Ditching the Mainstream Mythology

Posted on February 1, 2020 by ehurst

Starting point: It is impossible for us to know how God regards other people. We can know our own standing with Him, but only if we consciously shift our awareness to the heart. By that same means, we can also know how God wants us to regard other people. Thus, our regard will not reflect any assumptions about their eternal condition, but how they relate to us in any given context.

In that frame of reference, we then say that there are three kinds of people in God’s Kingdom: There are three kinds of people as far as we are concerned. Let’s enumerate them.

1. We have covenant family members. There are people who, with or without formal declaration, give evidence of being committed to divine justice as best we know it. We don’t pretend to be arbiters of divine justice for everyone else, only those whom God places within the feudal domain He grants us. The barriers are high and the investments are substantial, so this is not something that comes and goes easily. We are reluctant to let anyone go into ostracism, so we give them more room to make mistakes and assume the Lord will bring them through to repentance and recovery. We hope the same for ourselves.

2. There are servants who participate meaningfully, but are not fully vested in long term outcomes. They are allies with overlapping interests. They offer a conditional allegiance, which may or may not stand life long. They are helpful and warrant some consideration in what we do in serving the Lord. These are the Good Samaritans in our lives. It is a moral flaw to think in binary terms of “our gang” versus “our enemies.”

3. There are slaves, people we are forced to deal with but whose usefulness is highly variable in our Kingdom service. They don’t care if they serve our Lord’s glory, and may not hesitate to betray any trust we grant them. Conditions may force us to be vulnerable to them in some degree, but we can’t really trust them. They are the machinery of life, but with a measure of free will to cooperate or not. This includes our enemies, in that we can’t ignore them.

Everyone and everything else in our world is scenery, background.

It is the folly of Western evangelical mythology to imagine that there is something wrong with such a frame of reference. We have all been gravely counseled in Western churches to consider every human a possible convert to the Kingdom, and that we are burdened with seeking to convert all of them. This is not a biblical assumption, but a Western one, a false reading of the Great Commission. For the mainstream church leadership, it’s all about selling the product and winning customers to their brand. More is better; this defines holiness for mainstream church leaders. They ignore the New Testament warning that there are some out there who will never join us, and should not be dragged into it.

Jesus Himself warned that there are folks out there who should rightly be regarded as pigs unfit for our pearls of divine truth. We should be able to recognize them as such and avoid provoking them. We should handle people according to their willingness to engage the covenant under which we serve, for as long as they choose to do so. It’s not a question of where they stand with God, but the part they play in our mission. Our mission is to keep our own doors open to others, and to recognize how far inside people will come; nothing we do can affect God’s doors.

We are finite. None of us have been granted the resources to help the whole world. It is unavoidable that some folks will remain in the background for us. We cannot compel anyone to come closer than they feel led by the Spirit. It is an audacious lie that God intends to use us to save everyone and make them family. That’s the lie of globalism; the Tower of Babel teaches us that we are meant to be small tribes.

Evangelism isn’t a special project; it’s a necessary part of obedience to Biblical Law. The primary method of evangelism is always simply living to shine God’s glory in every way. The Lord will draw those whom He desires us to encounter. We can formulate our response, but we cannot pretend to know how things will turn out. The admonition to sell your religion arises from a very perverted understanding of the Bible. Simply be as clear as you know how to those you encounter.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

No Sacred Cows

Posted on January 31, 2020 by ehurst

Why I’m discussing this item on this blog should become obvious by the end.

Permit me analyze this article: ‘Is it cold in Argentina?’: Belgian cycling journalist rides into sexism row over pic of female reporter.

Lest you miss the point of the article, the photograph shows the female reporter asking him questions while wearing skimpy clothing. Further, the fabric of her top is so thin that her erect nipples are highly visible. So the cyclist she interviewed later made a comment with a rather oblique reference by wondering what would cause her nipples to be so prominent during the warm weather in Argentina in their summer months, being in the southern hemisphere. He made the comment on Twitter, and part of the response was standard feminist/SJW propaganda.

1. His comment was perfectly normal given the context. What he said was not evil except in the minds of totalitarian busybodies, people looking for an excuse to oppress normal people precisely for being normal.

2. He was a complete fool for not keeping that kind of thing private, unless he had the balls to stand up and make a statement. Twitter is hardly private. This kind of locker room talk needs to stay in the locker room, but it should not be held there by outside forces. Men need to relearn civility, but they should not stop being men. The sexes are not interchangeable; women and men are different. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

3. He should not have caved. It’s not hard to find support from other anti-feminists in order to give effective rhetorical answers. However, I’m sure he was worried about losing commercial sponsorship, so he comes off as a coward in the end. This is not a man who lives by his convictions. He took what he considered a small risk, but his losses were huge.

4. We would normally have no interest in sinners screeching at each other during pursuit of life in a very fallen context, but there are times when we can point out certain events as instructive. In this case, the whole thing needs to be kept in the perspective of heart-led contemplation from Biblical Law. Once again, we see how clearly the world is going to Hell, and this is an example of how and why that is happening.

By the way, a solid rhetorical response would be to dismiss the feminist choice of battleground. Instead of answering directly their complaints, he should have pointed out the obvious issue they were trying to keep from the discussion. What he thinks about such things is none of their business. By the same token, what they think about such things is of no consequence to him, in part because the women involved are of no consequence to him. They are all likely incapable of becoming important to him. He may want to humor slutty reporters for the sake of his job, but he should never take them seriously. The choice to be slutty is not a sacred cow.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

At Last, a Long Ride Again

Posted on January 28, 2020 by ehurst

Finally, I get a break! Between apartment maintenance issues and bad weather, I have been unable to ride for the past two weeks. Instead of heading out to the remote points this time, I decided to simply do the full loop for the sake of exercise. It’s officially just a little over 13.5 miles. Since my last foray, a few signs have been added and all the damage from construction equipment has been covered up. Of course, now new projects are destroying the covers, but that’s another story.

This plaque was added sometime in the past month or so. It explains that the Booya Car is a 1959 Buick LeSabre, who bought it and how it was passed down. The last owner was the artist who wrecked it and turned it into a sculpture, but it had been kept in the family since it was new. At any rate, it’s supposed to be the half-way point, but that’s true only if you start from the marina. The mile markers don’t start there, but begin on the NW corner of the loop.

The bikeway runs very close to the water at a couple of points like this one. All the canebrakes and Pamapas grass are brown during the winter months. It was an unseasonable warm day, pushing toward 70° F. We had a gentle southerly breeze, so the lake was rather placid. It was a nice quiet ride for me. I stopped a couple of times for prayer and contemplation.

One of the things that still resounds in my prayerful times is that somewhere out there in front of me is yet one more mission. I have no idea of any particulars, but the thing takes a large shape in the mists ahead of me somewhere.

Posted in cycling | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Law of Moses — Leviticus 18

Posted on January 25, 2020 by ehurst

This will not be a typical Bible lesson. On the one hand, the chapter itself is pretty easy to summarize, but one issue is raised that requires a lot of background.

The chapter begins with the Lord giving the context of what follows: Don’t act like the pagan nations. In particular, this refers to the influences of Egypt where they lived for several centuries, nor the Canaanites whose land they were invading. Keep in mind that the Lord has said over and over that the issue with the Canaanites was not the people, but their hideous religious practices. The cities Joshua attacked were a select group of major cult centers; they were never commissioned to destroy every town. Thus, they should have expected some of the local population to continue as conquered subject nations while Israel took over the ownership of the land promised to Abraham.

So the point here in this chapter is to avoid acting like the pagan peoples to whom Israel was routinely exposed. The Egyptians had no problem with incestuous marriages, so the rules here are pretty clear about all the different ways one could violate this taboo, with polygamy, etc. It has to do with what constitutes kinship too close for sexual contact, and presumably marriage. This is where we get our Western notion of “kissing cousin” — anyone who is at least three times removed (third cousin). They are considered safe from this regulation.

Notice that under normal circumstances, a man cannot touch a brother’s wife, but the exception not mentioned here is when his brother dies without heirs. Then a man must marry his brother’s widow and raise up heirs in that brother’s name. Keep it in focus here: This is not simply a matter of marriage and kinship, but each of these negative examples arises from pagan practices either in Egypt or Canaan.

Thus, we come to verse 19 which is often misunderstood and taken out of that context. In order to explain this, we have to bring in a lot of context. My primary source is here. You can probably find this elsewhere. Our biggest problem is that Orthodox Judaism has made a huge confusing mess out of the issue of women’s menstruation. Consequently, Christians who pay no attention to Jesus’ and His condemnation of Jewish folly and legalism have this crazy notion that Judaism is an accurate reflection of the Covenant. It is not. The reference here is to a pagan ritual act.

That link makes note of Leviticus 15 and 20, where the wider issue of menstruation is raised as a matter of ritual purity. It also mentions vaginal hemorrhage, which is handled differently, a much stricter matter. Rabbinical tradition, in yet another attempt to hedge about the Law, as if it needs some kind of extreme protection, refuses to distinguish the two and treats them both as hemorrhage, which is totally unfair to the woman and hard on marriages.

Under routine menstruation, a woman is ritually impure for seven days. All that means is that she cannot enter the Temple grounds. As long as she is nowhere near the Temple, it’s no big deal. If her husband lies in the same bed or sits on the same chair during that seven days, he must bathe and wait until sundown to enter the Temple. Archaeologists have found a ring of pools around the Temple Mount. A man entering Jerusalem and headed for the Temple could stop off and bathe at one of these pools and wait until sundown, then enter the Temple. A lot of men would play it safe and stop to bathe on the principle of some unwitting ritual impurity. This is where we get baptism, by the way.

If he actually had sex with her during her seven days, he had to wait out the week with her. Now as long as he had no intention of entering the Temple, none of that ritual purity business mattered. That is, unless that sex act during her period was a pagan ritual act, something that was practiced in both Egypt and among the Canaanites. Then the both of them were liable to execution, or exile if they happened to escape. That’s the point of the reference in this chapter here.

For those of us who follow the Messiah and King of the New Israel, the ritual purity issue means nothing. And it’s hard to imagine even a Western Christian desiring to engage in any long forgotten pagan rituals. However, Paul made it clear that the issue of sex with near relatives, both by blood and by marriage, is more than a matter of ancient heathen rituals (1 Corinthians 5). It violates Creation itself and threatens shalom.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Dreaming of the Rule of Faith

Posted on January 24, 2020 by ehurst

We are not here to reform or change mainstream Christian religion.

It is my honest conviction that whatever happens to the mainstream church in the future has little to do with Radix Fidem. It’s not that God can’t or won’t use us to change the way churches do things, but that is not our focus. We are called to follow our Lord in the heart-led way, wherever that takes us. But we should renounce any idea that we are on a crusade to make the churches all better. They are on their own path, and we are on ours.

It’s impossible to avoid some overlap in what we say or promote. The mainstream churches don’t get everything wrong. That’s why some of us belong within their institutions. But we generally regard the mainstream organizations as human agencies with some faith tacked on. Faith is there, but it does not rule.

While we believe the Bible is clear on what it takes to bring a rule of faith, we know that path is culturally impossible for Westerners: forming heart-led feudal covenant families. Everything about that is alien to Western society. There is a shocking difference between the biblical path and what is generally possible in our world. We don’t expect to see any churches forming that way anytime soon. That’s not meant to discourage anyone from trying, but to be aware of what a monumental task it is in the current context.

However, I am equally convinced that the current context will change dramatically in the next few years. We are in for serious tribulation. It bears watching and praying to be nimble enough to seize the opportunities for shining divine glory, while also being wary of false trends that mean nothing. Somewhere ahead of us stands the time and place where our message is more likely to be heard.

Posted in religion | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

No Divided Loyalties

Posted on January 20, 2020 by ehurst

We are stateless vagabonds on this earth.

One of the most powerful images from the Old Testament is that of the wilderness nomad. The nation of Israel was called upon to maintain the symbolism of living in tents long after they settled in Palestine. It was a critical part of the celebration called Booths, just after their New Year. Even the Temple was built to resemble the layout of the original Tabernacle in Exodus.

When the Kingdom of Israel was dissolved on the Cross, the symbolism remained. In the New Testament this is carried forward in the expression “not of this world.” We are forever visitors and not residents. Our only real home is in God’s Courts above. This is the essence of how we handle persecution. There is no real vested interest in the things of this world, nor it’s nations and kingdoms.

There’s nothing wrong with feelings of nostalgia and favor for the people where you were raised, or where you live now. Just don’t get trapped in the feelings. Recognize those emotions for what they are: a natural outgrowth of human comfort in nesting. We have no real home on this earth. We can wear the colors and cheer our favorite sports teams, but we don’t really belong. In the final analysis our sole loyalty is to Christ.

Christ was rejected by this world. He said we should expect the same as a part of following Him. We must take up our own crosses. In the moment of crisis, our convictions will drive us to different answers to the problems. They will eventually turn on us. As tribulation rises, true believers are always distinguished in this way.

This is the mindset of Christians in persecution.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

More on Leviticus 17

Posted on January 19, 2020 by ehurst

Blood paves the way for fallen people to enter the presence of God.

If it were your own blood, you would be dying, shedding your mortal existence to enter God’s Presence. But while you yet live, you can offer the blood of proxies. Animals are not fallen, and God accepts their innocent blood in the place of ours. Jesus was unfallen, but His sacrifice was once and for all. It is His blood that brings us into the Presence while we live in this world.

The blood of innocent sacrifices is sacred, because it symbolizes their life force. Their lives are sacred in a certain moral sense — “sacred” means devoted to God. The lives of those who are at peace with God are also sacred. This is why the blood of Abel cried out to God. The blood of Cain would not have cried out.

However, this does not refer to objective facts. These things are noted as moral truths contextual to our lives. Cain was in a position to know that Abel was innocent of anything that demanded his blood at his hands. If your obedience to Biblical Law brings opposition, it could be necessary for your mission to take someone’s life. You are the only one who can discern that.

You may not know if an aggressor is at peace with God, but they have placed themselves in the kill zone, so their lives are forfeit. God defines your kill zone in your heart. You may still reverence their remains as worthy competitors, based on what you know. Then again, some enemies clearly deserve to have their carcasses left for carrion. The context will tell your heart.

The lack of objectivity here infuriates our fallen world. We have no answer for them if the explanation of Biblical Law exceeds their grasp. We aren’t required to justify ourselves to them, but we should be aware that a secular or pagan world will demand consequences based on their false understanding of things. Much of what we do is a matter of discerning God’s tactics for the context, whether to defy the world or to play along, and how much.

The issue with eating meat in our modern society is far removed from the context of Leviticus 17. The whole point is to bear reverence for blood as the symbol of life. Not all human life is sacred to us; that is the meaning of the Fall. Biblical Law explains how that works. However, all non-human life is sacred because it is not fallen. Living by this Law of God is how we honor the blood of Christ.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Law of Moses — Leviticus 17

Posted on January 18, 2020 by ehurst

We pass over a great deal of ceremonial detail that could not apply to any other context but Ancient Israel. The nature of our study here is to understand the background of the Law in terms of how it would apply to us today. This chapter follows upon the instructions for the Day of Atonement, and stands in the context of making offerings. However, we find here an eternal divine principle of how God demands respect for His Creation.

Thus, the first six verses refer to any food that is ritually consumed in the Presence of Jehovah, in the sense of a shared meal declaring peace with God. This does not refer to common food preparation. It would be impossible for the priesthood to handle overseeing a ritual slaughter every day of the year for several hundred thousand households. This is for those special times of celebration. The idea is that bringing the dead carcass to the Temple is an insult to the Lord. You can’t treat a special meal in the Divine Presence as any other meal. The blood must be poured out before Him, and the entrails and fatty parts offered on the altar.

But then the commandment makes a particular point of warning that Jehovah is the only deity Israel serves. God refers to making sacrifices to goats, and it is often rightly translated as “demons” because it’s a reference to the goat idols some Israelis had picked up in Egypt. We know from rabbinical traditions that some small minority of the nation carried idols throughout the Exodus, and this was the source of much trouble. What the text here says is that, if they get caught, they can executed (“cut off”).

Next comes something that applies to all of humanity until the End of All Things: You shall not consume the blood of animals. Even in the daily food preparation at home, there must be a reverence toward God and His Creation by draining the blood carefully before any further processing of the carcass. God notes that this applies to every human, and we see that the Apostles in Acts 15 take it that way.

If nothing else, we should show reverence that one of God’s creatures must sacrifice its life for our survival. The whole point of the ritual law that we skipped over at this point is the symbolism of bloodshed to mark the price of sin. Sin kills; God allows us to use the blood of proxies to cover our sins. Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with animal skins, meaning animals died to protect them after the Fall. Eating meat is optional, but shedding blood is not. If you eat meat, it has to be done properly.

Furthermore, that blood should ideally be shed at your own hands. God makes one small allowance for eating meat from animals you didn’t kill yourself (or someone in your family killed). Presumably, you’re going to make sure it is bled before eating it. If you eat it, then you have touched a carcass. Have respect for life by noting that you are ceremonially unclean among human company until the next day (Hebrew days started at nightfall). Consider that the folks most likely to eat what we might jokingly call “road kill” would be people too poor to own or buy animals they could slaughter.

This is how we handle things today. While we no longer face the rituals that applied to Israel, we can easily understand how the modern food industry often ignores the thrust of this commandment. The whole idea is not the rules; God realizes that we don’t always have too many options. Our reverence for life is the issue, not the Kosher Law. Jesus made that point, and Peter’s housetop experience in Joppa leaves no doubt. We don’t bless the food, we bless the God who provides it.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Law of Moses — Leviticus 17

The Real Parties

Posted on January 18, 2020 by ehurst

There are two political parties in the US. Some claim there are more, but those others are just variations on the basic two. First is the materialistic middle-class pretentious liars. Their moral self-image is a false front, a moral depravity of its own. Second is the libertine folks who commit the same gross sins, but do so openly. Thus, the only real conflict is whether those sins should be publicly condemned, not whether anyone should engage in them. The whole debate is inherently materialistic.

The single greatest lie of Western Civilization has always been that there can be no hidden moral agency in the universe. That is, everything about our world is inherently discernible with the five senses. The heart is just an organ that pumps blood. Everything is down to a matter of physics and chemistry. It is a doctrinal assumption that, sooner or later, all things must be discerned by human agency. In the meantime, when anything is inexplicable by that approach, the difference between the two real parties is what brand of mysticism they permit.

Both are shallow and false. The first group says that there must be some deity who keeps us in the dark about it, but that said deity will reward those who persist in keeping certain silly rules, at least in public. Their god demands the silly charade. The second group says that there is no god, and that we are held back by our silly moral rules. We just need to embrace reality with our spirits, thus making a deity of the fallen human will.

The variations between these two basic positions are not of a different type, but a difference in degree and flavor. Very few Americans have any consciousness outside the boundaries of this essential debate. These two parties also represent two branches of the same basic materialistic religion.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

A Gossamer Distinction

Posted on January 14, 2020 by ehurst

In Radix Fidem, we make much of the Old Testament as the foundation for what Jesus taught.

If you were to step back and examine the Old Testament, you would see that, while some rituals were carefully structured and regulated, actual theology was very thin. There are obvious doctrinal statements here and there, but precious little of any systematic belief. The cultural and intellectual background was the real controlling factor in that sense.

The teaching of Jesus only reinforced this. There is really very little theology, but a lot of moral structure. The emphasis was always on feudal commitment to God and a powerful sense of conviction.

This is what we strive for in Radix Fidem. It’s not something that makes for a strong movement in our Western society. This makes it painfully difficult to create a distinct identity. Once inside this covenant, most of us have no trouble recognizing each other, but people on the outside would struggle to point to any identifying elements. That’s just the way it is for us.

All the more so with all the Old Testament rituals removed. They make no sense in our world, for the most part. They belonged to a different time, place and people. So we are left with something that the people around us are unlikely to even notice. That is, they won’t notice until we put it into practice. And while they still won’t see much that registers as a common moral thread, they will certainly notice our faith individually once we all feel the effects of tribulation.

There will be others out there who handle things with a similar faith. Who can say what will motivate them? We applaud anyone who manages to persevere in moral purity in the midst of trials, but it also tends to wipe away our gossamer distinction. It requires a measure of heart-led perception to see clearly any part of our shared faith. That is, unless folks notice that we don’t criticize the strength of outsiders. One of the few distinctions we have on that level is our lack of cheerleading our own identity. What we have is beautiful beyond words, but that doesn’t mean others don’t have something, too.

People who notice our lack of exclusivity will likely mistake us for belonging to something else they do know about. We must be ready to tell them when we sense that it makes a difference in our testimony. We allow the Holy Spirit to guide how much we invest in someone else, and what we should expect to harvest from their lives. We certainly don’t try to package it as a sales kit.

In terms of how our society measures such things, our religion will fail. It doesn’t even qualify as a movement. And yet it remains the most profound change in all of us who have crossed over into the moral realm of awareness.

This is what we think about when we use the word “evangelism.”

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments