It is not likely that there is a class more despicable than a hypocrite. A truly despicable person, an undisciplined public leader for example, who thinks he can make his poverty of character disappear by making allegations about the voices that are asking relevant questions is a rootless tree and a ruthless shepherd.

Because someone is despicable or loathsome does not mean that we get a license to despise them. We can see with our own eyes where cultures embracing hatred end up.

Vigilantism is a pretext for the murder of a neighbour.

The shepherds with God’s heart

Remember that saying about how excellent the Lord’s name is in all the Earth! The sentiment is prominent – in the first and last lines in a song by David. Do we not know with certainty that God has an offer for all the peoples of earth? Do we not know the world categorized as Black and White is an insult to God? What we have been hearing is a repeat attempt to Christanize the Mosaic legacy as a global (composite) template for morality or nation building. It is not that searing consensus of the early church. Christ is all we need.

Shocked that Gentiles are acceptable to God

All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

Acts 10:45

Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Acts 15:1

Do we not know with certainty that the uncircumcised nations were also deemed hopeless? A moral house built on that foundation – race and tribal tradition- is temporary and juvenile by design. Our diligence calls for the recognition that trees planted by the etetnal waters grow up time.

But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

Acts 15:11

Christ spent a lot of time with the people who were despised by the caretakers of his generation. Anyone with any respect for the facts of Judean life and anyone expecting something better than a broken temple-based regime and economy would be found seeking out the Son of man because they knew the racket run by the religious parties and the guardians of the sacred sites had run its course. The man who announced the end of the prophetic tradition also voted with his feet. He chose to live in the desert over being true to his priestly pedigree.

Shocked that Jews have trouble being Jews

We will always have people pushing scandalous fables, scoffers and mockers. We will find them sitting near the seats of power. The devil hates competition and will make the lovers of lies a spectacle so distasteful people will smirk every time mention is made of conservative and traditional values. The pains through which Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, China and Japan, have put the world are due to them following the malignancy in human nature that makes us want to dominate our neighbours. Those pains are also due to a deliberate imitation of ancient Israelite patterns. Jews have had trouble being Jews, not only in the view of others, but Jewish sages in Scripture testify to the fact.

we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances.

Daniel 9:5

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

Galatians 2:14

What we have to say about the modern state of Israel includes the same things the ancient witnesess said. The atrocity being perpetrated in East Jerusalem, the malicious intent against Palestinian rights, the courting of foreign powers, and the absence of an equitable and functioning political system affirm the rootlessness and ruthlessness of the current condition.

“Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”

John 7:19

People who cannot relate to the facts of the ancient experience will miss the wonder of the ending. The two pages of human existence come in order, first the natural. This takes in all the philosophies and traditions of human history. The Father of our Lord seeks worship from us without regard to any mountain or stronghold. This also encompasses the earth itself; its ecosystems and their changes over time. The second page of human existence is spiritual; only a new creation matters, and that is the outcome of God’s Spirit cleansing the human heart of the guilt of our futile traditions. The ending uses the beginning as admonition to avoid the manners and catastrophe of the old ways. Everyone comes from an empty tradition. God’s character is not to be confused with condemnation. The gospel and the covenant it proclaims are not to be confused with Moses, Sinai, and fables of loyalty, cheap and lying traditions of xenophobia and misogyny. New is not old. All the things that people have not done do not amount to a millilitre of righteousness.

Fortresses constructed on the sand will meet a catastrophic end as Yeshua teaches in Matthew 7:26-27. People who can find no call to action in His words are like foolish persons who build their houses on the sand. The rains will fall, and the floods will come, and the winds will blow and slam against their houses; they will fall–a great fall follows”.

A vigilante is a person or community with a license to kill a neighbour