Eyes Wide Open

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 eejosephProtest, respectLeave a comment

Dignity tossed
Freedom sold
Love denied
Selfish greed exalted
Lies concocted and believed

You cannot toss dignity, freedom and love and expect to keep yours.

Until the ignoble regimes are dismantled everyone unrest will persist.

Kingdom progress

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 eejosephchange, kingdom, Priesthood, progressLeave a comment

It is a popular option to have some things in the Bible designated as permanent, and the ancient traditions of Israel are usually treated as such. Secular governments like to think of their legislation as permanent and unchangeable too. We have to admit without hesitation that antiquity alone does not make anything commendable or permanent. “Old is right” is not tenable. With the arrival of John the Baptist people began to take note and even change their minds. It is at the intersection of kingdom and people where we see the complete unraveling of authority

Advancement often means change

A few important signs of progress will help us establish the pattern of progress and change.

Promises to Abraham
Covenant of circumcision
The Sinai covenant
The Palestinian covenants
Inheritance rights for women introduced (Numbers 27)
The general practice of sacrificial offerings
The Solomonic kingdom
The prophet (Deuteronomy 15) and the messenger of the covenant
Jerusalem and Gerizim
Types and shadows
Truth and sincerity
Discrimination and the Gentile world

A kingdom of priests is a recipe for corruption, inconclusive rounds, and offscript marketing

Not what it seems

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

You, your, employer, your church, your mosque, your synagogue, and your government have staked out one or two positions that is guarded like Rover’s latest and biggest bone. Ignoring all the ruins of powerbrokers from antiquity, you may think a free lunch is around the corner and keep inventing clever ways to explain the elephant in the room. More often than not the image of intelligence, squeaky clean progress, and favour with God is not what if seems.

So easy to say amen without thinking

At Golgotha

That man, supposed criminal, showing the signs of physically assault by the law, is not dying to save the Jewish nation from Roman justice. Things are not what they seem.

Returning from exile in Gentile lands

Those restored Judeans, returning from Persia, supposedly having learned to respect the Gentile world, are not showing the love of God to their neighbours. Things are not what they seem.

What happened to the forever residence?

A popular song in the Israelite songbook, #23, ends with an affirmation about dwelling in God’s house forever but the house has practically vanished. Yahweh himself promised to put his name in the house Solomon built forever.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalms 23:6

YAHWEH’S NAME FOREVER

Then he set the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.
2 Kings 21:7

Is God really a spirit who requires truth in the inward parts of humans? Is he a deity revelling in sacrifices, offerings and regulations of natural human processes? What are the operations of the levitical priesthood when there is no tabernacle or temple? There are very likely explanations of these situations that lean towards “not what it seems”.

On stone while the hearts were ineligible

The covenant was not in the hearts of the people. If it was its terms would have been met. David sang about hiding God’s word in his heart to prevent sin. People sinned whether they promised to be obedient or not. God wrote the covenant on stone not because the words are permanent – they give way to a New Covenant – but because there were no hearts to receive it and the covenant of Sinai was not and is not the means for making peace between God and humanity, for making humans God’s house.

NO HEART PRESENT

Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!
Deuteronomy 5:29

Zoom edits busier than a hive

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

The following is a link to the edits of Wikipedia’s page on Zoom, the meeting service provider. It is busy. Please, look at the back and forth. Is something urgent being debated?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Zoom_Video_Communications

Ear-tingling reality of faith and love

July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Here is Jesus in John 11:26 affirming – no, triple-locking – the way of life. Living believers do not need to hear from anyone what else they need to be assured of life, to have anxiety reduced or removed. If you have been paying attention to Christian movements and the distinctions of the various groups you will know that every sect invents something that it hope’s will confirm that group’s views. Every group makes that mistake of adding something to what Christ commands.

Two factors are in the mix.
[ ] People who are LIVING
[ ] People who are BELIEVING

One of the truly silly and useless ideas are that people need, in addition to being alive and believing, a growing list of things, including the following:

Abraham’s ruthless faith
Solomon’s wisdom
Moses’ law
Adam’s diet
Aaron’s DNA
David’s passion

There is nothing but a black hole if we can picture someone dying “for ever”. Even more difficult is to try to see what someone NOT dying forever looks like. The freedom from dying is FINAL not absolute. We all have an appointment with death whether or not we cross from (the sentence and) the penalty and the life of those dead in trespasses and sins.

What do I mean by triple-locking? First lock: Jesus’s statement of the fact is without controversy. The second lock is the use of the double negative (ou me, ου μη) with “shall die”. The third lock is the use of the phrase unto the age, forever. This phrase is like our term “period ” or “fullstop”. It cannot mean that there are people who die when the age (or eternity) arrives.

How do you love?

John 3:16 does not talk about how much God loved the world or the “whoever”. It tells us how God loves the world. All the evangelists who fail to tell us who are the people God loves more than others should apologize for following the trend that says God is partial and imperfect love. He loves those who keep his commandments but what he does for those who don’t is the scandal of the ages. Love in small scales down packages is devilish stuff.

Imagine God’s perfect love @ 50%

Counterfeit Church Culture

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

Numbers 15:15

As for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before the Lord.

After reading a proclamation like that one is likely to think that the community was interested in bridging the diversity gaps. Israel had 12 tribes and a host of foreigners. Diversity was not a hidden dimension. It was not under the rug. Israel made arrangements for the consumption of taboo food items all the while embracing compliance with the law. The laws of other nations were considered inferior but human dignity – even female dignity – remained outside the camp had it not been for courageous protest.

Point of Pride

DEFERRED DINNER

“You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is in your town, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
Deuteronomy 14:21

ONE LAW, ONE ORDINANCE

14) If an alien sojourns with you, or one who may be among you throughout your generations, and he wishes to make an offering by fire, as a soothing aroma to the Lord, just as you do so he shall do. 15) As for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before the Lord. 16) There is to be one law and one ordinance for you and for the alien who sojourns with you.’”
Numbers 15:14-16

Why does James have a Messianic leg to stand on when he (and his Pharisee allies) tried to bring the church under Mosaic bondage with circumcision, the (entire) law of Moses, and specifically the law of beasts strangled? Could a Pharisee not be aware that aliens were free from that observance?

James makes a weird and desperate ruling.
19) Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, 20) but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.
Acts 15:19-20

Things strangled were kept away from Jews, not Gentiles. Who are you following with the monetizing of health care? Who do you follow with their praise of the law?

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane. -Martin Luther

Attempts to erase health care for the masses during a pandemic tells the whole truth about justice in America.

Maybe this is a good time to review every word of God before proclaiming the triumph of a Judeo-Christian world. Is James more Mosaic than Moses? We can see the law set in stone and simultaneously perfectly inconsistent and adaptable.

Putrid and Putinist Patriotism

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

When the American president poses with a Bible in front of a church building and repeats the hollow sentiment that the United States has a Judeo-Christian root or shoot we know that there may be more American patriots outside of the US than those resident. That idolatrous claim is borne out by the stupid pairing of God with country. Two thousands years is a long time to establish a Christian state, more than enough time and enough time for the supervisor of the project to say “time is up”.

I suppose King James’ translators let him down. If their work was supposed to give the realm a cutting edge tool for bringing biblical the outcome is out in the open. They let me down even though I know that translations of the Bible from their original languages are not intended to bring the reader into a consistent face to face with the writers. The pulpit and the classroom are the best places for giving believers an inside view. Few pulpits and classrooms are engaged in this task.

Governments have no interest in making Scripture come alive for humanity and if they had an interest in adopting biblical codes for governance they surely look like they could not find them. Even the modern Jewish state is playing games with the Bible. Hundreds of years after David and Solomon the levitical kingdom came crashing down. What else could there be that anyone might want to prove?

The United States, as a righteous and godly entity, is manifestly a counterfeit. The Russians and the Chinese have America strung up by the ankles. The fundamental religionists are helping. If the United States is female, that makes a shameful display.

Eye for eye and the global mission

July 7, 2020 eejosephLeave a comment

An old saying slain

Some people want to pretend that revenge and fairness are the standard processes for global stability. Misery and loss are poor equalizers. No government can survive using legislation like this “eye for eye” legislation.

Addressing personal injury

23. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24. eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25. burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21:23-25

Cleaning up the kitchen

38. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
Matthew 5:38-41

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One grain of salt that refuses to be trampled.