Sermon on the Mount 14

Seek the Kingdom First 6:25-34

In Jesus’ day there was no state-operated welfare system to abuse. Instead, there was a covenant under which a person’s extended family was responsible for their welfare, but was also held accountable for most everything else secular government today has hijacked. The context for the whole New Testament was a radically different world than we see around us today. It’s easy to see how American Christianity has missed the point on this passage, given the scolding materialism of our culture.

This lesson continues farther down the same path as the previous, asserting an otherworldly viewpoint. This does not contradict the likes of Proverbs 6:6-11, which castigates the lazy. Jesus addresses life on a wholly different level; His audience would have recognized this. The biggest problem His audience faced was a very unfair economic system that violated the Covenant of Moses and the Talmud. The deck was stacked against the average Jewish peasant because of all the different ways he was scraped of his wages under the thumbs of both nobles and the legalistic middle-class Pharisees.

So for the peasants, the coming of the Messiah would mean a restoration of moral justice. Until He came, it was essential to understand what He would demand, not just dream about what He would do for them. Jesus was telling them not to get hung up on vengeance against their oppressors; that was the Messiah’s job. Don’t be like them in worshiping Mammon. Be true to the pure and ancient teachings of Moses; don’t get hung up on materialism.

Don’t be anxious over worldly concerns. The covenant life was far more than such things. Do you see how God treats the other creatures? The Father takes care of them as members of His household. Birds eat twice their weight each day in food, and the flowers are dressed better than Solomon was. If you could be half so faithful in your calling as they, don’t you think He would be generous about your needs? Can your anxiety have any beneficial affect at all on your human existence? How easily we forget that revelation is meant to restore us to our original state in Eden, serving the Lord as managers over the rest of Creation. Do you imagine He would give preference to the rest of Creation over His appointed managers?

The worst that your oppressors do to you cannot hinder the hand of God in filling your life with shalom. The Gentile nations don’t have the specific and lavish promises Israel has under the Covenant of Moses. They also don’t have the mission of revelation. Live the Covenant and demonstrate obeying the Creator. Focus on standing in His favor as your divine Father; He is not neglectful of what you need to serve Him. Focus your attention and energies on being ready for the coming Messiah; God can easily take care of the rest.

The final verse here is Jesus quoting an ancient proverb that is also in the Talmud. You have enough to occupy yourself today without borrowing from tomorrow’s anxieties.

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We Get Front-row Seats

Radix Fidem is a name I chose because no one else came up with a better idea at the time. Before that I referred to “the roots of faith” in English. The concept of the heart-led way is ancient; even our particular modern teaching here comes from other sources. It dropped neatly in place on top of something else I was teaching about conviction and the will, which in turn I heard from someone else. Even the idea that Christianity (and Old Testament religion) was an eastern religion came from a lecture I heard at OBU in the late 1970s. I didn’t invent any of this. The most I can take credit for is pulling it together and making it academically coherent and consistent.

Just about everything else we do here is experiential rediscovery, giving the appearance that we are making it up as we go along. I freely admit that my academic background is limited, but I am comfortable that I know enough Church History to comprehend what it is we are setting aside and why. I’ve also spent time working directly in several different denominations and traditions and experienced their signature rejection of my convictions. This is what’s behind me, and something similar for some of you, as we move forward with forming what amounts to a new sect of Christianity. I’ve already noted that I was prepared to act alone for my own benefit, but somehow this thing drew others seeking the same joyous discoveries. I can’t explain how that happened.

Nor can I explain the prophetic visions that, so far, keep coming to reality before my eyes. There were some hiccups; I had to discover personally that God can and will change His plans. I remain utterly convinced that some of His plans changed once we began sharing about the heart-led way, and that this one thing is a major element in that change of plans. As I see it, once He got us to accept that teaching, it was no longer necessary to pour out His wrath with such severity. Can I say it like this? He was hoping He could get someone to figure that out and spread the message so He could focus on restoring faith, not so much on destroying sin. Thus, He turned aside from apocalypse. I’m trying to characterize this in terms I can share, but it expresses my convictions.

You don’t have to buy into that if your convictions lead you elsewhere. But I share these things so you’ll understand my orientation. I hold myself accountable to you. When I examine current events and wade through the sewage of propaganda about current events, my heart picks out things to which I give some attention. It’s not a question of whether this or that is factually accurate; I’m in no position to work that out. It’s a matter of seeking peace within my heart, of deciding whether I am comfortable with certain choices and planning accordingly. I’m asking you to evaluate on the same basis. Does your heart witness to this?

My plans say that the banking system will not collapse, but it will take some hard hits. Rather, the primary source of economic distress will be what’s called a “market correction.” What we see on the various stock indexes is not realistic; there’s nothing behind those numbers. I believe the bankers have done a reasonable job of protecting themselves, but Wall Street is full of exuberant idiots. When the credit system starts to crumble, as it soon must, it’s the financial industry that will take the hit.

This will be the source of crisis in the US. God alone knows the details, but the only way you can hope to forecast the net effects is to understand what elements in our national economy rest on stocks, bonds, etc. Some businesses will close, some will limp along, and a few will be largely unaffected, but the level of interdependence is impossible to explain. So the economy will get tough, but it won’t simply stop altogether. I’m trying to avoid being too dependent on any one thing, but keeping in touch with alternatives for the basics of survival.

This is a bad time to take out any kind of loans except personal loans, the only kind protected under Biblical Law. Do you understand how most consumer and commercial loans are made from upstream loans several layers deep? Some of those creditors will be forced to call in all their loans, and that stuff tends to cascade down in painful ways. You could find yourself in a serious bind when some loan outfit demands full payment, something permitted by hidden clauses in the loan agreements under certain conditions. Court ordered repossession is not a pleasant experience, so be wary of dependencies on stuff that you could lose that way. Pray about a back-up plan.

The same goes for where you buy — some of your favorite vendors will disappear. Be prepared to make adjustments. Meanwhile, property crimes will rise quickly. Have you observed how our crazy culture has conditioned folks to entitlement? A significant portion of America’s population is just one step away from desperation and simply giving up on the system. I’m convinced that our God will protect us if we adhere to Biblical Law, but don’t think of it in absolutist terms. He won’t let you face what He can’t carry you through, but stuff will happen to us, too. We have to understand that He will preserve what really matters, not merely what we think is important.

That kind of economic shock will destabilize the political system. It’s already polarized and there’s no turning back. However, the fundamental government system itself is highly dependent on economic continuity, so when that continuity is disturbed, government will break. The problem for us is that a great many weak spots are hidden, so it’s very hard to predict what’s going to break. You might be aware of some of them, so plan accordingly, but only God knows about all of them. He is merciful and will guide those who are listening. Let your heart guide your choices, and make sure your mind is obedient in the most improbable things.

There is virtually nothing you can do about how individual government officials will respond to crisis. Some few are quite wise, but most are barely competent during the best of times. That’s the nature of government — the best people for the job aren’t interested in governing others. What’s left are a bunch of slugs who can’t handle real work. A genuine crisis will expose just how awful they are. This is when frustrated citizen victims turn to various forms of resistance, and that means bloodshed. Some locales will see more chaos than others. You can already guess some of them, but you’ll be surprised by a great many local governments that come apart for no apparent reason.

This outlines my expectations. These are things I pray about and contemplate daily; I recommend it highly. More important than agreeing with me is that you ask the Lord what matters to you, and that you seek His face for your own guidance. I can’t really propose a timetable; some of this has already begun. Each of us will notice different things in different places. The most obvious signal will be that market correction, and I can’t guess what that will look like. The experts say that it can be so labeled only after it happens. And the consequences will cascade down differently for each of us.

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Ax in the Forest

The heart-led way is a lonely path.

On the one hand, we are never actually alone because all of Creation is our friend. On the other hand, that in itself socially isolates us. The fault is with everyone else who avoids this very natural way of living, as God intended. Everyone wants a piece of Eden, but precious few are those willing to face the Flaming Sword to get it.

I certainly never set out to be a loner; it’s not my nature. It’s easily the most unpleasant aspect of my life. It has been the source of constant temptation to moral compromise just to find someone I can talk to, but it never worked, of course. At some point, I gave up and simply resigned myself to social isolation. Yes, I’m blessed with a wife who understands and sticks with me; I don’t take her for granted. I also don’t want to drag her into my personal isolation. I’m not a hermit by nature, but as the consequence of something much bigger than me.

And I couldn’t just remain silent; that’s something burned into my very existence. It’s the nature of moral truth that you simply cannot contain it within yourself. After several false starts, I came to this blog and poured out my heart to all who bothered to pass by and see. Over a period of years, I’ve gathered a few friends in the sense of people who were willing to discuss with me what matters most. It’s the singular blessing of the Internet, in the midst of all that’s wrong with it, that we who are thinly scattered can find each other.

It’s not just wishful thinking that fires my assurance God plans of bring more souls to our virtual congregation. I was ready to make the most of this odd situation, but the Lord says otherwise. Now I’m investing a lot of energy praying and thinking about how to handle an influx on any scale. The visions and dream revelations of a harvest of souls persist, but without a sense of scale. We have to be ready for anything in that sense.

I posted on the forum recently about my concerns regarding establishing unique rituals that reflect our unique approach to religion. This whole question wouldn’t matter so much if we remained a thinly scattered collection of isolated individuals, whose only communion with heart-led souls was virtual, but I’m convinced God has other plans.

And by the same token, we can never allow ourselves to forget that our core constituency will always be people who are forced into social isolation. I’m not sure how much we can do for folks who prefer that kind of isolation; those kind of have come and gone as visitors to this blog. There has to be a place for genuine loners, but it’s not their way to commit to fellowship under a covenant. We’ll bless them with whatever we can offer. Still, we will always have a significant number of people who don’t want to be alone, but the context of their life against which they are called to faith makes social isolation unavoidable.

We are blazing a trail here; this is new territory in Church History. It’s more than simply restoring the heart-led way to Christian religion, but we are starting off with virtually none of the contextual identity that limited every previous religious sect. We are self-consciously neutral, in part as a reaction to all the previous limitations we experienced that drove us out of mainstream religion. But rather than being formless and devoid of identity, we forge a new kind of religious identity based on the nascent culture of the Internet. We are approaching a turning point in human history when it’s no longer a matter of most people living double lives — online and offline — but a rising cultural identity that is rooted in the online world first, and radiates into the offline world, shaping a whole new thing.

This is possible for us because we were first alienated from our old lives by the heart-led way. Without the Internet, it would have been impossible to form a community like this. We are compelled to abandon a world that refuses to move forward, but instead of fighting that world, we simply exit to another that stands waiting and ready to be adopted and adapted. We can and must mold something altogether new. But we have some time, because God isn’t in a hurry with this. His wrath has an awful lot of work to do; there’s a whole massive forest of sin to chop down (Matthew 3:4-12).

We don’t celebrate individualism; we tolerate it as a necessity along the path. The Spirit calls our hearts to communion, first with God, and then His Creation, and finally with penitent fallen souls. We are dragging organizational theory into long-neglected territory, relearning ancient lessons written into the fabric of reality. This will isolate us at first, so we must learn to do isolation very well. We must learn a vivid individual worship and communion with Creation. Without some kind of boundaries, there is no sense of identity as the basis for living and growing. But we must study the lore of boundaries itself, so that we don’t draw them thoughtlessly.

I believe we can afford to deliberate and discern both, what we must do, and what we must leave for others to choose.

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The Intel CPU Flaw Simplified

Maybe you’ve heard about this: Major Flaw in Millions of Intel Chips Revealed. Most of the reports assume too much about what you already know, or obfuscate things and miss the point.

Bottom line: This flaw allows naughty software to sniff the contents of your computer’s active memory. That means such software can read security codes and logins while you are online. And all it would take is crafty JScript on a website using your standard browser to activate this sniffing mechanism. It can’t change information on your computer, and it can’t actually take over your computer, but the flaws can lead to someone finding out your passwords and then taking over your computer, or your bank accounts, etc. Nobody knows if this flaw has actually been used against anyone, but it wouldn’t take that much. Someone has created a test and used it in a laboratory setting. (There’s a good chance the likes of NSA and CIA, for example, knew about it and used it to spy on people.)

Here’s the deal: If your computer has an Intel processor manufactured after 1995, it is very likely it has a serious flaw in it. But this isn’t your common manufacturing flaw; it’s a flaw that arises from a very smart idea gone wrong. Did you know that the speed at which a computer seems to work while you are using it has to do with more than just some advertised numbers? There are all kinds of tricks the processor uses to get ahead of you and make stuff seem faster in terms of the user’s experience. Some researchers have identified a way to use some of those tricks to slip past the normal internal security measures.

This problem affects almost all consumer Intel processors, some Atom processors, and some cellphones, but apparently AMD processors are okay. Nobody is going to offer replacements, so the fix comes in having the operating system close that open door by disabling some portion of these speed tricks. It won’t be easy or quick, but very soon Windows, Linux, and some other operating systems will be updated to mitigate this problem. Everyone involved had agreed to keep it as quiet as possible, and they’ve been dealing with it for a few months now, but it leaked out recently. For past couple of days there’s been a sort of media panic that confuses the issue.

As you might expect, Intel is fighting hard to minimize this thing. They’ve made at least one press release that basically lied about it. On the other hand, Intel’s own employees are scrambling just as hard to help everyone come up with a fix. Thus, they are working to fix Linux and Windows, for example, at Intel’s expense. I believe the Windows patch is due out next week (Patch Tuesday), and Linux distributions will issue their patches any day now.

There’s nothing you can do unless you are willing to use web browsers with no JScript capability, or with scripting disabled. It would take getting used to, and most folks just can’t be bothered. Still, we shouldn’t look for some kind of computer apocalypse this time around.

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No Scarlet Letter

Maybe you remember the story in John 4, where Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman from Sychar. He could read her very soul, and noted that she had a very unstable romantic past. We know very little of the historical context for Samaritans, but what we do know is her situation was likely quite rare. First, the Samaritans still clung to tightly controlled betrothal and marriage arrangements. In order to call it “marriage” it would have required priestly involvement. Despite being different from their Jewish counterparts, we see no evidence at all of slouching in regard to marriage rituals. We can safely speculate that she was “given” to five different men, divorced from them, and was at that point shacking up yet another.

Thus, she was likely not permitted to socialize with the other Samaritan women, and came to draw water at that time of day when no other woman was around. In other words, it’s not that Samaritan women were loose, but this one apparently was, and no one had yet bothered to actively prosecute her under Samaritan law.

She was getting off easily compared to the adulteress in John 8. Did Jesus change the Law in letting her go? No, the Jewish nation had already so thoroughly abandoned the Law that it no longer applied. There was no Covenant community, no shalom to protect. The men who brought this woman to Jesus for judgment had no grounds for prosecution. The Law of Moses had not been their national law in a very long time; in its place stood a mass of Hellenized reasonings about what God should have said, in their opinions.

But if the Covenant of Moses was dead, there were other applicable covenants. The one that mattered at that point was the ancient Biblical Law, personified in the Son of God. In mercy, He released her to her own penitence.

We at Radix Fidem honor that Biblical Law. We accept “scarlet women” and men on the grounds of penitence and embracing our covenant. Our covenant presumes a heart-led life. Sure, you could fake it. You might even fool us all, but you cannot fool God. The only advantage of joining our covenant is seeking fellowship on the grounds that nobody is trying to fool God. You won’t get much from trying to play games.

——–

On a related note, someone asked me about traditional rituals. For example, I’ve already said we promote the Lord’s Supper, sharing the cup and bread. I recommend doing it at least once a year within a heart-led communion. That might mean doing it alone for some of you, so it’s up to your own conscience.

The same with baptism. Folks, this marks your entrance into a penitent life; it’s not a ritual requirement for membership in our covenant. It’s recommended, and any current member of Radix Fidem can conduct the ceremony. I’ll offer some advice on how to formulate things, but we have yet to gain a priest who would have any real authority in such things. Ideally, your local parish would have a priestly pastor, as well, but it seems to me we are still a ways from that.

Still, there’s nothing wrong with contemplating such things now, since at least some of you will find this thing exploding into existence in the future. You’ll need to ask some questions and consider how you want to do things. My bias is toward informality, but that doesn’t work for everyone. I’m unwilling at this point to rule on such things. I’m trained and competent for my own purposes here as local elder (alongside being senior elder on the virtual parish), but I’m not called to make such decisions for you. There’s a lot of territory here with marriages and a host of other social rituals. Feel free to ask questions here or on the forum.

Let’s agree to pray for someone called and committed to the pastoral role.

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There Be Days Like This

My apartment is heated via forced air; it’s cheap but it’s very hard on my allergies. Yesterday they were awakened; last night I was plagued. Today I’m feeling pretty rough with symptoms of a head-cold. But since it’s allergies, I can still do stuff, just not a lot. It means flushing the sinus cavities at least twice daily until the swelling and sensitivity goes down. Right now my sinus cavities hurt a lot.

The cold weather has been rough on our car. It seems the battery ground connection has slowly degraded, so the battery wasn’t getting the best charge. When this cold hit, the battery wimped out on us. It seemed like a good time to get one of those jump-starter boxes you can buy. So Sunday I rode my bike a couple of miles in the cold to Sam’s Club and got their Stanley Fatmax. It was a bit heavy, but I managed it on my rear rack okay. Once it got all charged up, and we scrubbed up the connectors on the battery, it jumps just fine. It may take a day or two of driving to bring the battery back up to it’s former glory. I’m going to replace the ground clamp when it warms up just a little bit more above freezing.

You can bet that riding in 20°F meant bundling up real good. I normally don’t even try it unless I have something important the makes it necessary. It’s a trick to break the wind without wearing too much and getting sweaty. A little sweat is necessary, especially under my face cover. I had a really great face cover I made from leather back when I owned a motorcycle, but it got wet in storage and mildewed. That was years ago when you could still buy sheets of finished shoe leather cheaply. Now it’s just too expensive in these parts.

We’ve had a few folks sign up at the forum, but not much chatter yet. It’s okay to just socialize there, folks. I’m checking it several times a day, and I’m sure others will if it starts getting a little action there. Let’s get to know each other.

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Covenant Book Published

Now available at Smashwords: Radix Fidem: A Covenant of Faith.

You can download it at the link for free in various formats. I also have my own simplifed HTML file, plain text format, PDF and the original Word and Libre Writer formats. I’ll try to get the HTML up on the static website in a few days.

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Radix Fidem Forum Is Live

Happy New Year!

Now is the time; Jay says our forum is up and running. Just click the link to the right under “blogroll”.

You will need to register and confirm your email address. This is your chance to communicate and fellowship without having to go through our blogs. We still moderate the posts there, but you can initiate your own content without waiting for us to mention something on your mind or heart. I recommend you start with the “Introduce Yourself” forum and so we can get to you know you better.

The image you see here is the forum logo, but it is also the first step in our “branding” — this is the symbol that represents who we are as a religion. In the future, you may see this without the words underneath.

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Do Not Submit to Folly

This is an age when people can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s just too easy to oversimplify things for the sake of entertainment than to really deal with the issue in a full context.

For example, I’m chunky and it doesn’t bother me in the least. All the spouting about how it’s bad for you and dire predictions of health problems is just the same old Nanny State nonsense. That whole ethic of nagging presumes an ownership of the individual, as if they were nothing more than an economic resource owned by the State (“society”). The real message is that the State cannot get as much mileage from your carcase if you aren’t svelte and sexy. So there’s a whole weight-control industry in which you are socially obliged to invest.

And just to make sure other, less formal industries aren’t neglected, we have this whole anti-fat-shaming show to go with it. That gives rise to a competing business trend based on snowflaking. It’s really just two halves of the same business, with the same group of investors making money from both sides.

Fat shaming is not a crime. You are entitled to your opinion. The problem is to keep in mind that other people are equally entitled to their opposing opinion. More importantly, how you go about expressing your opinion says way more about you than it says about your target. But of course, we’ve made an entire industry based on making oneself look stupid, too. Yeah, most of what passes for common social wisdom on all competing sides is really a matter of greed behind the marketing.

If you walk the heart-led way, you will of necessity make some decisions that require sacrifice. What you sacrifice is between you and God. This calling is war against common social wisdom in all its forms. That in itself is a sacrifice of facing internal conflict until you can get a grip on what really matters to you in your divine calling.

For me, paying the long-term price for being chunky is a sacrifice to God. Nothing in my convictions requires me to invest much time or effort beyond a certain point. There are boundary lines. It was fine a decade ago when the Lord commanded me to get as fit as I could, and with some experimentation, I got fairly trim.

The flash was intentional, a symptom of my ornery nature.

But then there was that bike crash that shattered my kneecap, and somehow in the mix of events I manifested episodic ventricular tachycardia. The treatment includes taking a medication that offers weight-gain as a side-effect. Granted, in the odd mix of things that I do with this body, not all of the weight-gain was fat, but at 5’10” and about 250 pounds (1.78m & 113kg) there is some extra blubber around my midriff. It’s not what I want, but changing it is not a high priority in the broad scheme of things.

I don’t have time to explain it to everyone, so I don’t bother. I don’t have to justify it before God; my conscience is clean. Nobody else really matters. Neither shaming no reveling, I just take it in stride. I’m not going to wade into the social debate, because the whole society is on the wrong foundation. I want no eager allies from the “body acceptance” movement and fitness scolds don’t have to live with my situation. It means shopping more at the thrift stores for big man clothes, but it has not hindered biking and hiking, or my other workouts, at all.

I have to careful about chairs. Did you know that all ladders you buy these days have a weight limit? Most of them are designed to handle less than 225 pounds; I’ve had at least one bend under my bulk. I tested a new knee brace, but it spontaneously rolled down off my thigh. I’m not going to go on a campaign demanding accommodations for my size. I’ll take what my Father provides for His mission and calling on my life.

By the same token, I’ll applaud your efforts to take whatever path God calls you to, because the one greatest victory of all is knowing and embracing your mission from God.

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Exodus of the Soul

This is not an exodus where we all leave the country. This is an internal exodus; we depart from this materialistic worldview and embrace the otherworldly approach to life. The America we’ve known will cease to hold us in bondage.

There will be many plagues falling on that materialistic worldview. Some of them will affect us simply because we are here among these morally blind people. But as things get rougher, God will distinguish between His people and the rest. The worst of the plagues — the madness, in particular — will not fall on us.

They won’t chase us into the Reed Sea, but there may be a sea of red — plenty of bloodshed. It will be very hard to watch, so brace yourself. But there’s little we can do at this point unless the people individually manage to see that we are not caught in the backwash. We must stand above the political fray. Observe and study it; understand it, but don’t place your sympathy with any part of it. This thing has festered for too long, and some folks will simply have to die. There is no possible way to heal the political wounds and go forward as one nation, because it never was under God.

Don’t let yourself be deceived by an affinity for one part or another of the big picture. Everything you see is based on rejecting God and His revelation. If we do not cling to that revelation of Biblical Law, then we are one of them, and will be under His wrath. Biblical Law is the key to surviving and staying sane. It’s standing in the shalom of Christ that will make it possible to survive the storms.

I’m praying for you. My prayers mean little if you aren’t under our covenant. I’m praying for His heart-led people to see the truth, to recognize the madness and escape. I’m praying that our Lord will grant signs and wonders, but in this day and age, the greatest miracle is simply staying sane. I’m offering my newest book on the covenant as a way to organize our thoughts on what to say to people who will inevitably ask how we manage in the chaos.

Given the peculiar situation of our world today, no one has to travel across the world to share this truth. We have the Internet to shorten the distance. But we also don’t have a public square in which to preach, a commonly acceptable means of broadcasting our message without making ourselves look like the same thing we are trying to leave behind. What’s left is that we await the hand of God. His wrath will distinguish us, make us stand out. But it’s appropriate that we pray for God to grant publicity to His truth, so that people will know we are here, that this is something very different, indeed.

Be a shining light of God’s truth.

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