For how long had Yeshua’s contemporaries been telling themselves that they were Abraham’s descendants?  A very long time.  They could not remember a time when the relationship to Abraham was not a top fact of life and a potent mantra.

Stuffing the stuff we thought was ace

Both Yeshua and his messenger John the Baptist stuffed that notion with the logical conclusion.  The pathways of Abraham’s life set a unique tone.  They wake up the human family to consider  the riches of responsible behavior without personal expertise and knowledge.  This remarkable quality in Abraham flavours the dimensions of his life in Canaan.  It stands in contrast to the life of his descendants in Canaan.   You may say that’s as it should be, but we must then realize that children are required to bear some specific likeness to their ancestors.  We can slide off into thinking that Abraham’s friendships with his Canaanite neighbours are subject to the Mosaic legacy. That is how the us-them reality is fatally flawed.   The  behaviour that deviates from Abraham’s practical community connections is stuffable.

According to Yeshua their murderous intentions proved that they were not Abraham’s descendants even though they could prove their relationship to the patriarch by birth records.  No child of Abraham was going to consent to murder an innocent man. John laid out the idea that family ties were not easily attested.  Yahweh is interested  in children for Abraham who show their readiness to change their minds and who do not suppose that God has no options for raising up children to Abraham, even from stones (Matthew 3:8-9).

Lies from infancy

For how long did they tell themselves that they were keeping the covenant?  Every generation believed that they were privileged to be the guardians of the law and strict observers of divine instruction but the fact that thousands of years after that first camp cleanup (Leviticus 16) the service ended both with their exile and the destruction of the temple. In addition every narrative indicates treachery and resistance to divine instruction.  Moses witnessed the lie at Sinai: “yes, we will do all that Yahweh desires”. Joshua warned that it was not possible to serve Yahweh, but the people insisted that they could.

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Ps. 58:3

None calleth for justice, nor [any] pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

Isa. 59:4

Election vs tyranny

It took a few weeks to whip a mob of Americans into a murderous and destructive force intent on overthrowing the government of the United States. The cold heart of the 45th president came into plain sight as he and a select group of supporters watched television screens of the unfolding attempt to hang his vice-president and execute representatives of the people.   Returning the defected ex-president to office had run the full range of options and then some.

Freedom’s routes

Who cares what Americans do to their national pride?  Are they not a free people? If they want to solemnize canine marriages, let them.  If they want to keep electing senators and representatives who ignore the ravages of a viral pandemic or pretend that their personal racist tendencies and bigoted policies are imaginary, let them. Far too many people have bought the idea that they deserve the right to kill their neighbours even for saying what needs to be said.

Murder and grace in plain sight

2) When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? 3) Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him.

Mark 6:2-3

Matthew 2:2 offers evidence that lies about Yeshua persist: wise men came to Judea at Yeshua’s birth. John 1:49 and 19:21 show that the king of Israel did appear to natives and foreigners.

Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”

John 1:49

[people] took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”

John 12:13

“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

So the chief priests of the Jews kept saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’”

If someone is doing well all the things the king is expected to do and saying the things that the prophets predicted,  and meets every need of the people and a conspiracy to silence him by asking silly questions fails, there is murder.

Many religious people can  see only themselves as valuable to God and that perspective can only be destructive.  Think of all the separateness of Muslims, Christians,  Jews,  Hindus, and ask yourself how a God supervising the gathering of people from every family into one could possibly approve of the primary interests pursued by the communities where these religious views thrive.

Let me speak to Christians.   God does not approve of misogyny.   Nothing in the Bible stands up a policy of blocking the full participation of women in the faith.

Locked up in a box or on the street

People may have been fascinated by the tabernacle and the temple (many still are) but it did not take long  for the corruption and greed to open the people’s eyes to a family franchise gone wild. The levitical system has no spiritually liberating mechanism. It is stuck on annual cycles and rituals of food and drink.

The first arrangement, in Eden, had one prohibition and we cannot accept the notion that God today holds women responsible for the fallout and bars them from serving him.

Even with this knowledge there are many who want law to be God’s supreme gift, the idea that God is on the street where people who need him most can run into him.

Forgive, please, the madness of people who dress themselves up as the exclusive samples of enlightened humanity. The Jews most definitely had that privilege for the purpose of preserving the record of human failure and rebellion, as the keepers (literally) of divine instruction, and as the family out of which global salvation eventually came.

The prettiest are the ugliest

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:13

If there is anything God did that can create internal satisfaction and external integrity we cannot in any honest reckoning say we have found it outside the revelation of Messiah Yeshua. The tales of obedience and loyalty to law and servanthood are pure delusion and distraction.  It is an insult because God did not send Christ to recruit workers.   In fact those who we  can identify as dedicated workers are woefully distant from God’s heart and willingly ignorant of the tools the worker needs  and they take no pleasure in being God’s children. Salvation and adoption are on shaky ground and God can take back his gifts at any time.

Straining out flies and camel swallowing

It is no secret that North America is home to a host of religious movements we have not been able to place anywhere but on the fringes.

You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

Matthew 23:24

They will never return to the apostolic foundations. They have no interest in separating the fables from the facts. They prefer to read broken translations, books of recent visions by people who admittedly are loyal to many heads. Everything in the Bible does not become Christian doctrine.

29) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30) and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Matthew 23:29-30

Christ the loner

2 Timothy 2:15

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15

We must recognize their commitment to the only Head and Foundation that the apostles confessed as a fat zero. Christ is of no benefit if there is a “plus” in the profession of confidence. If we are sure that Christ and something else or Christ and someone else is Head and Saviour then we have kissed the joy of salvation slightly. There are things to strain out and we should stop playing the “it’s all true” game when we work the text. The fable and fact even appear in side by side verses. The club they thought they had for indiscriminately assaulting their neighbours is really a sophisticated light sabre.

Take a lesson from a shadow

A shadow is likely to generate nothing more than its source possesses, and shadows are quite naturally fleeting.  Exit the light and poof, shadows expire.  The mysteries of faith come to us in a espionage kind of way.  As time winds down every day the shadows stretch out way beyond reality.

Psalms 102:11
My days are like a lengthened shadow, And I wither away like grass.

Judges 9:36
When Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, “Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains.” But Zebul said to him, “You are seeing the shadow of the mountains as if they were men.”

Separating the tale from the sale

God wants to unveil – not offer for debate – something about forgiveness of sins so he paints the picture with a ritual in the tabernacle. An animal slaughtered, its blood poured and sprinkled, is a shadow.

God wants to give us – not sell us – something out of his glorious riches, so he gives us his Son.  No shadow needed.

If we extend the shadow analogy to our era we can decide that the huge figures of note in the 21st century – the rich, successful, and influential- are tiny really just tiny fish.

Today is Women’s Day, a time to reflect on how poorly societies have treated women and girls.  Many people will have a lot to say and many will recognize their role and zip their lips.  The least all can do is be sorry and tell the truth.  Religious people  especially should hesitate before mouthing the same old soundbytes about the roles of women.

The zip and the lip

Celebrate the dignity of  women in concrete terms.  Let us insist that data about violence against women and girls and the information about unpaid work are collected and made available to reliable agencies.  Let us not merely encourage women to ask for change or ourselves count the size of protests and marches on this day or any other.

Old and new religious movements and many jurisdictions are still comfortable keeping the data about women to themselves.  Making real progress towards the righful place of women as top level partners with God and participants in every sphere and level of human functionality.

Was there killing of innocent people in New Testament times across the globe? We have evidence that people in the highest offices in Israel were likely to use violence to intimidate and silence witnesses. The camera was rolling when Paul appeared for a hearing on charges of defiling the temple. The charge was false. The court’s hostiity was real. Hatred, fear and ignorance are tragic leads to homicide. They represent the failure of the human heart. Contrary to popular opinion the heart is capable of both extreme depravity and exceeding goodness.

The idea that men can be left without an absolute guiding light to choose the high ground has not been corroborated by history. Some may bring their arguments about freedoms and perfect revelations but the record of abuses by religious groups and their leaders is convincing.

How many times does God forgive your sin?

Most will eventually admit he keeps doing so as long as this life lasts, but there is that lunatic fringe that is brainwashed to publish their own profiles as a sinless people, sinless because they are obedient.

Heart trouble we cannot avoid

The functional problem at Sinai was that no Israelite was in possession of a heart with which he or she could walk uprightly. People with new hearts do not love God and at the same time call their neighbours common or unclean.  Some hearts were made channels of divine love but none were made new until Christ was raised from the dead. The problem today is that people say they are saved from sin by Christ’s sacrifice and now need the law in their hearts like one needs a condom. The scenario is perfectly Galatian.

2) This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3) Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Galatians 3:2-3

The only people who need salvation are sinners, and the followers of Christ need forgiveness daily. The people who deny that they are sinners and do not need forgiveness are liars.

When God saves a person from sin there is no disposal prerequisite. There is a slogan from the self-saving crew proposing that God does not save people in their sins but saves people from their sins.

But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,

Romans 4:5

It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

1 Timothy 1:15

God saves sinners, not people who have rid themselves of their sins. God justifies the ungodly, not people who have a narrative of how they have participated in their justification.

More failed hearts than we can count

There are more failed hearts than we have been able to identify and differentiate from renewed hearts (not that any of us actually the latter as a job). If the prayer Yeshua taught his disciples is off the agenda then the failed heart belongs to the person who confesses faith in Christ, wants his compliance with the Law to count as salvation, and his discrimination against outsiders as holiness.

The host asks,  “did Trump tell the people to peacefully and patriotically march to down to the Capitol and make their voices heard or did he tell them to go cause an insurrection?”

“Peaceful patriots” shows an idiot’s wit

People can believe whatever they choose but half-baked experts like the hosts of many chat groups touting White Evangelical political rubbush should be exposed. That opening paragraph is an example of what is happening in the dark Christian web. One strategically placed sentence with the words “peacefully” and “patriotically” can fool the simpletons. Who on the planet does not know that patriots kill their neighbours who do not agree with them?

Host explains

Am (sic) just trying to find out if we are still interested facts and evidence or if the sky is really falling into a social justice mindset.

Host leads towards Republican talking points

So, how about the evidence: The riot was planned in advance, the FBI knew and others knew about,  even your fake news CNN, Don Lemon, acknowledged it was planned.

One of the arguments made today and factually so, there was no due process in the impeachment trial.

But does (sic) really matter? The Left is morally and ethically sound, while the right is evil and racist.

The host, in this case, happens to be a history buff, a professor in a diploma mill of which I have some familiarity.  The host, semi-literate and completely Alex in Wonderland, is a boy I now know to be a sycophant, who could not separate an interview for ordination from a group recitation, plunges on with theories about western civilization, and little evidence of a relationship with the Risen Christ.

This export is a sample of what the idolatrous deniers of the evil of the African slave trade are engaged in. Among them we have many supporters of prostitution of the Christian faith in the service of White empire.

Cowards and revolutionaries

The host has shown he knows how to enlist people to follow bottom-feeders. The entire process is designed to bamboozle people with sensationalism and sheer ignorance (such as healing in the atonement, miracles from the commemorative Lord’s Supper, the terror of losing one’s salvation, and necromancy).  The few who get inspired to pursue a theological education get shortchanged with degrees that contain very little (every subject is an overview) of the substance of biblical theology and even less of Christian theology. They are too cowardly to jump into the pool with real revolutionaries like Mark,  Peter,  Paul, Luke,  and John.  The now disgraced 45 did not have the guts to march with his followers to the Capitol, and he also has spent 0 hours in service to the American people, but he wants violent revolutionary change.  The Black preachers who reject the struggle of Black people should never open their mouths to support Marcus, Malcolm or Martin.  They and their White pals can sing Marley’s One Love with all their heart knowing full well that the late Haile Selassie (Marley’s hero) was a genuine Christian and one of the few reliable voices in the modern world. They have spent 0 hours with the Crucified.

The host “can’t understand how some Christians can support a political party that sees Christianity as a white supremacist/ oppressive religion”.

The silence of the White and Black church in Canada is support for racism. We can confidently report that encouraging misogyny and illiteracy are no part of a godly pattern.  No wise Christian will make a show of his political convictions. Have you listened to an American preacher recently? If Jesus is not an add-on to the end of their presentation he is the Santa Claus they refuse to name.

A blind eye on corruption

This host knows that people who cannot read should not be ordained to Christian ministry so he introduces English grammar to the curriculum to try to cover up the fact that dozens of illiterate persons have been ordained. This host, colleague of mine in what isnow clearly a certificate and diploma mill, and his cowardly friends reject the study of Greek and Hebrew.  They obviously prefer to spend their days circulating conservative tropes and bullying anyone who addresses the facts of politics and religion with Christ-centred views.

When a six course program hours gets cut in half and the vision bends towards quick and easy certification via Zoom we can be certain that educators are in the pig pen eating husks. It would not surprise me to find that he also pushes the King James translation as essential reading.

These people are snowflakes with no mind of their own rising on hot air.