Moral Covering

A fundamental element of the universe is moral covering.
While most Christians do recognize the term “spiritual covering”, it’s loaded with false baggage. It is a mystical concept, requiring a mystical epistemology to absorb and use, but it has more to do with morality rather than the silly concepts popular among Western Christians, something approaching childhood visions of magic.
The foundation is the Covenant of Noah. What almost everyone wants to ignore is how fundamental is the proper concept of sexual identity is here. This is where DNA-as-destiny bites hardest. Reject the model God revealed, and you are asking for trouble. The details have been amply covered on this blog under the heading of “Game” and sexual roles. The narrative leading up to the Flood tosses out the barest hint of what it’s all about, offering parabolic language which was meant to be thoroughly expansive in application. That is, symbolic terms used to conjure a far broader set of concepts which should have been common lore, and was when published under Moses’ authority. From our position many centuries later, thousands of miles away, and from an alien mental frame of reference, it’s very hard to translate to our culture.
Part of the corrective here is recognizing moral covering is a form of tutelage. Not servitude; though the disciple does serve the master, it’s really not that significant in terms we recognize. It requires building on the basis of the shepherd’s call. The shepherd extends his protection because he brings the sheep within the boundaries of what he can defend. We are presuming the shepherd performs due diligence in working out with God what He will empower the shepherd to do in those terms. The burden in considerable, a level of stress which can bring men to an early grave. While his end is in God’s hands, the provisions of the covenant offer a high reward which often includes a longer life for all sorts of reasons, including all the other blessings promised. The point is, the shepherd must keep the sheep within the boundaries of his authority.
Obviously, that means discipline of the sheep. The rod-and-staff symbols — the rod defends against threats, and the staff yanks the sheep back in line. All the whining about how this stifles the poor little lamb from sating his curiosity, and the oh-so-pitiful loss of opportunity to explore freely is one of the Devil’s favorite songs. It’s more than the shepherd’s experience keeping the lamb from walking through the fire pit and getting burned; it’s the shepherd keeping the sheep within the protective limits of life itself. It’s part of the Fall. You can’t demand the shepherd surmount his very human limits. He’s not accountable to the sheep for that, but to God. To the sheep he owes the diligence to protect with vigor and set limits with consistency and firmness.
If the sheep resists those limits, the shepherd has to expend a lot of extra resources trying to bring enough force to obtain compliance. Yes, the shepherd suffers a loss himself if the sheep is harmed either way, through misadventure or overly harsh discipline. Within his human limits, he’s responsible to God for working out what brings the sheep back in line without undue suffering, but God requires the sheep to accept the discipline. No, it’s not perfect, nor can it ever be in this world. We still have to deal with the consequences of the Fall.
This is God’s system. If the shepherd is accountable to God’s moral laws, God blesses. What He gives the shepherd falls upon the sheep, unless the sheep run out from under the shepherd’s covering. If someone asks to share my home, they are under my covering. If they reject the moral limits God requires of me, as best I can understand them, I can discuss directly with God about removing my covering because the sheep refuse to observe the limits of my ability to protect. That may not mean kicking them out physically, but it does mean leaving them exposed to the raw discipline of the moral fabric of the universe.
If someone wants my blessings, they’ll have to stay under my moral covering. If they don’t see or value those blessings, there isn’t much I can offer, but it’s all I have. I’ll gladly share, and take up the burden of expending resources and effort to help as much as I know how. You’ll get the last ounce of what I have, or at least a good share of what I have to spread among others, but I can’t help you if you don’t stay inside my reach to defend you against Satan. I’ll have to leave it between you and God whether you actually believe I’m a pretty hard case for the Devil and his weapons. I do suffer some of this world’s sorrows simply because I’m here, but the Enemy of souls has little permit to make it any worse for me.
Satan is the minister of God’s wrath. His authority is limited to those who reject God’s ways and His revealed Laws for claiming the blessings available to this level of existence. Step out from under the covering, and the wrath rains down on your life. The whole point is not subjecting you to my whims, but you accept my covering in the measure you can tolerate long enough to learn how to replicate it, and gain your own version of what God can offer in terms of moral authority to turn aside His wrath.
I can’t make this appealing to you; only God can do that.