What law supercedes Christ?

eejoseph,

After coming to Christ for salvation and recognizing him additionally as Creator, and after making their hallelujah about the Holy Spirit as guardian and guide people are still talking about conforming to law as the final sentence in divine judgment.  It is madness that drives this kind of rebellion.  They are neither psychotic, intoxicated nor drugged, but something has got a hold of them. We know it as the spirit – not a demon – of unbelief and intransigence.  More recently we have seen the bondage manifested in primitive cultures getting recognition from the powers that squashed them.

(for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. (Hebrews 7:19, NASB)

Maturity does not distinguish legal arrangements

All the evidence one needs about the empires and their client states is in. Even those who like to tout national independence and millennia of family ties are naked and defenceless. The vast majority of humans seem to revel in their tribal footprint, and a few foolishly try to make their pedigree the global standard. History does not corroborate any island or continent as the epitome of integrity. Especially in the pristine and primitive communities we can find no concept of supremacy. It is high time we stop pretending that our ethics and our laws are the same thing. The planet cannot survive another debacle of the innocent suffering for the guilty, or men parading as masters of their people with the deliberate exclusion of women. We are doomed as long as money talks and the collective business of the masses remains outside the priority circle. Lipservice to the golden rule or any other social contract trails in the dust because the law – the standard – of Christ towers above them all.

Heritage shmearitage

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We have always suspected that the conservative government of Ontario was only interested in military privilege and money in the pockets of big corporations, so we never believed that the Ford government was ever interested in preserving Ontario’s Green Belt as a national Heritage. Now Ontario’s auditor general is revealing that the Ford government favoured developers in its plan to supposedly ease the housing crunch. Will any one be sanctioned for violating a sacred trust like the conservation of Ontario’s moraine? Toronto’s mayor may have seen this coming as he resigned earlier in 2023. Ford will smear the campaign to preserve green space, but his sneering at Ontarians for not buying his housing “plan at any cost” will soon end. Conservatives care about the bottom line at the bank and in the market. Their attitude borders on institutional corruption. The sacred land is a mere commodity. We do not expect Ford to even acknowledge what the auditor says. When there is no more green space he will not be around and the wealth conservatives are trying to build will be useless bits of paper or data. The greenbelt is real heritage deserving protection from the Tory bulldozers.

No cogent defence

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Prison-bound golden boy

Practically everyone except the hardcore pipe dreamer knows that criminality defines nearly every Republican, evangelical, and conservative venture.  Neither surprise,  perplexity, nor puzzle results from reading the evidence amassing from investigations of the perfect political right. Flirting with racism, redrawing political boundaries to strip voting rights from Black voters, and claiming that the Republican or any party does not lose elections, have no defence in a court of law, unless it is a court in the wild west, Russia, China, or the Jim Crow south.

Jouvert Antigua

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August 7 marks the jubilation of freed people.  The story says that the original Freedom Day 1, August 01, 1834, found the freed population in church.   People have carved out a few hours around the dawn of the first Monday in August as a time of mas in the streets (perhaps to be another sacred mass) with the people completely free to express themselves. It is a dawn festival, marking the opening of the day, the age of freedom from colonial bondage. 

Joo-vay (jour ouvert) puts on display mobile musicians, dancing, colourful costumes and songs giving life to the cultures the slaves had been denied for centuries, and a lot of skimpily dressed men and women. If there is one festival that dispersed Africans should not give up it is Jouvert.

Opening act: the tree planted

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The song that hits our ears when we open the Hebrew songbook is not a childish pipedream. It has become so for the stuck-in-kindergarten class.  Like when Yeshua begins to talk about his death – serpent lifted up in the desert – the crowd thins out, so the opening song, Psalm 1, strikes at the pride of the simple and the rebellious; the spiritually juvenile. The description of the happy man’s delight vs the result of ungodly counsel does not seem to be as interesting as the tree planted.  If I knew how a tree planted in the perfect place could not be fruitful and under what circumstances its leaves can wither I would tell. 

Tree, vineyard, garden 🏡

If God so arranged the ancient peoples’ many latent problems so as not to impede the fulfillment of his promises to Abraham,  I cannot think of a path for the maxing out of promises for all humanity that does not end in success.  God finishes what he starts, and because some people did not reach the promised land, there is no reason to believe that God is any less in control of the agenda.  Can the happy man be like a tree planted by the roadside, on a stony ground, or among the thorns?

Aborted Gardening

When the seed connects you are set

Every believer or concert knows beyond a shadow of a doubt when regeneration has happened. It is never “Oh, now I understand”. It is obvious that all the doctrines we pump into people do not constitute the life-giving turning point over which God is sovereign. The church has always had God’s authoritative Spirit to certify the message of salvation. There is not another Spirit for teaching the converts. There are battalions of believers who are doubting God’s planting.

Take that, Huck!

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders gets slapped on the blinking eye by the federal court. Book burning is uncivilized, and the governor of Arkansas does not know it. She is trying so hard to be a fundamental, deranged evangelical, she forgot that laws exist to enable learning and experience, not the pogroms of the Republican party. Banning books is a very desperate attempt to create the kind of moral society everyone has failed to achieve, including ancient Israel and all those Islamic republics. God showed us who Huckabee is when he caused her eye to blink when she lied daily as 45:’s press secretary.

A power clause opens this song

eejoseph

“My soul waits in silence for God only;” (Psalms 62:1a, NASB)

Here is an example of how the order of words can be misleading.  In Hebrew, this clause reads: ak el-elohim dumiyyah naphshi.

Only towards God the silence of my soul

The New American Standard Bible reads: My soul waits in silence for God only; (Psalms 62:1a, NASB) The writer’s interests are in order. This exclusivity is diagnostic, because it identifies the songwriter as reserving dumiyyah for Elohim. Only towards God [is] my soul’s silence  My silence is reserved for GOD! Only God silences me! This is not waiting, because waiting can be accompanied by various activities, some of which conflict with divine presence and the vision of divine majesty.

This ain’t waiting, this is the way things are

David also tells himself, “You ARE in silence for God only”. My soul’s silence is reserved for God and this is a silence unlike all others. There is no “waiting” verb in the sentences, verses 1 and 5. The message is focused on a kind of one-eyed attention without anxiety and expectations.

“My soul, you are in silence for God only…” (Psalms 62:5a, my translation)