Sermon on the Mount 9

Posted on December 2, 2017 by ehurst

Godly Giving 6:1-4

The message here is fairly obvious in most English translations of the New Testament. However, it’s easy to miss some of the flavor and context if you aren’t aware of the background.

Matthew chooses the Greek word eleemosune, commonly meaning charitable giving, but the word itself covers a lot more territory. It’s any act of compassion and mercy that helps another human through this life. There’s no lack of wise advice on the hows and whys of mercy in the Talmud, so Jesus goes after the one flaw of the Pharisees in their legalistic implementation of charity. He says you should avoid public notice. If you seek social attention in any way, there was no actual mercy to your action at all; you simply purchased social admiration.

The second verse here is loaded. Around the Temple plaza were donation chests, a common practice from the First Temple. Over time the priests and Levites found it burdensome to keep an eye on those chests to prevent pilfering. During construction of Herod’s Temple, one of the details was to cut a small hole in the outer wall at a convenient height. The wall was thick, and the hole would angle downward like a chute, with a receptacle on the other side that was out of arm’s reach. This small chute was lined with some sort of metal. If you dropped a handful of pennies into it, the racket was substantial to anyone nearby. People would turn to look and get the impression you had made a big donation.

That is, they might think that unless they were savvy cynical peasants. The Pharisees weren’t fooling anyone. We have evidence this noise was what Jesus referred to as “sounding a trumpet” and it would have gotten a snicker from His audience. It was a common practice of socially ambitions Pharisees, more subtle than a literal brassy musical riff, from which we get the English “tooting your own horn.” However, it served the same purpose as sounding a trumpet without being quite so tacky. The Pharisees were careful to do this only when there was a significant audience. Sometimes during low traffic times, they would steer a roving discussion with their peers past those spots so they could pull that stunt. It’s roughly equivalent to big signs today with a section featuring “proudly sponsored by” followed by branding logos and such. It’s considered cheap advertising.

Jesus says that such donors already had what they paid for with human attention. It wasn’t the right way to get God’s attention.

Instead, Jesus proposes a hyperbolic suggestion of keeping your hands ignorant of each other’s doings when you felt moved to give an offering. The equivalent is slipping your hand inside the wall opening past the end of the chute and dropping the coins straight into the receptacle. But more broadly, He promotes a willingness to work in compassion quietly. Do something charitable because you are driven by a passion for divine justice. Of course people are going to find out sooner or later, but that’s not part of the objective. Divine justice is its own reward. It’s the nature of Creation itself. God is the only one who needs to know.

All the modern philosophical blather about the ethics of charity leaves God out of it completely. Never listen to professional charity advisers and fund-raising experts; the charity industry is an abomination. And sometimes you shouldn’t pay attention to what the recipients of charity claim they want and need, but do what God tells you. Give what you have and never let someone try to make you feel guilty. Guilt is the voice of Satan, the Accuser. Do what you know God requires of you; His favor is the only thing that matters.

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I Need More

Posted on December 2, 2017 by ehurst

You should know that this is off the top of my head, in the sense that I’m not composing this in a text editor as I normally would. I’m writing this directly into the blog posting interface. The message itself is ephemeral. I’m convinced we are at a turning point, and what God does next depends on how the virtual congregation of this parish responds. I can’t tell you where the threshold is, either in numbers or time frame; I’m not in charge. This blog isn’t going anywhere, but it will affect my mission.

This afternoon I had a vision, a brief flash of discernment. It came in response to a prayer for more hints or clues about the mission. To be honest, I am still wondering why that laptop matters so much. Once more: This is not me trying to cadge a new toy. I’m happy with what I’ve got — provided my life continues more or less on the same track I’ve been on since starting this blog 9+ years ago. All I’m really doing is teaching and sharing my faith experience. I’m striving to make it something accessible to a very wide audience, but I absolutely must avoid what others have done before me.

Heart-led faith demands something different. I can’t use the methods of mainstream Christian religion. On top of that, a virtual parish can’t do what a physical church does in the first place. But we can do more than we are doing now. I’ll take the blame for a false start two years ago, though I still believe it was something completely out of my hands. Things changed because the wider context changed, and God decided to follow a different track, and now we are at another fork in the road in which you do have some choice.

Here’s the substance of my vision: Where we stand now offers a lot of parallels with the New Testament churches of the First Century. We are departing from a very calcified religion that has long left its roots, and become something so compromised I don’t see how we can stay. I feel very like the Apostles having been kicked out of the old religion and ready to start something radically new. We will surely be persecuted sooner or later, but if we hesitate, we are the ones who will lose out. God is going to do what He does and we are invited to participate. But I cannot work alone. Jesus called twelve for a reason, and part of that reason was to multiply His reach after changing them into different people. I’m just one; where are the others?

With roughly 850 subscribers, it’s pretty hard to sort through and visit all the blogs and websites to see if anyone else is promoting heart-led religion, as well. I believe it’s time to become just a little more organized about this. Any fool can be a simple member of the parish; I can’t keep working alone. It’s not that I’m whining, but I know for certain God intends to put to work those who make themselves available. And while nobody is obliged to echo my teaching, I’m hoping just a few of you folks are close enough to my teaching that I can recommend you to readers. Aside from a link list of friends, I need a list of affiliate sites. Can we at least get that far?

But even more important is that I very much need to associate with folks who feel called to the mission of the gospel. I need it so much that I would love to find a way to come see you in person sometime in the future. I have no idea how we could fund such a thing, and I really don’t care who travels how far to meet, but I’m determined that I will not work alone any longer. Genuine shared faith requires a face-to-face communion; it’s part of the essential nature of how God designed us. If not with some of you, I’m pretty sure God intends to get some other folks involved in that way.

I’m convinced God plans to have me traveling in the future. I have no hint of any details, mostly because He’s waiting to see if some of you want in on this. If it means bike-riding across country or just hitch-hiking, one way or another, I’ll be traveling, likely starting in the coming calendar year. Obviously this will affect what happens on this blog, but by no means do I expect to stop posting. This thing is about ready to move into missionary mode, so I would hope at least a few of you readers will join me. Again, I have no details on how long God will wait or what His plans are. All I know is this thing is moving forward in a different direction and His plans are variable depending on how many of you commit to taking part.

Don’t allow yourself to be moved by anything but that internal drive of the Spirit. Join me if you can’t escape it, but somebody will be in on this.

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Sin Is a Tragedy

Posted on December 2, 2017 by ehurst

Here at Kiln of the Soul, we teach that Biblical Law is self-enforcing. We as individuals struggle to enforce the divine will on ourselves, much less on anyone else. Yet we are obliged to try despite the inevitable failures. Moreover, He requires that we strive to bring His Law to life within that small domain of stewardship He grants to each of us. It is only because His Law is also self-rewarding that we are fed and encourage to keep going.

Yes, His Law is its own reward. The sweet communion of His favor in our hearts is the one thing we need more than life itself. This is why we strive against the vast mountain of deception, struggling to embrace and manifest the essence of His divine will, His moral character. Creation celebrates that character with us, rejoicing that return to Eden and our birthright of holiness.

It’s a precious gift, and sin is anything except what He gave us. Sin is disputing with God’s revelation. That revelation reflects what was true before Creation, so it is not subject to the reasoning and fashions of human cultural drift. His revelation is eternal, and will still be the very nature of reality itself long after this world is gone. This is where we belong, church family.

We who walk in the heart-led way of that truth find it tragic when people cannot discern the sweetness of His Law. What a waste, to give one’s life to anything less! It’s a free gift to all of fallen humanity. All we can do is live this precious gift and pray that our example sways just a few to begin seeking their divine heritage. Further, this divine heritage is unique to each individual, so it’s not as if the details of our personal blessings are going to work for everyone. God’s revelation allows a large range on many issues, and all we can do is decide whether someone else’s answers offer enough harmony with ours to serve alongside them.

So there is nothing in our witness about enforcing God’s Law, as if there is anything we can do to change another’s heart. God alone can do this, so our mission is to live, not pretend we can enforce His Law. All around the world wallows in darkness and sorrows of hearts closed to His truth. This is why our message is: What you are doing is not in your best interest.

We can speak only what we know, what we have experience at the hands of Our Lord. Here at Kiln of the Soul we teach that some issues are simply too obviously strict in God’s revelation. For example, we find homosexuality a tragic mistake, a rejection of God’s divine will for the individual. What God put into DNA reflects what He demands of you. Your sexual identity is His choice. If you want to work alongside us, you need to work through any confusion on that point. The same goes with cross-dressing, since the Bible makes it clear there is something deeply fundamental to human nature in that question.

Human sexuality is easily the most dangerous single moral minefield in every generation. Nothing else about us is so utterly destructive, keeping us from full entrance into Eden. But even when we can get people to understand that, we have vast cultural mountains to move to uncover what God intended.

Here in America, the single biggest lie is that human nature can be reshaped by the will of humans. It’s as if there is no God, and certainly no revelation. We make fearful things that cannot be erased from our fallen nature. Biblical Law is about building barriers to restrain the worst of human sinful lusts. It’s not about brain-washing and fear, but of constructing ways to keep ourselves honest. The only sin you can conquer is the one you confess to God.

Pretending that Western men should not desire feminine flesh is utterly stupid, and vice versa. Stop suggesting it’s a crime to have perverse desires; it’s a crime to let them wander freely. The Wisdom Literature of the Bible (indeed, of the whole Ancient Near East) is loaded with references to the wisdom of holding your tongue. It’s partly parable for the idea of keeping some things to yourself. Not in steely self-discipline, but what we seek to cultivate is civil self-containment of things that do not contribute to shalom.

It shouldn’t be creepy if anyone you encounter should be caught looking at you with some kind of longing. Wiser people do less of that, but wisdom is a goal, not an iron demand. Men gazing at under-dressed women is not a crime, just immaturity, as is the woman’s lack of modesty. Jesus warned us that some temptations in this world are hard for us heart-led folks to overcome (Matthew 18, which includes a subtle warning about pedophilia). But we cannot control the sinful impulses of others, only defend the feudal grant from God for our little personal domain.

Again, this is not about harsh and punitive measures, but a recognition that the soul in the mirror is no better than any other. We will ever face the hostile ignorance of the world around us. It’s our sense of shalom and power in this world that calls to the lost souls.

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Photography: Draper East Shore

Posted on December 1, 2017 by ehurst

There are a few areas on the east shore of Draper Lake I hadn’t explored last year. Yesterday was the right weather for resuming that. The map shows a substantial peninsula connected to SE 119th Street. The lavender numbers indicate the location where I took the following images, and also indicate the approximate route of my wandering. Please note the image shows a higher water level than I found yesterday.

That street isn’t actually open to motor vehicles west of Stanley Draper Drive, but it’s still clear cut through dense woods. I shot this image back up the hill from the shore of the lake. Aside from patches of bare sandstone, the ground is just fine-grained sand. I was standing right in the curve where the trail drops south. To the right of where I stood taking this shot was a large hollow where the Parks Dept. had pushed soil up on the side of the road to inhibit vehicles from accessing the shore. While it’s been dry quite some time, it still had some residual moisture, making it a thick mud hole. I was just barely able to skirt it. I had to push my bike across a lot of soft sand to another steep rocky climb like the one in the picture.

The satellite image is a few years out of date. It shows a trail chasing the shoreline that is no longer visible. You could probably discern a roadbed in the terrain, but it’s socked in with trees and shrubs, not to mention lots of thorny vines. I did get to Point 20, but not that way. Just a little further up and over the ridge is a trail that has seen some use in recent years. To block it, Parks Dept. put down a pile of truck tires; you can still see them if you zoom in on satellite images. They weren’t much hindrance to me pushing my bike past them.

There is where the adventure began. In the satellite image above you can see an open field just off the road on that trail. That’s where I had a the first flat ever on these hybrid tires. So I stopped, pulled my tool bag of the handlebars and inverted the bike. I carry a spare tube, so didn’t try to repair the flat one, just swapped them out. I also carry a very small hand pump that works well enough if the user is patient and persistent. I checked the tire and found no foreign sharp object; it must have been from some of the metal debris dumped out there over the years. Back on the trail, the way was just barely passable, but I rode almost all the way back down to the shore. I missed my intended turn toward to the far end of the peninsula, though.

Instead, I wound up on the shore almost straight west. I was treated to this delightful view of a collapsed bluff. I was able to walk all over it, but because some of the rocks wobbled under my weight, I didn’t feel safe trying to carry my bike over it. Instead, I had to navigate the thick underbrush to go around this.

This next image shows how the bluff cuts off the shore. But the shore was quite ample and clear beyond that and I decided not to try an immediate return back up the trail. I just kept going around the shoreline. It was a delightful choice at first, with numerous places where the underlying bedrock extended out into the water. But I had to walk the whole way, because there was just too much loose sand.

So I kept trudging, hoping to glimpse a trail opening. Keep in mind that I no longer have my iPhone, so I didn’t have access to GPS and satellite views, only my memory of out-of-date imagery. I never saw a usable trail leading away from the shore. I kept walking all the way around the peninsula, clambering over the rock outcroppings.

I did encounter some black sandstone here and there. It’s harder than the red stuff, but still just sandstone. There were places where it lay on the sand in large fields of fist-sized stones. I was ready to get out of there long before I was able. I ended up having to hike all the way around up into the deep swampy inlet you can see on the south side of that peninsula. It happened to be dry enough to walk on yesterday, and just as the shore turned back south is where I finally found a navigable trail. It was mostly ridable and I was glad to get off my feet. I came out onto the route marked “Westminster Road” which looks just like SE 119th above. At this point I wasn’t exactly sure where I was on the map because I had no map. I was actually just a hundred meters from where I had first rode off into the woods.

Still, I turned south and stayed along the shore I hadn’t yet explored. Eventually it led me to SE 134th and I knew then where I was. I was very whipped at that point and faced a long slow ride home northward on Stanley Draper Drive (which turns into Post Road) because I also had a headwind. But I did okay, and felt as tired as I normally do after those 50-mile rides.

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…And Furthermore

Posted on November 30, 2017 by ehurst

This continues the previous post.

Patriarchy is written into human DNA. As long as there are X and Y chromosomes, and their presence results in physiological differences, nothing on this earth can change masculine dominance. It exists when it is denied. It can surely be done wrong in culture, but it cannot be removed.

By the same token, matriarchy is also wired into human society. These are not competing systems, but parallel. There would be no human life on earth without both of these. All you can do is make life miserable by trying to ignore or hinder their essential natures. Instead of taking umbrage at how God decided things should be in this world, it works a lot better to understand how each of these two powerful forces of nature operate.

A primary failure of the West that it does not balance the two. As just one example, the doctrine of a man’s castle-home is contrary to Biblical Law. In the Bible, the woman owns and controls the living facility. The castle is hers; the man focuses on defending the family, not the facilities. Yet, even in saying that, the Western mind will twist it into something contrary to human nature itself. It’s not that men can’t have forts, but that the fundamental design of living quarters is not a man’s forte. Housing architects and residential planners should all be female.

The whole business of human government requires a division of labor between men and women. There are some things men do better, and some women do better. It’s not that women are confined by men to certain roles, and whatever the men don’t want to bother with is their problem. It’s that wise heart-led men know better than to proceed without feminine support and counsel. A woman’s place of honor is no mere pedestal; feminist polity is matriarchy overreacting to masculine folly. Western Civilization is larded with false dichotomies.

For similar reasons, a genuine patriarchal government always keeps the door open to meritocracy. They need not be mutually exclusive. Doing this well prevents mere ambition from taking over. At the same time, nepotism is not a sin; like everything else, it has its place. Indeed, belittling and making nepotism illegal hardly prevents something so utterly natural. Just because you can put a label on something to disparage it doesn’t mean you understand what’s going on. There will always be some human activity that simply cannot be improved.

There will always be people who govern best by knowing when, and to whom, they should pass the buck. These have historically been the greatest rulers in human history. At the same time, this never works well in war. Any combat leader who isn’t the first to face enemy fire is the leader who sacrifices his troops for his own petty personal comforts. The reason someone like King David lived so long while leading in that fashion is because God protected him. A critical element in that protection was that readiness to lead from the front. In peace, he was the first to pass the buck. He failed most as king when he failed to distinguish between recognizing a particular issue as a matter of administration or war.

Whenever Americans work alongside other nations and cultures on anything at all in this world, Americans are notorious for two things. One is the utterly hidebound worship of rules and regulations as written. Two is the frequent failures that relate to keeping the rules when they don’t matter and ignoring them when they do. A related issue is the consistent deception about why certain rules exist. Nobody in their right minds will trust Americans for anything that really matters because they consistently lie to each other while pretending to worship honesty. A genuine and honest American really stands out in foreign countries.

The single greatest moral flaw of the West can be narrowed down to the assumption that human behavior can be made efficient. This is false even if you completely ignore the Fall. The very concept of efficiency is an abomination to God, so one of the greatest heresies is the idea that God does things that are reasonable. Faith in God is inherently unreasonable and extravagant, because God is not bound by human reason and He has always been extravagant. But you notice how many folks are disappointed because they reasoned that God should do or give some particular thing that made sense to them. They assume God is conserving resources, because otherwise they are logically forced to accuse Him of lying. The real issue is that Westerners refuse to bow the knee with enough extravagance and self-sacrifice.

Reason, when it stands alone, is the Devil in disguise.

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Discerning the Real Problems

Posted on November 29, 2017 by ehurst

I’ve gotten some questions that indicate a need to paint a clearer image on a few things.

As noted in my recent “God’s Law” series, Biblical Law recognizes two kinds of government — imperial and national. But the latter is defined radically different from common understanding today, and the former is highly restricted.

By definition, a “nation” is not a matter of size, but of uniformity in culture. It’s a bunch of people living together with a strong common culture and set of social customs. Without that common culture, government is not possible. That is, any “national” government based on the assumption of mixed cultures is inherently oppressive. It is utterly impossible to govern human life in such a context without somebody being crushed by alien and repulsive moral values. Somebody will always be crapped on. Multiculturalism is an abomination to God.

And by definition, an imperial government stays out of such things. It’s all about the tribute and defense, not regulating human behavior. In America today, we cannot imagine a life where more than a tiny community of maybe 1000 or so could live under the same culture and social milieu. And we are taught that it’s creepy. This bad moral orientation is a part of what draws God’s wrath on the US.

Creation itself is designed in terms of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) tribal feudal social structure and government. Biblical Law presumes it. Nothing else can satisfy God’s requirements. Everything else is inherently evil. We cannot state that clearly enough.

This is why the US as a political entity is doomed. We would naturally struggle with the question of how much will God tolerate and how long. That’s moral discernment as an art form; you need a strong sense of moral conviction based on Biblical Law plus a strong sense of timing and seeing God’s hand at work.

One thing is for sure: Had America remained a cohesive cultural nation, it would surely not be facing doom right now. This is not a question of whether American culture is good or bad; all cultures have flaws, some worse than others. Rather, my focus is on the critical principle missing from everyone’s calculus in politics: God’s wrath falls very quickly on any government that tries to compel people to live together in harmony when they aren’t united already by common culture and social expectations. In other words, if immigrants aren’t compelled to conform and adopt the culture, they should never receive any of the benefits of citizenship. From the very birth of the first colonies, this has never been done right.

That American culture is based on the Enlightenment was already a huge strike against her. That she then diluted it for imaginary economic goals simply ensures nothing will work for very long. That’s two different sins there, though they are connected by the initial mistake of such a powerful secular philosophy. It guarantees that everything will be done wrong, that nothing will be done right. Creation itself was against us from the start.

To some, this may sound like I would prefer something akin to the cultural homogeneity promoted by the likes of the KKK. It’s not my preference; it’s a matter of what I can point to as the lesser of evils. The existence of the KKK is inherent in the worldview of the Enlightenment, as is child sexual abuse and lot of other evils. Such things are woven into the fabric of American identity. The honest truth is that the KKK is closer to what God demands than multiculturalism. This has nothing at all to do with skin color or ethnicity. If people do not adhere together under an established social and cultural expectation and sense of what is morally right, it won’t matter what race they are — their nation is doomed. Lack of social coherence guarantees the doom comes sooner than later.

This is not about racial segregation, but cultural segregation. A natural part of America’s doom will be the breakup of the federal system, and the formation of regional governments along broad cultural lines. While God may have other specific plans, without a direct revelation of those plans, we should expect America to be broken up into smaller countries. The imperial (“federal”) government has gone too far, pushing into territory reserved for governments closer to the people. God is not pleased, so it’s entirely natural that a civil war is brewing in America, and there is not a damned thing anyone can do to stop it.

Worse, it will be an ugly and chaotic breakup as various locations see the unconscious formation of proper nations on a small scale engaging in turf wars. People will either capitulate or be driven away. It’s not pretty, but it’s also not some evil to be eradicated; it’s entirely natural and necessary. Social stability, the ostensible goal of Biblical Law, is not possible without cultural partitions. Law must arise from a common cultural expectation, and enforcement is inherently oppressive otherwise. Somehow this all must pass through a very messy transition until it reaches a new equilibrium. We should expect it to be only marginally better than what came before.

That’s a matter of prophetic sensitivity. Without a totally different culture, one based on the heart-led way and Biblical Law, no nation on this earth can stand very long. The common availability of instantaneous global communications will guarantee instability. But it’s not the fault of technology; it’s a problem with false assumptions about how humans should be governed. I’m not sure the Westphalian State will last much longer on this earth with the rise of the Networked Civilization and the radical change that brings to human consciousness.

Don’t let the propaganda blind you to the inevitable.

Addenda: People cannot be governed by reason (i.e., democracy, communism, etc.) and not for very long by emotion (i.e., fear). The most effective rule is by covenant (i.e., religion, traditions and customs) under a feudal extended family social structure. Every other system will fail.

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Photography: A Pleasant Surprise

Posted on November 28, 2017 by ehurst

First, let me note that the laptop fund has received $100 already. We give thanks.

Today’s ride was seeking an appropriate place to pray about that laptop. This first shot was the view from my prayer chapel of the day. I was standing right next to the mouth of Crutcho Creek were it empties into the North Canadian River. It seems obvious that whatever justifies needing a new machine must be something more than just business as usual. I’m still puzzled and still seeking the Lord on this.

I was also praying for my friend Danny; he’s going in for a heart stent Monday, but there’s some risk it could turn out to be more. I’m praying for my Mom and Stepdad; they both are facing some medical trials. For my wife, she’s engaged in a new position at work and it’s full of challenges and surprised. But I also gave thanks because my bad knee is being pretty good right now, and my shoulder injury seems already on the mend. It’s less painful today. I feel like I’m standing on a rock as solid as this one on the bank of the river.

As I rode back toward the road, I decided to cross under the bridge. I noticed the road leading down to the new flood bank was very well used. So I rolled on down and up the other side. That old muddy trail along the river had been closed for at least a year, but now it’s open again. Yipee! I promptly took off down this trail and it’s very well used, easy to follow. Instead of mud, it’s now sand, quite loose in some places. Still, I got this shot looking upriver near where some agency did a lot of work on the bank two years ago to prevent washout.

The rest of these are just random shots I’ve been holding in my camera over the past month or so. This next one is the fruit of our mystery tree after a light frost. About half of those berries are soft and gooshy, while the rest are more like fully ripe apples. I never could get hold of any local arborist or other botany expert. I’ve decided that Linda’s instincts are correct: It’s some kind of hybridized crab apple tree. Those are popular here in Central Oklahoma.

This last one was just an experimental shot following the dam bank on Draper Lake. There were two lines of water marks showing previous lake levels this past summer, but they didn’t turn out quite so obvious in this picture. If I understand correctly, those boulders are all granite from the southwest corner of the state. While it’s somewhat dry, what water courses running out there are the cleanest in the state because they run across that kind of granite for miles.

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Aging and Fitness Failures

Posted on November 28, 2017 by ehurst

This is just a minor note on what I’m dealing with. Maybe there’s a lesson in here for you or someone you know.

My right shoulder has bothered me my whole life. As a kid, I often wondered why it hurt to throw balls the way other kids did. As an adult, I really took to weight lifting as a form of exercise, and by age forty that right shoulder started hurting in a particular way during any variation on the bench press. I blew it off as training pain, pushing too hard with high weights. But not long ago I realized it was visually not the same as the left shoulder; it’s not shaped normally and the whole right side of my shoulder girdle is misaligned.

So sometime around age fifty it suddenly got stiff and sore. It hurt to reach in some directions. After awhile it settled down and simply began making noise. I quickly learned that the only way I could continue the same workouts was to pull my elbows in close to my body to avoid the most painful angle. When the left should repeated that cycle recently, I figured it was just a matter of aging. It, too, eventually approached somewhat normal activity and I returned to the elbows-in push-ups and so forth. Until yesterday.

During a high-pressure exercise, pressing my own body weight on a declined surface, the right shoulder crackled audibly and began to hurt. So I stopped. It had been a little stiff over the past few days, but now it hurts to raise my arm in any direction. It’s obviously an issue with the tendons. Avoiding any resistance work that resembles a push-up or bench-press will probably see it calm down, but at this point I’m pretty sure I won’t be doing that kind of exercise ever again. I may be able to return to the tension exercises, but actual resistance is likely now a permanent no-no.

So I’ll continue the hard workout in the park without any kind of push-ups. I can still do bar-dips, and I imagine when it calms down I can do overhead pressing with the bungee cord. I’m not one to take painkillers for something like this. I suppose the hardest part right now is that I tend to sleep on my right side, and that is simply not possible for more than a few minutes at a time. I’ll have to learn to sleep flat on my back, and I’ve never done that much during my whole life.

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Guarding What Was Entrusted to Our Stewardship

Posted on November 27, 2017 by ehurst

Thus far in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve already come across a trio of statements by Jesus often misquoted in English to pervert His teaching. We have His words about making peace, about turning the other cheek, and loving your enemies. Each of these belongs in a context not obvious in any English translation.

Nothing in Jesus’ teaching prohibits violence in itself. He does suggest that you need to be very careful about it, because it’s too easy to let your human lusts crowd out the glory of God as your primary motivations. No two of us can possibly have the same approach to this issue. Still, any image of Jesus that doesn’t account for His use of a whip in a violent clearing of the Temple Court of Gentiles does violence to His teaching.

The real problem is human motivations. Has anyone noticed that John the Baptist never told the Roman soldiers to desert their uniform? Yet Jesus endorsed John’s message. Repentance does not require pacifism as popularly defined. There are lots of posers who claim the label “pacifist.” Do you know that a true pacifist will fight valiantly to prevent a senseless war? That comes closer to what John and Jesus taught.

The real problem starts with rejecting the doctrine of the Fall, along with a completely false view of the meaning and the place of death in the order of things. The natural world is filled with death, but not with murder. Only humanity is fallen, and only humans see death unnaturally. It’s impossible to understand Creation without the Creator’s revelation. The silly intellectual orientation that ignores the Two Realms is a source of horrors on the earth. In one sense, God never intended that we die. In another sense, death is just a circumstance. The English language comes chained to a deeply confused moral grasp.

Let’s cut to the chase: There are times when it is entirely righteous to take another person’s life. By extension, violence itself is not a sin, but a mere tool of human interaction. It has nothing to do with whether some government commands you to war; if anything, that’s more likely to be evil than good. Rather, it’s a matter of divine calling. Your mission from God could require defending your domain, the domain He granted to you.

That may include defending the innocents in your care, defending your own person, or defending some bit of property essential to the mission. Or it could mean none of that. You are the one who knows what He requires of you, and no other human can judge what your heart of conviction tells you. Granted, you already know you’ll face the improper and ill-informed judgments of men in making those choices, but that has nothing to do with how God judges things. Our whole purpose is not some excuse for violence. It’s all about obeying Him who is the ultimate Judge of all things.

So what kind of violence, and how much, does it take to defend your mission from God? That’s how much we should be ready to use. When the attack stops, so does the defense. In other words, it’s nothing personal. Only you in that moment can know for sure, but such is the general guideline. Nor is it a question confined to whether He will deliver your enemy into your hands, but whether your convictions demand that you try. The rest is just a question of mere tactics and methods.

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Donation Box Is Open

Posted on November 26, 2017 by ehurst

I’m only going to post this once: I’m praying for donations toward the new laptop. The goal is $1100. If you do PayPal, click the donation page tab above. Otherwise, I’ll be glad to share my mailing address via email, text message or a phone call to (405) 503-1692. I hate fund-raising; the only way I’ll mention this again is in praise and thanksgiving for how it turns out.

I’ve got relatives and acquaintances saving up to buy guns; I’m looking for a new laptop. Sure, I’d love to get a really nice firearm, but that’s not my priority. Given the way things are going, a good firearm isn’t a bad idea, but my mission and calling demand something else. Whatever warfare is ahead of me will be fought via virtual space. My ammo is the message I share. I’m not excited about new toys; I’m looking forward to the adventure on whatever terms God deems best for His glory.

There’s no big hurry. To be honest, I can’t understand with my head why it feels so important, but my heart seems to think it’s a big deal. The old hardware is chugging along just fine (mine’s a quad-core with nVidia graphics). I’m confident that I’ll be able to give it away to someone who needs a decent machine; it’ll keep working for a long time to come. However, I felt moved in my spirit to open the door for donations. More than money I need your prayers. Stand with me in faith that God will supply what He requires for this mission.

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