Author: eejoseph

The helping God and one common memorial

eejoseph, ,

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.

יִּשְׁמְעוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיִּֽרְא֖וּ מִפְּנֵ֥י פְלִשְׁתִּֽים׃

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.

What lamp, what feet, what path, what light?

eejoseph,

Psalm 119 is a poster for throwing things against the wall knowing most will stick.  I, for one sure that this is not David who is doing the throwing. Check the last words of David and you will see that not even a word hints at the Sinai covenant (2 Samuel 23).

The lamp that might have occupied the first place in Israelite thought was David’s descendant.  This is due to the promise of perpetual succession.

‘But to his son I will give one tribe, that My servant David may have a lamp always before Me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen for Myself to put My name. (1 Kings 11:36, NASB)

If you think you are alive or have been successful because you took every precaution and checked every box, you are welcome to that world.


So many in the Christian faith are hanging their hats on perfect performances, as if the leaders in right thinking have said that heading down that road is a waste of time. Making sure we check the boxes for commands, statutes, and judgments, will settle into a space where love is forgotten or deliberately set aside.

Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. (Psalms 119:105, NASB)

Lit ways that fail

There was never a law, or combination of law that made a person or nation righteous.  Ask yourself what righteousness exalted ancient Israel and what body of law or wisdom will result in the exaltation of modern states.

What can we label as light from the Bible that has set captives free or loosed the fetters of oppression. 

Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. (Galatians 3:21, NASB)

The failure of law is especially evident when the terms of ancient Israel’s civics have no place in enlightened or even mature communities.  Does Jerusalem have peace?  We can assume that people are not going to church and mosque to learn how to derive the full benefits of light.  So ask; keep asking.  What lamp, what feet, what path what light?  Yeah.  What word?

Carnality, Appetite, Sex, and Attitude

eejoseph, , ,


Here’s an attempt to look into the links between salvation or wholeness and the brokenness of humanity especially as it is perceived in general media and specifically in religious environments.  It is a good idea to  define some of the terms before we dive into the connections that exist.  The New Testament uses carnality (the carnal person’s attributes) to define man’s wayward and unenlightened attitudes and behaviors, but it is popularly used to define behaviors confined to the body.  Now that analysis is surely inadequate, because the body’s functions are either out of or under control, so an attitude of anguish or despair will appropriately come from our own efforts.

Carnality and immorality are more than sexual misdeeds

Carnality comes from Latin, carnis, FLESH or MEAT.  Gee, perhaps one day someone will tell us that human beings are not flesh and bones, but something else.  How can people cling to saying we were all threatened by being flesh and are stuck with carnality, but we might be inspired by the caterpillar who goes from having many legs to having two wings in a most dramatic fashion.  I suggest we humans have an equally dramatic transformation, with receipts.  A couple of men have disappeared from the planet and the speculation has run all the way from (a) they are on some other world that has not been subjected to the judgments and fleeting fortunes of planet earth, to (b) these guys are basically with God.  “With God” is already a fantastic fact made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Fellowship or intimacy with God is already at maximum for any flesh, and there is an intimacy that awaits when flesh gets transformed.

The pervasive appetite denial

You may have noticed that some foods have the characteristics of the forbidden tree.  A food item is to be expected to be eaten freely .  See the “eat eat” of Genesis 2:16.  When an  item looks good, and has added benefits beyond assuaging hunger a pleasure is clearly in view.  People who spend most days fasting have little appreciation for the gift of appetite.

APPETITE is closely related to and expressed by the terms that define a person’s life (chayyah), being (nephesh), and belly (koilia).  Good luck on having any kind of personhood without a functioning stomach, soul (conscious being) and life force.

When the woman saw that the tree was GOOD FOR FOOD, and that it was a DELIGHT TO THE EYES, and that the tree was DESIRABLE TO MAKE ONE WISE, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)

Mixing justice and harems

In the wider sense we find carnality attached to drunkenness, drug abuse, and sexual acts outside of marriage, and gluttony.  In this regard we should note that having an “appetite” does not mean engaging destructive desires.  To claim that we have no appetite means we are trying to be God.  There is, for example, latent mutual desire for cohabitation between males and females, and yet in some circles a woman is expected to be the target of desire.

Sexual wellness and ignorance

A lot of religious rhetoric and propaganda comes out of sexual imaging, and it is not as if the rhetoric and propaganda acknowledge that sexual desire and experiences (good and bad) and part of the fabric of the human race.  Did anyone ever think that without sexual desires fulfilled there’d be no future?  Without sexuality we would all disappear, presumably leaving the planet in the hands of robots and droids.

All up inside your religiosity

Misogyny is probably one of the more irrational attitudes that has been around for so long as to make it seem normal.

Attitudes are the seedbed of behaviours.  So let’s realize that the proliferation of criminal acts all over the globe tells us that people are not guarding their attitudes.  A good attitude takes the time to notice the world around us, takes the time to intervene appropriately, in short, cares about more than me, myself, and us.

It is said that appetite triggered the perennial human crisis

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)

The narrative does not talk about appetite as hunger and thirst.  The couple in Eden could not be hungry.  The forbidden tree had unusual fruit.  Curiosity seems to have gotten the best of Adam and Eve.

  • the woman saw that the tree was good for food
  • it was a delight to the eyes,
  • and that the tree was desirable to make one wise (Genesis 3:6a, NASB)

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6, NASB)


I would hate giving us another list, so let’s just try to have an attitude that we can be proud of and I am sure we will find ourselves at home.  The title spells out casa, Spanish for home🏠 .  No matter how hard we try, by rant or rave, all the puritanical resolutions – from Muslims, Christians or Jewish believers – we are going to learn to adopt a healthy respect for the squeaky wheels.  These are the carnal, greedy, sex-starved and sex-bound and low esteem persons for whom no boundaries exist in God’s agenda for humans to be at home with him.

Frog! You’re cooked.

eejoseph, ,

The tax cuts Felonius I so eagerly pursues for the richest people in Turtle Island will never burn a hole in the pocket of a MAGA devotee.  A massive raid on the treasury is under way on the continent while the islands swelter under the blaze of a Chinese and non-indigenous economic rape.  By the time the bewitched hear the warning their goose will be cooked.  The last message the White supremacists  and the guardians of the neo colonials will hear is “Frog! You’re cooked”.

Taxploitation and little emancipation

How can it be that Caribbean leaders are only now trying to appear to end the systems that have exploited Africans from the moment they left the plantations?

Triumphalism and the abuse of faith

eejoseph, ,

Putting the endless cycle of human life alongside faith and the invitation to ask God what(ever) we wish can lead to some debilitating outcomes.  It can  be demonstrated that God’s will includes human health and improvements to living standards but how does anyone explain the ravages of sickness and moral decay and the illusion of building victorious lives in temporal matters

Linking the certification of salvation with the certainty of rescue and relief is unproductive

  • Why is any Christian sick?  They’re human.  People are not sick because they’ve sinned.
  • How many sins constitute moral decay.  It seems that only some believers can keep sinning all their lives because “no one is perfect”.
  • Since it only takes the prayer of one righteous person to drastically change life conditions it would seem that God is not listening to the millions.

Certain abolition of the sacred

Light was not abolished when the sun set last evening.  Wickedness is not bliss because so many public figures embrace few virtues. Love was not extinguished when Christ’s beloved people crucified him.  The law was terminated when its mediator destroyed the sacred tablets and had to make the replacements.  Faith in God means saying “Amen” to what is on our plate until fear and dissatisfaction rises in our hearts.  If you have thought that getting answers to prayers that ask God to change our situation in life then perhaps eternal life is not dominant.  Perhaps there is no joy in the morning after.

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. (Romans 8:37, NASB)

We are conquerors⁷ or “conquerors to the nth degree” is not the same as “we conquer”.  You can be a writer but you are not always writing.  You can be a teacher who sometimes learns.  You can be a conqueror who does many other things.

The sentence in Greek is not a copula (an expression linked by the verbs BE or BECOME) as Psalm 82:6 is in Hebrew, where the people are God’s.  People=gods.  The next verse (7) tells us what they do.  There is actually no verb TO BE in the verse.  The Hebrew text simply puts GODS and YOU side by side; “gods you”, elohim attem.


6) I said, “You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High. 7) “Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like….

It is quite certain that we do not know the difference between a thing and an activity, the difference between being a conqueror and conquering.  But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. (Romans 8:37, NASB).  What if our true victory in everything happening to us? It is obvious that fear, not love and faith motivates people who are eager to wear the badge of triumph over life’s essentials.

Y’all said nutn

eejoseph

When the orange threat rolled down the escalator with a racist and ignorant rant in tow the media and the elected representatives of the American people said nothing that was even disguised as a rebuke.  The phenomenon is widespread.  Religious people, entrepreneurs, experts in all fields are willing to look the other way while unmistakably atrocious behaviours become normalized.  God’s response when the floodgates open and scare us to death will be “Y’all said nothing”.

He who is a partner with a thief hates his own life; He hears the oath but tells nothing. (Proverbs 29:24, NASB)

It is quite certain that few would have thought that

  • Americans had genuinely repented of the rape of West Africa and the assassination of African leadsrs
  • Russians were philanthropists
  • Arab states might actually turn out to be champions of hospitality to strangers
  • The state of Israel and its military be credibly accessed of racism, genocide and running an apartheid state
  • Merchants could be effective managers of a house of prayer and places of worship

How long can it take to get the orange threat to tell one of his verifiable lies to the FBI? REALLY!

“When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, And you associate with adulterers. (Psalms 50:18, NASB)

I suppose there really are just a few individuals who might have predicted or expected elected officials to have neither spine nor skeleton. The persistent greed and grift in government will never face the music. It is a bit much to expect public and religious officers to do anything to erase poverty, disease and ignorance when they are firmly committed to saying nothing.

Patriots have a bad name

eejoseph

I am the kind of patriot who has several families and several parent relationships.  I am the patriot who will stand for my fellow citizens without regard to language, age, gender or ethnicity.   I covet the joy of people who have no country but can see one coming.  The modern patriot, like me, will renounce egotistical security, hostile nationalism, emotionally hollow flag waving and state worship.

Patriotism that patronizes the best human values

  • Philanthropic Patriot
  • Welcoming Immigrants and Newcomers
  • Denounce Civil War

Yup.  I am the patriot who recognizes the difference between myself and the community.  Patriotism based on personal affront and grievance is a catastrophic illusion.