Pray for the Lord to Build His Church

Posted on October 15, 2020 by ehurst

Let’s think about this so we’ll know how to pray.

The imperative of Creation is to reflect God’s glory. Don’t ask who the audience is; that’s missing the point. His glory must shine — period. In the Fall, some other agency intrudes into His glory. Obscure prophetic hints tell us that Satan fell first, in that his position as God’s glory mantle (“covering Cherub”) was a mission was to transmit that glory to and from Creation. At some point, he began to consume some of that glory for himself. Thus, in the Garden, he tempted Adam and Eve to make the same mistake. The fundamental nature of the Forbidden Fruit is to seize some of the divine glory for the human self.

Thus, after the Fall, a primary effort in divine mercy is restoring His glory. Nothing will do us more good. God reveals progressively over the story line of Scripture quite pointedly what the difference is between mankind seeking self glory versus seeking God’s glory. Restoring access to the Tree of Life in the Garden means we stop eating the Forbidden Fruit. We have to do that while in our mortal form.

In the revelation narrative of the Bible, the story progresses to the point that God seeks to reveal Himself and His ways through a nation called to live His ways. Their core mission is to reflect divine glory into the rest of the fallen world. The outreach model in the Old Testament was a matter of building a large enough earthly presence that no one could ignore your nation and how it is unique from the rest of humanity. The message was manifested in the Covenant.

But as you might expect, if you understand holy cynicism, most of the “outreach” was aimed at keeping folks inside the Covenant faithful. There is a tremendous outpouring of revelation regarding the examination of what faithfulness looks like, and how the nation kept failing. There is also a certain amount of celebration for the few times when things went rather well.

But the final condemnation on the Chosen Nation was how it utterly failed, twisting the message so much that they failed to transmit it internally, to the point there was no transmission at all externally. Instead, the message was perverted into a batch of lies that turned the world away.

So when Jesus on the Cross closed the earthly national covenant and opened it to all humanity as a heavenly covenant, the issue came to be correcting the original message so that it draws the whole world. We are treated to stories of how the New Covenant folk spread the message to folks who may or may not be familiar with the Old Covenant. The whole point of the old was to cast forth an appeal to those outside the Covenant community. That part never changed.

The essential message remains the same, only the way in which it was implemented has changed. Not the moral truth, but the way in which the community is formed and how it infiltrates the secular society around it. Somewhere along the path of events, the New Covenant folks quickly got off track again, in pretty much the same ways that the Old Covenant folks got off track. Indeed, the old nation had gone so far astray as to actively seduce the new “nation” into the same errors. A part of the underlying strategy of old nation folk was to destroy the sense of community structure that they wanted for themselves alone, but which they wanted on their own terms. They did everything they could to prevent the new nation folk from building the moral unity that they themselves were previously supposed to have.

The Judaizers who plagued the First Century churches had as one major element of their campaign the disruption of a moral unity they themselves rejected. The only unity discussed was political in nature, which as we all know, cannot possibly work. It was a chimera (a gross monstrosity of imagination). They tried to steer the churches to emphasize this bogus political unity, which kept churches inevitably tied up with secular politics. It didn’t matter what brand of politics the churches might choose from the mixed mass available at any given time and place, only that the church leadership never got hold of the concept of being aloof from such things.

The effect was to keep the message from being truly effective. Sure, it drew a lot of numbers of people looking for relief from the oppressive politics of their day, but the churches were seldom able to actually deliver on that promise, as the churches themselves were too deeply mired in human politics internally. They did form some distinct communities, but they were just another brand of worldly community, never able to rise clearly to the level above human political wrangling. The churches never quite seized the power of moral clarity that only rarely characterized the Old Covenant nation.

Today we are plagued with a vast array of varied church bodies all competing in various applications of human politics, as if that were the mission. They mimic the efforts of the Apostles to announce a new otherworldly Kingdom of Heaven, but they keep the gospel message mired in worldly political wrangling. And because of this entanglement, the gospel message of how God expects us to live is subject to perversion from all the cultural influences that alter the meaning of the message. It’s mired in principles that never rise to moral truth, but which intellectual principles are called “truth.”

Spreading the gospel was never a matter of getting out and selling the ideas. That was just the means to a much higher end: Drawing attention to the glory of the Lord. Whatever it is that we do with Radix Fidem, we cannot afford to keep stomping around in the sewage of human political organizing. We must be unique in our portrayal of something much higher. We have to ditch all the stuff people come up with, and upon which they paint Bible verses to make it sound like it’s the gospel. We don’t need a Jesus frisbee, or a gospel car, or a presumed biblical means of doing human politics.

The biblical model is wholly anti-political; it’s a feudal tribal covenant community. Whatever you might not like about that model, it reduces human political wrangling to a minimum. It’s consistent with how we are wired as humans. And it’s anti-legalistic if you can understand what is meant by the heart-led way.

Let’s pray first that we can build households on that model, and then wider communities. Let’s pray that we can stand up for the glory of the Lord by rejecting all the perversions that seeped into the early churches. Let’s learn from the mistakes of the past.

Lord, build Your church.

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Lust for Sex or Control?

Posted on October 12, 2020 by ehurst

When your conscious awareness is heart-led, you will find that a lot of moral truth lies dormant until provoked by the need of the moment. It’s a sense that, if the right question comes along, the Spirit of the Lord will teach you in that moment things that had not previously entered your awareness. The whole point is to keep you bouncing issues off your own convictions. The answers are already there; just ask. This is what John meant in 1 John 2:20 — “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.”

Over the years, I’ve been blessed by people asking the right questions. As soon as it comes into my awareness, I realize the answer for me has always been there. Thus, I emphasize how my answer is mine, and I’m glad to share what I have in hopes that it will provoke your own internal process of querying your convictions. You really need to know your own answers.

Jack over at Sigma Frame asked a very good question. Regarding the Curse in the Garden, God says to Eve that, among other things, she would have a powerful desire for her husband but that he would rule over her. The Hebrew word for “desire” is translated variously into English, but it seems to go in two different directions: either she will have a sexual lust for him, or a lust to control him.

But that’s not how Hebrew language works. One of the biggest flaws in textual analysis and expository writing about the Bible is the failure of Western scholars to embrace the Hebrew outlook. It tends to be what we call “gestalt” thinking, that the meaning of the instance depends entirely on the broader understanding of the whole. You cannot compartmentalize or slice-n-dice anything in Hebrew Scripture. Hebrew language is inherently parabolic and symbolic by nature, and is meant to provoke your heart-led consciousness. You are supposed to weigh things against your convictions and your broader desire for peace with God.

If we check with the technical aspects of translation into English, we find this particular Hebrew word (teshuqah) shows up only three times in the whole Bible. In the other two references, it has a more obvious meaning. In Genesis 4:7, it refers to a lust for control — sin is portrayed as a beast that desires to control and devour you. In Song of Solomon 7:10, it is clearly a wholesome sexual desire of husband for wife. So which applies to that word in Genesis 3:16?

Is this a case where Eve, symbolizing all womanhood, will have a sexual desire for her man, or is this a case of her desire to control him? There is a lot hanging on this question, since it arises from a very highly debated point of theology for the entirety of Western Church History. Does this suggest something that surprises no one, in that humans are wired with a sexual desire[1] from Creation itself? Or does this imply that the Curse of the Fall will make her wish to control her man? In Hebrew thinking, both are quite true.

We cannot justify choosing one over the other. In terms of my pastoral experience, I can assure you that every woman I’ve met suffers the temptation to control the men in her life, her spouse in particular. The strength of that desire bears a strong correlation to sexual desire. While Western feminism is a notorious culprit in this, such a lust for control goes back into ancient times in all cultures. And it is flatly condemned in Scripture, so everyone in a church setting tends to give lip service to that condemnation. We know that this is a Curse of the Fall, but that it is simply the perversion of something holy. It’s very unhealthy for any woman to lack a sexual desire for masculine attention.

So my answer to Jack was that the word in Genesis 3:16 in intentionally ambiguous because it means both. Eve’s natural pure desire for Adam had been perverted in the encounter with Satan to become a desire for control. Adam’s failure is part of the gestalt here. His distraction from the fundamental task of moral guardianship encouraged Eve to exercise an authority that was not hers to wield. And her inherent weakness in moral things, being as she is wired to follow and not lead, was part of the whole downfall of both.

This is what’s behind 1 Timothy 2:8-15; 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, 14:34-35; and 1 Peter 3:1-7. The issue of hair and the Doctrine of Covering is tightly wound into this issue. Paul notes in passing that this has to with angels, implying that the whole question of moral guardianship and God’s protection and covering should not be taken lightly. It’s not simply a fashion statement; it’s an ancient tradition for a very good reason arising from the fabric of Creation itself.

Nor is this to suggest that women cannot know God’s will in the broader sense of what blesses the covenant community. Otherwise, He would have never called prophetesses. Rather, it’s a matter of knowing the general picture of what’s proper, so that exceptions can be treated as exceptions, and knowing where the boundaries are. It’s not to suggest that women cannot voice their feelings about things, or that they should expect to be ignored. Rather, it’s how women properly register their input when it is good, right and justified to do so.

It’s part of the bigger gestalt that a woman’s glory is how she promotes the reputation of her covering, whether it be a father figure of husband figure, or any other leading male in her world. It’s all part of promoting the reputation (glory) of God. It’s flatly stated in God’s Word that women and men are not interchangeable. They are wired differently, and to some degree suffer unique temptations based on perversions of what God intended when He created male and female.

So we come back to this: Women should naturally desire sex with a man. We take for granted — we should not have to discuss it — that shalom is stronger when she keeps it to the marriage bed. And no one should be surprised when women try to control men, so we should build social structures that inhibit that sinful lust. It’s part of the same social structure that keeps women from exercising hypergamy (the impulse to trade up for a “better” man), even if there’s no way to prevent that sinful desire. It’s all part of the same package.

This is my answer to the question. Do you know your own convictions?

[1] In the wider context of Hebrew culture and the Old Testament as a whole, it’s patently silly to wonder if sex itself was a sin in the first place, that it was somehow the Forbidden Fruit. Hebrew culture assumes that sex is itself quite natural and would never imagine that celibacy is somehow morally superior. Celibacy has its place, and is expected to be a difficult calling, but it is not somehow better than being married and having sex. It’s two different callings, and being married is actually the default. Celibacy is supposed to be rare. The marriage bed is regarded as a holy thing in itself. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were supposed to have children and subdue the earth — “be fruitful and multiply.”

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Law of Moses — 1 Kings 3

Posted on October 10, 2020 by ehurst

So Solomon takes the throne of Israel and marries the daughter of Pharaoh. He had early set men to work on his capital, building a palace, a city wall, and of course, the Temple. In the meantime, the royal quarters was still in the ancient citadel. So was the Ark of the Covenant. Without an appointed sacred place to worship, it was hard to demand that the people worship only at the altar of Jehovah.

There was a temporary altar in the citadel, but this Tent of Meeting was not properly laid out with all the officially sanctioned furnishings, and was not publicly accessible. It was very risky to come anywhere near the Ark in the first place. So it’s no surprise that the people sought out alternative sites to meet with their God. And because the rituals for Baal worship were so very similar, we should not be surprised things were a little mixed up. The narrative is not particularly condemnatory about this state of affairs.

Solomon, in his zeal for the Lord, chose the site at the top of Gibeon’s mountain, an ancient place of worship. Since pagan idolatry was flatly forbidden, any previous temples and shrines were gone. But such a commanding view evoked a spiritual awareness, and it was far better suited to the mass of burnt offerings Solomon wanted to execute in celebrating his coronation. The Lord wasn’t insulted by this choice. Instead, He met with Solomon in a dream to ask what kind of blessing the new king would seek.

Solomon’s answer was wisdom in itself. Let’s remind ourselves of the meaning of shalom. It is typically outlined as reasonable prosperity, safety from enemies, safety from plagues and natural disasters, and social stability. However, that last item is the key. Social stability arising from faithful adherence to the Law is the primary symptom of peace with God. Pursuing that is the best way to get the other blessings. So it was that Solomon essentially asked for that first, in that he begged for the wisdom to make it happen with such a great nation. By asking for the welfare of the Covenant, Solomon gained all the other goodies that humans typically sought.

God promised that Solomon’s moral wisdom would exceed that of any previous or succeeding king on this earth. Most Westerners misread the meaning of wisdom, as if it were something very nearly the same as intelligence and factual knowledge. But Solomon had requested to discern the difference between good and evil. This is the only proper understanding of what God gave him here. However, it would naturally offer a wealth of practical understanding of things.

Upon awaking, Solomon realized it was a dream. Obviously he put a lot of stock in that, because he came back to the citadel and offered more offerings on the makeshift altar in the courtyard before the Tent of Meeting. There was no doubt in his mind Who had spoken to him.

The text goes on to give an example of what Solomon’s wisdom could do. In the case of two harlots in a dispute over whose son had survived a bad night, Solomon knew what such women were like. He proposed a grisly solution: slicing the living son in half, dividing him between the two. The real mother was just barely mother enough to prefer the infant live at the cost of losing him. The other woman had nothing to lose, and so was clearly not his mother.

The case was celebrated as word got around the whole kingdom. Nobody doubted the wisdom of Solomon nor his fitness to be King.

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A Glimpse of Mortal Frailty

Posted on October 5, 2020 by ehurst

Let me clarify something: A prophetic gift doesn’t exclude you from getting stuff wrong.

It does make you very careful. This is not a cry for help. I’m explaining what it’s like for me. Different prophets in the Old Testament experienced their gifts and calling in different ways. Samuel started an academy to teach prophets how to use their gift. It’s not automatic for everyone, and it’s not for me.

I’m still learning how to make my brain interpret things coming from my heart. I’ve noted in the past that I have plenty to learn and unlearn. Sometimes I get a strong impression about something and it turns out that, while I did get the message, my mind bungled the meaning. Often enough, I have doubts about something and don’t publish it until I’m more sure what to make of it. There are some things I’m still not sure about, now even more than a year later, so it would do no good to tell you.

It’s not that I am so hot to protect my reputation. I’ll tell you straight up that I’m not right in the head. There’s something about my sense of calling and mission that makes me doubt my sanity quite often. I’ve warned my readers often enough that you all bear some risk in taking my word for anything.

I suppose things have turned out well enough so far, because my reading audience is still quite large. Still, I’ll never stop offering the caveat that what I write is merely me talking to myself, and you get to read over my shoulder. If some of what I write seems to answer questions or help you draw nearer to the Lord, by all means, use what you can. Feel free to reject anything you can’t use. Don’t worry about my feelings. I still carry a lot of self-doubt in the flesh, so that I don’t take myself too seriously.

So I’ll tell you this week I’m struggling with an impression that makes no sense to me at all. It persists through prayer and periods when I put in on the back burner. I’ll tell you this much: I sense a great upheaval coming very soon. I give it the rest of this week. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, that this is just a delusion of the flesh getting in the way of a genuine spiritual gift. I’d rather be wrong about this, because if it’s real, then we are in for a very rough time in ways I had never anticipated. Not something worse, just an unexpected turn in the path.

This has a lot to do with my warnings that we should expect plenty of surprises. I’m sure that if God were to tell us everything, we’d get in the way trying to change the outcomes. Some things we are far better off not knowing. The most important thing is that you not take yourself and your expectations too seriously, either. That way you won’t have to struggle with feeling betrayed. False expectations are always the fault of the flesh, and we have all suffered a significant level of deception and manipulation on a lot of things.

More than one OT prophet tried to keep his mouth shut. It’s not just the audience’s resistance to the message, but the torment you go through trying to make sense of things so you’ll know what to say. And these guys were far better equipped than I am. So maybe it makes a little sense why they were so often cryptic.

I think one important task I have is to make them seem more human.

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Law of Moses — 2 Kings 2:1-35

Posted on October 3, 2020 by ehurst

David knew his time was gone. He held one last audience with his heir, Solomon. The first word of advice was that Solomon should be a better man. David was subtly confessing that he had allowed too many things to slip, failing to take vigorous action to preserve shalom in his kingdom. We will see no lack of men in authority too eager to shed blood for some pretense of justice, but good men will always hesitate. David had hesitated too long and too often.

And the best way to be strong was to faithfully execute the the Covenant of Moses. The resulting blessings would ensure that God’s promise to David would stand, and that his dynasty would remain on the throne. That promise rested on the faithfulness of his successors, so David did all he could to fire Solomon’s own passion for obedience to the Word.

The first bequest was an order to execute David’s cousin Joab. David’s war minister had murdered two men who sought to serve in David’s court. It is rightly described as fighting an unjustified war against allies. There was blood guilt that must be paid to assure peace with God.

David asked Solomon to show special favor to the clan of Barzillai of Gilead, for being a faithful supporter during Absalom’s revolt, when no one else seemed to care. He also declared a warrant against Shimei, but left it to Solomon’s own wisdom how to handle it. Then David died and Solomon was confirmed as king. Further, Solomon took steps to ensure his position was never in doubt.

But Adonijah wasn’t ready to give up on his ambition to usurp the throne. It seems he thought it would be easier to engage in court intrigue by currying the Queen Mother’s favor. While the text says nothing about Bathsheba’s attitude, it certainly seems she already knew how this would turn out. However, she played along because she wanted her son to know what was happening behind the scenes.

So when she came to see him, Solomon set a new precedent. This custom was kept for a long time after: The Queen Mother was placed on a second throne in the royal court. This formally recognized her authority as ruler over the palace and all its internal affairs. Solomon was signaling that she had unquestioned authority in the royal household and domestic matters.

Recall that Abishag was the nurse brought in to serve David until his death. While she remained a virgin, she was properly part of David’s harem. Solomon inherited that harem. His mother was now the manager over that, as well, but she was pretending to play along with Adonijah’s folly in asking Solomon for Abishag’s hand on his behalf.

Solomon’s response is rightfully sarcastic. “Why don’t you save time and request my throne on his behalf?” This was precisely what Adonijah was aiming at, and marrying any woman regarded as a royal concubine to the preceding king was symbolic of claiming the throne. To Solomon it showed that Adonijah was preparing yet more intrigue and politicking, trying to finagle his way onto the throne. And while she was at it, maybe she could request mercy for Joab and Abiathar? Her authority didn’t reach that far.

So Solomon responded with an oath, that he should suffer severely at God’s hand if he didn’t execute divine justice on these men. First, he sent Benaiah, chief of the Royal Bodyguard with a decree to execute Adonijah immediately. For Abiathar, out of respect for his service to God, he was allowed to live, but forcibly retired from the priesthood. The text notes this was the final fulfillment of the curse on Eli, who was High Priest when Samuel entered the Lord’s service, and had embarrassed the Lord by failing to rein in his two sons’ corrupt behavior. A prophet warned Eli that his heirs would die early and be replaced by another priestly dynasty. Deposing Abiathar removed him from the curse.

Side note: There is some dispute about whether Abiathar was High Priest. Since there was no Temple, only a tabernacle pitched over the Ark in the courtyard of David’s citadel, it’s doubtful anyone actually claimed that office during the interim between the Tabernacle in Shiloh and Solomon’s Temple. He’s not mentioned as such in the text. However, Abiathar would have been the High Priest if there was one. Upon his forced retirement, with no male heirs, the role passed to Zadok, whose family never failed to produce a valid heir to the High Priesthood until the Temple was destroyed by Rome.

The case of Joab was not so simple. As soon as Joab heard what happened to his other co-conspirators, he ran to the tabernacle at the citadel and held onto the horns on the altar. After some back and forth, Solomon declared that he could die there at the altar, since his blood was demanded by God Himself.

Benaiah was promoted to commander of the army and Zadok was promoted to the senior priesthood position.

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It’s Called Acedia

Posted on October 3, 2020 by ehurst

The most important thing I can do is set you free to hear and obey the Lord.

I was really surprised that a technology security guy addressed a topic so close to my heart. In historical church theology is the word “acedia.” It describes a kind of overwhelming sense of futility that once afflicted monks who spent too much time in isolation from the real world. Everything they once valued came into question, and they had insufficient guidance in facing that. The linked article goes on to discuss a thought experiment: What would be important to you if you were quite certain the world would not continue long after your death? How would such knowledge change your values and objectives in life?

It’s no different from the basic question students of Dispensationalism would ask themselves: What should you do, knowing the Lord could come back any day now? I can tell you I never liked the answers most of them came up with, because it still carried way too much baggage they never bothered to consider. It was always discussed in terms of effects, not process, the standard bias of Western minds.

The heart-led path of process over product answers that sense of futility better than anything else. It’s like the parable of the Lord of the household returning in the middle of the night: Let us be found faithfully doing what the Lord called us to do. It rests on the assurance that, while that mission is altogether likely to change as time goes by, we can always know what it is He requires of us. And it’s always in terms of obedience in the choice of path, not the destination. The destination will always be unseen.

The world around us is in massive flux. It’s not just the end of the USA, but this political collapse is just a small part of the death of Western Civilization. It’s being replaced by something only partly visible for now, as betokened by my term “the Networked Civilization.” We can see that part rising; we cannot see the actual soul of what the networked infrastructure is gestating. But we can turn back and see the soul of the West, and there is oddly one good thing that the succeeding civilization seems intent on destroying: human independent thinking.

Now, I realize that independent thinking in the population has always been a threat to the elite ruling class since we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Every civilization has also contained at least one thread of seeking to empower the individual in some way. I sense that the Networked Civilization is founded on faking that, at best. On the one hand, we’ve never had better access to information; on the other hand, it’s never been harder to make use of it. The kind of research and technology that squelches or misdirects genuine human curiosity has never been stronger. The Networked Civilization will have perfected this one thing tyrants have always sought.

Granted, a truly heart-led orientation can overcome this evil, but it makes a huge difference if the mind has been prepared well beforehand. For all my promotion of the heart-led way, I still would like to see genuine independent thinking in as many people as possible. In Western folks, I could expect at least some mythology of individualism to make room for understanding how God calls each of us uniquely into His Kingdom. With the rising of the Networked generations, that’s missing entirely. It has been replaced by something not just mythical, but totally empty of meaning. Thus, we should expect more and more that it will require the birth of a heart-led orientation first, and then independent thinking has to be learned entirely from scratch.

In other words, that path back to Eden is now far, far longer than it was before. In Christ, the one most significant change was that an awakened spiritual awareness comes as a gift in preparation for learning to understand His revelation, whereas before His advent, one pretty much had to learn revelation before the spiritual awakening. It still rested on whether or not you sensed a divine calling either way, but giving the Holy Spirit up front instead of later does open the door far wider. It’s a much more inviting prospect than it was in the Old Testament.

The task of setting people free is getting larger and more difficulty by the day.

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Dig Up the Clues

Posted on September 30, 2020 by ehurst

The purpose of a church is to create the atmosphere in which faith grows. Notice I say “the” atmosphere. It’s the same thing as saying we pursue shalom. Peace with God has distinct boundaries, referred to as a covenant. The purpose of a church is to build up those boundaries around a community covenant identity that separates them from the world around them.

That community must become a moral and spiritual extended family household. It must be feudal in the ANE sense, where the treasure is the people. The whole point is to obey the Lord together. There is nothing to accomplish as humans measure such things. There is no requirement for professional training in the leadership, but moral conditioning so that the Spirit rules. There is no particular need for special purpose facilities or even real estate.

There is no particular expectation of growing beyond a certain size. Once it gets too many for a single head of household to manage, it’s time to divide and make it two bodies. It’s not that those bodies cannot cooperate and come under the broader leadership of someone higher up the chain in capability, but the task for that sort of leadership is quite different from being the head of household.

We aren’t digging into the details of all that, just outlining what a genuine biblical church looks like. It’s not a corporation; there’s no contract and no membership. It’s a family, a feudal household. All they have to do is strive after peace with God. It’s not about programs; those things will arise naturally from the necessities of the context. It’s not about “outreach” as is commonly defined in Western churches. Evangelism is living the Word so that folks outside the covenant community can see the power of the Word. There’s no sales pitch. Your shalom is the whole testimony. Talking about it comes as a mere side effect of getting people’s attention.

We are not in a First Century Mediterranean society where preaching in the marketplace is the only way to publish the message. Most people these days can read; the average Joe in the Mediterranean Basin was illiterate in the First Century. Their primary source of information was hearing things in a language they understood. First Century churches were places where reading aloud the Scriptures was the only way some folks would ever know what it said. The context has changed, but the underlying mission has not.

Nowadays teaching is far more important than preaching. There’s nothing holy about preaching; it was a contextual adaptation. It was the only way to introduce the call to faith to people who had never heard, or had heard too little. The primary mission of a church is to teach. There is a place for sharing prophetic concerns, but preaching is no longer the primary means of learning faith. We need more explanation so that people can move the thousands of miles and years to be nearer to divine revelation.

The First Century churches were modeled on synagogues for a good reason: The synagogue was an education center first and foremost. That model arose long before the Hellenized Talmudism of Jesus’ day. There was worship, as well, but organized worship was nothing like what we commonly see today. Most of the synagogue service was taken up in explaining the Scriptures, often from several different teachers. The common Protestant notion of hogging the schedule with elaborate music and oratory had no place in the New Testament.

It’s long past time to reexamine what actually happened in the New Testament and to figure out why it was like that. We need better clues than mere tradition. We should build a set of practices that fit our context from those clues.

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One-Thinger

Posted on September 27, 2020 by ehurst

Ref: Philippians 3:12-14

The time has come. I’m going all in on this. You will get the watch. Whether I go bust or it actually happens, I will report here as honestly as I know how.

Over the past few weeks I’ve renewed my sincere prayer about finding a community of faith in my real world associations. The vision has been glowing in my dreams of standing before a group and teaching the Word in the flesh. It’s the only reason I live; I’m quite willing to die for that.

In response to that request, the Lord has told me I must go all in. I have to dismiss all the other interests I’ve ever pursued. This driving purpose must order all things in my life. Everything I do must flow from that purpose, and contribute back to it.

When I ride my bike, it’s always with a primary interest in preparing for serving the flock. Whatever computer technology I mess with, it has to serve that one mission. All the things I can claim about myself mean nothing outside of the call to lead the sheep. I’m required to be watchful that I set aside all the other interests and activities that have pulled at me since birth.

It’s not that there is nothing else to talk about, but that those things matter only insofar as they support that one, all-consuming mission calling. And I have to ensure that I always operate under the assumption that God will make it happen.

At the same time, I have to dismiss all the academic ministerial training I’ve received over the years of my life. Those methods and means have brought forth a religious system that does not answer the call to follow Christ. Everything has to be reevaluated in light of what I’ve learned from God outside of that system. I’m not going to build a congregation using those models of influence. It has to be a total divine miracle.

I’m going all in on this. Let’s see how it works out.

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Law of Moses — 1 Kings 1

Posted on September 26, 2020 by ehurst

This is a long read, but there are important elements of feudalism in how this all happened. And Eastern feudalism is a prerequisite for the Covenant.

David had 20 sons; 11 were considered in line for the throne. Amnon was the eldest, killed by his half-brother Absalom for raping Tamar, and then rejecting her. Kileab was second, and is hardly mentioned, indicting he probably died young. Third was Absalom, who died in battle against his own father. Fourth, and surviving eldest son, was Adonijah.

David was suffering from hypothermia, a common ailment in elderly people — he could no longer generate enough heat on his own. The customs of the day called for a young woman who was technically part of the harem, but would remain eligible for marriage later, since her only service to the King was sharing her body heat.

Adonijah declared himself regent, meaning he ruled on behalf of his father. His father wasn’t dead, but was inactive, and David had never formally announced the nomination of Solomon as his successor. So Adonijah played it up with aping Absalom’s habit of having a boisterous company of soldiers running down the road to clear the way for his chariots. He enlisted key figures in the royal court to support his pretense of being regent.

However, other more significant figures didn’t join this party. Adonijah decided to host a feast to celebrate the announcement of taking up the regency. He chose a collection of buildings standing on or near the En-rogel Spring as the site for this feast. It stands down just below where the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys run together south of David’s capital. The image you see here was taken in 1857 before the area became so built up. It shows a view up the Kidron Valley from En-rogel (buildings in the lower right foreground) and the scale of the ridgeline on which the City of David stood (left), against the Mount of Olives on the other side. If you can pick out the road wandering down from the Temple Mount on the right shoulder, just about where it disappears at its bottom is roughly where the Gihon Spring was.

Adonijah excluded the court prophet, Nathan, along with Benaiah, David’s chief of security, and Solomon, his youngest royal brother. From what we can tell, Solomon was not yet regarded as an adult (roughly 30 years old), so that would have been his excuse. This is probably why David had delayed the official vestment. However, the whole picture is one of Adonijah knowing his position wasn’t all that secure.

Nathan as Court Prophet was more aware of the political maneuvering than anyone else. His exclusion from the party didn’t keep him from overhearing all the planning and plotting. On top of that, he had the prophetic gift of insight into the meanings of these things. He warned Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, of the threat this activity meant to her. Adonijah was no better than Abasalom when it came to plotting to murder his rivals, along with anyone else who got in his way, once David actually died.

Nathan also knew how to get David’s attention. He advised Bathsheba to have an audience with the King about this matter. Nathan would then come in the door behind her and also discuss it with David in his own official capacity. David got the point; freezing or not, he had to rise far enough physically to conduct some official business. So he called Bathsheba back in and confirmed his promise to her about Solomon. He was going to publicly vest Solomon as regent that very day.

David ordered the proper rituals so that this was done right. It included his own marked mule and all the pomp. The ritual would take place at the Gihon Spring, the actual water source of the city. At a minimum, this is where public proclamations took place, but it was also just below the terrace where the Ark of Covenant stood. Thus, once the solemn ritual took place, Solomon would ride into the eastern gate of the citadel with music and shouting. Every element was symbolic of royalty coming to claim his throne. Then the ritual would end with Solomon literally taking possession on David’s throne.

Try to imagine the scene with Adonijah’s party, hearing the shofar wailing down the valley at him. Then he looks up to see this coronation with all the most ancient rituals, and the population of the city celebrating with priests in attendance, along with the King’s own official bodyguard (Cherethites and Pelethites) in their unique uniforms.

Add to that the announcement from the son of the Priest, and the festivities at En-rogel simply died. Everyone quietly parted from there in different directions. By this time there was a small stone altar in front of the Ark of Covenant, and Adonijah made his way there to grasp two of the horns poking up at the corners. This was to symbolize his capitulation; no one was going to execute him at the altar for his act of rebellion at the risk of God’s wrath. He announced his petition to spare his life.

When Solomon learned of this, he agreed on certain terms. If Adonijah would walk by the Covenant and humbly embrace his lot at the decision of his own father, then he was safe. If he continued to show arrogance, he would not live long. So on those terms, Adonijah was escorted from the altar to Solomon’s throne, where he fell on his face according to proper protocol. Solomon dismissed him in peace; “Go home.”

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What God Puts in Your Hands

Posted on September 25, 2020 by ehurst

This is strictly prophecy, not technical advice.

I have a very strong sense that Big Tech will survive the implosion of the USA. Google will continue to expand their vertical integration of Internet services, and thus their control. Amazon will continue invading every corner of consumer commerce. While Windows will continue to be something of a boondoggle, Microsoft online services will remain quite reliable. Apple will take some major hits, but the elite won’t let it die.

There’s nothing you can do about surveillance and tracking in the long run. If your mission and calling requires anonymity online, then you’ll need to learn how to run Linux or BSD, and learn how to navigate the Net with a measure of anonymity. It’s no small task to do that, but it remains possible for now. The same goes with non-contract cellphone service (“burner phones”). We are approaching the point were hiding in the catacombs, as it were, will not be possible without major changes in lifestyle and probably geographical location.

Our mission is to manifest shalom to the world around us. You are the only one who can know where your mission field is. If that field includes online communications, our biggest problem is not tracking and surveillance, but keeping our message clear. Even censorship is quite limited in its reach, especially online. People who want to get their message out will always have an outlet, and those drawn to that message will always know how to find it. This is the promise of our Lord.

There is one particular flaw that we should avoid in our conversations with those around us: Never accept the premise that human rights or constitutional rights mean anything. A great many comments I encounter online assume that there is some virtue in citing how this or that is illegal in one sense or another. That has nothing to do with whether it is moral, but more to the point, it has nothing to do with how governments act. It’s just propaganda noise. It rarely makes any real difference in what is coming at us.

Get used to analyzing things from your heart. Keep hold of what’s eternally true, and you’ll be less likely to get entangled in something that God will not put in your hands.

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