group of wicked and worthless guys among those who went with David had the audacity to suggest that anyone who did not go on the mission against the Amalekites should not receive a portion of the booty. As far as these lowlife warriors were concerned these men who did not fight should be sent home with their wives and children

David sees the suggestion as ridiculous. He asks (1 Samuel 30:24) “And who will listen to you in this matter?” Then he settles the case with “For as his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike.”

That is what got David going. Here we can see the heart of God in the man.

Do not believe that everything called law, statute and judgment are from eternity past. They could very well be something humans had the courage to demand.

An early example of justice rising from the human heart

“The daughters of Zelophehad are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their father’s brothers and transfer the inheritance of their father to them. Num. 27:7, And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. Num. 27:8, And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. Num. 27:9, And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. Num. 27:10, And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the LORD commanded Moses.’” Num. 27:11

All those judgments about stoning people, cutting them off, have little to do with the justice of heaven, which states unrelenting forgiveness and invitations to come for mercy. They are not really eternal. Neither are those “unclean until sunset” rulings any heavenly standard. They died with the priesthood (Heb. 7:12). The law of Moses allowed no reprieve for the guilty: we can find no record of that. Yeshua however demonstrated the opposite. If Christians want to sound tough (on crime or sin) let them, but it must never be said that there is no release for the guilty.

Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, Acts. 13:38, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Acts. 13:39, Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about: Acts. 13:40,

We recognize this graceful and effective mediation as eternal, a thing decreed in eternity past, which clearly makes the Mosaic regulations temporary and at the right time irrelevant. The example of David putting his foot down and saying “We are not going there with discrimination” should inspire us to ask the questions that highlight what God has put into the hearts of men, not religious or spiritual people per se.

All humans are capable of doing justice, of loving kindness, and of walking humbly (Micah 6:8). So go right ahead: protest and ask the tough questions.

  • What kind of justice is it when…?
  • Who do you think will put up with that treatment?
  • Why should men …. and not women…?
  • (my favourite) Where in the Bible did you find that rubbish?