NT Doctrine — 1 Timothy 1

Posted on May 11, 2024 by ehurst

After Paul was released from house arrest in Rome, he had promises to keep by first visiting the churches in Macedonia. He wrote this letter to Timothy from there. But while he and Timothy longed to see each other, there were serious problems in Ephesus that needed Timothy’s talents, while Paul struggled with other difficulties in Macedonia.

Ephesus was just beginning to stand as a major hub of Christian religion. Within a couple of years, a revolt in Jerusalem would bring Roman troops, which Jesus had warned was coming. He had told the Christians to flee the city, and a very substantial portion of them gravitated toward Ephesus. Very quickly, it would become the center of gravity for the surviving Apostles. It was critical at this time that Timothy filter the Judaizers out of the church teaching corps.

Paul mentions two primary issues: the old Talmudic mythology and the fascination with genealogical tables. There was a substantial number of false teachers claiming they wanted to teach Moses (AKA, “the Law”), but they really had no idea what they were talking about. Trust Paul to be quite certain of this, having been a disciple of the greatest rabbi still living at that time (Hillel), and on the staff of the Sanhedrin at one point early in his rabbinical career.

Just to clarify, Paul states that the Law was not useless by any means. On the one hand, to follow Christ meant to obey the twin commands: feudal submission to God as Father and Lord, and that sacrificial love of Christ for His brothers and sisters in faith. This was the summary of Moses everyone recognized, and which Jesus taught. By the same token, the details of Moses’ books gave examples of what it looked like to love God and His people.

A heart changed by the power of the Holy Spirit was necessary to fulfill the purpose of the Law of Moses. Before Christ, the Law served as the gateway to that changed heart. Now the Holy Spirit Himself came to dwell in human souls, but the Law was not dead. It still spoke to those who had not yet been spiritually born.

“The Law is good if one uses it lawfully.” The purpose of the Law was to restrain the fleshly nature; that was its lawful use. The heart had no need for it, but the flesh did. Paul goes on to list what serves as an outline of things prohibited in Moses. A righteous person with a changed heart would never want to do those things; they didn’t need to be told. It is instinctive. But those without a spiritual nature have no moral compass; they have only their own fleshly desires. Christians promote a law code that speaks to that fleshly nature.

Paul never forgot what kind of rage filled his soul before God called him. He had been deeply deceived by the Talmudic perversions so that he was willing to fight God, while honestly believing he was doing God’s will. This was such a horrible thing, and it was the same spirit that animated the Judaizers. We cannot turn their methods upon their heads, persecuting and violently oppressing them, but we must show them the mercy God showed Paul. Only the Lord can break through their blindness.

If there was anything Timothy and the believers could do for the Judaizers, shining this blinding light of mercy and truth was it. Thus, it was critical that Timothy set the record straight on the Law. Teach the believers in and around Ephesus the real article, so they could recognize as counterfeit what the Judaizers were offering.

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The Home of Christ

Posted on May 10, 2024 by ehurst

In one video on his YouTube channel, Heiser reveals that he is blue-pilled about the feminist cult in America. That’s what we would have expected, since he remained a part of mainstream churchianity.

For this reason, he rejects the notion of learning from the ancient Hebrew culture. Otherwise, he would have to embrace the idea that the Old Testament Law reflected something fundamental to human nature, and was not simply something that died on its own. He sets aside Paul’s admonition to “rightly divide” the Old Testament.

The Radix Fidem community teaches that we can learn a lot from the cultural packaging of the Law of Moses. We don’t ape the details, but we seek to grasp the fundamental nature of what those cultural elements tell us about human flesh.

It is the Hebrew culture that teaches us we do not obey Scripture on the basis of utility. While most of the time adhering to revelation does put us in the blessings, this obedience is its own reward. It is a privilege in itself. Even if the worldly outcomes are unpleasant, we must be committed to faithful obedience. Being able to crucify your fleshly nature and dismiss this world is a high privilege.

However, we always reaffirm the general promises of God that, we who walk in the Covenant will typically harvest advantages denied the rest of the world. Do you understand that the vast majority of church folks are not under divine covering? They cannot have full peace with God.

Peace with God is a Covenant birthright. You must be standing in the right place for the blessings to fall on you. It’s our duty to go where they are, and that’s what the Covenant does: It shows us the boundaries of God’s camp. We are obliged to dig into Old Testament law and culture to grasp the full nature of those boundaries.

I encourage folks to invest the time to watch the videos on his channel, but don’t buy everything he says. Do your homework, and if you lack the broad background, feel free to ask questions of those who do have it. Don’t be afraid to disagree with me, for that matter. No one displaces Jesus Christ in our hearts.

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Random Photos 19

Posted on May 9, 2024 by ehurst

Just a few random photos taken over a week or so…

First is the sky after a storm passed over our city. It really depends on the storm whether there’s anything to see. This was a localized pop-up thunderstorm, so there was plenty of sky breaking through the storm clouds after it passed.

Crutcho Creek has some limited flood control on it. This is a gate that, when closed, simply raises the water level up stream. I’ve never seen it used, but it is maintained and storm flotsam removed from time to time. I won’t tell you where it is because, officially, photography is restricted in this area.

This is just one narrow end of the new Pratt & Whitney plant still under construction a couple of years after starting. This is out near Draper Lake, which in turn is very close to Tinker AFB. The base has somehow become a major maintenance depot for various aircraft, and this new plant is part of that ongoing centralization. Indeed, the base began life as a Douglas aircraft factory for WW2.

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The Miracle of Evangelism

Posted on May 7, 2024 by ehurst

I want to bring to conscious awareness what our hearts already know. We need to pull our minds into alignment with the Spirit. For Americans, that’s rarely simple. Our culture is so alien and hostile to the work of God that we require a substantial amount of help throughout the whole range of our basic assumptions.

Once again, let me as you to think for a moment about the implications of the Doctrine of Election. We don’t know who they are, so it’s a matter of shooting in the dark. However, the issue is not accurate aim, but using the right ammunition. We need to insure that our evangelism targets the Elect, not those whose spirits are dead.

We need to ditch the concept of “outreach” as a combination of charity and evangelism. Those two activities are distinctly different in purpose. Charity we should engage; that’s a fundamental requirement of divine revelation. But we know it won’t change their eternal destiny in any way, and we should shape such work accordingly. Evangelism is specifically targeted work of touching the Elect, and it calls for a different approach.

It’s not that the two cannot be combined, but that our basic assumptions should be quite different from what most churches hold. What draws the Elect does not work for the rest of humanity. People coming into the Covenant is a miracle, 100%. It’s not a human decision. Joining your particular community is a human decision, but the awakening of spiritual awareness is not.

We don’t need people joining the community just so they can eat. While it is well nigh impossible to prevent that, the issue is our expectations of how charity works, and how evangelism works. A single meal now and then is one thing. Taking family ownership of a life is another. The minimum standard for extending covering to someone is their contribution to the family structure itself. It’s not so much human productivity we seek, but the edification of the body through love.

The mission of the community is teaching how to love. That is the whole thing. We have a very strong body of teaching on how to handle the inevitable conflicts that arise; that’s the bulk of what we should be teaching. There is no real distinction between doctrine and behavior in Scripture. Doctrine is the frame of reference, but the objective is how to get along as a family.

The church sales pitch is an abomination. We should make it a tad difficult to join so that we keep out those who offer only an empty belly. We can find plenty of those everywhere. What we seek are our eternal brothers and sisters, hoping to bring them home. Evangelism should be tailored for that kind of search.

The way to reach them is not advertising the results of our covenant obedience, the miracles and blessings. Rather, it’s the challenge of that obedience. The Elect will be drawn to the high privilege of enduring testing. It’s martyrdom, not marketing.

Stop and think about this for a moment: There is nothing at all humans do in this world that matters beyond pulling together the Elect into their native agape community. Every other endeavor is a waste of time and resources. This is what God says. The greatest human or artificial intelligence is of no significance. The only thing God will care about on Judgment Day is whether you embraced your divine privileges or not.

The key to divine privilege is to walk in the Covenant, to observe the moral boundaries. We should maintain a good-natured distinction from the world. We are called to dis-assimilate, to pull out of the world around us. Whether or not we also go into hiding would be a function of divine calling and conviction, of prophetic guidance in the context of the times. But the utter necessity of distinguishing ourselves from the world is no joke. The rest of the world should think we are strange and generally not like us.

This is how we evangelize, how we call out to the Elect.

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Wrong Thoughts; No Thought

Posted on May 6, 2024 by ehurst

Dr. Heiser says something that American Christians in particular need to hear: We as Christians need unity; we do not need conformity. The problem is that most Christians are convinced that it is theologically necessary to have conformity. In other words, their frame of reference is so deeply socked into western assumptions that they cannot hear the Hebrew God saying that it’s not necessary.

Every time I examine a difficult passage that garners debate, it often comes down to the refusal to understand that God built the Hebrew frame of reference to reveal Himself. It’s in the frame of reference itself, and all the stuff expressed in that context is just a mixture of manifestations. What happened in the Bible narratives is one set of events that express who God is. In another historical setting, He still expresses Himself in the same ways. Because too many people ignore the Hebraic context, they honestly do not understand what happened the way God understands it.

Reality is variable. We keep saying sagely that the Bible is not science. Indeed, it’s not even really history, when it comes down to it. There’s far too much contextual material necessary to get a full historical impression. The Hebrew Scriptures unveil a Person. It’s a portrait of someone you really need to get to know. You cannot trust your human perception or your experience, but you can trust that Person.

No two of us can possibly expect to encounter exactly the same world as anyone else. We might conspire to choose one common understanding of reality. That’s what civilization means. But at the very least, that common understanding will fray at the edges. There will always be some variation that seems utterly compelling to us, but seems balderdash to someone else.

It is not necessary to squelch all of those variations, if your primary mission in life is to know and serve God. That uniformity is necessary only if this world is all you have. For us, this world isn’t even important; it most certainly is not the whole of reality.

This needs to become a common doctrine among Christians, because it explains a primary difference between what the Bible assumes without stating versus what people assume in isolation away from the Hebrew outlook.

I don’t have any good answers as to how we might overcome this vast deficit of Hebraic thinking so very necessary to follow Christ. Looking back at the history of how we got into this mess, it seems almost inevitable, as if no other outcome was possible. The task of teaching the Bible has become so very highly compartmentalized, and the specialists are quite thoroughly isolated from other specialties. They crank out vast numbers of articles every year that no one outside of their specialty is likely to ever see.

And all of that material is locked behind very expensive pay walls. You and I could not afford to see even a digest of it. The system works very hard to keep this almost secret.

And the guys who emphasize bringing all of this down to the church level never see or hear any of it. They are entirely too busy fulfilling obligations to a system that demands a “professional” degree filled with tons of stuff no church has any business doing in the first place. And because of the presumption of expertise that comes with that professional degree, we now have to load that poor seminary graduate down with a huge organization of people. He’ll never get to know most of them.

I wonder if anyone else will ever see the problem we have right now. I wonder if we will ever see a concerted effort from people with the skills to rip out all the crap and reduce the burden of getting a genuine Hebraic outlook to something manageable to people who run the local Sunday School department. When was the last time the publishers of Sunday School material gave much thought to that?

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Sin of Jeroboam

Posted on May 5, 2024 by ehurst

Some of you may know Bible history well enough to recognize the phrase “the Sin of Jeroboam”. It refers to the cult religion instituted by Jeroboam in his revolt against Rehoboam and the royal House of David. Ostensibly, it was a political move to prevent his subjects returning to Jerusalem several times a year to appear for mandatory Temple rituals. He was afraid his subjects would suffer an emotional urge to restore the House of David over the northern tribes.

While succeeding dynasties in the Northern Kingdom added in other pagan cults, the one thing that remained in the conversation and minds of the folks there was the name “Jehovah” and its association with the cult shrines at Dan and Bethel. The mythology of Baal was included, while keeping the name of Jehovah. It was a strong pagan cult and teaching that displaced the Covenant of Moses and its revelation. This syncretism was a recurring theme since before the Exodus, and manifested in the rebellion with the Golden Calf. That symbol was used in both of Jeroboam’s shrines.

Thus, any time you read in the historical accounts a reference to God in the mouths of someone in the north, it carries the baggage of those shrines and the false religion raised up in His name. They seldom denied that Jehovah was their nation’s God, but they had twisted the meaning of His name so that it represented something else entirely. It reduced Him from being God of all Creation to being merely a national deity among other valid deities.

Today, Zionism stands as another cult, rather like that of Jeroboam. Zionism has inherited the same underlying rejection of the God who revealed Himself, and replaces Him with something made up from human political ambitions. And the churchians who go along with this madness are no better. It’s all just a wild cult that has been called up to serve human ambition. The problem is that this thing is not just an idea, but a demonic power that seduces and destroys.

This is the Sin of Jeroboam: religion built by political ambition. It’s a damned bad idea the Devil sold to someone desperate to fulfill the desires of their fleshly nature. For American church folks, it turns Christian religion into a nationalist cult. For Jews, it turns God into a lackey for their ambition to rule the world.

And the same destruction that took away the northern tribes will come upon both modern Israel and the US. There is no covenant protection outside the Covenant. Neither the US nor Israel are special to God.

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NT Doctrine — 2 Thessalonians 3

Posted on May 4, 2024 by ehurst

No one should be surprised at how this chapter is used to reinforce middle-class materialism. There are countless commentaries singing the praises of wage slavery and striving after the hedonistic lifestyle of the West. There is no excuse for worshiping Mammon, and this passage is not supporting the American dream.

Did you notice how Paul invested a lot of space discussing eschatology in these two letters? Apparently the Thessalonians were so taken with enthusiasm about the return of Christ that they talked of little else. The city was known for frequent small volcanic tremors, and this message was in itself so earthshaking that it caused a very substantial shift in thinking about life itself. The speculation was that, since Christ was going to return so soon, it was necessary to revamp their whole lives. It would have been very easy to get lost in it.

Envision how young teenage believers act when they first get consumed by the notion of Jesus coming back any day now. They can’t get enough of it. It could easily be a distraction from just about everything else. Teenagers are always looking for a distraction. Apparently, some of the residents of the city were like this, and they quit their jobs.

They became experts in every detail about the doctrine of Christ’s return, and perhaps imagined themselves prophets, having wild dreams and so forth. Instead of minding their own business, they intruded into everyone else’s business, always eager to tie up everyone with chatter about this wonderful thing just around the corner.

Paul reminds his readers (vv. 6-15) that, when he first passed through the city, he also taught them a number of “traditions” (Greek: paradosis), a term specifically referring typically to Jewish Law. In this case, Paul referred to those elements from the Covenant of Moses that were universal, not contextual to Israel alone. Christian teaching includes a bit of law code to indicate something about the heart of God. One of those traditions was that a rabbi should always develop a trade or skill that could earn him a living.

Thus, when Paul was there for those three weeks in Thessalonica, he paid his own way, partly with money donated for the journey, and partly by working, and helping out in general, as did the rest of his party. The image he draws in this passage is that he avoided having his entourage become a burden on what began as a rather small community. While the same traditions included community support for those who brought the gospel, something Jesus Himself took advantage of, the situation in Thessalonica against the number of people traveling with him made Paul uncomfortable claiming it.

Thus, no one still there in the city could use his example as an excuse for becoming parasites. These people were not ministers. The Greek word typically translated as “busybody” was peri-ergazomai, and was based on the concept of avoiding “work” (ergazomai) by dodging around it — doing lots of stuff that isn’t work and isn’t helpful, but keeps you “busy”. He says almost literally “no loaf for the loafer” (v. 10). It was not God who told you to quit working.

It’s one thing to help someone in need, but it’s another to encourage silly exuberance that embarrasses the Lord. Uphold the community standard as people who carry their own load. A wealthy middle-class lifestyle was not the objective here, working overtime and keeping up with the Jonses. In other letters, Paul hammered the churches for allowing ostentation in dress. The word “modest” meant not showing off material wealth.

However, Paul took the line that these busybodies were not demonic, just brothers and sister who caught a case of the sillies. This was a busy port city; there were plenty of jobs. They needed to get back to work and build up the community, so that when the Lord comes back, He will find them faithful in keeping His Word.

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Your Orwellian Nightmare Is Here

Posted on May 3, 2024 by ehurst

We are not surprised.

The Synagogue of Satan has taken over the US government. If you object to your tax dollars funding the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, then you are classed with terrorists, Nazis, etc. Criticizing Israel and Zionism is now officially forbidden in the US. For the time being, the penalties are rather soft, in that you will be given the label “antisemite”. But that implies a host of other sanctions following behind.

To follow the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, the stuff written in the Bible, makes you anti-government in the US. Persecution for faith is coming, though faith is not specifically targeted just yet. Rather, it’s a shotgun blast at the political implications of faith. Still, the US government is now officially anti-Christian. It is Zionist, and that agenda is most blatantly anti-Christian.

Welcome to the Apocalypse.

Addenda:Yes, I know this has not been signed into law, yet. It has only been passed in the House; it has to pass the Senate and then be signed by the President. Yes, I know that the only thing this new law applies to is federal education funding. It’s supposed to be narrowly tailored to allow government agencies to shut down the protests on campuses. However, I am utterly certain this is just a foot-in-the-door. What becomes illegal at any institutions receiving federal funds soon becomes illegal across the board. This stuff has always metastasized.

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Messy Expectations

Posted on May 2, 2024 by ehurst

The title is a pun that long time readers will recognize.

So, I was expecting violence by summer, but it’s already here. The campus demonstrations, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians and against the actions of the Israeli government, have gotten pretty rowdy. Keen observers will recognize that these activists don’t give a damn about the Palestinians, and the feelings are largely mutual. A Palestinian government would most likely shoot demonstrators. As would the Israelis, for that matter.

What’s behind the demonstrations is just a replay of the Antifa/BLM riots. It’s funded by the same sources, and is run by the same people. These demonstrations have been under planning since at least as early as last fall. The real issue is plain old communism, but with a wokie flavor. It’s all the most radical leftist agenda stuff going around today, to include the faux Green agenda (“watermelon communism”) and one-world government.

I’m quite certain this will continue under one guise or another, because they have to get things burning before the election in the fall. The forecast calls for violence with property destruction — arson in particular — plus looting and increasing bloodshed.

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Still Has a Place

Posted on May 1, 2024 by ehurst

Well, how about that? I’m officially over the hill, now. After several months of pushing hard and giving it my best, I am unable to gain any increased muscular power by progressive weight training. This is no ordinary plateau. Sometime during the past few months, it quit progressing. This has never happened before. Even as recently as a year ago, I was able to make gains that are no longer possible.

It finally caught up with me in my 68th year.

Of course, it’s hardly a waste of time to lift weights. Rather, the purpose and expectations have changed. Now, the primary objective is to keep the arthritis at bay, preserve the range of motion, and continue burning calories in the kind of workout that emphasizes heart fitness. Not simply aerobics, but I’m pushing hard to improve my recovery. I’m doing more repetitions, but reducing the rest time between events. The goal is to almost collapse by the time I’m done.

I suppose I might be doing at least something right, because my weight is slowly dissolving and more of my musculature is visible. Again, it’s not a waste of time. The weight room still has a place in my life.

——–

I don’t know how this came up, but more than one person has asked about my IQ. I have no idea, and I don’t think it matters. When I applied myself in school, I always aced everything. I do just fine with STEM stuff, but it’s not my real interest. I do much better with philosophy, the social sciences (history, economics, geography), and of course, biblical studies. I remember the most obscure stuff about the Bible, and have been blessed with the ability to synthesize it all together so that I can perceive the broad sweep of how things happened as they did.

Far more important are the indefinable gifts of the Holy Spirit. There’s no doubt in my mind that what appears to be sharp intellect is more a matter of being driven to excel as a servant of God. His moral truth is far more critical than facts.

And it’s not just knowing, but being able to relate these things to audiences that might lack some of those gifts. What I might understand is of no use if I can’t share it. I have a heavy burden of duty to make sure nobody has any excuse for failing to grasp what God requires of them.

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