EIGHT WOES ON THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES – jingle all the way

I may seem stuck on jackals but not.  Jackals are in the news big time.  So allow me, please, one more peek at today’s jackal prophets, who we see doing anything to cling to the illusion that a palace makes a pig a prince.  It is a phenomenon that we observe in the religious world in the political world and in the financial world.  The popular operations for informing people of critical issues include saying what people want to hear,  pretendingthat things are so because we said so, and preparing a host of talking points to push back against the scrutiny.   Their operations revolve around majoring in minors, taking ownership of what they can and relabelling even the most despicable attitudes as honourable.  Like the people who today believe that walls and tall tales are the mice that enhance the American lion’s posse.  It is one part of the horrible jingles that have pimped up the darkest places of human aspirations.  We are just waking up to the fact that Pharisee love of money, and clamour for the Law of Moses are with us today and it is jingle all the way.

Hollywood Helfire

Like the dead from the wilderness journeys of their ancestors the Scribes and Pharisees of New Testament times were ornate walking tombs.   Their cowardice, malicec and greed are legendary.  Their likeness to the modern pundit and experts on social, political, and spiritual matters is also striking.  Once the administrators of Jewish religion and their academic allies saw Messiah coming they began their questions and and plots to silence the vew voice.   Let us not think that Yeshua did not like these people or had any pwersonal animosity against the Jewish leadership, against the king, the Roman Emperor, or against the local ringleaders.  They fanned the flame of resstance to God and faced the music when Rome destroyed the temple.  It seems that they still thought that the temple was a shield against divine judgment.   They belonged to hellfire, for their legendary unbelief, and even the temple was an empty shell despite all the activity in both rituals and religious invesitgation.  They were in the business of making disciples destined for hell; disciples who were twice as distant from God’s way as they were.

They were not obedient.  They were not into executing justice and we are woefully slow to acknowledge that the kingdom life, for which we pray every day, is what matters.   It is God’s promise fulfilled that energizes us when we join Christ.  We are not merely eligible for kingdom participation: we are in.  On the other hand all the jackal behaviour of New Testament times are in our news today.   The claims made in most jingles are a lot of hot air.

It is not hyperbole when the Rabbi from Nazareth denounces with graphic relish the elite of his society. Scribes and Pharisees are the players to watch. One cannot miss them. His elevation of these groups is to warn against their attitudes and lifestyles. Beware! In effect he says, “Say goodbye to your megaspirations”. All greatness belongs to Christ our Saviour. Every tempest of our 21st century contentions is tainted with Pharisaism and it is time we say aloha to it. We have been hearing and seeing it in alliance with the crudest political platforms. Contending for the faith as our defence of the Gospel cannot be a defence of jingoism. A lot of hot air is out there. Christian faith is not jingoism, even as it has become a front seat ally to political sentiments that reek of greed, impurity, and oppression. The goal of Christ’s call is precise. One does not need 3 to 7 opinions to see what is in it for everyone.

Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: 1Tim 1:5  (unfeigned = without pretense)

Jingoism; the favourite strategy of the day.  A hit slogan of the purists is the Ten Commandment jingle. Practically everyone is certain that law will fix our problems. It never did and never will. We know that.  It is beyond debate.  People surely could not claim to be under it and not under it.  That does not work.  When they came to the commandment that invites love from a pure heart they swerved to avoid it and slammed into faking it. Was it that they did not accept either salvation from sin or productivity in the world?

From which, some having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling; 1Tim 1:6 understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. 1Tim 1:7 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; 1Tim 1:8

Now one has to see that the law is the source of the content for the jingles. Paul’s contemporaries affirmed something about love, pure hearts, good consciences, and pretense-free trust in God. But they did so using the law unlawfully. Their arguments were all red herrings. One cannot use the law to establish the Law. The law testifies to happiness from forgiveness, happiness for grace and pardon, and freedom from condemnation, not credit for having paid our debt and not assurance by reliance on our works.

Resistance to decency is an old and persistent threat, reported with clarity in the 6^th century BC. This is God giving the southern Kingdom of Judah one last chance to treat people with dignity and respect. These are not religious standards.

If you stop oppressing the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and stop killing innocent citizens, and deify dead things… Jer 7:6

A spell must certainly be deduced from the behaviour of Christians, Muslims, and Jews who like to self-evaluate as substantial agents for the heavenly kingdom. A demon must be deduced from the large number of our contemporaries who are mouthing ancient sayings as if they were present truth.

Desiring to be teachers of the law is still a popular ambition. The people who are followers of Messiah are not born into access, did not ask to be selected for glory, and have nothing to prove to an unbelieving world.

The Pharisees learned their slogans from the Scribes and together they sought to make Yeshua and John the Baptist (and one supposes all the prophets) nice boys in pretty palace clothes just blowing in the wind.

Matthew 11:7-13

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,

Yeshua saw through the illusions and pronounced woes: misery to them.

1. Woe 1. Locking the kingdom against others entering Matt 23:13
2. Woe 2. Theft of property of widows- a religious ponzi scheme complex and making long public prayers to cover their corruption Matt 23:14
3. Woe 3. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Matt 23:15
4. Woe 4. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! Matt 23:16
5. Woe 5. passing up on justice, mercy and faith(fulness). Matt 23:23
6. Woe 6. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Matt 23:25
7. Woe 7. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. Matt 23:27
8. Woe 8. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, Matt 23:29 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Matt 23:30 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Matt 23:31

There are 8 simple doctrines here. Yes. Doctrines. If there is not a simple doctrine in this package it should be labelled aloha (a lot of hot air).

1. Access is for everyone. I do not want to be a road block to anyone.
2. Robbing the poor is abominable. The vulnerable need our protection.
3. We bring people to Christ, not ourselves.
4. speak precisely of the majors; the saviour is more valuable than the saved
5. some things carry more weight than others
6. majors exist inside us
7. pretense does not persist
8. people do what their ancestors have done

The most obvious items for the modern jingle choir are repetitive prayers (and songs) and the “I got it” mentality, even when the it is an irrelevant adjunct to quasi-spiritual life. Food and drink are not functional for spiritual life. No one can stretch the meaning of the gospel to include the notion that food and drink commend anyone to God. The gospel is not anything that we can relate to in our times. The gospel is the eternal truth about God entering human existence so he can redeem us. No food or drink can make the knowledge or the experience happen.

Bread is for one kind of life and the gospel is for another. The law is not of faith, grace or life. Christ is the only one who can change a leopard’s spots and make everyone zip their lips in amazement. The wonder of the leopard’s change includes explaining what just happened, including the leopard’s silence. The wonder of salvation is not our answer, but the unutterable joy at a generosity that seems infinite when compared to the terror of law and any covenant that depends on our performance.

Jingles are entirely dangerous, because they are supposed to be substantial reminders of what is important, but there isn’t a jingle that is not responsible for the emptiness of tribal religion and for a wide range of the character of today’s wickedness. If the jingle is worth anything it touches mysteries, not possibilities and unrecognizable identities. Jingles can trip a person up rather badly. Now let’s start aloha-ing with vigour, to all those empty repetitions, comfort zone mantras, and interminable cover-up prayers. To the success of everyone determined not be a victim of the daily approved load of hot air, “Aloha!”

God is perfectly patient and longsuffering despite the severity and impatience we observe in the vast majority of people who say they know God. A childish game of merry go round is not worth our time. We have known all along that everything that preceded Christ was at best playschool. That is, all the narratives and wise sayings combine to form a school where one plays with salvation’s pictures and toys. The real learning is for the people who live at the end of the age. Nothing that came before Christ appeared belongs to spiritual maturity, fruitful vineyard, or adopted child. We are using a stupid and bewitching hotspot of lies to cling to the claim of knowing the Lord, because once we say we know Him there is that possibility that one comes to realize that knowledge can be utter nonsense. We Christians believe, we do not merely sing it, that we were blind. The spiritual reality behind the famous saying is that we were dead and that now in Christ we are alive. That’s where we stand. So we cannot allow someone to shove us off our rock.   Ee are certain of what has happened to us even if we cannot explain it.  That is the essence of spiritual life. We cannot afford to have anyone shove us off our Rock of certainty about what has happened to us, even though. We are not able to explain it from a to z.  We are like the wind.

We all know people who are pulling out all the stops

1. to be Jewish
2. to be a nation like Israel
3. to be a kingdom like Israel
4. to be a king like Solomon.
5. to be a priest like Caiaphas.

More and more it is becoming painful to explain away the facts.  How many people do you know who are successful at being all God wants them to be?  We seem unable to say that we fall short, as if God does not see the whole deal.  All the heroes of Jewish and Christian faith were members of the human family who did not possess the attributes of God that some people are claiming to have acquired (and some even dare to say they had them all the time).

The obvious dilemma is that there is a lot of wheel to spin after one becomes a Jew (perhaps more popular and frequent than we think) or Christian.   Both seem to relish a list of things they don’t do.  There seems to be nothing to aspire to after one becomes a son of the Commandment in the Jewish religion. There is simarly nothing apparent to reach for in the Christian faith if one enters by means of pledges to comply with standards.  One can only become twice as bad as the person who brings one in to (presumably) meet Christ.

We are pretty sure that individuals are not spending their lives getting saved, nor are repeatedly coming to the knowledge of the truth.   Our relationship with all people is not merely thoughts and prayers.  They are supposed to be a prominent part of our thinking.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 1Tim 2:1  for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 1Tim 2:2   This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 1Tim 2:3   who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Tim 2:4

The maturity measure often is unrelated to Christ.  We know that his maturity was not a question of sinning less.  Why is that an issue for disciples when we are powerless to deal with missing Holy Spirit’s guidance?  We are still stuck on the idea that gifts come with strings.  The one safe place for the disciple is first of all trust – that is God at work in us.  However, we also recognize that our witness to great salvation (not creation) has little teeth when we are not positioned in the world as the Saviour was.  A certain flavouring contact is inevitable: a city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Christ was lifted up, for all to see, as the example of life, not exalted in the heavenlies, but in his passion.  This was his obedience to mission: suffer for the world’s sin.  His examplary behaviour to which we can relate is his service in the face of massive contradiction and conflict.  One has to be in touch with one’s identity in such a way that nothing happens that shakes our attention from being God’s children.  The pain and elation of life are ways of life that are ours to pay attention to, ours to obey.

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; Heb 5:8,

A more vacuous commander cannot be found than Mike Pence. If he was the poster boy for followers of the Saviour of the world most people would turn away in disgust. Who has not noted Pence’s fawning praise of the gloating bigot in the White House with incredulity? He must be likened to the small and opportunistic predator-scavenger. Thankfully the ancient scriptures contain a precise expression that applies to a group. Pence and the GOP are infamously scavenging cowards, whose fall is as certain as the riding of a wall of ignorance and bigotry.

Ezekiel (13:4) said of Israel

Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel.

He also explains this jackal phenomenon with uncanny parallels to the situation in the 21st century.

Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, Peace, when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall! There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out. And when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, Where is the coating with which you smeared it? Ezekiel 13:10-12

The connection to violence and bribes is made in Ezekiel 13:19

You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, putting to death souls who should not die and keeping alive souls who should not live, by your lying to my people, who listen to lies.

People have no personal claim on righteousness. Not the saved, not the unsaved. Nobody. Righteousness is a God-thing.
The Jewish tales of covenant-keeping (even as a possibility) are proven to be unreliable and unfounded. The facts about how humans approach God are inescapable: blood and grace.

I have no idea why righteousness is not acknowledged as the thing that’s done to procure us a righteous standing.
Righteousness, signed, sealed, and delivered is surprising but on fact-check we discover we could have known that God was not expecting humans to fix their sin problem.

If there really was any possibility of any human rising to a flawless performance God would not have prepared the Lamb before the creation of the world.

Acting out our identity

A righteous action delivers a righteous state. Christ died for the ungodly.

How more ugly can we get trying to remake ourselves with obedience and chosen status!

Nothing else delivers what we need. Our attempts are rubbish. Doing nice things does not save people, and the persistent performance of duty does not corroborate salvation. Bad people do good things!

Grace is not a race

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Romans 5:18

One misstep led to condemnation. Death. It was not a multitude of sins that condemned Adam. It took only one.

One paraptoma led to katakrima

There is one right act that led to life. It was not compliance with the law.

One dikaioma led to dikaiosis (justice of life)

What does that fairy tale say again? Sin less but not sinless?
We are foolish to copy a tradition – keep a covenant that failed – that did no good for all of human history.

You do not want the law as your new husband. Its ex-status needs to be recognized. One would have to relinquish common decency and compassion to keep insisting that the law meets human need.

Case in point

Why would a conscientious neighbourhood committee eager to do justice not be fully aware that adultery is a two-person violation.
The villagers brought a woman they claimed was caught in the act of adultery. “in the act” means that there was no reason to drag one person into the village square or gate.
Let’s be sure that if the Lord Jesus was not present that woman would have died.
So let the Moses-head Christians throw their stones: they are happiest jumping on and off off death row.
Righteousness is not compliance with the law because there is no grace in the purposes of the law. We have seen that something in plain sight – and within easy reach- can become the subject of long journeys, distorted explanations and damnable lies.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— Romans 3:21

Reuben and Gad want to stay out of Canaan

Numbers 32

The twin golden pots of Yazer and Gilead on the east side of the River Jordan were prime cattle land (place for livestock, maqom miqneh). Perhaps ranchland is a good interpretation for the modern reader. These two territories could not have been any more appropriate than what Canaan itself had to offer. After all, Canaan was the land of promise and Transjordan was not. The episode shows how human interests can seem attractive and beneficial but be the opposite. In a rebuke to insularity and I-got-it-now-ism God establishes that he does not have or accept premature slots of progress for selected individuals, tribes, people, or nations.

Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle; Num 32:1

They leaped at the opportunity.

Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan. Num 32:5

Moses had a different view of the situation.

And Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here? Num 32:6

Taking advantage of excellent lands for livestock seemed reasonable, but shortsighted and self-centred.  Moses received the proposal as “we want to stay out of the fight”. Num 32:6

Not a great idea

Leaving the two tribes on the east side of Canaan would have diminished the vision of a family inheriting together. Not only would they be separated from their cousins they would not be in the land God promised. The tribes inheriting together is a big deal for God and this particular configuration of his purposes in not restricted to ancient times. It also shapes the inheritance of all believers Heb 11:39-40.

I see now too how the fundamentals of modern interpretation have spilled a great deal of in in appreciating the gold off this particular transistional crisis. The parallels between the Ranchland Proposal and a couple of moderns views give us certainty about the error of premature progress.
Sometimes, dying and going to heaven immediately seems like a “why not?” Hebrews 11:39-40 and the whole chapter tells of faith heroes who are waiting dead. Sometimes, sin and grace seem like enemies when in fact there is no other remedy.

The die and go to heaven or hell slogan has not been revised since Jonathan Edwards raised the flag of impatience in his work Absent from the Body.  Instant personal gratification is obviously a faculty we inherit from the Creator, but finding a place for it in the common progress and inheritance of the saints plan is next to impossible.

The saints do go marching in at the same time, after the return of Yeshua, and no-one gets in without instantaneous change (1Th 4:16-17, 1 Co. 15:50-54 ), and all come from the grave or among the living. It is not progress that someone is claiming that his dead mother is alive in heaven or that the lost are burning in hell now and will be resurrecetd to be thrown into the Fiery Lake. This Inuit is not buying ice.

 

To be in something and not be of it is a puzzle we think we have solved. The idea is far out! This kind of construction can be said to be far out on a limb and way out of line or reach. Dread[ful-] may be a more suitable expression because the expression elicits thinking. The puzzle of citizenship is one of those phenomena that has interpersonal parallels. That is puzzling because lordship includes a set channel of humility and contradiction.

Puzzle Posed

How a person can be in the world but not of the world going to be in something and not of it is easy to explain in the physical sense. A boat can be in the water but doesn’t belong to the water. It belongs to the land and to the people who took wood and crafted it for venturing into the water. Its risk in the water is clearly demonstrated when the boat, contrary to its floating purpose, sinks.

Things can be good but cool is better. Christ could easily have sailed through the 40 days in the desert, but he hungered. Christ could have died peacefully with friends hanging around and the family holding his hand, but he died as a convicted criminal, innocent of any charge whatever.

Lordship in check

Christ is lord but not ruling everything. As strange as that may sound it is the same as saying that we are sons of God but acknowledging that it does not yet appear what we are going to be. Our sonship is real but there is a coming of age.

1 Corinthians 15:25-27

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him.

The places where the lordship of Christ gets to dominance had better not be secular constitutions not pretence that the Bible is the de facto foundation of civic life.

Really great persons with whom you really do not want to hang out include: lawyers, politicians, physicians, psychologists, pastors/priests, police officer, and a host of authorities behind the scenes.

They claim a higher standard of accountability. They are critical players in our lives and we will evaluate them at some point as hostile to Christ. Let us remember that it was not a whole lot of demons who sought for witnesses to condemn Christ.

If you have a friend who is one of these really great persons they ought to be fired because they are in a relationship (with you) that is eventually conflicted.

Friends will admit and even confirm things, but not condemn. Now that is hard. To condemn is a contra-Christian activity. This puts the majority of believers in a very different light when there is only one standard for bridging the gap between the world and the kingdom of God.

If you have not seen the new Timothy McVeigh in the virulent fundamentalist support for a Republican Party platform please look again. The pro-life activists are resolved to use every means – including personal violence – to prevent abortion, but they find themselves handcuffed and blind to protect children at school from murderous gunmen. A nation of laws ought to have some confidence in the agents of those laws. When both the chief executive and the legislative bodies are incapable of discerning right and wrong we have certainly reached the place where the difference between the kingdoms is in doubt.

Christians really have no bottom line on who gets elected. We cast our vote but the outcome is dependent on the sum of all votes cast. God’s plan does not get derailed when government officials change and the moment they tell us God’s plan and the state of union (throne speeches in Canada) are hand in hand is the moment to be very afraid of the beastly power that resides in Canada, in the United States, in Australia in the Arab Arab Emirates, in Israel, in Russia, and in Turkey.

If the Jewish people inherited the following, what chances are there for any modern state?

Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Luke 13:35

A lot of people are waiting for that viral video. Others are hoping that they can enlist you to become a part of the next viral expression. Sheesh. Here’s viral.

1. We wear clothes.
2. Rainbows are happening all the time One woman anointed a body for burial before his death occurred.
3. Christ died on a full moon in the 1st month.
4. Two women told us his tomb was empty
5. The men who had inside info about the resurrection of Christ figured it was an idle take when it happened.

They that trust in Yahweh shall be as Mount Zion, not its people and not its installations and monuments.

And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Mark 14:9 (Read the full story )

The White House is occupied by the McConscience clan; mere grasshoppers to John McCain, a genuine human warrior and servant.

Small and Stupid