Right now, inside the smooth programming of commercial and cultural ventures, there are intense and criminal plots to digitize millions of human beings. It is my understanding that human beings are unique from head to toe, and I have warmed up completely to the idea that imitating our heroes is a waste of time. There is only one John the Baptist. There will never be another Sojourner Truth. The colour of our eyes is not copied onto any other human being. I believe in extreme uniqueness.
The discovery of finger prints did nothing to dampen racist conspiracies and religious bigotry. The billions of dollars spent on looking for another Earth might have been put to giving boys and girls all over the planet a chance to put their unique treasures on display and to good practical use.
It is a shameful outrage for the manipulators of public thought, health and wealth to try to make people gather up and mindlessly mimic the stars and personalities of our times. The dignity and majesty of unique personhood are often the first elements to be stripped away when people begin to assert their legacy and dreams. Every combination of human traits and attributes is unique. Oh my! What will the quantum equations be? Can the computers handle the complexity?
When the Jewish people arise to tell their children the story of the Exodus I am sure that the more curious children would want to hear about the generation before the Exodus, about the patriarchs, about the generation who entered Canaan, and the generations who became the victims of Canaanite domination (see the Book of Judges chapters 2, 4 and 6) and they would also want to be informed about God’s judgment upon the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the exile and the restoration. The more discerning children would notice the gaping hole in the narrative between the Exodus and the possession of Canaan. A tradition of lies keeps the generations apart, because the adults in the room are living a lie, pretending that they have faithfully followed the best features of Abraham’s legacy. It is still a quick and convenient detour for adults to lecture young people about things the young believers know all too well. You see, there is much more to leadership in the 21st century than a few self-serving slogans and a minority shocking the majority with vile pronouncements, armed atrocities and discredited rhetoric about self-defense and superior culture and undisputed military power.
Lead yourself out of the curse
“He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:6
Here at the end of the Old Testament period, Malachi’s prophecy comes forth that the hearts of Israelite fathers need to turn (perhaps return ) to the children and vice versa, which refutes the notion that Jewish life is more family-centred than others. Even with a covenant stipulation for children to honour (kabbed, כבד) their parents a thorough failure is evident, since this covenant demand is the only one in the Ten Words written with God’s own finger without a negative particle, and perfectly complied with by people with no conscious recognition of God.
Willingly bewitched
The emphasis on generational transmission of tradition and responsibility is however far from negligible. Every generation since the Exodus has wanted to be remembered as the hero who fixed the broken down walls and repaired the house.
When Christians gather to celebrate salvation I am sure that there will be people who want to know what does salvation have to do with Moses and the prophets. They will want to hear about the sub-apostolic age, the many centuries of Christian scholarship and the diligence of many believers and their pastors who have resisted the numerous assaults by cults, other religions and eastern mysticism. You see, there is much more to leadership in the 21st century than a few self-serving slogans and a minority shocking the majority with armed atrocities and discredited rhetoric about self-defense and superior culture.
ELOHIM defines himself as trans-generational
The Eternal One has no regrets about involving himself in space and time. His involvement, whether pictured as angel of the Lord, terrifying manifestations of thunder, tempest, earthquake, fire and cloud, must certainly waken human imagination about our participation in the eternal glories. Sadly, the generation that is most iconic to modern observers is that one that questioned this very thing. It is a pathetic slice of tomfoolery to intimate that God violates himself by clothing himself in humanity, and the corollary is that humans are presumptuous and blasphemous to believe that partaking in divine nature is possible.
“who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”” (Exodus 34:7, NASB)
ELOHIM THREATENS CONSEQUENCES ON SUCCEEDING GENERATIONS
You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, (Exodus 20:5, NASB)
JOSHUA PREDICTS THE INTEREST OF GENERATIONS IN THE EXPLANATION OF HISTORY
He said to the sons of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’” (Joshua 4:21, NASB)
Of all the things one might expect people who are committed to the Ten Commandments to accomplish honouring one’s parents has to be near the top of the list. Obligations towards one’s parents do not call for spiritual or special insight, education, knowledge or wisdom. Apparently many people are perfectly naive mucking around in glaringly natural traditions, and the cautions of the Galilean fisherman still ring louder and more distinctively than Big Ben.
And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” (Acts 2:40)
When asked to verify the accuracy of their soundbytes some people see an opportunity to sling accusations at the questioner and/or compare traitors and heroes, felons and innocents, and even Moses to Yeshua. If you compared my sins and crimes to yours if I confronted you, it would prove you have more than one terminal disease. If you think that there are no incurable diseases you are incontrovertibly in the school and care of an illiterate scholar and a medical quack, certain to wail when the whirlwind of ineffective remedies, bottomless research and development funding, and empty promises of healing stops spinning fatality.
Well, what about dining with strangers and aliens? No, we dare not. Well, what about criminal tyrants at the helm of nations and mega corporations? There is nothing to see here. Well, what about God and country as equals? We swear that there is no power to control our lust for power and curb the exercise of our military. Well, what about the idols we create, and revere daily, weekly, monthly and annually? They might swear that they are idolatry-proof, all because they say they keep the Ten Commandments, or they are convinced that they have checked all the boxes that make them eligible for divine approval. But what about those things that lurk inside both the sinner and the saint? Do you know the thatabout?
What a whirl! Get ready for the last twirl
Empires are typically the result of the forcible gathering of discrete languages, peoples, and nations into a functional whole. That is the principle behind family, village, town, nation. I suppose the expectations are that the rape and plunder of the pirates we love to idolize will continue until every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a kick at the colonial can or empire bucket. Sometimes the bucket comes first, as in the case of Syria trying to overrun Canaan, or even the great Egypt exercising control over trading routes into Palestine and the maritime lanes of global commerce. Note how the successors of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome are still active in global affairs, without actually calling the shots everywhere, as they did when they each dominated the world they knew. They are going to kick the bucket at the same time. But note how Russia and China have cobbled together a number of Asian and East European nations respectively, with no empire emerging. A quick crash is all there is, and it happens without fanfare. Russia and China are past life support, waiting to kick the bucket because, like the great harlot who thinks herself to be beyond poverty and mourning, these will fall in quick time, and people will not know of the descent of these powers into irrelevance because the narrative of “my crime is no worse than yours” will have lulled the global population into accepting mediocrity as greatness and crime as nationalism and patriotism.
Perhaps the best example terminal whataboutism is the rampant self-talk by the very fractured UK and USA about strength when the only whiff of unity is the conspiracy to rob national treasuries, deny the essential movements of migrants, when in fact they have made their fortunes through the monumental forced migration of peoples and the unequal immigration policies they have encouraged.
It may seem that we can all tolerate one or two limitations on our ability to function, but having more death-dealing companions than we have fingers is pretty much the end of the road physically and the beginning of glory if we absorb the daily cross-initiated dying. We have no authorization to observe musch less decide when one of our fellow travellers no longer feels God’s prompts or no longer accepts the divine judgment on unbelief.
Internal and fatal whatabouts
evil thoughts
sexual immorality (prostitution, porneia)
theft
murder
adultery (Mark 7:21)
coveting
wickedness
deceit
sensuality
envy (evil eye)
slander
pride
foolishness. (Mark 7:22)
Terminal whatabouts are essential to the hypocrite’s toolkit. A spiritual physician might say “the prognosis is devastating” and “the patient’s inside is caput”.
I snicker, I giggle when a fool thinks a ridiculous proposition is perfectly clear to everyone. I laugh out loud when I understand the comedian’s lead and punch line. I laugh with my whole body when events fall into place without warning and when nothing seems to work. I laugh at the person who trips and falls at the same place day after day because they are going to learn the hard way. I laugh when the rain pours torrentially for forty-five seconds. I laugh when I hear people say they are lucky to be alive because I know that living is much more than being alive.
The story of David slaying Goliath is a gripping narrative of war, cowardice, courage, and national deliverance. There is however no believer, oldest or youngest, who is going to deliver the people of God from the enemy. David’s victory was not a personal victory over any of life’s problems. David was not overcoming a personal vice or passion. There should be though one unlikely hero who delivers God’s people from the power of the devil, sin and death. Only the Nazarene can fill up the shoes of the little Bethlehemite. Yesterday’s heroes do not cut it today, and despite a popular song about “what he’s done for others he will do for you” and despite an avalanche of faith to see impossible things happen no-one has seen an amputee grow a new limb, and we do not have reliable documentation of the blind seeing and the dead coming to life. I do not know how to explain that the miracles of the Bible are not happening today in the 21st century with any regularity or confirmation of the genuineness except to say yesterday is not invading today.
We can say “Christ the same, yesterday, today and forever” until moons are all blue
It may be a comfort to many people to simply have nothing change as the centuries roll by, but the wish to keep Mosaic Law, patriarchal traditions, and primitive practices alive is just wish wasting. All around us are the contradictions of advances from donkey to tractor, from stonings and floggings, from lynchings to principled courts of justice, and from male supremacy to gender equality. Perhaps the most dramatic movement is in the field of education. The insistence that women and girls need no formal education crashes head-on into the rapid increase of highly educated girls and women. In the wake of a close analysis we find that Christ preincarnate, Christ crucified, and Christ exalted are quite different. Each of these marks of divine being and interest appropriately defines unique features of divine life.
Already delivered
There is a believer who thinks that he or she will bring victory to the Church. The stark reality is that since the Lord Christ went back to glory we have not cleaned out a single hospital of sick people, we have not prevented the false prophets and their sickening doctrines from making shipwreck of countless souls. There is one passage from 1 Samuel in the New Testament, and that should tell us something about what was important to the writers of the New Testament. Just think how many times you’ve heard a sermon based on 1 Samuel with the goal of bringing to life one of Yahweh’s interventions. Try as they might, the power-tripping prophets of the modern era seem incapable of stopping their testimony of miraculous intervention and seem unwilling to ascribe the lasting victory of the Church to Christ and him alone.
Courage is the least common denominator
The people in the ancient record were always encouraged to be human and humane, because they could not become what we are able to become through the gift of the Holy Spirit. “Be strong” is often translated by the Greek ischuo, katischuo, or enischuo. Another term that defines this requirement is andrizomai ανδριζομαι. The Hebrew word chazaq חזק means “be strong” or “strengthen”. This is entirely within the human capacity, especially when God commands it. They could not become sons of God. God is definitely not doing for us what he did for the ancients. We are not them. They were not what we are.
The age of strong men and women
Joshua alone tells the sons of Israel “You are not able to serve Yahweh”, and his own distinction places his as the one who delivers the descendants of Abraham to Canaan. Why would his era be denied an iconic rating?
“Be strong” – exhortations in Joshua’s experience
This personal exhortation to be strong – chazaq – חזק – has no prominence in the Five Books of Moses until Joshua. The verb is used from Genesis to Deuteronomy for other situations and actions. If the verb was spread out across the OT books the rate would be 1 per book (1.34). Joshua has four times the average. The connection of the term to Joshua personally is a clue that something critical exists in the Messianic revelation.
Storytelling around the David and Goliath episode is penny cheap. The church faces no giant that is not already dead or openly displayed as a leashed canine. So what is the point of giant-slaying if it has no typological venue in the cross of Christ? Do Christians not have the power to throw mountains into the sea? When that fails do they not fast and pray? When that fails after three times do they not have the intelligence to say “God’s grace is sufficient”? Furthermore giants can just as easily be killed by courageous soldiers as they can be killed by a shepherd boy with a sling. Saul of Tarsus and the leaders of the Jewish establishment were the closest thing to the church’s Philistines. They used violence and the church did not. One has to go to the People’s Republic of China to see this kind of warfare and hostility in play.
The works of the devil are destroyed
Do the children of God need someone to tell them what a virtuous life looks like? Of course they don’t, and thinking that they do is where deception rears its head. Listen to John talking about the victorious life. “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:7-8, NASB)
“And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
Colossians 2:15
The yesterday of the eyewitnesses of the Christ does not expire or fade. God alone speaks things into existence, and if we speak a thing that does not exist, we have to wait to find the material, then go and put the parts together. We have forgotten that human pomp and pride also gets laid in the dust when the day of release comes.
“For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.”
Isaiah 48:11
“For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.”
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
When I was reading the Church Fathers I repeatedly ran into Greek words which I realized were perfectly familiar to the original audiences as well as to the first disciples. My fascination turned to bubbling joy a few years later when I started acing and kept acing every quiz and exam over six semesters of biblical Hebrew and Greek.
Nowadays when others whip out their favourite commentaries and authorities I am both content and productive with the simple unparaphrased sentences. I do little or no beating ’round the bush.
Where Canada sits as the 25th year of the 21st century advances is way too precious a platform to be frittered away on corporate and individual greed, malignant attitudes to vulnerable people and migrants. Canada has a record with similar lines to the US’ dismal government corruption by politicians and genocidal policies towards First Nations people. The huge number of families that are separated by the 49th parallel are not sufficient to turn Canadian hearts to Washington or to whatever temporary capital the hosts of the bewitched nation might name. When the wickedness of American greatness begins to bruise and abuse Americans many of them may very well turn northwards for relief. In any case being a sibling to Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, or Mississippi is most unattractive, and trading with the US is going to be the hard limit of necessary ties.
Take that back, mogulfelon
It is not surprising that a failed mogul and convicted felon in the United States’ government does not seem to know how states are added to the Union. Some people are desperate to show that crime pays. A president has a shelf life, so his ducking the law is short-lived. We may never hear the mogulfelons say “I am sorry” or “I was wrong”, and if they never do they can expect to have lots of solitary time to think about the meagre proceeds of crime. Something else he does not seem to know, is if you steal from people in plain sight you are going to pay the price.
The Battle of Mizpah is immortalized more in a lovely song than in the stone Samuel erected to commemorate the Lord’s answer to the people for deliverance from the Philistines. The prophet was not engaged in mere iconography: he wanted to declare something of the undercurrent. By erecting a stone and naming it he might have simply instituted a memory. Instead he clearly wanted to proclaim something profounder. When Samuel drew out the meaning of Ebenezer (Help-Stone) he referenced the Lord’s help up to then. ad-hennah, the Lord has been helping us, with the perfect tense of help (azar) pointing to the way things were, as contrasted with a help event.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy praise…
Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’ve come
The Ebenezer of verse 12 in this 7th chapter of Samuel’s second book is the capstone rising from the fear the Hebrew people experienced in the 7th verse. Often it takes discomfort or concern to bring us to seek God’s help. The Christian understanding of help brings us to a more circumscribed help experience. Help is resident and needs no intermediary. The Holy Spirit is in us to help us assimilate the totality of divine reliability – guide us into all truth.
Help-Stone Ebenezer, (Hebrew eben – ezer)
The Ebenezer experience is triggered by the sons of Israel became afraid of the Philistines.
In their changing conditions, facing the Philistines, the Israelites deemed themselves in need of prayer. “Do not cease to cry (za`aq, זעק) for us” they implored Samuel, “we need Yahweh to save us from the Philistines’ hand” (vs. 8). Samuel’s response is to combine a young lamb as a whole burnt offering with his cry to God. We do not know what he said, but the book records that the Lord answered the cry.
Dire straits
As long as we do not think we can create or depend on parallels of an Ebenezer experience, when we have not really reached a place of dire proportions. The sons of Israel were without the ark of the covenant for seven months, and it was not returned from Philistine hands as a result of an Israelite offensive. The Philistines were massing for an attack on the Israelites. A more dire and fatal condition could not be imagined for the Hebrew people than to have the visible symbol of divine presence in the hands of their enemies. Even in circumstances like these God is responsive. He answered with thunder as the Philistines advance to attack.
My Help-stone
A help-stone, if we want to find a parallel in our lives to the Mizpah-Ebenezer episode, it would be great if we could first acknowledge where we are. Then, in raising up a memorial, acknowledge God’s role in being our present help, that is, present and helping long before any crisis.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 