Doctrine of Atonement

Posted on April 28, 2019 by ehurst

This is a major point of conflict between the Western and Eastern Christian traditions.

The Western view is based on tribal Germanic mythology, which bears an inherently vindictive and punitive view of God’s wrath. The image of God that arises from this tradition is closest to the literary image of the grouchy Norse god. It makes God’s wrath unpredictable and capricious. This is a pagan view; it is not consistent with the Bible. This is why Western Christian theology tends to view Jesus as a departure from the God of the Old Testament, and hostile to the continuity between Jesus and the Old Testament.

The Eastern view does not see fallen men as evil, but as sick. Instead of the Western need of placating an angry God, this is the view that we need healing for our warped understanding. The Eastern church prefers the term “recapitulation” instead of “atonement.” The call of Christ is more of union than paying a penalty. The Eastern Christ reunites fallen man with God’s ideal; it’s a stronger focus on the work of His life than on His death. It’s a much stronger emphasis on the dual nature of Christ.

We find both views lacking in the sense of a false dichotomy. We emphasize the centrality of covenant in what we teach here. Everything is explained by referring to the applicable covenant. For us, Christ came to restore the covenant communion we had with God in the Garden of Eden. The mission of Christ was to bring us back to the Flaming Sword so we could enter Eden again. We don’t explain it in abstractions nor mere symbolism, but in terms of biblical narrative.

The problem with the Fall was asserting the primacy of human self, the intellect over faith. We are all equipped with the mechanism of faith, but our sense of the adequacy of reason stands in the way. We insist on discerning and reasoning out for ourselves what is good and what is evil. So long as we trust in our human capabilities, we exclude ourselves from redemption.

The death of Jesus was substitutionary in the sense that, once we bought into Satan’s lie about trusting our own intellects and becoming our own gods, we were flatly unable to find our way back to faith. This placed us outside of Eden and under wrath, deserving of eternal destruction. Jesus took our destruction upon Himself. His work was both restoration of divine truth and healing, but also opened showed us the path back to Eden. We can choose self-death before we come to the grave.

This in inherent in the Old Testament. There, the path of revelation was God’s chosen self-disclosure through the various covenants. It began with the simple Covenant of Seth just outside of Eden. As mankind traveled farther and farther from Eden, things get more complicated for a return to the Flaming Sword. Next came the Covenant of Noah, rather clearly stated in prophecy Noah gave before the Flood. But mankind traveled farther still from Eden. Sometime later, at least one man reached the self-death of the Flaming Sword: Abraham. The Covenant of Abraham is a genuine covenant of faith, the first recorded instance of a very personal communion between God and man. It was implied under the Covenant of Noah, but was offered only upon reaching that point of self-death. Abraham was marked for return to Eden.

However, Abraham was also the first link in the Covenant of Moses. Moses was a specific implementation of the broader Covenant of Noah, a much more clear and precise contextual statement of Noah. During the time of ancient Israel, the path back to Eden — now quite long — meant a great deal of struggle to find the Flaming Sword and make use it for self-death. Moses was meant to create a condition of longing for peace with God, but it was by then a very difficult path. Still, it was the best path, though Noah’s Covenant was still open to those who were not called to Moses.

Jesus used the term “born from above” with Nicodemus. Paul says that spiritual birth is entirely a matter of God’s initiative and election of recipients. We do not “get” it; we realize that God chose us and embrace it with joy. It is beyond us to even understand it, and Paul flatly says we cannot want it because self-death is necessary for it. The fleshly self cannot wish for its own death; it cannot embrace the Flaming Sword. Only the power of God awakening the dead human spirit can overcome the resistance of the flesh. Jesus didn’t bring us this spiritual birth. It was always there. Abraham was elect; clearly the likes of Samuel and King David were beyond the point of self-death. Jesus was disappointed that Nicodemus exhibited no self-death level of personal faith and understanding after having so long tread the path of the Covenant.

What Jesus brought us was the shortcut back to the Flaming Sword. Instead of treading a long path of conditioning under the Law Covenants (Moses and Noah), we can take a shortcut to the Covenant of Faith (like Abraham) and receive the awakening of our awareness of divine election. We don’t have to first submerge our lives in some Law Covenant, but we can find faith freely and seize the Flaming Sword.

But what is supposed to follow that discovery of election is then to go back and devote the rest of our lives to that long path of learning what the Law Covenants were designed to teach our flesh. We can’t know what Abraham had accomplished before God called him into covenant, but we do know that his mistakes indicate how his faith had to grow. This is where we find ourselves today. Christ paid the price of that long trek up front; He substituted His own sinless life on the Cross so we didn’t have to carry one to get back to the Flaming Sword and the Gate of Eden. But we do have to carry one once we embrace His sacrifice on our behalf.

Just a reminder: In Paul’s writings in particular, but in the New Testament in general, the references to “the Law” often mean something other than Moses. You have to read it in context, because sometimes it refers to the Talmud, not Moses. Sometimes it refers to legalism as the mental habit of Pharisees, portraying them as some awful, implacable law, because they were often part of the Jewish government. At other times, it does, indeed, refer to the Covenant of Moses. But because people don’t grasp the contextual distinctions, they become legalistic about the words “not under law but under grace.”

Law is grace. It came as a measure of God’s mercy to bring us back to the Flaming Sword, and back to the Gate of Eden. The Law points the way, but it cannot of itself give you faith. That comes only when you embrace self-death. Only God knows if, when and how you can get there.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Doctrine of Atonement

Teachings of Jesus — John 8:1-12

Posted on April 27, 2019 by ehurst

Personally, I suspect John was like any other writer, in that sometimes he published something only to wish later he had remembered to include something important. In some English translations you will find marginal notes or footnotes indicating that this passage was not in all the manuscript copies of John’s Gospel. Yet no one is going to argue that it is inconsistent with what Jesus taught elsewhere.

The issue is not whether the woman sinned. Nor is the issue that the accusers failed to bring the man who was equally guilty of lying with her; that was just a symptom. The issue is that the accusers were themselves in violation of the Covenant and had no leverage against this woman. Their own infidelity was greater than hers.

We need to remind ourselves that the Covenant of Moses presupposed a tribal feudal society. Everyone lived in their own kinfolks’ armpits, and your cousins knew your private business. Your village was generally your own clan. When outsiders moved into the area, they were gradually pulled into this because it was inherent in the Covenant that you watched out for your neighbors. The word translated as “neighbor” meant in practice your close relative. This was considered a blessing in their society.

With everyone so close to each other socially, the business of adultery was a major threat to shalom. How could you trust your cousin if you thought he was poaching on your wife? This is what moves relatives to murder each other. But even if you lived in Jerusalem where a good portion of the population were not related to each other, the principle remains that shalom leans hard on that same high level of trust, treating everyone as your beloved cousin. It’s not an open society; it’s very tightly closed by virtue of familial concern. How many times was Israel told in the Law and Prophets that your fellow Israelite was your kin?

There, in or near Jerusalem, sometime after the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus was sitting with His disciples. As was sometimes customary among Pharisaical rabbis, a group of elders brought a case to Jesus for judgment. This time it was a very real and literal case, not just a made-up narrative. It was a woman caught in the very act of adultery.

We need not suppose Jesus was doing anything particularly meaningful by ignoring them. The most obvious reason for pretending they weren’t there was to ensure the tension was high before He spoke. Had He not already condemned their materialistic legalism repeatedly? But they pressed Him for a response.

The problem here is that not a single one of the accusers had moral standing to bring a case against her. Clearly they were not guarding shalom. They were guarding the law as they imagined it to be, as if it were too feeble to deliver its own power. In their lives, it was powerless because they weren’t clinging to it at all. They did fail to observe the requirement of bring both parties to adultery to judgment, but that was just a symptom of a far bigger failing. They weren’t keeping the Law in the first place. They were laboring under their own sins, and not one of them was manfully taking up the mantel of shepherd over the people.

Instead, they had constructed a massive edifice of petty, nit-picking rules that they could barely keep up with themselves. It was part of their teaching to worry about that. But in spiritual terms, they had no peace with God. So when Jesus suggested that the one without sin should cast the first stone, this wasn’t to prevent her punishment. It was to execute their own punishments. If there was no community of faith seeking peace with God, then there was nothing to protect by executing the woman.

If anyone had standing to stone her, it was Jesus. I’m willing to bet she understood that on some level. When the men had all left, He asked her if any of her accusers stood against her still. She addressed Him as if He were a valid judge. Jesus then replied that He was not the one accusing her. It wasn’t necessary at this point. He released her to her own conscience and advised her to clean up her life. The implication is that divine justice would come to her one way or another if she didn’t seize this opportunity.

Inherent in this brief scene is the declaration that the Covenant had been so completely vacated by the vassal party that God as sovereign was no longer treating Israel as His chosen covenant community. The people did not want it, apparently. At least, not enough of them wanted it to warrant enforcing the strictest provisions to protect shalom. They had failed and flagrantly violated the requirements repeatedly for so long that there was no shalom left to protect. On the earthly plane, the government of Israel under the Covenant was being dissolved.

So Jesus turned to His disciples and told them that He was the shining glory of God in this world. He was the new government appointed by God to lead whatever “nation” would arise to follow Him. This was the only way to lead people out of darkness. The people of the Covenant of Moses had refused that mission.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Teachings of Jesus — John 8:1-12

Windows 10 Adventure: Upgrade from Win7

Posted on April 26, 2019 by ehurst

Today I performed my first hands-on upgrade of a client’s Win7 machine to Win10. Most of the time it should just adopt the Win7 license, but this one was hacked, so it required a new key. It was about $2 on eBay; perfectly legal and legit. I bought it from a system builder and it worked just fine.

The installer told me it was going to wipe the applications and config files, and keep only the user files. Actually, it kept the entire Win7 file system and stuffed it under “Windows.old” in the new file system. The apps were still there and most would still work, but the configs were missing. I had backed hers up and copied them back in place in her “AppData” folder in the right places (Local, LocalLow and Roaming). What I didn’t realize was that in about ten days, Win10 is going to delete that entire Windows.old folder. So I now have to go back and reinstall everything that still runs okay from there. That’s pretty easy in this case; the client uses her system for almost nothing but email and to play some music and games.

Other than that, it appears everything went just fine. It took a couple of hours because I was being cautious. You can get the details on how to do this and where to get the installer from ZDNet.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Windows 10 Adventure: Upgrade from Win7

Two Kinds of Forgiveness

Posted on April 26, 2019 by ehurst

Forgiveness is used two different ways in the Bible.

On the one hand, it’s obvious that you should learn to tolerate human failure. That whole business of “seven times seven” Jesus taught has to do with moving away from the legalism of the Pharisees. Focusing on the angle “you need to forgive” guarantees you will miss the point, that you still think like a Pharisee. Jesus was trying to move His disciples into another level of understanding. In that sense, forgiveness is a mindset where you build up a reserve of tolerance for people who are struggling with moral fortitude.

Thus, we have all manner of reminders that the person in the mirror is no better than anyone else. We are all born under the Curse of the Fall, and we all rub someone else the wrong way. There is too much far more important stuff to worry about than to fight over who is offended at whom and for what. The issue here is getting self out of the way so we can stop confusing personal discomfort with threats to the mission.

So the question here is to stop and discern what you really absolutely must have in order to keep peace with God. When someone in your world intrudes into that territory, you do whatever it takes to keep them away from it. The simplest measure is putting distance between you and them. If that’s not possible, then you start working on other kinds of barriers that require changing their behavior. It is quite valid that this scales up to violence, simply because some people are not equipped to change themselves in some contexts. It’s not based on personal pique, but whatever it takes to protect the mission, to keep giving God what He demands of you.

Your heart will tell you how tolerant you must be, and your experience will indicate the boundaries. The wisdom of others involved is a factor, of course. This is what a covenant community of faith is all about. You need a wider perspective to point out things your flesh tends to ignore. Your fleshly self is predisposed to take offense and tie up the process at those critical points where that gets in the way of clear thinking from the heart.

On the other hand, there is another other kind of forgiveness: the active choice of the recipient. You can’t give someone something they refuse to accept. You can put it within reach, but you can’t make them take it. Forgiveness means nothing in the redemption of their souls until they move to where forgiveness stands. The Bible makes it clear you cannot receive God’s forgiveness until you want it. Wanting it means going where grace is waiting for you.

That means repentance. You as the person in need of forgiveness can’t have it on your own terms. You cannot demand free delivery at your convenience. Something is broken and you are culpable, so you are the one with the burden of debt.

Most vendettas arise over the confusion of dominion. Who owns what? What did God grant in feudal vassalage to each of us? If we usurp His authority on such matters, forgiveness will always be a confused mess.

We struggle with a very evil and nasty mythology about earthly authority in the West. We have a totalitarian instinct on this question, by which we presume to grant near absolute authority to agencies that God doesn’t recognize. We have a tendency to postulate a community standard with vehemence and even hatred when it’s just a mask for one’s personal leverage. We seek to force humiliation onto others from a social perspective that rejects a priori the moral compass of the heart. We vest absolute authority in the most shallow and passing political consensus, something that is so easily manipulated that it’s a joke.

So we have this false image, an idolatry of something we construct in our own minds as the absolute moral norm simply because we can find some legalistic support for it, even if we have to use the most questionable semantic analysis. And we invest too much energy in this defense of what amounts to the very most petty pique, as if it were some divine right to be pissed and demand retribution. This gives birth to a demand for the most invasive humiliation and vindictive hatred so that forgiveness is driven out.

This is not what God meant by “repentance.” Repentance between humans is simply agreeing that some bad event should not have happened. It is seldom one-sided in confessing culpability. It is meeting in the middle somewhere to restore shalom. It’s putting out the fire of inflamed passions of offense. It is seeking terms of coexistence.

There are some people in this world you should stay far, far away from. This is the fallen reality in which we live. We do not harness elephants and dogs to the same wagon. God made each to function differently for very good reasons, and no godly leader would waste time with such a project. A critical element in building and maintaining shalom is not dragging anyone down with needless frustration and conflict. People should be guided to a position that matches how God made them to live.

For the most part, forgiveness is a problem for leadership. That is, the people who complain most about it are leaders who don’t want to do their job. They tend to force “solutions” that are convenient for them. This happens when they focus too much on getting things done, when God says that has a lower priority than keeping the peace. Most leaders want to get things done because it elevates their materialistic standing. Biblical Law says that’s not important; it says that keeping shalom is what matters. Peace with God often means keeping people apart who don’t belong together, along with a whole range of setting boundaries and shielding them from each other when separation isn’t possible.

Forgiveness balances between the individual and the community.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Two Kinds of Forgiveness

It Changes Nothing

Posted on April 25, 2019 by ehurst

This is fiction based on a dream I had.

Let me tell you about something that happened on my last job. I was hired by some guy who had a defense contract to manage supplies related to some obscure piece of equipment. We had about a dozen people in the operation, and most of my work was related to tech support for the team, but more than just computers. I used my fancy laptop on the job a great deal because we had to travel so much.

Right after I signed on, we had to fly up north somewhere on a cargo plane, because we were escorting some pallets of supplies. The boss suggested we take a nap because it was a long flight and we would land sometime before dawn. I climbed up on one of the pallets because it had padding across the top. I grabbed a spare tarp for cover because the interior of the cargo bay was unheated. Pulling my jacket off, I rolled it up as a pillow.

When I woke up a few hours later, I found the cutie on the team was curled up against my back. I moved a little and rolled over onto my back. She mumbled something about, “Don’t expect a hand job.” While I was repulsed by what I thought was a very naughty sense of humor, I simply replied with sarcastic deadpan, “Oh, darn.” I dozed off again.

When we began descent for landing, I got up and started composing myself for the rush of work we would have unloading. One of the guys leaned up close to me and said quietly, “Be careful with her. She’s just a big tease.”

I turned with a faint smile. “Watch me. She won’t get anything I wouldn’t give anyone else.”

During the morning she did tend to act as if there was something between us, but I never warmed to her at all. I’m pretty tolerant with unusual requests, but kept up my nonreactive front, especially when dealing with her.

We were sitting in a private lounge attached to a hanger. Some were in some chairs along one wall, and about three of us were at one table. I had done some work on my laptop, and then closed the lid and slipped it back into my bag. She arose from her seat along the wall and walked over to the table. Trying to look her cutest, she asked me, “Can I play some games on your computer?”

“Nope. I never let anyone use my computer.” Again, I kept my mild and nonreactive tone.

With some exaggerated affectation, she pouted and said, “I thought I was special.”

I turned my head a little to one side. “I never gave you anything I wouldn’t give anyone else. The only thing that separates you from the rest of the team is that you’re a gold-digger. You just make more demands.”

She was genuinely angry. “I hate you!”

I leaned back and closed my eyes, stretching my arms up. “I knew that already. Nothing has changed except your false impression.”

She turned and stormed out.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off on It Changes Nothing

Divine Presence in Biblical Law

Posted on April 22, 2019 by ehurst

Biblical Law is its own reward.

We need to understand that shalom is both requirement and reward. We need to keep before our eyes how Biblical Law is the character of Christ. We should desire it by reflex as the best we can have in this life. But the power to obey is part of what God grants to us as a blessing to our faith.

We need not worry ourselves about the mechanism of faith when dealing with others. There is no mechanism; it either lives or is dead. We aren’t in a position to know if another person has faith, and faith has them. We can sense in our hearts that God is making someone our mission, and we can by faith discern how to handle them in grace, but we cannot know for sure they are spiritually alive. All we know is how God wants us to treat them.

There is no objective reality that we should worry ourselves with; there is only mission and calling. With this lack of certainty about the state of any other person in this world, we seek to build a shalom that is organic. It is alive of itself and is not under our control. It is a partnership, an alliance under Christ’s dominion.

Thus, we dispense with trying to know factually whether someone has the same faith we do. Instead, we focus on that vibe of compliance with Biblical Law. That’s the ultimate sense of reality we need to live in Christ. In this focus on Biblical Law as the Presence of the Holy Spirit, we then organize our mission of living in terms of apparent compliance. This is what mysticism means for us; it’s an otherworldly sensing of things with a very practical focus on what we can do about it.

What can we do about other people with whom we are serving and worshiping the Lord? We seek compliance with Biblical Law in the sense of cooperating with God and His revelation. We don’t have to judge; the living Law of God does that. We go on what it tells us, not in the sense of judging but in the sense of how we plan and implement our own cooperation.

People stuck in the Western mode of thinking will tend to see this as legalism because they cannot see what we see. Be prepared to endure this misunderstanding in their minds. Press on with cooperation with Biblical Law. “Keep your eye on the prize” means just that; it’s the upward calling of Christ. It’s increasing cooperation in your own conduct and in how you encourage others. It’s seeking the vital life force of holiness. In terms of practical communication and action, the focus is Biblical Law.

In the process, we make room for a lot of people and their behavior that doesn’t seem to reflect this holiness. We have enough weakness in ourselves, so we should hardly be surprised when it shows up in others. But we give people in our mission field of operation room to be something less than holy. We give them room to find grace through Biblical Law. We build a community of faith that includes people who don’t appear to have the full backing of faith. We build a religion of cooperation in the assumption there will always be some growing toward full faith and conviction.

We don’t worry about what we cannot know. We cooperate with those who appear to cooperate with Biblical Law. That’s enough. Law remains the focus of activity, because it is for us the manifestation of grace and the divine Presence.

Law is grace.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Divine Presence in Biblical Law

Resurrection Sunday 2019

Posted on April 21, 2019 by ehurst

At least as early as His baptism, Jesus was fully conscious of the Cross ahead of Him. It was quite some struggle to make sure the Twelve were ready to carry the burden after He was gone.

Recent events remind me that, being over 60, this is probably a good time to build in some dead-man switches. I’ll be writing a sort of guide for my survivors to handle things and close out the business of my life. I rejoice at the idea that some folks would miss me, but I am also uncomfortable that some folks actually feel dependent on me. The latter is something I’ve tried to address simply on the grounds that censorship is rising, but death is another matter.

To be honest, my prophetic sense tells me I’ll be around for a very long time, but God has been known to change His plans for us. Divine will is not written in stone somewhere. I’m absolutely certain God has activated contingencies in the past few years. Nothing surprises Him and I firmly believe He knows the future, but not in the common sense of determinism. He gives us choices along the way within His plans. Most prophecy is conditional: “If you fail this command, such-n-such will be God’s response.” This is why He had the entire nation of Israel stand on the mountains either side of Shechem and recite the blessings and curses of the Covenant (see Deuteronomy 11 and Joshua 8:30-35).

In the long run, though, the real issue is that we are approaching a time in God’s judgment and wrath on America that lot of things will change dramatically in a relatively short time. Some of what we do now will be impossible before this year is out. Our fellowship should be unaffected, but the I’ve already warned that this blog is no longer the center of it. That is, if you are among those who actually engage our faith community, it should still be possible regardless of this blog. If you are simply a subscriber, maybe you won’t miss it so much.

I really do wish I could meet with some of you for a communion service today.

Addenda: I don’t take myself that seriously, but a few folks have warned me that they consider my work very important. I’m not the person who decides what should happen if I pass on to the other side, but some of you want to plan for it in case it happens any time soon. So answer for yourself this question: What would you volunteer to do for this ministry should I die? What work would you do to avoid losing something that you value? What part of that should I know about right now so I can make it easier?

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Resurrection Sunday 2019

Teachings of Jesus — John 7:25-53

Posted on April 20, 2019 by ehurst

We know that Luke managed to ferret out the details of Jesus’ birth and some outline of His early years. His gospel reflects this dramatic tale of birth in His ancestral home of Bethlehem, as a descendent of King David. His parents were on the Roman tax rolls, a public record. They stayed a year or so, then fled to Egypt, to return some years later to Nazareth, where His parents lived back when He was conceived. The Sanhedrin could have known this much, but refused to bother with researching it. At several points in our focal passage here, the lack of factual data is painfully obvious with the Sanhedrin and the cynical residents of Jerusalem, who seemed to know just about everything else.

Jesus met every prophetic test of His Messiahship. Not only were the Jewish leaders ignorant of this, but they refused to look at the Scripture to find out. They had long since ceased to study their Covenant documents, and had embarked on a path that led them to the Talmud. By the time of Jesus, the leadership had already decided their oral traditions trumped the written Law of Moses. Their demands were so radical that they were incapable of comprehending what the Messiah was actually supposed to do when He came. The Pharisees taught that they had God over a barrel; He had to seek their approval to nominate a Messiah.

The Pharisees held in contempt the Jewish tourists from the Diaspora. They were “accursed” and the only reason anyone put up with them was to get their money. When Jesus came along seeking to restore the ancient Hebrew perspective, He placed Himself in the Sanhedrin’s eyes below the accursed tourists. He was a genuine enemy worse than any bumbling Gentile, since His teaching demanded that the leadership, and the Pharisees in particular, surrender their longstanding prerogatives as the Chosen of the Chosen, so pure that God had to seek their rabbinical blessings, lest He lose His throne.

This is no exaggeration. They were possessed of a monumental arrogance.

After Jesus sternly rebuked them for rejecting their own God and His revelation in our last lesson, we see the people of the city wondering how He was allowed to stand in public after the Sanhedrin had issued a death warrant for Him. Had they changed their minds about Him being the Messiah? Can’t be! They were sure He was from Nazareth and that the Messiah would be from Heaven, not some place on earth.

Jesus responded with sarcasm. Oh, for sure, they knew all about the details of His birth. Yes, there was no doubt they had it all figured out. But they were utterly clueless about Who sent Him. They knew some false history about Jesus, but had no idea who their national God was. Jesus knew Him for the obvious reason that the Heavenly Father had sent Him in the first place.

The city folks in the crowd were so insulted by this that they tried to seize Him. While John doesn’t answer the obvious question of how or why, he simply notes that no one could lay a hand on Him because it wasn’t the appointed hour of His sacrifice. The implication is that everyone knew it was miraculous. Meanwhile, the Diaspora tourist debated among themselves if the Messiah could possibly do miracles any more wondrous than that. Some of them came to believe, at least on that basis, that Jesus was the Messiah.

When the Pharisees heard such chatter in the crowd, they went back and counseled with the Sanhedrin. It was decided to send the Temple Guards to arrest Jesus, but again, they were unable to do it. Jesus told them they had to put up with Him a little longer, and then He would go back to His Lord. Then He said something cryptic: They would come looking for Him and not find Him. He was going to a place they could not come. The leadership who had accompanied the Temple Guards were puzzled over this. About the only thing they could guess was perhaps He would travel out to the Diaspora synagogues where it was known there would be many Gentile visitors. In those places, it was well-known that Roman Law protected people like Jesus from being harassed by Jewish zealots, since they opened their worship to the public. Maybe He could convert some Gentiles, but no self-respecting Jew would listen to Him.

This continued over the next few days until the eighth and final day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus stood in a very public place in the Temple Plaza and called for those who were spiritually thirsty. By embracing His message in faith, they would discover the meaning of Jeremiah’s prophecy — “For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13 NKJV). This was yet another clear reference to how the Pharisees had ditched the clear and sweet revelation flowing from God in favor of toxic stagnant water stored in porous limestone. That is, they trusted their own reason and imagination instead of what God had said.

John tells us this flowing fountain was a reference to the Holy Spirit, Who had not yet been given to believers, waiting until Jesus was risen and ascended to Heaven. This announcement precipitated a debate among the folks in the crowd. Was a He a prophet, or the Messiah? But wasn’t He supposed to come from Bethlehem as a member of the ancient royal household of David? Again, they were factually unaware that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and was from the royal household, but no one had bothered to find out for sure. Again, some of those in the crowd were infuriated and tried to seize Jesus, but simply could not.

Nor could the Temple Guards seize Him. When they reported back to the Sanhedrin empty-handed, the big shots berated them as traitors, in effect. This is where the Pharisees condemn the crowds openly as accursed, ignorant of “the Law,” by which they meant their oral traditions. Nicodemus warned them it was flatly illegal to put a death warrant on Jesus’ head in the first place without a fair trial. The only response they had was to attack Nicodemus. But it is the Pharisees who showed themselves ignorant, acting as if there was no prophet from Galilee. Both Jonah and Nahum were from Galilee.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Teachings of Jesus — John 7:25-53

Hands Tied by God

Posted on April 20, 2019 by ehurst

First and foremost: We follow Christ alone. Without any apology, we serve Him at whatever cost to our comfort, convenience, or even our lives.

Furthermore, we assert that most Westerners have no clue who He is, nor who He was during His time on earth. If you don’t take the time to seek a full immersion in His ancient Hebrew cultural and intellectual orientation, you have no hope of understanding anything He said or did. Granted, that means we spend the rest of our lives digging into the details of that ancient Hebrew heritage, and we have to sponsor good scholars among us who will lead the way. Still, this is the task before us in forming churches. We help each other cling to God.

Meanwhile, we also assert that a firm heart-led commitment to Christ as Lord will take you farther down the path of truth than all the scholarship in the world. Any one of you, with a heart-led wisdom and the guidance of Biblical Law, could easily solve most of the world’s problems.

But that’s not our mission. The world won’t listen anyway. Scripture warns us quite openly that things will go from bad to worse as time passes toward the day Christ returns. We are warned not to waste time seeking to make the world a better place in that sense. Instead, we seek to advance our own personal adherence to Christ’s teaching (AKA Biblical Law) as the only mission worthy of His name.

So the issue we face in this fallen world is not fixing anything except our own individual compliance with divine revelation. Everything else is a mere tactical exercise. We seek His glory through obedience and the harvest of His blessings in shalom. Whether we play along, and for how long we do so, is just a matter of heart-led guidance in seeking what most glorifies our Lord. It’s a matter of seeking in prayer and meditation who we are in Him so that we can discern how to act in each context. Our only question is: What has He called us to do?

We don’t give a damn how it turns out on a human level. We don’t care what other people consider to be wise or effective, and their feelings don’t matter. Indeed, since our lives don’t matter, neither do theirs. The whole issue is peace with God seeking His glory. Where is divine justice? It cannot be found in the reasonings of any human who builds on a foundation other than the Christ who calls us into His service. Nothing else matters.

We are swimming through the sewage of human-based lies about who Christ is and what He stands for in this world. The greatest blessing we can give to anyone is to walk in the truth of what you know in your heart. The consequences of that belong to God. Don’t you worry about how it plays out, except to watch so you can discern what is required of you next.

Granted, the vast majority of the time we should obey Romans 12:18 — “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (NKJV). That’s a fundamental part of divine guidance in your heart. However, before you ever have to face it, you should expect that it doesn’t always depend on you. Living in “peace” means the shalom God offers to all who seek His face. The image here excludes certain conduct and beliefs. If you don’t see that, then you are blind. God doesn’t bless what seems reasonable to humans; He blesses only what He has revealed as appropriate.

So you will feel obliged to swallow some crap in some contexts, and reject it in others. God rules, and His rule for you begins in your own heart of conviction. No apologies. Nobody says you can’t feel their pain with them, but if you know their pain comes from rejecting God’s truth, you’ll have to close your heart to their cries. We understand the weaknesses of our own flesh, but you cannot go where God says “no.”

Most human suffering is self-inflicted. The only answer is a heart-led commitment to Christ. Without that, your hands are tied by God.

Posted in sanity | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hands Tied by God

Biblical Morals in War

Posted on April 19, 2019 by ehurst

If we are going to follow Christ, we cannot afford to insert into our religion a value system that He did not hold.

If there’s one thing this blog shouts out repeatedly, it’s that Western morals do not reflect those in the Bible. Western values arose from a the collision of the remnants of pagan Greco-Roman Civilization and the uncivilized hoards of Germanic Tribal invaders who finished off that civilization. The leaders of the Roman Church at that time thoughtfully and willfully perverted the last vestige of biblical morals to more closely match those of the Germanic invaders so as to appeal to them and make some sort of shallow conversion possible.

Here at Kiln of the Soul, we flatly reject Western morals as hostile to genuine biblical religion. There is some overlap between the mainstream Western “Christianity” and what Christ actually taught, but there are significant differences. Christ was a Hebrew man.

So Christ would stand with King David on treatment of war captives. What does it take to humble the enemy and make them stop fighting? Don’t evaluate that from your own Western mythology; think in terms of how Israel’s kings did things, along with a host of other warrior kings in that time and place. I understand that American civil law will follow its own standard dictates. I am not suggesting that we should campaign for a change in that. My point here is that Christians are poking God in the eye when they evaluate the case of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher from a non-biblical perspective.

The Bible sees nothing wrong with what Gallagher is accused of doing, given the context. All the more so when you discover that ISIS was created by the US intelligence agencies (led, trained and funded by our people) in concert with those of our allies. This whole war against ISIS was a cynical ploy to fight both sides at the same time in order to destroy third party governments that have done us no harm whatsoever. The relentless and unspeakable evil within our own government is the real problem here, and it should help to explain the wrath and tribulation coming upon the US even now.

So we should pray for Eddie Gallagher that God will have mercy on him for being a hapless pawn in our government’s hideous lies.

Addenda: The Bible sees nothing wrong with assassination of civilian political figures. The Bible sees nothing wrong with meeting force with force. Do you think Israel’s forces would hesitate to do worse than Gallagher? Do you imagine that ISIS would hesitate to do even worse than all of them? Chivalry as a moral value is from pagan mythology, not from the Bible. If we are going to go to war, we should recognize no such limits, in part because nobody else does. That we even went to war in those places shows that are no better.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Biblical Morals in War