Covenant Sexuality

Posted on July 5, 2018 by ehurst

This is long and it’s going to be hard for some of you to understand. If you are too deeply pickled in the Western mythology of romance, you may be revolted by some of this. If you are able to see past that mythology, you should be able to understand that what it was like in the Bible is not necessarily a recommendation of how we do things today. But it should help you understand why it’s simply impossible for Western society to ever get it right.

The underlying assumption of the Old Testament was always the focus on the Covenant. The Covenant was utterly consistent with God’s design of Creation. Not in the rules, but in the call to commune with God in your heart. It is fundamentally a mystical religion. The rules were rather like what any parents would set for their children. Once you live with this for a while and grow up, you realize how valuable it all is, and you pass it on to your kids in turn. The boundaries were to keep you from hurting yourself, to condition you to see through the lies your flesh tells you.

So the Bible takes sex for granted as a human necessity. There was no artificial distinction between procreation and pleasure. All of it together was viewed as a critical element in human existence. To separate out the simple pleasure aspect was seen as deeply perverted. This is the root of moral failure in Western society, a society that denies the existence of the heart-mind. In the Hebrew mind, that was a repulsive perversion. If you didn’t engage your heart to lead your soul, you were already a threat to everything God promised.

In that ancient covenant society, they knew that men could easily grasp the necessity of keeping it at home. The way the various laws are structured, you can see that they considered women were more likely to wander than men. There was no insinuation that women were eager to spread it around, but that simply women were more likely to make a mistake about some things. It goes back to Eden where Eve was simply less able to see the moral implications of something that seemed okay. It was Adam’s job to think strategically about such things, but his sin was being lazy about it. This is echoed in the New Testament, where Paul warns that Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn’t (1 Timothy 2:14).

So for men the question is simply persuading them to be more proactive in warding off any threats to shalom. That’s because his wife is not equipped for that; God designed her to focus on other things. The covenant made lavish promises if you could keep people engaged in what they were designed for.

Thus, spreading it around on any terms was a threat to shalom. Humans are wired to be possessive about sexual favors. That’s not a moral flaw; that’s not part of the Curse of the Fall. That is God’s design. And if a man feels possessive about his wife, then he can learn to respect the possessive reactions of his brothers and cousins — this was a tribal society, the way God intended for us to live. Unlike most other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, Hebrew Scripture recognized that women were supposed to be possessive, too. They were granted ownership of their husband’s sexual energy, not merely his ownership of hers.

And we note in passing that, while limited polygamy was permitted along with divorce, Jesus pointed out that was not what God really wanted (Matthew 19). He was granting covenant men a little extra room because Israeli people were more difficult than other nations (Ezekiel 2:4; Matthew 11:16-24). And Jesus also pointed out that the Talmudic traditions that arose from Hellenized legalism were not at all a reflection of the ancient Hebrew mysticism. So Talmudic guidelines are not biblical; Jewish law is not Mosaic Law. We have to dig deeper into ancient Hebrew tradition to understand things.

In general, Hebrew men were considered too immature to start a family until they were nearly thirty. It also took that long to become financially responsible for taking care of a family and not being such a burden on the rest of the clan. But women were ready for marriage much younger. Thus, marrying your age peer was impossible. A man who was ten or twenty years older than his wife was quite normal. And there was no lower age limit for girls; it was simply a matter of the girl’s family saying she was ready. There was nothing lecherous about an older man picking out a younger wife.

Don’t get lost in the economics here; the issue was social stability as the fundamental element of shalom. Just so you’ll know, Hebrews had no custom of dowry. Instead, there was the “bride price” divided between the girl’s family and the girl herself. It was seen as a gift, not an obligatory payment. But the common assumption was that the man and wife became a team in building their part of shalom for the whole community. The rules and laws were aimed at this one thing.

Nowhere in all of this do we have the crass materialism and idolization of youth that burdens Western society. It’s not that Hebrew men were so reverent and holy; there are plenty of examples in the Bible showing otherwise. But you are obliged to read those stories and understand how wrong it was for them to lust after something that wasn’t theirs by grant under the covenant (same as women). Tenth Commandment, anyone? Prostitution was sometimes tolerated, but it was never accepted as a good answer to a tough problem. It was always immoral and destructive, and it was often idolatrous.

But the Bible does not separate out lust for children as a separate issue. It’s wrong to lust for sex outside of marriage — period. If a child was seduced or raped, there was no presumed trauma for the child, unlike the frantic hysteria in Western societies. That is, unless it was homosexual abuse — that was always wrong regardless of who was involved. But if the man was willing to take the girl into his household and treat her with the obligatory love and respect due a wife, that was the end of the matter.

Let’s make this clear: It’s not the desire, nor the sex act that was wrong. It’s the context that makes it wrong. Little girls are not traumatized by sex if the man cares about her and intends to keep the relationship going for life. Of course, he’s obliged to elevate her to partnership in his household. The problem is sex that isn’t based on shalom as the ultimate goal. The biblical definition of “rape” is sex with no intention of following through;* force wasn’t the issue (although needless injury was a sin). Whether adult or child, or any other creature on this earth, sex was always wrong unless it was with your chosen covenant lifelong spouse. The whole idea was to let God choose your sex partner. To ignore His wishes is the definition of sin.

Silly notions of how a romantic girl’s dreams might be dashed by marriage to someone she didn’t choose simply did not exist in Hebrew society. The Bible rightly assumes that two people living together would normally grow together in love. It might not be a match made in Heaven, but it would work out well enough within a tight-knit tribal society. They didn’t reverence a young girl’s finicky tastes in men any more than they respected a wife’s lust after other men.

That may seem harsh, but the feminist arguments are an abomination to God, and they are wholly inconsistent with reality. The reflexive reverence for female sexual prerogative is right out of heathen fertility cults (as are most traditional Western notions about manhood). The profligate sexual behavior of modern America is the result of feminist mythology wallowing in the Fall, not simply human nature. Feminism asserts the doctrine that men are rapists by nature; that’s a lie against God. Our society is so perverted because it rejects revelation a priori. You cannot possibly end child sex abuse until you end American society. Pedophilia is built into the West.

Our teaching never demands that we go back to ancient Hebrew society, but we darned sure could learn a lot from it. One thing’s for sure: Our American society with all the mythology and false expectations is damned. God’s wrath is falling on our sins right now, and it’s just getting started. If we continue ignoring the Fall and what God says is our reality today, we cannot hope to find any part of His blessings in shalom.

*(More precisely: Rape is sex with no covenant path to follow through.)

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Make Up Your Mind

Posted on July 4, 2018 by ehurst

Someone asked a question that seems worthy of a wider response. If one reader speaks up about being puzzled, a dozen more are puzzled without saying anything.

If you do a quick search in English translations of Scripture for just the words, you’ll find passages that say God cannot change His mind, and about as many passages that say He does. English is a terrible language for moral truth, because we who use that language tend to lock things into literal meanings regardless of context. The Ancient Hebrew people would never have done that with their language. You could make two statements that appear contradictory on the surface, and everyone would have known right away that you are referring to two entirely different things.

And then, there’s this long sad tradition of mixing Greek philosophical thinking into Hebrew organic faith. Systematic theology is an Aristotelian thing; it is foreign to Scripture. The Bible doesn’t make too many categorical statements that are always true in all contexts. When you think you have found such a statement in the Bible, you are probably mistaken. The nature of Hebrew writing is to discuss how God does things in terms of our human experience. There is precious little attempt to talk about the underlying ultimate truths of God without turning it into parables and symbolism. You don’t need to know God’s attributes and His nature; you need to know how He will relate to you individually.

I wrote a few days ago that I was sharing with you a moral impression of where things were headed at that time. I said you should take me with a grain of salt because God could change His mind. When your English Bible uses such language, it refers to God who wisely prepares both blessings and curses for the same people. Then He tells them about both sides, and He makes clear that it’s pretty much a sliding scale in most cases. But He is more merciful than He is wrathful; if He can tell you are trying to please Him but just can’t get it, He’ll cut you some slack. Which way you go has no effect on His divine moral character. He doesn’t regret like we do, and He has no trouble making up His mind. Rather, it is we who struggle with such things. And in our experience with Him, we can be warned bad things are coming, repent, and He will shift His plans for dealing with us. Only in that sense does He “change His mind” or as some translations have it, He “repents.”

But quite often in our faith experience, we have no clue what changed from God’s perspective, and suddenly we find things are on a different track. That’s part of the lesson with Job, particularly the opening and closing explanations about God and Satan. Job had no clue, but his whole life was turned upside down. He would never imagine that God was unstable and fickle, but it sure did feel that way to his flesh. And Job’s friends simplistically argued the Job must have sinned when that wasn’t the point at all. It was the simple case that God had placed Job’s life on a different track for reasons no human could know.

Some of you may remember that I wrote more than a year ago that “reality had shifted.” I said that the US was no longer on an apocalypse track, but that God had changed His plans, and I meant that in the same sense that Job experienced it at the end of the book. For reasons I could hardly comprehend, I knew that God was taking us into tribulation, but nothing like an apocalypse. And when I wrote about similar bad expectations a few days ago, I left the door open for my limited understanding. God revealed one thing to me, but that was a mighty miraculous blessing that by no means did I or anyone else deserve. And it could easily happen that something from His point of view can change and He will then surprise us with different plans. It’s not that God’s moral character changes; His execution of plans among us might change, and for reasons we can’t possibly understand. That’s the thing with trusting Him, you know?

And frankly I could slip off track and no longer have a clear view of His plans when they take a turn I had not previously seen. I don’t take myself that seriously, so you shouldn’t either. If something I prophesy doesn’t click with your sense of God’s moral character, than don’t pay attention to what I write. Prophetic things like that aren’t written immutably into the fabric of the universe. That’s the wrong mental image. Has anyone noticed that Daniel’s prophecy never panned out in a literal sense? Yet what Daniel wrote did witness to the faith of those in his time, and things did turn out as he predicted in a parabolic sense. He shared it in his best understanding at that time; it’s up to us to recognize that God communicates to the heart, not the intellect.

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Longer Rides Again

Posted on July 4, 2018 by ehurst

Just in time, I’ve grown accustomed to the summer heat. This morning I took advantage of the low traffic on a national holiday and headed out rather early. I rode out to the River Trails as far as Portland Avenue and back. While it took nearly four water bottles, at least I can tolerate the heat.

Most of the wild flowers are gone now. However, these planted flowering shrubs are still putting on a show. There are other colors, but these really caught my eye. Perhaps tomorrow I can get out early enough to make it out to Draper Lake and back. I’m sure the bikeway is still evolving.

We should be able to see the Independence Day firework at Barnes Park from our front yard this evening.

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They Say It’s Nutty

Posted on July 3, 2018 by ehurst

It’s not that we pay no attention to the consequences of our choices, but that our knowledge of the consequences aren’t the primary guide for our choices. We do what’s morally right. Not because of any alleged good payoff, but we do what’s right because it’s right.

We don’t confuse “effective” or “efficient” with “morally right.” The moral truth comes down from above; it speaks to our hearts through Creation itself. It calls on us to, not ignore, but discount what our senses and reason tell us is the best way. Thus, we may at times do the most unreasonable things, guaranteed to fail in terms of reason, because it is what God demands. He never promised it would always work out the way people view such things, but that it would always please Him.

As always, God’s Law is its own reward. We have to unlearn all the lies that make us push back into the shadows the one glaring truth that shouts at us from our hearts: Peace with God is more important than living. This world is one big lie and the sooner He calls us Home, the better. However, while we are hear waiting for that call, we have plenty to do showing the rest of the world what motivates us. We seek peace with God above all else.

That peace comes from embracing His revelation. I get weary trying to help people get it through their thick heads that between the Old and New Testaments is a firm and flowing continuity. I resort to saying things like “Jesus is the living Law of God.” I know the problem comes from the Western tradition that makes law a holy and awful thing the restrains us from having fun. It comes from divorcing the Creator from His Creation. I’ve written about it repeatedly, how those words “under grace, not under law” don’t mean what everyone seems to think they mean. They keep seizing upon the words themselves instead of the symbolism of the words. So we have to keep hammering at the term “Christian Mysticism” as the quickest way to point out that literalism = legalism and that’s what Jesus fought. The culture of the Old Testament never used the term “law” as a restriction, but as a personal expectation of our Father. It was always in our own best interest.

So we don’t want a mythical “rule of law” because that very phrase attempts to kill God in our souls. We want a rule of God, but His rule means we learn to live under the rule of men. And then He goes on to put boundaries on that to prevent the worst aspects of tyranny and oppression. One of those boundaries is that no one has any business governing you unless they have skin in the game. If they aren’t family, they aren’t fit to rule. That’s how God rules. Every other system of human government is a damned abomination fit for His wrath. And His wrath does fall sooner or later.

We make our choices based on what is morally right as God reveals it in His Creation, in His Law and in His Son. There is no conflict between them, only a mass of confusion in people’s minds.

Here’s a word for you: patriot. You can look it up, but in actual practice it refers to making your nation your “father” in the sense of your god. In the minds of many, they read that as the State. And even those intelligent enough to know it’s not the State still make the mistake of worshiping some rational ideal about the people as self-governing, an ideal that has never been the reality, never will be, and cannot ever be. It only works when “self-government” means permission to live in a tribal social structure with tribal government. That’s written into the fabric of reality, so even with all the mental confusion about it, folks instinctively try to restore that tribal structure of life through other means by redefining the meaning of “tribe.” In the strictest sense of the word, you and I are not “patriots” even if we do know how to act patriotic. We do that when it doesn’t conflict with God’s Law written on our conscience.

America is damned and doomed because it was built in defiance of God’s Law. It was built on the pretense of what seems to work best, but it never actually achieved that. At the best of times, it was a shallow fiction. Now we are approaching the worst of times before what we know of as the USA is forever broken and changed into something else. It is increasingly likely that things we do in pursuit of God’s favor will make us appear unpatriotic, if not downright crazy. Get used to that, folks. That’s where God’s favor is.

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Farewell to an Old Friend

Posted on July 2, 2018 by ehurst

No regrets.

Join me in saying farewell to the Volvo. We had it four years and it served us well. A couple of weeks ago I was working on the front suspension and it whispered to me that I shouldn’t take any more long trips; it was about ready to die. Today I headed out to Bricktown to walk along the River Trails and I got a notice on the dash that the transmission was very unhappy. It drove oddly and was stuck in third gear (out of four). After my walk, it began at least downshifting, but would not come up above third. So I did some research; at a minimum the transmission sensor had failed and it was more than I wanted to pay to fix it. It would have been pretty hard to get to, as well. Worse, it could have been the transmission was about gone. That would cost more than the car was worth.

So I drove it to the salvage place and they made me a decent offer, since it had never been wrecked. We do still have my wife’s car, so it’s not a disaster. Back to the bike for me.

There’s a lesson here about the Fallacy of Sunk Costs. The new parts I just put on should be viewed as cost of operations. In our religion, it’s the cost of obeying the Lord and taking care of His gifts. Fixing it and keeping it up to date was the right thing to do until the car was gone. Now it’s gone.

God bless you all.

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Assessing the Virtual and Social Climate (Updated)

Posted on July 2, 2018 by ehurst

I stand by the predictions I made a few days ago. When I go back and check them against my heart, the fire still burns brightly. God can always change His mind, as He has done often enough in the Bible, so take me with a grain of salt.

But those predictions are in the future. Let me share with you my understanding regarding some of what is going on right now. It’s not behind the scenes, but I get the impression the audience isn’t really all that large. The person who communicates on 8chan as “Q” has been discussing the Trump team plans for dealing with his enemies. You can find it condensed here (not all browsers will display it properly; allow some time to load). Sometimes it’s cryptic, but there are plenty of people who catch on to it and echo with more clarity. I’ve been paying attention with a wait-and-see attitude. We are about to see if this is for real or just a game.

From what I understand, the whole point has been pumping up the Trump troll army and preparing to expose the crimes of Trump’s opponents. Some of these revelations will be in concert with official legal action, but Q’s job has been to rally the troops to broadcast the message far and wide.

Starting July 5 — Thursday — we should see some early fruit of all this background noise, in terms of revelations, if not action. I didn’t discern any specifics, but I do believe I grasp the general trend of Q’s leaks. As previously noted, a primary leverage for legal action is child sex trafficking. There are thousands of sealed indictments and Q connects that with a mass wave of resignations in business and government leaders. He also notes that Mueller’s team is a mere 20-25, while AG Pete Sessions had handed U.S. Attorney John Huber a whopping 470 people, and he has the authority to hand down indictments in all 50 states. This is why there are some 40,000 sealed court documents appearing over the past few months, far above the normal amount of roughly 1000 over three years. (This paragraph was corrected to reflect a better understanding of details.)

I can’t guess what or how much will come Thursday, but a significant element in this is the timing against the mid-term elections. Thus, the action Q promises will take place mostly this month and next month, so it will likely be spread out to some degree. He claims there will not be a civil war, that the MSM is hyping that angle, but I call that overly optimistic. A good slate of indictments will delay the violence, but won’t prevent it. Still, for the sake of innocent lives, I sure hope Q is right about that.

Anyway, the whole thing strikes me as happy sounding propaganda for the Trump troll army. It’s like a campaign rally online, so there’s no time limit; it’s been rolling along since October last year. I’m convinced Trump is in on this.

On a related note, I’ve also been poking around some alt-right sources. This is the new face of the old underground patriot militia. This new generation has been talking about Trump in terms of benevolent dictator and as “God Emperor” in a joking bit of hyperbole. These are the folks who see no problem with violence against lefties, half-joking about wanting to drop major figures into the ocean from helicopters. They would volunteer to help out with deporting all non-citizens by force. These people are for real, and their numbers are significant. Oh, and they are typically well armed, including a very large percentage of military veterans adept at quickly organizing a response to confrontations. (Note: These folks are paying attention to the troll army, but not part of it.)

But a matching flaming rhetoric comes from the likes of Antifa and other hard leftists. Maybe you noticed the article by an agitator who said bombings would be common soon, just as it was in the 1970s with the radical leftists. And of course we can’t forget the ranting by members of Congress that there should be riots whenever any of Trump’s cabinet are spotted out in public. The number of folks willing to carry this stuff out are not small, but they have posted ads on Craigslist to pay people to show up for demonstrations, etc. — again. This may explain why they consistently lose in street battles, because hiring at that rate of pay seldom attracts professional thugs.

From what I can tell, both of these groups mean business. However, I rather expect it will take awhile. I believe the alt-right is waiting for the radicals to make the first move. I don’t expect the average Joes and Janes to get involved unless/until it gets completely out of control.

Now let me shift gears for a moment. I warned about Zionists raising the ante with cyber attacks against people who oppose them. Their actions are nuanced in terms of how much attention and influence their opponents gain, but anything posted on the Net will be at least noticed.

This takes place in a wider background of rising malware, computer exploits and general mayhem. The research into these threats doesn’t always pay attention to the politics of targeting, and Zionism is becoming an increasingly sensitive topic that many folks simply won’t touch. But those who share an opposition to Zionism have noticed increased hassles regarding computer security and network access. Some will always be paranoid, but there is also some quite reasonable discussion about how they are being targeted.

I believe the Zionist machine has now placed me on the lower rung of their notice. I have recently experienced some network trouble that appears targeted. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but sometimes I have trouble accessing articles or sites that discuss Zionist crimes. So far, I’ve been able to get around it, but it requires a little extra effort. I sense that I am way ahead of most victims in terms of technology experience, but I’m not in a position to offer much help to others out there, only to those who contact me.

Let me reiterate that my only worry in all of this is that someone will attempt to hijack my message. In particular, I’m concerned that someone will masquerade as me and say something I don’t support, or attempt in some way to discredit me. That does happen to others, but it’s not easy to pull off. It takes significant effort for now. I believe I’m not that big of a target yet. Our message is very distinctive and not that popular. It’s by no means activist, but it could be construed as supporting those who are more activist.

As you probably know, Zionism permits no neutrality. Insufficient enthusiasm is treated as hostility. However, the majority of Americans remain unenthusiastic, so Zionists are frantic and frustrated at how the US government policy is too feeble. It is shocking enough to the American conscience that federal and state laws are seeking to make it illegal to join the BDS movement in any way. There is a significant push-back from the left, and a little on the right. It doesn’t fit into the political polarization of left versus right, because Zionism is really an elitist position in the first place.

The Internet tends to ignore that kind of distinction. It prospers those who are passionate but lacking social leverage. This is an age of the little guy rising up to push back at the elites, and the little people actually have some parity of power on the Net. Our virtual parish is thinly scattered geographically, but the Internet permits us to fellowship with some strength and warmth. I doubt this blog will face actual censorship, though I do expect Zionists to make the effort. I’m not feeling threatened, only annoyed. It will get worse, but there are limits, and I’m confident God will see us through.

Our message will grow as things get more chaotic.

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Moral Homeostasis

Posted on July 1, 2018 by ehurst

What was the whole point of revelation?

“Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40 MKJV)

What was the crux of the Law of Moses? Glorify Jehovah as your feudal master, and treat His family as holy. Not holy in a servile sense, but with yourself as one of them, sanctify His reputation by how you can sacrifice some portion of your personal prerogatives to maintain peace and stability in the family of faith.

As always, the church doesn’t have to accomplish a darned thing, as the world views accomplishment. The whole point is to coexist in some measure of harmony sufficient for His glory to shine. This is your true life support. When you love your covenant brother and sister as much as you love yourself, you’ll seek a balance point where you aren’t sacrificing too much and losing your grip on your calling and mission, but you are sacrificing enough to meet them where they are, and to aid them in their mission and calling.

But the whole of our witness in this context is cooperative coexistence as a family built on sacrificial love (agape). That’s how His glory shines. It’s not a static stability of sterility and death, but a dynamic and living peace that grows and changes with all our individual growth and changes. Every incidence of two or three believers together constitutes at the least a provisional covenant family for as long as those two or three are together in the flesh (Matthew 18:20).

But that you, speaking the truth in love, may in all things grow up to Him who is the Head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, fitted together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of each part, producing the growth of the body to the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16 MKJV)

We as a virtual parish are no different; this is no objective at which we stop. If we happen to make the world a better place to live, that’s a side effect, not our aim. We owe nothing to this world; it has no claim on us. What makes life worth living for us includes pulling back from this world with its lies. Whatever debt or obligation we owe is bound up wholly in our Savior.

Everything else is merely a matter of tactics in keep the family harmonious, stable and strong together.

Addenda: The Law of God is its own reward. You will know you have arrived when you stop looking for a destination.

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Teachings of Jesus — Matthew 18:15-20

Posted on June 30, 2018 by ehurst

The underlying theme has not changed: Place a high value on unreserved trust and never manipulate. Completely open honesty is the way of the Kingdom.

How do you handle a genuine offense? Do you gossip and build up an undercurrent of resentment for the offender? That would be typical of fallen human behavior, but is wholly inconsistent with an atmosphere of open trust. You should assume a lack of malice. You should assume it was unintentional, and the proceed to enlighten your brother or sister. This is family; what will improve peace and stability in the household of faith?

Further, you do so privately. This is wholly in keeping with the atmosphere of open honesty and lack of malice. Give them a chance to understand without making a big deal. You are seeking to win them back to your side. Keep the family together in holiness and harmony.

But there is no guarantee that your offended feelings are appropriate. So if the offender rejects your overture, go talk to someone else. This helps to ensure you aren’t making much of nothing. If they agree that this is an actual offense, let them come along with you to bolster your claim. Tell the offender this matter is not settled, that what they have done is harmful to more than just little old you. It’s a threat to the shalom of everyone. At this point, you now have a witness that the offender is impenitent.

This preserves the moral tradition of accusations being more than one person’s private complaint. The problem is no longer the offense, but the truculence of the offender, and this threatens the whole family. This is the whole matter of our witness as a covenant community. It’s not what we can accomplish as a group, but how we handle natural human friction. Nobody says you can’t break things; we are all clumsy in one way or another. But you do have to clean up the mess. It’s not our activities and products, but the shalom by which we live together with a power the world cannot have. It’s the divine power to love and care for people for whom we have no earthly reason to even notice without that covenant.

So now it requires escalation to the whole body. Your supporting witness will be there to ensure this is not a private petty dispute. At this point you expect the body as a whole to see the threat. Give the offender one last chance to repent. If they refuse, then they are rejecting the covenant. They are an outsider who has no place within the family.

While we can only guess what Hebrew words Jesus used, Matthew selects a Greek word that is typically translated into English as “heathen” — ethnikos. In this context, it draws the image of someone who has chosen their earthly identity over that of Heaven. They belong to some other tribe or nation, but not to Christ.

And it is within this context that Jesus makes the statement regarding binding and dissolving. It is imperative that you and I recognize what does and doesn’t fit in the covenant that binds us together. More to the point, it refers to discerning and deciding when people belong and when they do not. An awful lot of people take this verse out of context and miss the point entirely. This is not carte blanche to ask for whatever goodies or miracles that tickle your fancy. If you decide as a covenant community that something is an offense to the body, then so it is, and God will back that up.

We say it often: Context is everything. If you and one other believer agree that any particular issue is good or bad for shalom, you can bring it before the Lord in prayer and He will respond accordingly. His moral character will bind that issue on your behalf and the blessings of His promises will apply to that issue. Further, if you both change your minds later, God will go along with it. The issue is to focus on what it takes to keep the covenant alive for you and everyone who embraces that covenant. “Lord, in our little group, can we get a curse on this issue, and a blessing on that matter of human interaction?” The Father will honor your earnest petition.

That’s because when two or more gather with the full intent to shine His glory, He’s there in Person. His power is in the fellowship under covenant. That’s how He delegates divine authority among humans.

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Free from Mammon, Free from Fear

Posted on June 30, 2018 by ehurst

The USA must turn inward and prepare to prosper with less trade.

Economists are excellent at analyzing what happened historically; they are utterly abysmal at predicting future events. Their logic is relentlessly vacant of moral discernment. That is, they deny that there is a moral element to reality. They recognize no moral analysis beyond sheer materialism; they worship Mammon. That deity is a lying demon.

I recognize that there are raw resources the US uses that are available only in foreign countries. Many of those resources are regarded as strategic — so important to our military capabilities that if we couldn’t trade for them, we would be compelled to take them by force. That’s another debate for another time. My point is that we have developed a massive dependency that makes us vulnerable. The US could do better with less dependence, but we have no idea how free we could be. We haven’t even tried to find alternatives using internal resources.

There is a very powerful globalist cabal that has manipulated the system to keep us vulnerable. This is what’s behind the biblical symbol of Babylon, seeking to unite the world in slavery to Mammon. In many cases, technological advancements have been rendered illegal to prevent members of this cabal from losing their monopoly position in existing technology. The US government has a long history of sending agents to secretly arrest people dabbling in forbidden advancements, and their research confiscated and buried. As a single example, look into hemp cultivation. Or look at Microsoft buying out all competition and burying superior software.

We have been denied a far better economic health because of private interests using government power to squelch any kind of competition. These same interests have lied about the necessity of wide open international trade. Right now, the US needs to turn inward and rebuild her internal economy. It will require a recession to break the bondage to senseless and false debt burdens. We cannot hope to do better until after we have done worse for a while.

I’m not defending Trump’s trade warfare because he’s doing it mostly wrong. However, the effort to wean us from dependence of foreign resources and products is appropriate for our times. It would take a small bookshelf of writing to explain it all in detail, but the current global economic situation is badly in need of violent reformation. I say “violent” because the people who run things have a death grip on the system. They are prepared to use violence to defend their “ownership” of all things.

So if Trump provokes some market instability, it’s overall a good thing. He will stumble and bumble through horrible advice from the so-called experts, but his instincts are running in the right direction. From what I can discern, I think he would settle for just a weakening of that iron grip from the banking lords of the world. And I’ll grant you that his motives are quite other than noble, but in the process of serving his own self interest, he will do us all a lot of good in the economic long term. He’s not trying to keep it all for himself; he has demonstrated an awareness that his prosperity is greatest when everyone is well off.

So on the one hand, this is going to be painful. We will have to abandon a lot of stuff in order to climb out of the pit. On the other hand, if we do not let these things go, we will be buried alive. While the escape will no doubt be more painful than really necessary, we should hardly be surprised that fallen people have closed their eyes to God’s truth. We who walk the heart-led path of faith need to understand that economics is not some objective truth, but is merely one aspect of a very living and sentient reality. God’s truth is the fabric of reality; He formed it from His own divine moral character.

Face the future with foreboding, but without fear. Yes, it’s going to hurt; that’s what “tribulation” means. But we are heart-led mystics, otherworldly people who seek to view this broken world from an eternal viewpoint. This world isn’t reality; it’s one big lie. Know the truth of God and you will be free from fear.

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The Virtual Race

Posted on June 29, 2018 by ehurst

As you probably know, the definition of an activist is someone who agitates for change in government policy. Along the way, they try to change social consciousness regarding their agenda. We might go along with changing social awareness about our faith, but government policy is off limits for us, if we take the Bible seriously.

On the other hand, nothing prevents any of us from engaging in a certain level of guerilla warfare. That is, we may well find it part of our mission and calling to engage in clandestine operations seeking to bypass government attention. As previously noted on this blog, we would certainly tend to avoid violence, if possible. There’s plenty of guerilla activity that doesn’t harm or injure anyone.

So, for example, some of you are aware that I am something of a cyber guerilla. Not a hacker; that’s too specific. It’s more about evading efforts to control our Internet activities. I try to keep track of computer security threats, censorship, and technologies that allow us to keep the lines of communications open. That means helping folks stay in control of their computers and their message. I’m generally not in the least concerned with what people do on their computers, but you can bet I’ll be more supportive of folks whose uses don’t violate my convictions.

My advocacy of Linux and BSD have nothing to do with a sense of moral superiority; Linux comes closest to the way I work. It solves more problems than it creates, though it is hardly trouble-free. I’m quite willing to track the best ways to protect Windows, too, because some of you would struggle with changing over to Linux. Linux is good for me; it may not be good for you. Or Mac, or BSD, or any number of other operating systems. I can just barely figure out Android, and I learned to hate iOS devices.

It’s the same with my food preferences, my fitness activities, etc. All Creation is just a tool for His glory. There are actually very few such choices covered under Biblical Law. There have been, and will continue to be, lots of posts on that here, but this post is about something else.

I want you to avoid being “religious” and harsh about choices of that sort that simply don’t matter eternally. We do make a lot of noise about reconnecting our bodies to the moral awareness of Creation, and how your heart should be able to answer most questions about health and medical issues. But in the end, you have to make that choice as to what God wants from you and for you. Just don’t turn that into a religious discipline in itself; that’s idolatry. The whole idea is that you connect and decide for yourself, knowing that your answer will never be precisely the same as anyone else’s answer.

We don’t declare an orthodoxy on much of anything like that. Yes, we do believe that the Bible presents certain doctrines, but you can overly analyze such things and chase the wrong ideas. What we present here in terms of Bible analysis is still not an orthodoxy, just a way of establishing what you have to tolerate in order to fellowship with us. I generally try to distinguish between solid Bible doctrine and my personal opinion when I post stuff here.

Some things are open for debate, but some things are not. Debate the wrong things too much and I’ll block your comments. Over the 9+ years on this blog, I’ve blocked something like six people, and politely asked one person to simply stop commenting.

My comments about racial tension and tribal existence arise from something written into the fabric of Creation. The words are mine, but the underlying ideas are Biblical Law for me. If we come together as heart-led people serving Christ, then race, ethnicity and culture mean very little. Without that, ethnic groups cannot and should not try to mix in this fallen world. No one has any business poking around in your daily life, and trying govern in that way, unless they are bound to you by blood or covenant. People outside of that bond cannot be anything but hostile to your needs as God sees them. They cannot promote your best interests because God won’t let them understand your needs.

That’s not clearly stated in the Bible, per se, but it’s pretty obvious if you can read between the lines. It’s pretty obvious if know anything at all about Hebrew culture in particular, and Ancient Near Eastern culture in general.

There’s nothing wrong with being kind and friendly to a different kind of folk residing next door to you, since we hardly expect to live under a government that will obey God’s Law. You can even “adopt” your nearest neighbors insofar as you can make it work out. The world needs more of that and it’s consistent with God’s character. Jesus did heal some foreigners, and the Apostles healed more Gentiles than Jews. Do what you can, because this world will barely tolerate us at the best of times.

But inside your heart you know this is not what God intended. You know that reality will eventually snap back into place from time to time when God tires of folks stretching it out of shape. So we don’t hate Muslims, but we know if you let them immigrate in mass numbers, they will eventually take over. The same goes with Latinos, blacks, and whites.

Get enough folks together in one place as a single identity group and they will flex their cultural advantages, unless you have a firm plan and procedure to prevent it, which includes stripping away most of their former identity. Some migrant groups will never assimilate, and simply move on if they can’t establish a safe enclave. The rivalry is entirely natural, and not sinful in itself.

People comfortable on the Internet are forming a new cultural identity. Keep your eyes open to this. Some attributes of Trump’s troll army will endure as a new type of ethnic identity. This whole business of virtual reality is still growing in its effects on humanity. It’s not that folks will necessarily lose their real world identity any time soon, but engaging that connection to the Net will put them in a totally different world. I’m convinced this will eventually eclipse any real world identity.

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