death

You have a set of terminal whatabouts

eejoseph, , , , ,

When asked to verify the accuracy of their soundbytes some people see an opportunity to sling accusations at the questioner and/or compare traitors and heroes, felons and innocents, and even Moses to Yeshua. If you compared my sins and crimes to yours  if I confronted you, it would prove you have more than one terminal disease. If you think that there are no incurable diseases you are incontrovertibly in the school and care of an illiterate scholar and a medical quack, certain to wail when the whirlwind of ineffective remedies, bottomless research and development funding, and empty promises of healing stops spinning fatality.

Well, what about dining with strangers and aliens?  No, we dare not.  Well, what about criminal tyrants at the helm of nations and mega corporations? There is nothing to see here. Well, what about God and country as equals?  We swear that there is no power to control our lust for power and curb the exercise of our military. Well, what about the idols we create, and revere daily, weekly, monthly and annually? They might swear that they are idolatry-proof, all because they say they keep the Ten Commandments, or they are convinced that they have checked all the boxes that make them eligible for divine approval. But what about those things that lurk inside both the sinner and the saint? Do you know the thatabout?

What a whirl! Get ready for the last twirl

Empires are typically the result of the forcible gathering of discrete languages, peoples, and nations into a functional whole. That is the principle behind family, village, town, nation. I suppose the expectations are that the rape and plunder of the pirates we love to idolize will continue until every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a kick at the colonial can or empire bucket. Sometimes the bucket comes first, as in the case of Syria trying to overrun Canaan, or even the great Egypt exercising control over trading routes into Palestine and the maritime lanes of global commerce. Note how the successors of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome are still active in global affairs, without actually calling the shots everywhere, as they did when they each dominated the world they knew. They are going to kick the bucket at the same time. But note how Russia and China have cobbled together a number of Asian and East European nations respectively, with no empire emerging. A quick crash is all there is, and it happens without fanfare. Russia and China are past life support, waiting to kick the bucket because, like the great harlot who thinks herself to be beyond poverty and mourning, these will fall in quick time, and people will not know of the descent of these powers into irrelevance because the narrative of “my crime is no worse than yours” will have lulled the global population into accepting mediocrity as greatness and crime as nationalism and patriotism.

Perhaps the best example terminal whataboutism is the rampant self-talk by the very fractured UK and USA about strength when the only whiff of unity is the conspiracy to rob national treasuries, deny the essential movements of migrants, when in fact they have made their fortunes through the monumental forced migration of peoples and the unequal immigration policies they have encouraged.

It may seem that we can all tolerate one or two limitations on our ability to function, but having more death-dealing companions than we have fingers is pretty much the end of the road physically and the beginning of glory if we absorb the daily cross-initiated dying. We have no authorization to observe musch less decide when one of our fellow travellers no longer feels God’s prompts or no longer accepts the divine judgment on unbelief.

Internal and fatal whatabouts

  • evil thoughts
  • sexual immorality (prostitution, porneia)
  • theft
  • murder
  • adultery (Mark 7:21)
  • coveting
  • wickedness
  • deceit
  • sensuality
  • envy (evil eye)
  • slander
  • pride
  • foolishness. (Mark 7:22)

Terminal whatabouts are essential to the hypocrite’s toolkit. A spiritual physician might say “the prognosis is devastating” and “the patient’s inside is caput”.

Give me a moon, a star, an idol

eejoseph, , , , ,
Day moon

Sun and moon serve God

Light is introduced in the creation narrative mysteriously and without fanfare, but we also see light in that narrative as commonplace and serving as everyone’s clock. Day, month, year, seedtime and harvest (cold/hot and wet/dry) are functions of light sources, both the great and the lesser.

Light mysteriously from God’s command

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5, NASB)

Photo zoo, big light, little light

We live in a photo-op zoo, but death is also ionized as darkness.

Light separator

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.  God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth…

Genesis 1:14-17, NASB

From this narrative in Genesis we learn that light has a purpose, that being to separate, to create the ability to distinguish created elements. It does not seem that ELOHIM created light to banish or condemn the darkness. The deep was dark, not conducive to his plans for life. ELOHIM is light but he also created light, and that created light made it possible for distinctiveness to be made.

What time is it?

As surely as the information in Genesis 1 is unique and I inimitable so is the appearance of God in the flesh.  The appearance is one of a kind and timelocked. When we answer the question “What time is it?” we synchronize our clocks with day or night, or one of Yahweh’s annual festivals.  The architecture of human times has made it so that whether it is night or day light is available.

Lesser light and stellar apostles

“Lesser light” is moonlight, and if someone was mindful of the arrival of a light-bearing era the time is permanently day. We cannot imagine who needs moonlight in the daytime.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

from 1 Thessalonians 5

Sleepyhead and drunkard

Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10, NASB)

Give me the Sun of Righteousness

People are known to walk in the night and stumble, because light is either minimal or absent (see John 11:10). Indeed when the moon is under the feet of the woman who gives birth to the church (Revelation 12) it is certain that moonlight is the least of our concerns. Furthermore, the woman is clothed with the sun, she has stars (suns) forming her crown! Just think how inescapable is our obligation to avoid elevating moonlight to appear as the high and glorious riches of the gospel. The life shared by believers by means of faith is not an outcome of the creation of big or little light, but the will of the Light becoming our very clothing.