Month: August 2021

Comments turned off regulate gutter flow

eejoseph

A new and overdue feature of many news and information sites is that comments are turned off.  Without investigating everyone or even a sample I rest comfortably in the position of my own blog.  You visit, you read,  you copy, you, download, because you are free.  I remain uninterested in uninformed banter.  I am not interested in debate. Most discussions of biblical matters wind up in a gutter. I am not an opinion-monger.

The frequent and the rare

How many times does God liberate a people from slavery and abuse, and offer them some one else’s land? How often are people asked to build a tent strictly for worshipping God and for seeking his approval and relief?  The answer to both questions is once.

Both rare and frequent events deserve the label biblical but saying that food and drink are biblical matters misses the point that divine interests change. You will not convince the millions who are tuned in to the Bible that God in the 21st  century wants the smell of burning animal fat, roasted beef, goat, mutton, or bird as part of the human response to his goodness.  You will not have a leg to stand on if you are telling males who are seeking God that they need to be circumcised.  This is why it is important to have the right division of the text, the correct interpretation of whatever we read.  Something important can happen a lot – even happen every day and all the time –  and yet it is irrelevant to the kingdom of God, like circumcision.  If a thing such as circumcision that defines Judaism (or defines a Jew) is irrelevant to God it means that Jewishness and all of the claims of Judaism aimed at the global community are irrelevant.

No discussion

How do the holy speak with the unholy? Do they repeat the divisive terms of their respective camps and expect understanding?  Does each have terms that the other does not and cannot be expected to possess?

I know that all the sayings about obedience are bound to splatter all over the walls and drip to the floor because no record exists to corroborate the obedience of a single generation.  The case has been made that no human at any stage of development or enlightenment has been found in full and perfect compliance with what God wants. The proof of that is the fact that God waited four millennia to unlock his master plan,  during which time no human candidate arose to redeem the human race.

Turned off and tuned out

The social media operators have empowered public comment without recognizing that comments do not always arise from thought and reflection. In political and religious circles nothing is fixed or established as long as someone can say something “what-aboutish” or several things completely unrelated to a topic and stay in the conversation as a contributor. There is an end to chiming in that is welcome and the public comment frenzy deserves its demise.

Follies of the sacred

eejoseph

Praying can expose the gaps in growth as a child of God. Things we say in life’s most important conversation open the window to a courtyard of fear and misinformation. We want to know the name of the god who responds to a request for cleaning if God’s policy is to ignore a sinner’s (=believer’s) prayers. This is where people can end up if their understanding of prayer gets shaped by ancient sacred buildings.

People can get so caught up in symbols, signs, food, drink, rituals and regulations that they lose sight of reality.  The case can hardly be better made than with trying to make prayer conform to the tabernacle service.

The main problem is one of presence.  When exactly is the believer in God’s presence? Is there an outer court, a laver, a place for preliminaries to prayer?
A disturbing practice is followed by people who think they cannot speak to God or hear from him without first  becoming sinless. This is not becoming sinless by not sinning. It is BECOMING SINLESS BY PARDON which is where all Christians begin.

  • Who ever came up with that one is a raving genius of nonsense.
  • God has to hear or respond to sinners
  • The process for getting saved is “sinner calls on the Lord’s name”
  • The sinner (any believer) surely cannot ask the same God who “does not hear sinners” for a cleansing from all sin  so that one’s prayer can be heard.

I know who says that prayer, but who hears that prayer?

The immorality of Government mandates

eejoseph, , ,

(It’s not necessarily governments that will restrict what you do without vaccination. Private business can and will hold you accountable in many, many ways.)

Since when did government need to get the approval of every citizen before imposing its will? Since when did a dozen religions, four political parties and score of First Nations decide what is moral in Canada? If Christianity and Judaism, sharing a guidebook, do not agree on what is immoral how can we expect Islam or any other religious group (with divergent narratives of the common “book”) to align with the so-called Judeo-Christian foundations of western societies?

Immorality does not begin or end with the restriction or affirmation of rights. What right is it that one defends to make neighbours sick and leaves oneself exposed to death? We are phishing for individual rights that override the common safety and integrity. It is the same problem that plagues the union movement: individuals wanting their situation to define the interests of the collective. Freezing temperatures in hell will mark the beginning of the era when human rights are secondary to ignorant and insensitive privilege.

Chauvinist and holy

eejoseph, , , ,

I return to a topic that is the spiritual equivalent of a 13 dollar coin.  It is an issue that has to be near the top of standards for decency and civilized behaviour.  When the Scriptures opens up with woman as the better part of humanity and closes with a stunning movie of an unnamed woman I find it horribly uncaring of a great many people who say they are God’s friends and representatives of God and light-bearers.  One little word in Genesis exposes the inventions of misogynist crew, wherever they come from.  Let us be sure that while people are said to be in the loins of their ancestors before they are born it bears repeating that help a male needs to be complete is necessarily female and must be recognized as his out-front part, his better “half”, his kĕneged ( כנגד ) aspect.

Shame is a lot more than a private part

It does not shock me that the commentaries on the creation of the human race fail to build an understanding of males and females in their primary arrangement.  It is a senseless plot that people undertake when they try to pattern their associations after the Levitical system’s males-only policy and practice.   Women are pushed aside from the centre of the action and authority and then flattered with the idea that they have functions that are uniquely designed for only certain contributions to family and social life.  If differing standards of  public dress and undress do not convince anyone that patriarchy’s male dominance is a stage in man’s ignorance..

Woman clothed with the sun and more

What does kenegdo mean in the Genesis creation narrative?  In front of, before, opposite as equal, beside (fanciful nonsense from the rib narrative), or partner of lesser function and value?

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help suitable for him.

Genesis 2:18

The Revelation 12 Saga

The answer to the question of the meaning of neged comes in a vision of a woman. Her clothing and adventures are beyond scrutiny.

  • And there appeared a great wonder in heaven;
  • a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
  • And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered
  • And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.  And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
  • And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
  • And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

We have it in apostolic teaching and from the practice of Christ that gender, ethnicity,  social status, or nationality are inadmissible as measurements of people. The Taliban and those who see themselves as conserving (protecting) are barking up a tree John the Baptist said was ready for felling. 

The entire story of divine government of the globe is told in the woman’s experience in Revelation12. The salvation experience is cast as the betrothal and marriage of a woman to the Son of God. How dare anyone shape the church’s identity and operations as male-only? They dare because they are forgivably mistaken, confused about the incompatibility of chauvinism and holiness. The proponents of male domination forgets that our spiritual heritage is specifically inclusive of women as we find it predicted in Joel 2:29; “Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days”. The Holy Spirit’s residence establishes the dignity of men and women or not at all.

Canadians go to the ballot box to elect the 44th parliament

eejoseph

Sunday August 15

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces the Governor General’s dissolution of the 43rd parliament and the launch of the political race. September 20th is the next election day.

Look out for huge spending promises, groundless claims of accountability for the public purse, and a gut-wrenching array of moves to ensure Canada’s First Nations and all the oppressed minorities see an end to the erosion of their rights. Watch for religous interference and US style exploitation of the press and the right to free speech.

Canada will speak, and I pray it is a loud and clear message that Canada does not need to copy any nation in order to maintain its integrity. Get out and vote!

Loving freedom comes painfully slowly

eejoseph

At the end of Judah’s Independence Jeremiah preached a message of extreme urgency, offering the kingdom a chance to avert the dire consequences of death, destruction and exile. 

Talk about freedom is not cheap.  It is an insult to the God of Abraham.  He is a god who does not fabricate, abdicate, or refuse to accommodate. We know how long he had sheltered his people from disaster,  how many of his messengers had been assassinated, and how many times the people had demonstrated they meant business (by returning to covenant ways).  King Zedekiah however was not a guy prone to change or repent.

This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Jeremiah 34:8

They did, temporarily, showing that they truly did not treasure their liberation from Egypt. Even when the triumph of David’s Son had been clearly demonstrated, freedom was a thing for oneself, not everyone. People like Saul and James kept up the bogus freedom rhetoric. But thanks be to God that Messianic liberty is firmly entrenched in the heart – attitudes – of the followers of Christ. We want our peers to own and enjoy whatever God has given us.

Intellectual back alley

eejoseph

If you were going to build a dwelling place for the majesty of heaven would you pattern it after something that was repeatedly abandoned and turned into rubble? It is illustrative of human mediocrity and the preference for mingling minor and major matters.

And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

Jeremiah 3:16
Branding folly

Not a few people have adopted a gold-plated box of Sinai as the symbol of their mental integrity. Was there no golden box available? We know there was not. When God arranges for the gold-plated box to be forgotten, and the rebellious and undisciplined choose it for the symbol of their reasoning capacity, they are clearly at home in the fireplace of lies.