She’s the Boss…

Posted on April 29, 2024 by ehurst

Of some things. Lest you think I promote the idea that women are powerless, let’s point out some areas in which the Bible says she rules.

Granted, the Bible sees exceptionally few cases where women might not marry. Regardless whether a marriage is arranged under feudal customs, the Bible makes it clear that a woman always has veto over the match. If she knows something and cannot bear the idea of living with that man, she doesn’t have to marry him. Granted, she may not get another match ever, but she can refuse to marry someone she doesn’t like.

This is why there are some ancient customs about letting the two meet with chaperons present, should the man be someone from outside her community. In actual practice, the majority of marriages were between folks who had a passing familiarity at a minimum. It was the man’s duty to accomplish the final wooing.

Today, we would simply say that it’s ladies’ choice. We don’t have much else to go on. The western custom of male pursuit and courtship of the woman is flatly wrong.

In the Bible, while the man owned the physical tent/house, the only valid reason for having one was to house the lady and children. She becomes the mistress of the home; in that sense, it is “hers”. From the smallest hovel to the greatest imperial palace, the queen of the household ran the house. The man never poked his nose in her business except in the most rare conditions. She could order repairs and some modification to the facility, but it varied with historical context. She could also run a side business that did not interfere with the man’s reputation or interests.

Most men reserved personnel decisions for themselves, though. The people were his treasure, and she was the crowning jewel of that wealth. Christ said that His Father intended there be only one husband and one wife; all his sexual energies were her property, and vice versa.

The early life of the children was also her domain. Somewhere around age six the boys would start dividing time between playing together and watching the menfolk work, but they no longer played with girls. At age nine, both boys and girls became a vested interest of the entire extended family or community. In Hebrew tradition, that meant that their death required an inquest. Until that time, their death was simply a private loss. Both boys and girls became apprentices for their future careers at that point. Either might benefit being apprenticed outside the home. At age twelve, boys were confirmed by bar-mitzvah as Sons of the Covenant.

I’ll let you figure out how this applies today. The main principle is that gender separation occurs at age six, and locks in at age nine. The mother generally surrenders her sons gradually between six and nine. In some ANE cultures, “weaning” is a euphemism for this process, and the ages vary.

While her authority remains a matter of delegation from her covering, a woman still had that authority by biblical tradition. These are just a sample of that principle.

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Letting Her Go

Posted on April 28, 2024 by ehurst

Basic principle: Creation is inherently feudal. Equality is a doctrine of Hell. I’m not saying there are no ways in which humans are equal, but that the doctrine of broad-based equality is a lie. We are in most ways not equal, and should not try to be equal. We should try to sense our relative role in every context and act accordingly. The real issue is what God says is your role.

Some of that role-finding is a matter of conviction. You need to develop the ability to read your convictions. But a substantial portion of your role is defined by the standard rules of revelation. When you understand the Lord’s sense of priorities, all those rules make perfect sense.

One of those rules is that, in a marriage, the husband is the head of the household. No, it’s not “fair” by our typical western reckoning, but in that sense, God has never been fair with anyone. But God defines what is just, so it’s the western standard that is false. The husband must rule, or it’s not a just marriage. This is fundamental to the nature of Creation, of reality itself.

Western women have engaged in a longstanding cult of seizing power that God says they cannot exercise justly. He did not design them to handle certain decisions, though they certainly have some authority inherent in their nature. The history of social structure in the Bible indicates where those boundaries are. If you prefer, you can think of it as underlying principles that are illustrated by where God’s blessings fell, and where His wrath fell. His priorities are a mystery only to those who don’t submit to His feudal mastery.

It is expected that, in our fallen natures, there will be mistakes between even the most earnest souls bound together in marriage. The Bible paints a strong image of guidance on handling these conflicts. Most people ignore it, so there’s precious little knowledge of it these days. Since it is based on underlying moral themes, and not so much on simply aping the culture of the Bible, it’s all the more critical that we give prayer and contemplation to the issue for our context.

Thus, while I can lay out some of the moral truth about it, the details will vary widely by context. But for most Americans, the underlying problem is the female lust for power and authority God did not give her. Women have seized it by fleshly means and it has already started to rot and stink in their hands. The vast majority of western women will die deeply frustrated, because they have pursued a fantasy, not reality. They simply cannot have what their fallen fleshly natures desire.

This is one place where godly men can help out. We must refuse to operate on their terms. They must not rule over things God didn’t design them to handle. We cannot keep the world at large out of their hands, but we do not have to play along for ourselves. They are wrong.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of temporary disturbance in the relationship, as it’s human nature to be provoked to evil from time to time. Godly men must keep an eye on themselves with a measure of distrust, same as with their wives. Know that you are going to screw it up and will need to repent. So will your woman.

But there comes a point of no return, an invisible line that God will show you alone. If she crosses that line, you must cut her loose, lest she destroy all that God is trying to build in your life. In particular, be careful of power plays. When you have no leverage to get her back to safety, you must let her go off into the wilderness of sin alone. Yes, it will rip your emotions to shreds. That’s part of being human.

This does not address the thousands of mundane issues that arise on the social and legal level. That’s where God alone is your guide, in your convictions and in the counsel of those who are close to you. It’s messy and I cannot address that in a blog post, nor in a thousand of them. But if she refuses all leverage and takes all power to herself, you cannot be her covering. Her sin will defile and destroy your shalom. Your duty is to recognize when God says to let her go.

She can always repent and come back under your covering, but our society has placed severe limits on the practicalities. Be wary of both the woman and the world that hates our God.

Wise men of God will teach younger men these things, so that fewer of them will become entangled with women that are already useless in the Covenant of Christ.

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NT Doctrine — 2 Thessalonians 2

Posted on April 27, 2024 by ehurst

Paul writes this second letter to the Church at Thessalonica in celebration that their faith is working. This is a church that knows how to tribulate. As I’ve previously noted: Finding yourself on the outs with those still clinging to this world is expected and desirable. It reveals who is His and who is not. It reveals how just His justice is. In the paradoxical realm of God, it is justice that His people suffer in a world that is hostile to Him.

The issue that Paul wrote to address shows up in this second chapter. It seems that someone had been teaching the folks there that the reason for their persecution was that Christ had already returned and they had missed it. Paul warned them not to believe such nonsense, regardless where they claimed such teaching came from. He mentions a bogus letter claiming to be from him, along with supposed words of revelation. There are certain events that must precede the Day of the Lord.

Paul reminds them in outline what he had previous taught in detail. Sadly, those details are not recorded anywhere.

First, there must be an apostasy, a rebellion against genuine faith in Christ among church folks. There have always been a certain portion of church members who are fake in various ways, not part of the Elect. Jesus warned about this in the Parable of the Tares. At some point near the Day of Harvest, they will distinguish themselves.

Connected to this will be the rise of the Antichrist. He will mislead the churches from within. The return of Christ will be shortly preceded by a fake Christ, someone whose false claims will be quite plausible, except he won’t come to meet us in the air, as noted in the previous letter.

This person will claim to be God Almighty in the flesh, seizing control of all organized religion. Paul is clearly referring to Old Testament warnings in Isaiah 14:13-14, Daniel 11:35, and Ezekiel 28:2-9. He will come with signs and miracles, but not the real power of the Cross. Instead, his ministry will deceive everyone who is not Elect. God will have sent this one precisely to for that purpose. There will be something critical missing, something obvious to those who walk in their convictions, by their faith and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

In previous commentary, I wrote: There is a clear distinction between those who embrace the Cross and those only pretending. The Cross is death and those who don’t quite grasp the nature of mortification aren’t there yet. The Antichrist will come with an easy gospel, signs and wonders; a solid majority of humanity will embrace whatever he’s selling. It’s not as if this hasn’t been offered in numerous packages already, but it has never gained a universal following in any sense. The final revelation of the Antichrist will provide the context that will so clearly separate those who willingly give all for Christ versus those who seek something else, because the reign of Antichrist will seek to destroy those who really do know the truth and recognize him.

If possible, the Antichrist will not allow the Elect to live in peace. Yes, we will certainly know it, we won’t miss it when that Son of Lawlessness arises. His persecution will be very specifically targeted at faith itself. That hasn’t happened yet. Paul refers to some force that restrains this creature until the time is right, a teaching we would dearly love to find, but is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. All we can say is that it is some unknown work of the Holy Spirit. At any rate, when He actually returns, Christ will snuff him out with no effort.

Paul ends this chapter giving thanks that the Elect at Thessalonica aren’t so easily fooled. He encourages them to continue in the faith they learned from Paul, and from Christ Himself in their hearts.

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Polish the Mirror

Posted on April 26, 2024 by ehurst

I’m still convinced that apocalypse is kicking off this year. It’s been creeping up on us for quite some time, but it’s actually here now. When this summer’s heat begins sweeping over the nation, things will go seriously wrong.

Give God the glory. I believe I see how His hand is working, how His wrath will fall on America. It will be a confluence of streams of awareness. Naturally, some of it will be false, but there will also be some accuracy mixed in there. People will react and there will be significant unrest in America.

The Hoards of Darkness have been released. You should not imagine that the reaction lies within the people. Rather, it will be how they are provoked by demon spirits that hope to abuse them. Humans will go nuts; the people will destroy their own nests. They will feel pain, and begin to imagine that certain actions will benefit them, but it won’t.

In other words, don’t be fooled by false moral claims made by various activists. It’s a trap. They will feel the urge to take action on something that will not turn out well. They will be motivated by massive lies.

A prime example is the surging campus protests against Israel, in favor of the Palestinians. Yes, Israel is doing evil. But the people agitating about this are wicked in themselves. The actions they take will not solve the problem, but create whole new problems. Keep your eye on this movement; it will not simply fizzle out. It will become the new target of government oppression, because our government is Zionist.

This article warns that these protests will be hijacked largely because the protesting already involves the likes of Antifa and BLM in the movement. It’s funded by the same money that created so much havoc a few years ago.

Also keep an eye on how mainstream churches react to this. They will start making a lot of noise and moving money toward suppressing this movement. It’s another trap Satan is using to keep the Elect from their divine inheritance. It’s the tail end of Dispensational heresy. I say “the tail” because I’m quite certain Israel will be destroyed, though perhaps not completely. It will be a huge mess.

I’m not saying this will become the issue of this time in history, but it will loom large on the public awareness. Do you understand that the demons are provoking both sides? Here is a reasonable analysis of likely complications, but none of these are the real issue.

Others have joined me in saying that the real issue here is infowar. The violence and military action is a manifestation; the real battle is in the minds of men. The fruit of falsehood is ripening; this is the time for massive destruction here in the West. The Lord has decreed it, according to warnings long ago. Even if the issue with Israel’s current warfare dies down, something else will take its place. The masses are being driven mad, same as the political leadership.

Don’t get lost in trying to defend the wrong things. Any partisan divide is an illusion. The only thing that matters is divine justice, the call to redemption in the Covenant of Christ. The biblical term “salvation” refers to claiming one’s place in the Covenant, of harvesting the blessings of peace with God. That’s all we have, the only thing we can keep, the only thing that will follow us into Eternity.

Polish up the mirror of your soul to reflect His glory.

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Limited Reach

Posted on April 25, 2024 by ehurst

I’m prompted to address something that may not be obvious.

As always, I don’t take myself that seriously. For now, I’m the senior elder for a small community of people who identify with the label “Radix Fidem”. The vast majority of what I say to that community is just my own convictions and echoes of my experiences and education.

The community is defined as people who seem interested in what I have to say about faith and religion. When I die or simply quit writing, someone else can play the role of elder and shape things to match their convictions, experiences and education. God forbid that what I taught should become law.

If you should ask how much authority I have, the answer is, “however much you give me”. I have neither the ability nor inclination to spank anyone in the community, as I did with my children many years ago. It should be pretty obvious: If I sense you aren’t listening, I’ll stop talking to you. That also answers the question of how much authority I ought to have.

When I read stuff around the Net, I keep running into this unspoken assumption that religious leaders should be engaging society from a position of authority. I call that “idiocy”. It’s not a question of whether I have answers that might work for some problems. God always has the answers, and I’m quite convinced He has given me some that work for me. Apparently they work for others, which is how we have a community.

But the whole point is that a very essential element of His answer for me is to withdraw from the society at large as much as possible. Anyone who wants to join me will have to do the same, because I’m not a part of that world. There’s that business of “in the world, not of it”. My withdrawal is more a matter of moral principle than literal distance. I’m walking in the Covenant, and that’s very different world, invisible to everyone outside the Covenant.

As far as I’m concerned, the world outside of my covenant boundaries is marked for destruction. It’s built on sand, not on the rock of Christ. Even if I devote myself to serious academic pursuit of God’s revelation, the result is something the world cannot use. The world at large cannot even understand it.

When someone representing the world asks questions, it’s highly unlikely they’ll have any use for my answer. Sometimes I honestly don’t try to answer, but on occasion I’ll feel moved to give some partial answer that they might be able to grasp. There’s always that business of using a common language, and my Lord does seem to like helping me express His truth in terms people can understand, even if they would never have the power inside of them to use it.

Part of the reason for doing that is much like that time Jesus spoke of Bread of Life (John 6). He ended up polarizing His audience that day, and the circus ended. The time had come to finally alienate those who could never understand. The principle is more important than the specific answer.

I cannot pretend to ignore: There’s a whole world out there filled with nonsense. Most of the questions they seem to ask are the wrong questions in the first place. I’m working from the Bible and my convictions. Neither of them addresses what defines “man/male” and “woman/female”. If you struggle with that, you are the problem. The Bible presumes that the answer to this question is already obvious. And it doesn’t recognize any other genders. Thus, I don’t need to address any of that.

What should we do with a woman who feels driven to be more than just a mom and housewife? What if she has talents and interests outside the home? Well, her male covering decides what she can do about it, not me. Talents and human ambition don’t count for much in the Covenant. Oh, wait; I forgot to state the obvious that the Covenant presumes a feudal tribal household arrangement as the norm. But the answer is the same for men — their talents and ambitions don’t mean much, either. You live in the context and seek to glorify His name.

If a man dealing with a restive wife/daughter asks my advice, we’ll talk about it in the context of how he lives. In the final analysis, he has to decide what he will do. As previously noted, the Covenant generally denies the concept of human equality when it comes to making decisions about life. Feudalism is wired into Creation itself.

The vast majority of the world has no interest in such answers. The world cannot imagine that God designed human existence that way. Well, that’s my answer. If you want my spiritual covering, you’ll have to embrace it. Otherwise, there’s not much I can do for you.

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Very Limited Engagement

Posted on April 24, 2024 by ehurst

I suppose I need to try one more time, maybe saying it differently.

Comments I get in response to this blog, the ones that aren’t posted where you can see them, include input from a bunch of people who are eager for the entertainment value of warfare. These are people who have never actually done warfare, so they have a childlike expectation of what we see in movies. They imagine it would be such a fine thing to see violent civil war break out in the US.

I want no part of that nonsense. I do not advocate violence on that level; it has no place in covenant living. The Radix Fidem community predicts war will come despite our best efforts, so we are preparing to stay out of the way as much as possible. And there’s no denying it will entertain some folks, at least for a while.

But it won’t come with a happy ending. Indeed, there may be no clear resolution of any sort. I believe that, once started, it will drag on for decades. It will pull down the West in general, and America in particular, back into a Third World status. Not everywhere the same, but the nation as a whole will cease to offer any significant influence on the rest of the world.

We do not advocate taking sides. We openly discourage participation, but we cannot pretend to tell you what God calls you to do. We distinguish clearly between defending your own domain versus getting involved in broader conflicts that don’t actually include us.

We are excluded from politics by our adherence to the Covenant, against the complete lack of Covenant identity in the American population. If by some miracle a small body of covenant people were to come together somewhere, then they would have a basis for discussing community defense. But as long as the Lord keeps us thinly scattered, it is purely a matter of you deciding by conviction what you must defend against all outside forces. Nobody engaged in this rising conflict represents us.

They don’t even see us. If someone attacks you with physical violence, it is virtually impossible that they do it for your faith. It is because you and I look to them like part of the broader target they imagine they see. But more realistically, it’s because they are not ideological warriors; more likely they are common criminals seeking plunder and you appear to be a likely target, for whatever reason. This is our biggest threat heading into the apocalypse.

The politics of civil war will bypass us completely. It is not the political battles that will define our place in the big picture. You can easily avoid that; you don’t have to take sides. The only realistic scenario for joining with the local community is simple crime prevention. That’s an entirely different issue from the political nonsense. You can make common cause on those grounds, if the folks around you are willing (if there is a consensus).

This is something we would encourage. This is not what Jesus meant by discussing who your “neighbor” is. He referred to covenant brothers and sisters. We don’t have that; our social concept of “neighbor” is different. It’s not the same principle underneath, but it probably will look almost the same in practice. You should be taking care of the folks who live near you, simply because that’s your best hope for mundane safety and security of property, life and limb. They are allies, if not family. If you can’t work with them, then of course, you are on your own. And God help you if that’s how it is.

Theoretically, the only way I could become a threat to government is if the government begins attacking property, life and limb directly. Idiotic policy is one thing; trying to confiscate or harm common people directly is another. I think we can tell the difference between a government that tries to grab criminals, and one that is criminal itself. We cannot stop what happens at the policy level without using weapons of mass destruction to take out the whole government bureaucracy. I’m not going to go there; it’s far outside my mission for Christ. However, should government policy send agents into the community for something that strikes me as seriously harmful, then government agents will be at risk. Yes, I’ll use violence to defend the folks around me from almost any threat.

Where I live, that is so unlikely that it’s ludicrous. It’s not on my radar at all. Prophetically I see serious problems arising from the breakdown of social restraint. That’s the real issue for me, and I’m convinced that’s what we face in the Radix Fidem community as a whole. If you want to discuss tactics and strategy with me, then let’s target that issue. I will not address the wider political nonsense, because most of it is for show, not the real problem.

The Covenant of Christ offers no solution for political problems outside our community. We might have some useful advice, but it’s not our problem. Christ said so. Our problem is operating and thinking on the human small scale to breathe life into a broad vision of redemption. This how we save the world, by focusing on what’s nearest. Defending yourself means defending those geographically near you; that’s simple common sense. If those near you are the threat, you need to pray seriously about moving somewhere else. A general crime prevention custom is as much entanglement with the world as we can afford in feudal service to our Lord.

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Tragedy and Discord

Posted on April 23, 2024 by ehurst

It’s a sad tale that justifies telling one more time. However, the approach is probably different from anyone else’s published discussion. Granted, I read a lot of those published reports and some not-so-public comments by those who were close to the sad story of Amy Grant and Gary Chapman. Even if I were to interview them personally, I doubt I could have gotten a better idea of what happened than I did from the sheer volume of reading.

I looked at this over the years and recently it occurred to me they were a perfect example of certain basic principles.

First, let’s be clear: They were never covenant people. In that sense, they were never actually following Christ. They were churchians who were trying hard in the flesh to play by the rules of American cultural Christian religion. Neither of them were very good at it for very long. They never had the living Christ at the center of their marriage, and never got His covering.

Second, that marriage was doomed from the start because it was built on fantasies that are easily understood from the so-called Red Pill Manosphere. An honest accounting of human socio-sexual dynamics is part of the Covenant, so those two perspectives belong together.

Chapman was a doofus. He broke the first rule of Christian marriage: he pursued Amy Grant. Men of God do not pursue any woman, ever. We should pursue Christ and see if any women are attracted by that. More to the point, we wait to see what sort of women are drawn to us, and select from among them. Chapman pursued Amy Grant and she was way out of his league.

Grant was inexperienced, and still sticking around the church scene because that was her nest. She never belonged there. Notice what I’m saying here. It’s not that she couldn’t get it together and really commit to Jesus. She simply didn’t. She was acting in her natural fleshly self, and the path was obvious in retrospect.

But in her youthful ignorance, she fell under the sway of “propinquity”. She hung out with Chapman enough to become fond of him, so getting married didn’t seem such a bad idea. Especially with him pursuing her like a love-sick puppy.

She was the sexual superior the whole time. He supplicated; he surrendered his headship from day one. He never came close to ringing her bell. And he wasn’t strong enough to serve her inside his own soul. He turned to drugs and alcohol. He was a terrible husband. No one who knew them was surprised she fell for someone else, someone who was much more manly.

And lest we forget, the vast majority of the Contemporary Christian Music scene is just like that. The people who run that business were not covenant people; most don’t even qualify as churchian. Most of the artists have displayed the kind of mixed moral living that is common with people struggling in the flesh to be what they claimed. They have little to no power because they are outside the Covenant. They aren’t wicked, just misguided.

There will always be a few people of genuine faith in that market. It may be hard to pick them out, but your best bet is consistency, not talent. It’s the witness. Almost none of the people qualify as spiritual leaders. Talent is not a substitute for feudal submission to the Lord in a divine calling. Indeed, talent seems to correlate highly with lack of self-control and moral maturity.

It’s not about the music folks. Whatever it is you do, never get hung up on the beauty of the performance. It’s all about whether you really connect with the Lord, alongside everyone else connecting with Him. It’s just as well you get together with some hack talents among your friends and perform those songs for yourself in a jam session. Don’t buy the albums or marketing crap that comes with them.

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The Necessity of Destruction

Posted on April 22, 2024 by ehurst

The problem is not that some women work outside the home, pursue a career and have no inclination to marry. The problem is that they want it. It’s the dominant pagan idolatry in the West. As long as they keep wanting that, western society is doomed.

Even without a biblical perspective, it doesn’t require intellectual genius to see how destructive it is if the next generation isn’t born because there are no mothers. The current social malaise is not helped at all by the refusal of mothers to mother.

As a verb, “mother” includes starting out with the assumption of picking a good father, never mind whether he gives you massive tingles, and sticking with that man for the sake of your children. If women don’t understand the necessity of having a father in the house, there is nothing to discuss.

But of course, this blog is all about the Covenant of Christ. That Covenant is expressed, in part, in Biblical Law. And Biblical Law is all about subsuming your personal desires under the demands of Christ’s glory. Your personal desires come mostly from fallen flesh. If you don’t deny your fleshly nature, there is no hope of understanding anything in the Bible.

Yes, the only valid reason for getting married is a commitment to the Covenant of Christ. It’s the only valid reason for any and all human decisions. So every man must keep his eye on feudal submission to Christ and let His Lord arrange a pairing, or not, as He sees fit. Don’t pursue a gal who calls out to your flesh. Your taste in female flesh is always wrong — in the sense that it’s always wrong to trust your tastes for much of anything.

And women should know that their first commission from God is to consider how they must fulfill the demands of spiritual bridehood first. The vast majority of the time that means being the bride of some human servant of His. This should be your normal expectation, and it should be a surprise when convictions and events lead you in any other direction.

And it will be on you, ladies, whom the Lord wants you to marry (since we have no valid covenant community to guide your instincts). Your choice should be based on that long term commitment to Christ’s glory and the growth of the Covenant message. Marry the man you want to father your children. Make sure you bring to him the full value of your maidenhood.

It is only our culture that encourages men to wander. It’s a basic flaw of the flesh, but our western culture blows it out of proportion. With only a little basic Biblical Law teaching, men can easily squelch that monster. Women are not so easy, because their instinct to trade up to a better tingle experience is far stronger than a man’s similar temptations. This is why Biblical Law is so hard on women; it’s just reality after the Fall.

In other words, our American society is so utterly alien to the Covenant of Christ, so truculently hostile to His reign, that it will have to be destroyed for there to be any hope for even a small recovery of covenant living. Yes, we can blame our social culture for the coming apocalypse.

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Random Photos 18

Posted on April 21, 2024 by ehurst

One day last week I took a longish ride into Downtown OKC. I was hoping to see some of the new projects our tax dollars have funded. But what caught my attention first that day was the low-flying clouds that obscured our tallest skyscrapers. Imagine the view from the top. The sun did break through later, but not completely. The day was in and out of clouds until the afternoon.

This occupies a space very hard to use. It was previously just some grass and a tree or two, in a triangular island between streets that converged. That huge cylindrical fixture in the middle is covered in “OKC” lettering at all angles. Inside is nothing more than a bed of gravel, and you can’t access it normally. Still, if you don’t mind the noise of traffic, it’s a nice place to sit in fine weather.

There aren’t many angles where you can capture this all-glass mirrored tower. I’m sitting in a space referred to as “the Commons” because the park is shared by several buildings, including one that houses some OKC tourism offices and so forth. At least, that’s what the signs led me to believe. I never bothered to get the name of the mirrored building; I was more interested in simply how it looks. The city has cleaned up nicely, so far.

This is the front of the historic Skirvin Hotel. There was considerable drama over the years before this place was restored to actual use as a hotel. It sat empty for a while, but eventually was rescued after some bigshots made noises about tearing it down. It’s the same anywhere else: The people who most wanted to save it were those who could never afford to spend a single night there. It’s a lovely building, though.

During portions of my childhood, I lived in or near the downtown area of OKC. One of my strongest memories was this old Downtown Library. I knew where everything was and went often to dig up books on subjects that were quite obscure. Then they built this nice-looking place in honor of some previous mayor who wanted his name on some stuff. The newer one does offer a few advantages over the old one, but to be honest, the Internet outshines it these days. No surprise that the majority of those who visit do so for the free wifi. But the building still houses some pretty rare volumes, so it’s not a complete waste.

We’ve got several of these skybridges around the city. This one was easy to capture because there was a safe place to stand out of the traffic. To be honest, a major part of this trip was to find objects that would make good blog header images, but this one just didn’t seem to hit that purpose. The view is looking north along the western boundary of the heaviest developed parts of Downtown OKC. There are a few nice things west of this street, but the skyscrapers pretty much stop on that line. And just for balance, I believe there are still a bunch of underground corridors that connect a lot of buildings, too.

The Devon Tower is currently the tallest building we have. It’s easy to find lots of nice pictures of the front, or of the whole thing, but I was looking for views you might miss if you weren’t paying attention. Then again, they had a crew busy with renovating the flower beds and blocking the view of some nice architectural art. I’ll get that on another visit some time. But on the day I went up last week, this caught my eye. The pillars and curved wall, with water at the foot, shadowed by the trees along the walk… You’d never know where it was if I didn’t tell you.

As part of the Devon Tower facilities, there is a terribly expensive restaurant (by local standards) called “Vast“. The street entrance is next door to the Devon Tower, but the restaurant’s main venue is up near the top of the tower. This is its own entrance on the side of the tower, and you can see there is some lounging space here at ground level. You can find reviews and tons of photos online if that’s your kind of thing. I can’t afford a glass of water at places like this.

It doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, but the Colcord Hotel is OKC’s other historic hotel building. It was the first “skyscraper” in the city, built in 1910. It’s currently run by Hilton. Continuing east from the Devon Tower, this is next to the Vast and offers its own fancy restaurant with outdoor seating. I like the way it looks, but it’s another place I could not afford to visit. The hotel itself simply isn’t much to look at, but it still have guests every day of the year. The location is the key for this one’s longevity, right in the heart of Downtown OKC.

This fountain is very popular; I had to wait a while to catch it with no tourists hanging around on it. Later this summer it will never be alone. From what I heard, the stones are native to Oklahoma, of course, just not from this area. It’s one entrance to a large complex called Myriad Gardens. There was crew ripping into the flower beds here, so I didn’t want to take too many pictures of the rest of it. This fountain is relatively new; the gardens have been here in one form or another for a very long time, and covers an entire city block in the most expensive real estate I know about in this state.

The centerpiece of the Myriad Gardens is the Crystal Bridge. It’s been there since my youth, but it’s seen an awful lot of renovation. The thing is not a really solid structure. Inside is a botanical garden that used to be free access. Now you have to pay to get in. But the cascading levels of paths and sitting places is very popular in warmer weather. You’ll find the place packed with folks bringing their lunch during most summer work days. I believe the far side still offers a small outdoor public performance venue. I have no idea who performs in there, but I have seen it listed a few times.

Just a block away from the Myriad Gardens is the Scissortail Park, something I’ve featured before on this blog. The thing that caught my eye was this snackbar called Spark, with a high hat so you can find it from other parts of the park. You probably should see the whole thing from Google Earth or some other satellite view that has kept up with development. This building is on the north end of the park.

Below are a few blog header cuts from the visit. As always, all of my images are free for use:


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NT Doctrine — 1 Thessalonians 4-5

Posted on April 20, 2024 by ehurst

The last two chapters of Colossians, and the first three chapters of this letter are either encouragement or personal matters between Paul and readers. We note in passing that this was likely the first apostolic epistle of Paul’s career. He wrote from Corinth back to Thessalonica because they had only three weeks of ministry before Paul was chased out of town.

In the first part of this chapter, Paul recounts some basic guidelines for walking in Christ. The sexual restraint Jesus and His apostles taught came as a cultural shock to Gentiles in that part of the world. However, the moral purity of caring for each other was not so foreign, and with the energizing guidance of the Holy Spirit, the church had learned sacrificial love very quickly. But because the Macedonians were not known for working all that hard, it would be too easy for them to decide that brotherly affection meant they could sponge off each other. Thus, Paul warns them to provide for themselves.

The big issue is the Resurrection. Keep in mind that for most pagans in the old Greek Empire, there was no such thing as a Spirit Realm. For them, this realm of existence is all there is. Should there be an afterlife, it would have to be some place in this world that most mortals never see. Thus, it’s quite natural that they would assume those who came to Christ, but then died, were gone forever. The teaching of a Spirit Realm was simply too new.

Paul says that, if Jesus died and rose again, then so could all their fellow believers who lay in the grave. Paul even uses the term “fell asleep” to make this point. Not only will the dead believers rise at Christ’s return, they get to join Him first. Then, those who see Him come while still alive will get to watch them all rise from their graves, to follow behind them to meet Him in the air.

As to when that Day will be, no human can possibly know. Paul uses the image of a thief in the night. The prompt for such a thing comes completely from the outside, as does all the planning and execution. Nothing you can imagine as making sense of such a thing has any bearing on the matter. The only thing we can do is be ready because we’ve been warned that it will happen.

Sleeping in the grave is one thing; sleeping on the job is a huge mistake. Paul beats that into the ground here so it doesn’t move from their sight. Faith is our armament against being caught off guard.

The chapter ends in a laundry list of what faith moves us to do in preparation.

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