What makes a good leader?
If I were in the current governing class in the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, the People’s Republic of China or Israel that would be my answer. But I am from a far away galaxy where leaders are compassionate servants of the people with a dependence on plows not weapons of mass destruction, and do not use walls to divide citizens and do not use the levers of power to enrich themselves and their friends.
Jewish Zionism is part of an ethnic low blow to God’s cosmopolitan vision
Overlooking the inadmissibility of certain types in the Bible happens far too often. We take the experiences of the patriarchs, of the people of God, the various administrations in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as always applicable to the church of the Lord Messiah Yeshua. Every utterance of Moses and the prophets is authoritative until Christ speaks. In fact the eclipsing of the prophets occurs with John the Baptist. Consider Zechariah’s Open Fountain prophecy as the landmark between prophets as authorities and predictors and the arrival of the desk where the buck stops.
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” (Zechariah 12:10, NASB)
It is a day of selfishness everybody is standing by himself; all entities turn inward. Count how many times “itself” or “themselves”appears in the following passage, showing how fragmented life in Israel became at the great turning point.
The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves. (Zechariah 12:12-14, NASB)
In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. (Zechariah 13:1, NASB)
“It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.” (Zechariah 13:2, NASB)
The prophet will deny he’s a prophet, saying, “I am Adam, I am Joseph”.
And if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of the Lord’; and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies. 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; but he will say, ‘I am not a prophet; I am a tiller of the ground, for a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’ (Zechariah 13:3-5, NASB)
If Peter was familiar with a particular saying from the prophet Amos he may have uttered something supremely profound when he wrote the following.
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
1 Peter 5:8, NASB
“Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey? Does a young lion growl from his den unless he has captured something?”
Amos 3:4, NASB
A roaring lion has prey and is therefore not hunting, so what is the significance of Peter’s roaring lion seeking prey? Two scenarios are likely. First, an insatiable appetite. Following the idea in Habakkuk 2:5, we see the lion with a large appetite or a large family to feed, “like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations and collects to himself all peoples”. The second is that the roar is anticipatory; the devil knows that prey is assured. Peter knows it too. He narrowly escaped the jaws of the hunter
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.
Luke 22:31-32, NASB
No panic is necessary, just keep your faith anchored in its Pioneer. People may say your faith is hindered by sin or your faith is small or weak. These people are being manipulated by evil desires. A little faith, microscopic faith, moves mountains. Your faith has overcome the world and brought you to eternal life and assurance of glory.
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
God once gave the Babylonian state the ability to emulate human attributes. The king and his advisors stumbled catastrophically. Since then practically every nation has made the same mistakes while claiming to be sources of goodness.
“‘Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity.’” (Daniel 4:27, NASB)
I am not one of these activists who respond to a flare up in the news. I was calling for the Palestinian Problem to be resolved by the Israeli government ending its occupation policy.
Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
My wife and I lost a son when I was at college. As the end of my baccalaureate years closed in I was losing my respect for the campus community and felt less in common with the religious community whose interests I was supposed to champion. I would have left college with an unmistakably great academic record, lots of professional promise, record-breaking achievements, but with an opinion of the campus community that it did not deserve.
The entire community came to mourn with us. They brought food, they brought money, and they brought themselves, most just to sit silently with us. The love we felt was undisguised, genuine and is unforgettable. Every aspect of the community’s support was perfectly loving.
Life is Fun, But Not a Joke 