Author: eejoseph

Superhuman flip-flop

eejoseph

Sometime after David displayed unprecedented courage in defence of Yahweh’s name and defeated a Philistine giant he confessed that fear can grip him.  He consequently strengthened his resolve about what mere mortals can do. David and others like him in Israel’s struggle were not superhuman conquerors.  This was not a flip flop unless David was a superhuman conqueror.

The warrior’s complaint

3) My foes have trampled upon me all day long, For they are many who fight proudly against me. 3) When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. 4) In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?

Psalms 56:2-4

God gives faith that people may live by it according to Habakkuk.  In the Christian context living by faith means getting a share of divine nature or a change in the quality of life or a change in identity.  It means coming to life because of faith. Faith is not only an attitude of involvement – to think to do – and the assurance of victory, which is not always the realization of a victory or the thing hoped for. Consider Abraham’s quest for assurance of God’s oath.

Crimes in the holy place

eejoseph

Most observers of life in Israel today are likely to be familiar with only the popular soundbytes and icons of historic events and locations.  The facts of history and destiny are regularly passed over in favour of support for the Jewish people in their current adversities, while the Zionism central to the modern state becomes, in plain sight,  an apathetic and immoral program of theft and corruption.  Zion’s king however  has a view of the holy mountain that makes the ventures in East Jerusalem unrecognizable. 

Zion has no temple

When the state of Israel came into being there was no temple in the nationbuilders’ plan.  There was a mosque where the temple used to stand.  It eludes me how a people, knowing their history, could neglect returning the nation’s capital to its former glory.  The place where God put his name and the seat of the kings are both critical to the nation’s integrity.

Zion is not Jerusalem.

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion.

1 Kings 8:1

Geography proves the point.

Zion is valued above Jerusalem, according to David (Psalm 87:1).  It is home to the peoples of Rahab (Egypt),  Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, “along with” Ethiopia.   Abuse of the sacred texts is no laughing matter. There is no speculation about temple mount that rises to deserve the attention of people familiar with the prophetic tradition.

The Lord loves the gates of Zion More than all the other dwelling places of Jacob. 2) Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah. 3) “I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me; Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’” 4)  But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”; And the Most High Himself will establish her. 5)

Psalms 87:2-5

Of all the things an Israelite should remember there is the deliverance from bondage with a view to sympathy for foreigners. Observance of the Sabbath is glued to the remembrance of the Exodus. Xenophobia in the name of ethnic purity does massive disservice to the sovereign majesty of Israel’s  God and draws a line between delighting oneself in the Lord’s law and sitting in a scornful seat.

Crimes in the city pales in comparison to the criminal enterprise located in the temple.  Everything that makes it attractive to many observers is coated with avarnish of lies.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

Deuteronomy 5:15

Zionism has surely gone off the rails and our support and love for the Jewish people does not obscure our love for mercy, justice and humility. Israelites

There is something special in East Jerusalem that many do not want to admit, yet they want to call it home and sully its dignity with their owner mentality.  That thing is not a temple.  It is people who have every right to be there apart from Israel’s primary covenant mediated by Moses.

Holy Residence vs Rubbish

As far as the sacredness of God’s name is concerned it is certain to be located in one of two places: the temple built by Solomon or the human body.  While the state of Israel pioneers friendly relations with Arab nations a house of prayer belonging to a religion that is openly hostile to all Jews adorns the site where Solomon’s temple stood.  So let nothing distract us from Zion’s destiny as the city of the great king. If it is not a person of David’s dynasty and himself a priest outside the levitical order the crimes get compounded by more inventions like the Arab peace accords and the continuing broadcasts of the fables of the oral tradition.

Renter’s eviction

eejoseph

A wrenching parable

Prophetic approbation does not amount to a hill of beans. Don’t we realize how many prophets are genuinely “heard” in their own community?   You are in for a rude awakening if you thought that the “foundation of the church” included dead prophets of long ago. Should not the Living God’s church have living stones for its security as surely as its Head lives forever and its authoritative message is preserved alive in the words of those eyewitness stones?

The Jewish narrative proceeds on the basis that God gives the land to Abraham and his descendants forever but that does so much damage to the expectation that there is a design for the human family, because the global family – not a Jewish, Arab, Christian composite – is the focus of Abraham’s justification.  Jews evicted from Palestine may be shocking to new observers, but Abraham’s descendants spending seventy years in exile is historic.  What was happening in the Holy Land when Muslims built a mosque on Temple Mount cannot be a token of Jewish accountability. The eviction is more a question of responsibility for revelation than a question of residence or ownership. Even the kingdom of God has a replacement motif.

No one is replacing Abraham’s descendants

People will come from abroad to occupy the spaces in which Abraham’s descendants were. Of course this is not Gentiles having full participation in the traditions of Israel, especially the priesthood and temple services.

A parable teaches that Israelites have no guaranteed space

25) Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ 26) Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; 27) and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you evildoers.’ 28) In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. 29) And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.

Luke 13:25-29

In the current state of affairs there are strict and unyielding barriers to Gentile participation in the life of the state. Getting past them depends on the lowering of the heat of the renters’ rhetoric. For God to have his children from east, west, north and south celebrating in Zion there has to be an eviction.

Dangerous democratic divides

eejoseph, ,

The following statement by a head of government reveals how diversity is the real threat to bogus democracy.

“Our political opponents’ deceptive, demonic agendas to fuel chaos and confusion will not be allowed to take root in this country. 

We will resist their violent aggression and lawlessness to maintain peace and tranquility in our country. 

Antigua & Barbuda will remain a safe and prosperous nation for all its citizens and residents.  

We will not surrender to partisan thugs, posing as freedom fighters.”

Hon. Gaston Browne
August 9, 2021

I take it that labeling something as demonic opens the door to extending the label to its owners.  When that happens the labeler will have declared war outside the boundaries of law, creating hostilities where none may have existed.

Parsing “demonic” is not like parsing “lawful”.  Demons are never nice guys, are always on a mission of death,  theft, and destruction, and they cannot be expected to gravitate towards the truth. What is lawful today can be the basis for tomorrow’s apology or the step onto higher ground.  Death, theft, and destruction are present in every nation and in the long run are the symptoms of failure.

The Hon. gentleman is exaggerating the threat of public protest.  Public protest may not be the foundation of AGBDA society,  but our very existence as a free people will always be a strong rebuke to colonialism and oppression. The last thing a liberated people want are slippery slopes in law, welfare,  and security.  People pretending that they have found governing principles written in stone had better wake up.  Government has used violent methods to shut down cultural expressions, fearing that people might hear a call insurrection. The current  furor is due to the poor quality of the public discourse. 
It seems to me that grammarians (small g deliberate) can be setting a better example, whether few or many are actually scribes.  There is expertise  that has the capacity to bring minds to reasonable grounds.  I for one am tired of the piecemeal treatment of the varied and, in my opinion,  vital components of a less emotional and more intelligent conversation.

Since the PM is on the record calling his opponents demonic he needs to bring out the exorcists.  Since he is on the record calling his opponents lawless it is curious that the opponents have not been apprehended and charged.  Violent assault is latent in the forces arrayed against all citizens, not in the citizens’ expression of their opinion  and protest.  Chaos is inherent in the wilderness of governments patterned after the colonial masters.

Sleep will continue to elude every leader who thinks that the need for change ended when they got elected or that no protest is a sign of utopia. The divide in democratic societies is becoming mre dangerous as leaders scramble to appear heroic and foundational at the same time.  Woe is me for buying partisan  politics as the fuel for generational change.

Human Sleight

eejoseph

Paul warned the Ephesians about the activities of deceivers  (4:14) the result of which, is that believers acting as juveniles are “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming”; it is a magician’s m.o. to have people believe everything they see.

Yahweh, God the Almighty and the Lamb are heaven’s temple

Old is not new!

The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: 8). Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; 9). Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. (10)

Hebrews 9:8-10 

Believe the Bible or believe in God

Cutting the fat from the spiritual diet simply means recognizing that there are things done and recommended in the Bible that we have no business embracing.

The separation of temporary measures from permanent arrangements often eludes us.  Accurately interpreting the messages in the Bible is not merely a function of separating the Old Testament from the New.  A kind of cowardly laziness has kept Christian witness from its blazing and pervasive perfection.  We dilute the wine by mixing it with every ancient liquid we can find. It is as if Moses did not say that the buck did not stop with himself.  Reducing the royal priesthood to a Davidide person executing levitical operations is perhaps the most deceptive of international approaches.

What is in heaven?

A structure with all the installations for dealing with sin located in heaven or on earth says the same thing: people are going to sin.  A temple in heaven is an outright fable.  The permanence of salvation never depended on created space, such as a laver, a lampstand, a covenant box. It most certainly has no need for the intervention of human agents. 

Access to God through Christ does not need the help of a building. Even if the Jewish people built another temple its functions would have nothing to with redeeming humans.  It would be desolate from the start because animal blood is inadequate.  Christ, in his atoning work, is all alone.

The devil gets a hold of our doctrine and turns it into a geography lesson, a nutrition regime, a priesthood system,  anything beside the actual work of God’s Only-Begotten; authorizing sonship for anyone who believes.

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; 11) Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us,(12)

Hebrews 9:11-12

The trickery of men will always end up grounded, exposed as empty clanging, because Christ is not the Alpha and Omega of their reasoning.

One would have to be pretty messed up to think that the true place of atonement is a location where hands and feet are washed, where blood is sprinkled, where bread is laid out etc. The heaven of Hebrews 9:24 is more than God’s residence. It is the eternal fact of essential saving grace in the face of Christ.

One can read the fact in plain language in Revelation 21:22,
“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple:.

What a wonderful place to find preaching women

eejoseph

hammabasROTE, from basar, he preached good news, in its participle form, with a feminine plural ending (ot), and having the definite article hav prefixed.

This word comes from basar, via mabasar, and hammabasrah. He evangelized, an “evangelizer”, and the evangelizing females.

Take the pulse of Psalm 68 and you will find some pleasant surprises. This one, female preachers,  is completely shocking.  We have to ask who they were and who really witnrssed their authorization them. We just might have tons of fun tracking down these female preachers in the sea of male domination.  Or is Psalm 68 a lot of hype about what the ideal might look like?  The thrill of such a world is to me most attractive because the religious world is still full self-loving males contrary to the sibling equality that defines all of God’s people.

It may be a pipe dream because no one can find the grounds for imagining that women will ever find themselves at the top of Judaism’s covenant services. Equally unpalatable is the notion that people calling themselves a kingdom can stand not having a king. We can see a wonder coming and few people seem to recognize its character or are willing to let a movement of women preachers proceed. That is no wonder.

Faking it

eejoseph

“Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him, And their time of punishment would be forever.

Psalms 81:15 (NASB)

Sometimes we add words to the primary report or saying hoping to bring out important aspects of meaning.  This verse illustrates the unnecessary addition of “obedience”.  Since God cannot be deceived  faking it with

God’s enemies are all over the world, including ancient Israel.  Ignorance about what Yahweh had done was not a Gentile thing.  Apparently,  noble people can snap in a trice, making up their own version of the facts.  Sarah, mother of the Hebrew people did it and some prophets were known  to manipulate the truth.

You did.  I did not.  Dos too.

Sarah denied it however, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

Genesis 18:15

Also it will come about in that day that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not put on a hairy robe in order to deceive;

Zechariah 13:4

I do not mind saying that the King James translation is off target.  It addresses neither the Hebrew kachash nor the Septuagint’s pseudomai.  Both mean to misrepresent.  Misrepresentation can be carefully crafted narratives or calculated to mislead.  There is the widespread fact that people in New Testament times were in the grip of stories that had circulated from antiquity.  See what Peter and Paul say about this.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

2 Peter 1:16


7. But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8. for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

1 Timothy 4:7-8

There is also faking it by planning the answer to an embarrassing question. When the people in charge of the temple in Jerusalem decided to challenge Yeshua’s authority he asked him about John the Baptist’s authority. They, realizing that he had them between a rock and a hard place, plotted what they we going to say.  See the “faking it” play out in Matthew 21:23ff

I lie contrary to one or several divine commands, but lying to God never gets off the ground.   Two weighty matters emerge from this saying in Psalm 81.  None of them appears to be lying, even though the people as a whole have falsified their experience with Yahweh.  They are slow to admit that they had consistently rejected what Yahweh had to say.  There was no truth between Yahweh and his people.  Eternal punishment is not for merely telling lies but for being duplicitous in attitude, word, and deed. Being a friend of God calls for brutal authenticity which has no faking in it.