Author: eejoseph

J A M with Doctor J 285

eejoseph

Friday 11 October 2024

But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; (Acts 7:55, NASB)

It is wonderfully mysterious that we are introduced to God’s glory in the gospel narratives with the shepherds in the fields at our Lord’s birth.   The shepherds were terrified. There is no question that this was reverent fear this was terror.  This was a manifestation of God’s majesty accompanying his messengers, but God has his own brightness, majesty and significance.  The Old Testament has fire, loud sounds, earth tremors, and God’s character as well to report divine glory.  See the Sinai revelation. In Exodus 19

The wonder that grips me is that Stephen, being on trial by the Jewish high court,  sees God’s glory, and the  Risen Lord at God’s right hand, just when he is about to be sentenced to death.   He was such a committed witness to the Spirit of God that he declared what he saw.

and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56, NASB)

Love casts out fear

As the angry and evil men in that court railed against him he was empowered to copy perfectly the example of his Lord, pleading for forgiveness for those getting ready to put him to death.  What a witness!  Just like Yeshua on the cross.

Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:60, NASB)

Grabbing headlines with crime and cruelty

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Do not believe for a second that the world will ever see a credible accounting of who was killed in its war to annihilate a terrorist organization.  War is one thing the United Nations defines with precision and crimes against humanity have gone unpunished since 1948.  Jebusites, marked for extermination in the campaign to take possession of Canaan, lived to see the beating heart of the immigrant community rise with their commercial and reverent contribution.

Marked for death and dispossession

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, (Deuteronomy 7:1, NASB)

Survivors of divine decrees

Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day. (Joshua 15:63, NASB)

Prophet and king who know the truth

So Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2 Samuel 24:18, NASB)

The truth ignored with a racist policy

Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. (Ezra 9:1, NASB)

Exemplary cities in the reliable accounts

Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. (1 Kings 7:13, NASB), then a wave of unprecedented immigration takes place.  (Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. (1 Kings 9:11, NASB)

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22. “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 11:21-22, NASB)

Contrasts in neighbourly affairs

Compare the policies in the drive International relationships today with those of 2,000 years ago, and see that decency and high marble standards are no longer the priority of the inhabitants of the land flowing with milk and honey.

17. Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18. who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. (Luke 6:17-19, NASB)

Bombs and air strikes may impress vengeful people but they solve no problem and undoubtedly corrupt good practice.  Violent crime  and mass murder self defence were never solutions to the human problem of greed, selfishness and idolatry.  So, what else is news?   Human propensity for violence has been growing steadily since the age of Abraham.  Divine judgment is not slack, neither is divine grace for those who respond to supreme generosity

Evidence of Israeli government inhumanity

eejoseph
Part of the UN evaluation of draft legislation in the Knesset

Israel wants to banish humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.

The body count of Hamas fighters and innocent Palestinian will come in a choking cloud of dust.  Did we not know that a war to  annihilate the enemy could only come from a fire-free smoke?

Did Premier Ford ever say “disgusting” about the plight of Canada’s first Nations?

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If he has, why do culture wars, all kinds of discrimination and murders still happen in Ontario?  I wonder why he is disgusted by the centuries old hostilities in the Levant and has nothing to say about Canada’s neighbour to the south dumping all over Canadian sovereignty.  It is no wonder that Ford has nothing to say about 75 years of oppression of the Palestinian people. 

Did Ford and any Conservative political activist ever say Canada’s entire history is disgusting?  Why do they hesitate to condemn revenge killing and do they have the courage to begin supporting people and not just the ones they feel obligated to?  Are Ford and Canadian sages committed to supporting apartheid Israel against the ruling of the International Criminal Court? I think they are.  Palestinians, Ford should know,  are Christian, Muslim and atheists just like Canadians.  What’s next?  Palestinians are terrorists?

Hundreds of soundbytes of meaningless slogans

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Call me skeptical but please remember to call a heap a heap.  It will surely elicit raised brows and kangaroo court shenanigans.  The only place that can be guaranteed to be safe from misinformation and indoctrination is the grade school classroom.  Once a week church school is a shallow pool where the millions drown and we act as if we do not notice.  The popular sages have a slogan for every thing, and whether the slogan is God and country or mein kampf or our country it is guaranteed to be something other than meaningful for everyone.

Religious people have a lot of empty slogans

Here are a few popular mantras.  They persist despite the complete uselessness of creation as an instigator of faith, despite the audacity of dividing the world into us and them, despite the unqualified goodness of God, and despite the unique identity and endowments of each individual.

  • Him who created. Before God was creator he was saviour. Moses interpreted the weekly sabbath as a memorial of release from bondage (Deu. 5:15)
  • Of all the earth. The only barrier that prevents God is the absence of faith.  God’s name is excellent in all the earth.
  • God is good ALL THE TIME. What else can he be? What does time have to do with God’s essential attributes
  • What he’s done for others he will do for you.  How dare any of us want to be treated like someone else? Is God not capable of having gifts tailored to our individual composition?

Reflections on creeds and manifestos

On sober reevaluation, not even the grade school classroom is safe.  The murder of children in their classrooms, the exclusion of girls from the grade school classroom, the segregation and the marginalization of girls in the classroom are grave threats to the effectiveness of the common maxims and a huge boost to the meaningless mantras of established and long-lived religions.   I think if Augustine could have see the age of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade he may well have scrapped his City of God.  The daring of 21st century believers and Muslims to try to sell religious government is twin up rank ignorance.  The noble record of the Torah and commentary on it have not even a hint that  any slogan has approximated a sustainable lifestyle, much less a legacy.

Two disappointing confessions

  • “I’m not perfect” denies the readily available status as mature and no longer juvenile, settling for the schizophrenic sinful/sinless seesaw s
  • “I can do all things” is as blasphemous as unproductive “Christians” can get.

One of the most extreme commands Yeshua uttered was “Y’all must be perfect , as the heavenly Father is”.  To a man, Christians explain away the call to maturity so they can soak in the puddles of their tradition.  If we checked that box alone we would find ourselves in the company of Christ, the only genuine representation of divinity.  Sadly, Christians are preparing to dump Yeshua so they can regress into Mosaic shadows and cyclical culture.

The capacity to do all things is exclusively a “God” thing.  What madness ensues when Christians allow themselves to follow a weak translation of Philippians 4:13.  “I am strong for all things” is not “I can do all things”.  πάντα ισχύω is a long way from δυναμαι ποιείν πάντα.

When did God ever ask a human being to do all things?  All the things we need are locked up in Yahweh’s vault and treasury. The day we are able to do all things is the day God throws in the towel. Slogans are sometimes innocent dreaming, but they can also be deadly landslides that block the way to humility, the kindness, and justice.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Mic 6:8