The secondhand feeding that has defined the last 150 years of Bible study is responsible for the deceptive clubs that pass as church in our times. You’d be surprised at how difficult it is to translate the Messianic message into English, and preachers who do not relate to the language of the Old and Testament writers are asking you to believe their hjacked comments on the apostolic message. The “beef” is missing from a lot of pulpits and books because instead of eating from the apostles’ hand we settle for secondhand carnivorous nonsense.
Month: June 2020
Just a minute!
How can we reply and what do we learn if the question comes dressed up in extra-biblical language?
Not much because reliability is going to come from the Bible.
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
Hebrews 2:1
Black lives matter
When the King of the universe announced that Gentile lives mattered does any one remember what the fallout was? Was there any reason for anyone to say “all lives matter”? Our moral guide tells us that lying is abominable and the American legislation that makes lying to the FBI a crime is the glory of the bottom of the civilized barrel.
Watered down to vanity
The standards of justice have been a word game for most of my short life and the biblical record shows an early departure from philanthropy and hospitality. The biblical narratives show that even when cautions abound about the treatment of servants and foreigners the oppression permeated society all the way to the exile of Judah. Humans have been more interested in their finances than in the liberties provided in law (Jeremiah 34:8ff)
The fallout of getting the Gentile mission under way was the absurd attempt to turn the church into an imitation of Judaism. Paul talks about it as a “thing sneaked in” while Peter talks about it as “a dog returning to his vomit for seconds”. The lives of Gentiles are valuable without comparison to Jewish lives. The lives of Africans are valuable without comparison to other lives.
“All lives matter” is the opening salvo from people who want to deny the fact of their own virulent cowardice and are ready with talking points that do not address their own fingers dripping with the pie of superiority and discrimination. Next on their agenda is “blame the victim”: Black people are responsible for their plight. Perhaps there is a story about the oppression of White people by people of African descent.
We can imagine that these “All Lives Matter” activists were never “Black and Proud” and were never convicted about the abuse of Black people. Listening to them talk about blackness is not a great use of our time. If they had the liberation of Black people on their front burner they would generate a set of proposals instead of finding fault with various expressions by leaders of Black Lives Matter. They are the hot air outfit; mercenaries for the misguided evangelical caliphate.
When we say “Girls deserve to be educated” and you tell us “Boys deserve to be educated” whose side are you on?
Knowing that the heart houses God
If by grace on top of grace one ends up in the company of the fearful and those who resist God’s word the means of getting there must be examined. The gospel without a social-moral imperative is reduced to ticket-to-heaven comfort and that is why the United States and any nation with a religion never corrects its animalistic ways. When the God of the universe enters human hearts there is affirmation of what is important to God: people.
Hebrews 12:18-19
18) For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19) And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
There is no fear in love
The idea that anyone in the body of Christ is responsible for documenting the believer’s faith is a dragon breath inspiration. Along with “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” there is a lot of open hostility to the freedom from the law that Christ represents. How very simple it would be for Christ and the disciples to have said what appears in Malachi 4:4 instead of broadcasting a) that time had run out b) the arrival of God’s kingdom and c) the building of the church! Even if they did the opposition would still run its propaganda and ignore the numerous divine acts of generosity and compassion performed by the Saviour. I find no evidence that believers ever injected “Show me your faith” into their interactions with each other. James is out on a Pharisee limb. It is a Christless meditation that drives the perceived debate about people needing ANYTHING IN ADDITION TO FAITH TO BE SAVED. Shame on the dragon driven folks who pretend that James is arguing “SHOWN TO BE JUSTIFIED”. He clearly asks “Wlll faith save?”. We are certain that the only people that God saves are the people who believe on His Son. The other propositions are oil on salvation’s waters.
Knowing whom we have believed
Please spare yourself the doublespeak about fear and the beginning of wisdom. That construction is not related either life or wisdom. Moses is an exceptional example of a terrified person. Whatever works the believers need had better be aligned with God’s work. Does anyone really think bishops and deacons have a guide book or a checklist to the works of the new life in Christ? The newborn child of God is equipped to think and do God’s will. Whatever happened to “Hush already about knowing the Lord!”? Everyone begotten of God knows God.
Secondhand witnesses, wolves and copycats.
Who is it that engages in this kind of harassment of the church? Wolfy people and secondhand believers. The minute our faith is redirected from Christ to the human agent (preacher, teacher, evangelist) we are in danger of being overpowered and wounded. Without having worked out the salvation that came to our house we have no testimony.
Second hand witnesses
Acts 19:16
And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
What we know is that the evidence of whose we are is the very Spirit that God gives to those who committed their all to follow Christ. Human announcements about new children are often out of sync with the rejoicing in heaven. Our hearts know who occupies. What people have to say about what the believer should look like shapes only up to our own thoughts. If we think that God does not have a template for each life we will end up pursuing robotic and superficial values.
The mystery of those begotten of God
John 3:8
The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The pooper scoopers
The sycophants are more unhinged than the bigot himself. The trade adviser calls 45’s insensitive idiocy about slowing the pace of virus testing “tongue in cheek” but 45 says he was not joking. The attorney general tries to fire an attorney by publishing a “letter of the attorney’s resignation”, then comes up with a letter of termination from 45, a involvement disowned by 45 shortly afterward.
That is lot like defending a non-existent (and irrelevant) levitical priesthood.
Unprincipled people will sell their souls to pick up the poo even when there is no poo.
Kicking and screaming up the wrong hill
Not the stormy and terrifying hill
Hebrews 12:18
For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind,
The use of the perfect tense for come, touch, and burning emphasizes the acts and the facts of this hill. Its place as a (1) destination is completely negated by “have not come”. Its (2):experience of fire and its condition as burnt-out thing is without contradiction. A hill that men (3) touch and permanently affect is contrary to God’s design.
With what ease we climb
A greedy disposition is dangerous on every field. Many of us read the Bible and as soon as the faintest glimmer of what the words mean appears we tend to say “Oh yeah. I know”. Sayings about loving God, sayings against injustice, and sayings about the (coming) change all get (and used to get) the “Got it!” without a look at text or context. The talk we generate this way is of no heavenly benefit. The result is that we get to the top of the hill we invent – often on the mound hills of our ancestral traditions – only to discover that the coolade is laced with venom.
Mountain aside – really
The narrative about our response to the gospel is devised to find its connection in a hill, a high place. If neither of the significant hills in the Palestinian context are functional in the Messianic mission what chance is there that a Gentile hill should even be considered? Nil.
Neither Samaritan nor Jewish
John 4:21
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
God’s blackness is coming
Try as we might we can soundbyte the oppression of African peoples with religious platitudes, positive declarations, and triumphant prophecies, but blackness is unavoidable because God hears the cry of the people who are oppressed.
Exodus 10:21
Exodus 10:21
And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.
Everything came out of the blackness of the deep. Thick darkness serves as God’s abode and as an instrument for getting humans to pay attention.
The land that is to benefit from the light is famous for burying its head in tyrannical sand. It mourns only when the instruments of bigotry and nepotism slips from its fingers. Any nation that wants to correct its ways can always amend its constitution. How much time do our modern nations have? They do not know. We do not know. God is not interested in turning states into the Body of His Son. All states allied with the deceiver will be humbled – forced to admit that people come first. Only thick darkness will expose the artificial light (intelligence) that makes them look like sovereign powers. Let us get ready. They will not change their minds about what they are doing.
A major shutdown on tap
Revelation 16:10-11
10) Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, 11) and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds.
When darkness falls we will pray and praise, eat and drink without the assistance of the beast.
Some “Rocky” Advice
The reason church leaders bring nothing redemptive to the glaring injustices that are grabbing attention is no secret. The Petrine admonition about the value of our redemption is fitting, because far too many are currying favour with one government or another. Things – realities of life – are not merely running along as usual and the old stuff is, well, old.
The Christ and God
It does not take long when we are listening to the evangelists and bishops of our times before we realize that they are doing their best to sit on a fence and appear as if they have a unique view of the world that was and the world that is. To be brutally frank, only John the Baptist owns that experience. If we cannot pin the nonsense web we are spinning out to the Man from Nazareth we say “God”. We know how dangerous it is when we cannot see the divine justice in a given matter. That is why so many debates just go on and on. We need to step out of our comfort zone and ask “What does that have to do with Messianic atonement?” The answer to this question either silences the lupine agents or gives an opportunity for the bloodwashed to explain the hope.
Firm and true foundation
Hear what Peter says about traditions and old traditions. The man was not called rock[y] to portray a pebble.
1 Peter 1:18-21
18. Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
The “therefore” of this caution is earnest love. It is none of the numerous weights with which the deceivers have been loading us up.
Many of us think our ethnic or national traditions make safe places for our feet but none of us will get very far putting an “A” beside our cultural or national heritage. Since that is true of the Jewish people our waywardness gets the “A”.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 