Author: eejoseph

Humanity, divinity and community

eejoseph,

What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

A good life needs honest outlooks on what makes humans human.  Superpowers are sheer fantasy.  People need to be genuinely themselves and forget the competition and comparisons.

A good life needs something that draws us towards ideals and reality greater than our ancestral tradition.  I call that greater and higher reality divinity; God.

A good life needs an efficient and helpful connection to community.  Individuals need social validity reaching from the nuclear family to the village to the city to the nation.

Faith versus sight

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Loving people is going to take our senses, because people are neither invisible nor beyond human senses and perception.  There is no faith that does not involve seeing.  Both our optical and mental acquisitions serve faith, but our ideas, that is, our perceptions, concepts and conclusions do not serve the faith that brings or sustains life.  It is not fanciful to say that faith causes us to see the unseen. Is not faith about seeing the unseen? So let us not be shaken from the exercise of our minds in matters of trust towards God.

Faith sees with physical eyes

By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27)

People can say they have received a miracle and we should not expect or demand any evidence of the happy event.

So do everyone a favour: quit praying for love.  You have a full cup.  You can also quit praying and fasting for more faith: a microscopic amount will move mountains. How many mountains have you seen moving in the last thirty days?  Are there not a lot of people telling you to forget what you see, hear, smell and feel?  “Just believe…” they say.  The peddlers of signs and wonders wish we would just tell ourselves the opposite of what we are experiencing, but only the most gullible put any credence to that kind of power play.

Faith needs an idea

The best examples of effective faith come to us in the lives of people who responded with abandon to a divine promise.  The faith of Abraham still amazes us because it stood up straight against incredible odds, and all we are doing with our faith is lusting after low level miracles like physical healing and personal achievement.  Miracle-chasing believers are now knocking – like blind homosexuals on Lot’s door – down the pillars of the Eucharist with body for healing and blood for life.  The very idea of eternal life and righteousness are strangers to people of faith.

Israel’s divorce from Moses, Jacob-Israel, and David is complete

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Homicidal vipers will not pass as people with God’s own heart even though they surround themselves with bling from David, and carve out unique spaces in social structures and the land of Palestine itself.  If there was a lingering doubt about the crimes being committed in the Holy Land now is the time to do the simple math.  People like the leaders of Hamas and the military strategists of Israel will hem and haw when asked for the answer to what seems like an endless stream of fear and violence because their foolish hearts are darkened by delusions of exclusivity.

The United States has been destroying the remains of the human fabric

June 4th will go down in history as a day of reckoning.  The perfect round of ostrich gravitas has been reached.  Israel and the United States are ensuring that the beast will have a clean run at establishing the Whitewashed Wonderland of insularity and grievance and entitlement.  Israel is doing to Palestine what the European pilgrims did to Turtle Island.  Two failed states are not examples of progress.  Adding the quasi-Empire of the UK to the mix is a waste of time.

The wicked triad

The UK, the US and Israel are on the brink of utter collapse and can count on the support of a small vocal and well-grounded minority. We know that the media is manipulated to maintain the facade of beneficial governance, but the wicked triad has no intention of submitting to international standards.  Each holds its own rebellious experience as an essential contribution to the world order, but the mask is off and the bordellos of international graft and hypocrisy are profiting from the silence of the gatekeepers of personal morality.  There will be no return.  If Israel, the UK and the United States see nothing wrong with their racist hearts then the so-called Judeo-Christian heritage is a front for a global Cosa Nostra.  Just wait until the Jewish State establishes a common “Abrahamic” hub with the cream of the Islamic crop. 

The vote to deny human rights

https://news.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=372753f560ef60c400f1a4f3f&id=42e5dbaebf&e=386c50e3bc

If you think that Americans care about whether Zionists build a temple on Temple Mount or if you think that Americans care whether the democracy Israel practices moves from supporting ethnic cleansing and a toxic brew of discrimination and passion for patriarchy, you are in a cul de sac.  Denying human rights is a hallmark of Israeli males in government. It is clear that Israelis and Zionists have established no priority of equity or democracy.  They, Americans and Israelis are worse than animals.  Ask Isaiah (1:1-5).  The only change in sight is a descent into extreme depraved prostitution and utter blindness.

Long live Charles III

eejoseph, ,

Canadians do not usually sing “God Save Our Gracious King” but yesterday crowds, gathered in Ottawa to greet and meet the king and queen, burst into the Royal Anthem.  In an era when all kinds of rascally racist and rapist rulers are buying, stealing and embezzling honours and respect, Canada begins its 45th parliament absolutely anchored in the rich traditions in which British North America began and has thrived. 

Vive le Roi et Mort a Ses Ennemis

“Long live the king and death to his enemies” is a balanced chant that strikes the beast of rampant white nationalism in the jugular.  It will also crush the notion of Islam, Judaism or Catholicism dictating the paths of Canadian society.  How quickly we forget that the current British monarch succeeds a woman who gave the world an enduring example of Christian faith and what public service can be in good and adverse times.

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong, but I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do.

Elizabeth II, at her coronation, 1953

Charles III is especially bound by the noblest and unambiguous values, unlike the US president, who is usually the creation of big money, an agent of big business, and comes to power as a result of manipulated voting blocks.  Canada’s king is never an instrument of any of the corrupting players in American politics.  Death to the enemies of Athenian democracy! is a chant that needs not be public.  The Hollywood (American) and Jerusalem versions of greatness are four days dead (The Gospel of John 11:37).  America will do no better than Israel as when Israel returned from exile with a racist heart.  Israel can do no worse than attack defenseless women and children and call it a war.  Monarchs are expected to be gracious, so let King Charles invite the American president to the UK, but Canadians do not want the government inviting the felon in the White House to come across the border, because felons are expected to stay home.  Vive le Canada!

Toys, masquerades, and life

eejoseph

Dire warnings about what is happening in Gaza have fallen on deaf ears, and the eyes remaining in Israel are blind. Leopards can start changing their spots any time now, and Ethiopians (Black people) can change their skin whenever racist clerics and failed politicians give them the signal.  The world needs neither settler explanations nor Zionist slogans to understand that Israel is on the path of the childish and foolish.  Earthly stuff like temples and festivals have never been the harbingers of justice or peace.  Generally speaking, toys like the tabernacle and the ark, and masquerades like holy days have nothing to do with life in divine terms.

Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:29), would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof (Proverbs 1:30), therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices (Proverbs 1:31). For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them (Proverbs 1:32); but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster (Proverbs 1:33).

Childish and foolish

Israel has shown, since its founding, that the rule of law is not a primary interest.  The state of Israel, like all the Islamic states, holds its population hostage to historical inaccuracies and ethnic toxicity. Their children are trapped in the world of superiority fables and behind walls of xenoohobia.  The holiness that once served as a guiding light is less than a smouldering ember.  The faith that people assume is the blessing behind the establishment of the Jewish state is also the fountain from which hatred of Gentiles and Palestinians in particular flow. If you think that Israelis are generally peace and justice loving people you should revisit the 77 years of Israeli history. Israelis have circled the wagons around the failure of their ancestors to annihilate Canaanites, and the Islamic states and the Palestinian leadership in the Occupied territories have jointly made Israel the object of hate.  That common enemy is exactly what Zionists thrive on.  The ancient residents of the  Promised Land did not measure up either.

Enforcing Peaceful Coexistence Should Be Easy

The idea of Jews living in peace side-by-side with anyone is a balloon surrounded by pins. That Israelis are racist in plain sight in the 21st century is matched – for shock and awe, for disgust and horror – only by that old cultural character trait of fratricide. Only the people who truly love their neighbour and honour their parents can righteously criticise Israel and every single Zionist.  If states like Israel can enforce bigotry,  illegal occupation, and enlist cheerleaders around the globe, they can re-educate their populations and open the doors to civic society.  I am one who, along with many other believers, prays for Jerusalem to have peace, because that city is a player in God’s plans for the planet. I guarantee you that the average Israeli will, when confronted with the moral demand of loving his neighbour, will ask “Who is my neighbour?” Looking in the other direction when any nation violates law (international or local) and hoping to be blessed for supporting Israeli interests at any cost can only be a cowardly and sycophantic.

No-one is secure until all of us are secure

When will Israel and Palestinians be secure? According to the governement run by the accused war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, security comes when the Palestinians have neither leaders of their own choosing nor a rising generation with pride in their history. South Africa and over a dozen countries believe that they can prove that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza and apartheid practices in the Occupied Territories. The casual observer can tell by the deliberate massacres that Israel is conducting that the Israeli government is in violation of basic human decency, kicking against the pricks of its history, and rejecting the ancient wisdom of treasuring the lives of all children and women, and bucking the established laws of war and occupation. My instinct regarding dead lions and living dogs is that Israel is incorrigible on its own. War crimes have been Israel’s modus operandi since 1948. Israel routinely orders the evacuation of Palestinians to supposedly safe spaces, and then Israel targets the innocent people and destroys their homes. In what universe can acts such as those committed by the Israeli government and people in defense of the racist settler, Zionist and Moses be not criminal?

Talk is cheap when you arm racist regimes

Canada taking a stand against Israeli atrocities is long overdue.  It is appalling that accused war criminal Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sense of history lands Canada on the wrong side of the street.  Canadians want no part in annihilating anyone. Canadians will not stand for municipal laws that muzzle their right to protest anywhere from coast to coast to coast.  Toronto will regret getting up on the stage of international morality by taking sides with a homicidal Israeli government.  At the United Nations nations involved in arming Israel usually give half-hearted speeches of outrage when Israel violates international law and human decency.  What people expect from their governments is truth and justice. Governments need to stop supporting Israeli propaganda and label Israel’s unfaithfulness to simple humanity as unfaithfulness. Religious institutions need to start treating Jewish lies and fables about God and the land of Canaan as lies and fables.  Israel could not be trusted with an ark that kills people. A Levitical temple that houses God’s effective presence (often stylized as Shekinah) is of no consequence.  Holy days, weeks, months and years are tokens of poverty.  So carry on, do not believe your eyes, that the state of Israel is a racist and spiritually bankrupt barely functional democracy.  The days of thumbing one’s nose at international law and idolizing family ties are swiftly coming to an end.  The price will be unprecedentedly high. To Israel and all her siblings we say, “End the occupation and give Abraham some respect”.

Resurrection: mystery in motion

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For a great many believers Paul’s resurrection revelation is the ultimate pie-in-the-sky lure.  There is a general feeling that baptism wraps up the divine intervention, but a great surprise is on the way.  The mysteries we hold are never under our thumbs.  God’s sovereignty – in power, grace, and the unique attributes of his person – demands that success is up to him, for the future in the hands of any human is clearly at risk.  The future that the resurrection ushers in is the swallowing up of death, at which the taunt goes up.  Things to ponder: (1) the impossibilities attached to kingdom access, (2) the certainty of the essential change, (3) the precision and rapidity of the change, and (4) the certainty of change (asleep or wake, = dead or alive).

Two impossibilities

1. … flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

2.  nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Corinthians 15:50b)

The traditions in which we wrap ourselves may allow us to flip back and forth from our essence as flesh and blood to spiritual beings.  On the one hand, flesh and blood needs a change – a makeover – to have access to God’s kingdom. The church is not that kingdom. Humanity needs a transformation.  On the other hand, the perishable – all we can bring to God – is not in this era inheriting the imperishable.  No miracle or revelation changes this fact.  We are flesh and blood and perishable until resurrection morning.

The certainty of change, asleep or awake

The mystery under the microscope is the necessary change that comes at the end of the age.  It is so deeply central to God’s agenda that it does not matter if a person is deceased or alive.   God changes every believer whether he is asleep, that means “dead” or alive. The dead are secure in their faith. There is no sense in which the faithful dead – those who died as believers – are anything but safe and fully approved. Christ has marked – as he does the falling of the sparrows – the death of those to whom he has givine his Spirit, and will change all without ritual or process. Christ will change the whole body of dead and the living believers from mortal to immortal.

Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, (1 Corinthians 15:51)

The precision of the change event

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:52)

The change happens with rapidity, and this gives no one time to evaluate and comment.  This is how God acts sovereignly to give his people the final touch.  He defines it in three ways. 

  • In a moment, in the smallest unit of time, how quickly
  • In the twinkling of an eye, one stroke, not many
  • At the last trump, when, the place of the change on the divine schedule.

The timing of the change is such that it is over before one can think “Wow” and it is not a number of steps.

The inevitable chant

No-one can speak to this experience, and as far as we know, the Nazarene alone has come back from the dead with a body such as can fully experience God’s rulership. How could it be otherwise than the Pioneer of salvation to have the preeminence, in being the first human to be received into the glory? Even with his victory over death the combat is not over or complete. That achievement awaits the resurrection of all the faithful, when the perishable puts on the imperishable.

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:54) “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

The “so-what” of the mystery

The people in line for resurrection are approved by God, sealed for the day of bodily redemption, and their security is never in question.  God does not give the Holy Spirit as a test.  It is an eternal appointment kept.  The people marked for resurrection are either safely asleep – dead – or alive.  Christ is the indispensable anchor of holy being, identity, and endurance.  How can anyone ever “stand” without Christ? We have, remarkably, the example of the choice of the twelve persons to be with him, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with believers “forever”, and this presence has pervading results.

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; (John 14:16)

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

The mystery in current and pervasive motion

We will not idolize that critical work of the mystery in us with trivialities and temporary instructions, observances of days, weeks, months, years, and empty sacrifices and offerings. The environment in which the mystery is at work is not hidden to the believer, and it is not easily missed or misidentified because it comes from God’s Spirit. It is happening all the time. The command to be steadfast and immovable is not a call for change. Paul wrote ginesthe, meaning “continue to be”. There is no fiat associated with this command. The problem with the traditional understanding of steadfastness and immovability is that it departs from permanence. The believer is prone to see himself as a tree planted by the waters that changes location, as as saved persons who are not safe. Many believers are addicted to contradicting the Lord’s description of those who trust in the Lord as being like Mount Zion. Discarding the status of steadfast and immovable is a fatal error which shows the darkness of Christlesness.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

None of the apostles can by fiat, command or prayer make people steadfast or removable. The hope of resurrection and change will have the certainty of established abundance. It is empty talk to expound on the change resurrection bings while disavowing the realities of resurrection power manifest in daily life.

He knows himself and his Saviour

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He who dares to say

is only confessing the truth .

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:8)

Light on a hill cannot be hidden

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. (Matthew 5:14)

Following without a cross goes nowhere

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)

Not one person is being saved by circumcision

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)

Not one person is being saved by keeping Moses’ law

But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.” (Acts 15:5)

He who moves Zion is greater than God and a deceiver

Those who trust in the Lord Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever. (Psalms 125:1)

Do planted trees walk away? Do their leaves wither?

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. (Psalms 1:3)

One reason the saved do not say they are safe is that the doctrine demons are terrorizing them

38) But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. 39) But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:38-39)

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)

The one who says “Since Christ saved me, I am safe” shows that he believes in Christ’s work and will not be terrorized by backpedallers.

Narrative Esometrix

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I am sure you are familiar with the idea that there are lines between the lines (LBTL) as we read a document, and that there is an  embedded theme (ET) in the words we find strung together. Eso and exo are Greek prefixes indicating inner and outer respectively. Exactly how we discover, discern, and dissect the lines between the lines, and whither we take the inner elements are up to us. It is essential to remember that (a) importing our idea into the text is strictly a tool of the devil, so (b) be sure that the lines-between-the-lines and the inner and outer elements are accurately measured in order to ascertain how they may fit into the interests of the context. Remember that the LBTL and the ET may not resolve into perfectly corresponding parts, as is the case when old wine is allowed to sit in old bottles. These are the contours of the handling of meaning in narratives within a narrative.

Exports from the names of Daniel and his companions

There are lots of people, leading figures, including pastors and elected representatives, who are pretending to have the tools to teach when they have not learned.  A good dose of reality should begin with realizing that we are not Yeshua of Nazareth.  Our mothers can teach us to read the Bible and pray, and yet diligence in the pursuit of truth and growth producing exploration of the Scriptures is strictly controlled by the Spirit of God.  For example, realizing that names have meaning, we can construct a scene or drama, if the names include clay and form/make we can see a potter’s shop, and if the names are judge and help we can construct a courtroom drama.

From names to drama

Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. Dan 1:6b

דָּנִיֵּ֣אל חֲנַנְיָ֔ה מִֽישָׁאֵ֖ל וַעֲזַרְיָֽה׃ …

These names appear in a list of equals. Each name is deity-bound, two ELs, two YAHs (-iah). The diversity of the names give us, in order, (i) a judge (dan), (ii) favour (chanan), (iii) evidence (mish), (iv) help (ezer). A judge must stand alone on account of his authority. A judge has no equal, and all who interact with him are gloing to be bound to him by specific functions. In the judge’s purview are the prosecutor, a defendant, the defence attorney. They interact with him in prescribed ways.

Favour, evidence/precedent, and help

In the courtroom then let us imagine that favour rests on the defendant and its effects cannot but be part of the record. The defendant’s attorney and even the accuser may have things to say in the defendant’s favour. The judge may even have formed a gracious approach based on the common knowledge possessed by each court officer and the defendant.

These three are not strictly trinitarian. Help can safely be paired with the Holy Spirit in the role of Defence attorney. Favour or grace can be grounded in the person of Christ, the saviour whose signature work is giving gifts to humanity. The  One-Who-Is-Like-EL appears as evidence, providing the exhibit typically labelled “A” and, in most cases, designed by the accuser/prosecution to seal or summarize the case.

The defendant’s attorney has the primary duty to provide help to the defendant. The judge also has the obligation to secure the defendant’s rights and protections. We are in a good place if we anticipate that One-who-is-like-GOD serves in the court as the inimitable guiltless human Mishael represents the once-for-all unblemished atoning sacrifice of Christ.

Far from nutrition-free snacks

I do not take this exploration as secondary or the time not well spent, and it is encouraging to recognize that the experience is within the reach of many readers of the Bible or any book where names have well-known meanings.  That LBTL and ET would not provide healthy meditations is not so strange when one can recall walking away from an hourlong sermon with not a single point in the mystery of faith deposited in the audience.  Readers who do not have Hebrew and Greek as their native language and want to be evaluated as diligent can spread their wings with a lexicon and drink the milk of narrative esometrics.