Ancient Truth: Series Introduction

Posted on November 7, 2012 by ehurst

As this is a series of books, they will be bound under a common theme. What follows is the introduction which will appear in each volume of the series:
Mankind is fallen, in need of redemption. The one single source is the God who created us. He has revealed Himself and His will for us, the path to redemption. The pinnacle of His efforts to reveal Himself came in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Most of us understand easily enough that Divine Son was born into a particular historical and cultural setting, one which is frankly foreign to us, and we to it. The distance is more than mere years of time, or language and culture, but a wealth of things which fall between us and Him. At a minimum, we could point out the Post-Modern culture, Victorian feminism, Enlightenment secularism, European feudalism, Germanic tribal mythology – so much we can point out without much difficulty. What no one in our Western world today seems to realize is the single greatest barrier to understanding Christ is the thing which lies under all of those obscuring layers of influence: Western Civilization itself.
That is, the ancient Classical Greco-Roman world is built essentially on Aristotle and Plato. Those two are not simply alien to the people of the Bible, but their basic view of reality is frankly hostile to that of the Bible. Aristotle rejected Hebrew Scripture because he rejected the underlying world view of the people God used to write that Scripture.
This book is not a long academic dissertation on the differences; that has been very well covered by far better qualified writers. But this should serve as notice to the reader how our Western intellectual heritage, including our basic assumptions of how a human can know and understand and deal with reality, is not what’s in the Bible. If you bring that Western intellectual heritage to Scripture, you will not come away with a proper understanding of God’s revelation. If the rules, the essential assumptions, by which you discern and organize truth about your world, remain rooted in the West, you will not fully understand the precious treasure of truth God left for us in the Bible.
We do not need yet one more commentary on the Bible from a foreign Western intellectual background; we need something which speaks to us from the background of the Hebrew people. God spoke first to them. He did not simply find the Hebrew people useful for His revelation; He made the Hebrew people precisely so He would have a fit vehicle for His revelation. Bridging the divide between us and them is no small task, but to get readers started down that path, I offer this series of commentaries which attempt to present a Hebrew understanding for the Western mind. Not as some authoritative expert, but I write as another explorer who reports what he has found so far. I encourage you to consider what I share and heed the call to make your own exploration of these things.

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Soul Seeds: Can Anything Good Come out of Samaria?

Posted on November 7, 2012 by ehurst

I have been told a really great teacher can remember what it’s like not to know. Whether or not I qualify for such honor is subject to debate, but I do recall the time in my life when I did not know the basic outline of Bible history, especially the Old Testament.
How many Christians can tell you David was not the first King of Israel? Saul was. Or how many know David did not rule Israel at it’s greatest? His son Solomon expanded the kingdom considerably. Solomon was wiser, by far, but failed to apply wisdom to all his actions. A rather foolish thing he did was tax his people one-quarter of their yearly income. For most Israelites, that meant laboring directly on royal projects 3 months of the year, because they seldom had cash to pay for taxes.
When Solomon died, his son, Rehoboam, was advised to lighten up; all the more so since there was someone with the political clout to lead a revolt. But the young man possessed none of his father’s legendary wisdom, and promised to be even worse as a taskmaster. His political opponent — Jeroboam — managed to pull away 10 of the twelve tribes of Israel, leaving the heir something less than half of the original territory: the lands given to Judah and Simeon. The northern kingdom retained the name of Israel, and the southern was called Judah.
The two kingdoms swung back and forth between peace and war with each other for a couple hundred years. Then Israel was conquered by the Assyrian Empire (based in the north end of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley), and all the folks who amounted to anything were exiled, scattered all around the great empire. Assyrians figured if one was pulled away from their homeland, they’d lose somewhat their national identity, because they had to leave their local gods behind. Since northern Israel had fallen far away from their Jewish faith, replacing Jehovah with a handful of pagan deities, the Assyrian ploy worked pretty well. The northern tribes of Israel were never heard from again.
About five percent of the original population was left behind, the poorest, to keep a few cities occupied and some of the farming land clear. Then Assyria brought in a load of exiles from some other places they conquered. By the time these arrived, much of the land had gone wild, and dangerous carnivores roamed freely. They appealed to the emperor to send back a few priests of the local gods so they could appease their anger and get things under control. They got some of those apostate priests who had helped Israel fall far enough to incur God’s wrath in the first place. These priests produced a very highly edited version of the books of Moses, and the resulting religion bore some vague resemblance to Judaism.
In the meantime, Judah had finally angered God to the point where He raised up a new empire, first to conquer the Assyrians, and then to come on over and conquer Judah. The new kingdom in the northern half of Canaan, still developing, was called Samaria, after their capital city (they tried to rebuild what had been the old capital of Israel). The Samaritans didn’t resist the new conquerors, Babylon, but Judah did. So Jerusalem was destroyed and the Kingdom of Judah had a turn at exile. But while they were gone, they tried to maintain their identity as Jews, and made some attempt to call on God.
Eventually, they were heard, and a new empire arose to take out Babylon. This new empire, Medo-Persia (Medes and Persians), let the Jews go back home if they wanted. A few did. They managed to fight off some political intrigues from some old enemies to the south (Edom mostly) and rebuilt somewhat the old Jerusalem. When they finally were ready to dedicate their new temple building, a group of Samaritan representatives showed up to join the party. They said something like, “Welcome back, fellow worshipers of Jehovah.” Of course, the Jews were not fooled by this, and knew the Samaritan religion had only a smattering of truth. They told the Samaritans to get lost.
This was no small insult to the Samaritans, who were somewhat more powerful, but not willing to get in trouble with the imperial government by starting a war. Instead, they did everything short of war. For example, the Jews would post sentries on high hilltops to watch for approaching armies, a system everybody used in those days. If there was reason to raise an alarm, they would light a bonfire. In daylight, they’d make it smoke heavily. This was a pretty good alarm system for those days. The Samaritans would then choose a hill on the same line-of-sight from Jerusalem, and wait until dark and light a bonfire. The alarm would go up, the city would go through the drills, and all other activity would stop for a day or so. When they finally got word it was a false alarm, you can imagine their anger and frustration.
Two more empires washed over them both — Greece and then Rome — before Jesus was born. All this time, the petty bickering and angry insults between Samaria and Judah continued. The Jews called the Samaritans pagans, and Samaritans called the Jews all sorts of things, mostly arrogant. So no self-respecting Jew would be caught dead passing through Samaritan territory while traveling between Judah and Galilee (which the Jews had also re-occupied). Since Samaria lay directly between them, Jews would cross the Jordan River to the east side, pass through a couple of little kingdoms, and cross back over when they got far enough north to enter Galilee.

And Jesus said, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side.” (Luke 10:30-32)

All were traveling down the road, which meant they were all departing Jerusalem, and going to Jericho — a drop in elevation of 1300 feet over just a few miles. It was common for robbers to work that route, which was rough and rocky, with lots of blind turns. Since the priest and Levite were leaving the Temple behind, neither of them could use the excuse of concern for ritual purity for not checking to see if the man was dead. For Jesus to suggest a Samaritan could be more kind and loving in dealing with a half-dead Jew than would be a priest or Levite (the cream of Jewish faith) was not actually hard for the audience to swallow (Luke 10:33-35), as the Temple staff were notoriously elitist.

“So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (vs. 36 & 37)

The man who had asked the impertinent question about was his neighbor (verses 25-29) couldn’t even bring himself to say, “The Samaritan.” He had been trying to justify not being a nice guy. Jewish men living above the lower classes were infamous for being rude and stingy to anyone they weren’t trying to impress. Jesus made it clear anyone who has a need without threatening you is your neighbor, and anyone who acts with godly compassion even more so.
Thus, He clearly demonstrates the Law of Moses was not properly interpreted by the Talmud, which tended to excuse such unkindness. The Samaritans had no Talmud, just a reworked version of the Torah. The Samaritan version did not cut out the commands to be merciful. The scribe had stuck his foot in his mouth by very properly summarizing the whole Old Testament: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’, and ‘your neighbor as yourself'” (v. 27).
If this is a proper reading of the Law, then why were scribes and other big shots so self-centered? They viewed it from rationalistic eyes, and three centuries of elitist traditions which essentially negated the higher morals of Mosaic Law. Fulfilling the Law was about loving God, and loving as God loved. That’s the Law of Noah, too. And if you can’t love those whom God created, you can’t claim to love God. You can’t claim to obey Him, and can’t even pretend to know Him. That’s the lesson of the Good Samaritan.

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Next Project: Ancient Truth

Posted on November 6, 2012 by ehurst

The working title is “Ancient Truth” for a series of abbreviated commentaries on Scripture, offered for free.
This is the collection of Bible study lessons I’ve been writing for the past decade as we’ve done house church. Each Sunday, the substance of our devotional study has been one chapter from the Bible, studied in sequence. The oldest material is the Gospels, and that’s where I’ll start this series of books.
Obviously that means I’ll probably revise the lessons, and typically they’ll be expanded somewhat. I won’t be posting those here, but if I sense it is justified for any particular reason, I’ll link to pages on my static website.
As always, the underlying theme will be helping people revisit the Bible narrative from a Hebrew point of view. Each book in the series will have the same introduction so that any one of the books will stand alone and still provide a summary of what sets these studies apart from the rest.
Please feel free to contribute. I’ll accept editorial comments here on the blog or via email using our TMOC Team account: tmoc-team at gmx dot com.

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I Can Read Your Mind

Posted on November 6, 2012 by ehurst

Actually, we can’t even read our own minds.

I recall a popular topic for discussion in the very active teenage group at the church I attended. The basic assertion is the Devil can’t read the mind of a born-again soul. Thus, if I was to pray silently, the Devil can’t follow the traffic and doesn’t know what I’m praying, because my soul was a walled castle to him.

You know what I’m going to say: This is just one more example of asking and answering the wrong question, so typical of Western Christianity.

If all we had were verifiable scientific facts, it wouldn’t be much. While a certain kind and flavor of human mental activity can be detected using various electronic scanners and brain activity sensors, actually “reading the mind” is far more subtle and complicated. That’s primarily because most of us aren’t properly self-aware. We cannot reliably report what’s going on in our minds. The thin slice of humanity who even come close are so far out of the norm, you can’t get a really good base for scientific study.

I realize the reporting on this is far more optimistic, but every time some big noise comes out, we discover some time later it wasn’t quite so good as they said. I’m convinced there are limits to this. The population you can easily read is the same population which blindly believes the underlying cultural advertising which teaches things like feminism (à la, Sex and the City), our American divine right to dominate the world, and a whole range of benighted mythology. Do you really want to read what’s on their minds?

The whole question symbolizes the same effort to reduce humanity to an easily herded beast of burden, the underlying assumption of our modern technological state system of government. The ruling elite want no part of this for themselves. Having worked among the children of said elite as an educator, I can tell you they are generally not at all like the kids at your local school house. Those elite kids are years ahead in terms of consciousness and general perception of how things actually work. They didn’t take me seriously until I made it obvious I was above their heads on at least a few things. The kids in the local school system are generally incapable of recognizing I am over their heads, in the sense it never occurs to them to care. This is what the elites want.

Now bring it back down to where we began: Active spiritual learners, as that church youth group was striving self-consciously to be, are a cut above the herd already. Not in every way, not all the time, but the mere presence of an interest and investment in studying such things places them a little farther up the bell curve in some ways. No, they aren’t fully aware of the complexity of studying an Ancient Near Eastern spiritual system all dressed up in Post-Modern Western rationalism, because that whole question evades the Western churches in the first place. But they are aware of a distinct and very real reality beyond the obvious default collection of mythologies from which they are seeking to escape. They are aware of at least the disjuncture between what this spiritual system demands and what it seems they naturally do, and something in that system draws them to keep trying to work it out.

This activity creates a serious jumbled up mess in their heads, at least if you were trying to measure it with technology. Yes, being a teen in the Post-Modern West is already insane, a jumbled mess of its own, but trying to claim the ancient spiritual heritage at the same time produces a truly chaotic consciousness. There is a core of internal peace and order only as a contrast to the rest of one’s mind being even more chaotic. This is somewhat the norm for those who are on a higher level of consciousness. It is inherent to our human condition things will be a roaring storm passing over tectonic shifts in the soul when we seek anything above the herd level of awareness. Even as someone pushing 60, having pursued this for most of my life, I am just now discovering afresh how chaotic the human mind can be. You can’t read very much of that no matter how hard you try, whether on the inside or outside of it. While a certain moral calm has been imposed on the chaos in my soul, it serves also to reveal just how messed up is the human condition. The more peace I gain, the more chaos I find inside needing peace, and the deeper and darker are the recesses exposed by the encroachment of the moral clarity into that space.

Can the Devil read that?

Let’s keep in mind, the Bible symbolically depicts him as having begun his existence as the very veil of God through which all Creation, and all the angels and various spiritual entities, had to pass in order to get God’s attention. That’s what is implied by the English translation of the term “Covering Cherub.” He was there as a prior creation before humanity was formed, and understood us well enough to pull us off track into the Fall.

At the same time, Paul reveals in far less symbolic language your own spirit is the best gauge of what is in your mind (1 Corinthians 2:6-16). He says this as a means to explaining why no entity can really understand what God knows. Our biggest problem here is our minds can’t comprehend what our spirits know, but our spirits can still steer our lives if we train our brains to obey, not rule. What’s in our minds is, in that sense, not really worth reading. Of far greater strategic interest to the Devil would be what’s in our spirits. So long as we struggle to obey the Spirit-spirit nexus, there is a sense in which he has nothing that matters, yet already has every other part of us. And if the folks writing Scripture can so easily explain our sin nature in terms we can use to improve our spiritual understanding, how could you imagine Satan wouldn’t also understand such things?

The Devil does not have to read your mind. He pulls the strings and you dance, until you start cutting those strings. That’s the common human condition.

Implied by the question of whether the Devil can read our minds after spiritual birth was the security of the soul, and the implied tactical advantage. The question itself assumes a vast mythology of what Satan does, what he cares about. The question itself is one the Devil wants us to worry about, because it misses the whole point. It’s not a matter of concern whether Satan knows what I’m planning to do, but whether he can do much about it, and what that would be.

Yes, there are divine rules confining the Devil, but they are written and understood above the human intellectual level. They are spiritually perceived. You can bet the Devil knows those rules, and would love to keep us deceived about them. Even saying it in those terms does not get at the issue of what Satan is and how he works. When the likes of The Hobbit and the mythology of Sauron in Mordor become the all-too-literal understanding of how Satan operates, we will never approach a real solution. That imagery is not an accurate depiction of how it works. When you read that sort of mythology back into the Bible, you will never walk free; you will never cut the strings.

Stop worrying about what the Devil knows about you. Under any terms, here in this realm he knows you better than you know yourself, and always will. He cannot interdict activity in the Spirit Realm beyond a certain but incomprehensible set of limits. He can do one whale of a lot here because he rules this lower realm, in a certain sense, as a vassal of God doing things which are supposed to make our human existence miserable. It’s his assigned task, and God is too complex to fit in some simplistic image of the nice old grandfather struggling hard against a vigorous younger Devil. God rules utterly, but the West is entirely confused about what matters to Him. All of our mental categories are insufficient to capture the truth, but even what we think we know is largely false.

You aren’t supposed to win here, except in the sense you understand how utterly false is everything you think you see on a human level. You win when you can disengage and simply do what’s morally superior, what’s drawn from the higher realm. Start with that and the rest of it will make more sense.

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Soul Seeds: Public Privacy

Posted on November 6, 2012 by ehurst

Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and reclined to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus reclined at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. (Luke 7:36-38)

Most of us today simply cannot picture this scene. Luke took for granted we would recognize the various hints in the description and have no trouble seeing it. Luke was a Gentile, probably Greek, and most scholars agree he wrote for a Gentile audience. Rome had been ruling Greece for at least 300 years at this point, and had injected Roman cultural habits into the remnants of Alexander the Great’s old empire.
One of Rome’s peculiar cultural habits was in how one ate at mealtime. It was very specific, based on their knowledge of human anatomy, the plumbing of the digestive system. Proper Roman etiquette was to recline on a couch on one’s left side. The couch was raised at the head, and the left elbow was propped on this hump. The couch was placed at an angle to the table, the face rather close, so one could eat with the right hand. The foot of the couch extended out away from the table. It was common to bend the knees, which put the feet behind one’s back. This was not as cozy as sitting upright, but it allowed space for servers to come and go without the diners having to move. Eastern cultures would also recline, but on big cushions rather close to each other. The Gentile audience would recognize Luke’s use of the word “recline” either way.
Readers also knew if the host was among the wealthy elite, and wanted the rest of the world to know it, they would have a dining hall built so that the long rectangular table and couches/cushions occupied a raised central area, with a nice airy, sky-lit ceiling. On each of the two long sides would be a colonnaded hall with a lower ceiling, and somewhat shadowed, perhaps partially obscured by drapes. In these darker halls, the public was allowed to roam freely, as long as they stayed rather quietly in the shadows. It was a public spectacle, where the less fortunate could watch and see all the big shots living the life of luxury, and everyone could see who’s who.
It was odd how wealthy Pharisees would mix cultural habits. For the most part, no self-respecting Jewish man would be seen speaking to a woman in public. All the more so if she was a sinner. Almost certainly, the woman in this story was a prostitute. Her presence in the hall was of no consequence, but that she dared to come out of the shadows and touch one of the elite guests was scandalous. Apparently Jesus acted as if it were perfectly normal. Even were she not of ill repute, her expression of devotion was extravagant, and trumped the host’s restrained attempt to honor Jesus. The price of her ointment might have easily paid for all the food served at that meal.

“There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:41-42)

Reading His host’s mind wasn’t necessarily a miracle. The self-righteous Pharisee no doubt displayed his thoughts dramatically on his face. The parable itself isn’t too hard to understand, if we accept the possibility the Pharisee may have actually accepted Jesus’ teachings, on the surface at least. Thus, the Pharisee is represented by the man of little debt — he felt gratitude at having his sins forgiven, but hardly felt there was much to forgive on his account. The prostitute was the hopeless debtor. Her sense of forgiveness could find no words, so great was it (Luke 7:40-47).
Jesus then called attention to the contrast between the host’s expressions of gratitude, missing as they were some of the minimal courtesies of that time, versus the overwhelming abundance of the woman’s efforts. No one bothers to note what she did was essentially an act of worship, blasphemous in the Jewish mind.
Mark mentions the event, as well (Mark 14:3-9). Having a different purpose in mind, Mark recounts the story from a different angle. Between the two, we get a fairly detailed picture. While Luke mentions Jesus called His host Simon (verse 40), Mark tells us the man was also known as “the Leper.” Many scholars speculate Jesus healed Simon of his leprosy, a disease which would have barred the man from casual contact with society. His wealth simply assured he was a famous leper. But to dine at a table in public, Simon would have to have been healed, and the circumstances indicate it could well have been at the hands of Jesus. This formal dinner would be a way of celebrating his return to public life, and to honor the One who made it possible.
In Mark’s account, though, Jesus assures all it is the woman who would go down in history, at least among believers. This singular event proved so memorable John could mention it in his Gospel (John 11:2) and we instantly get a much better picture of Jesus’ friendship with Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. The woman forgiven at Simon’s “welcome back” party was Mary, the sister of Lazarus. Little wonder she did not share her sister’s passion for domestic management, if indeed she had been a prostitute. Whether the stories are related or simply similar is not certain, but plenty of people see it as the same event.
In this case, we have a parable which is not so hard to grasp, but without the context could be very confusing.

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Cover Art: Not My Home (Updated)

Posted on November 5, 2012 by ehurst

Cover art for my book, "Not My Home" I suppose this might be getting boring to some of you. I dug up another old book I wrote some time ago, updated the technical references, added a chapter, rewrote another and basically made the whole thing smoother and flow better. I found lots of little gaps in the story line. So I’m still waiting for Misty to make “premium” at Smashwords before I publish this one. Still, here’s the cover art.
Never mind; I went ahead and published it anyway: Not My Home.

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Soul Seeds: Can't Please `Em

Posted on November 5, 2012 by ehurst

How many of us have ever had a friend who just had to have their own way? Not merely in most things, but everything? I’ve known people like that. In truth, there is a time in our lives when just about all of us are like that. It’s a phase of human development, something we leave in middle childhood. We go through our early lives as if our thoughts are the world’s thoughts. You’ll see it most often when some six-year-old says of a puppy, “He wants me to hold him.” As if he really knew what the puppy wanted — actually he has no capacity for processing the idea that a puppy might want anything he didn’t want for it. Children only have room for recognizing their own feelings.
Eventually, they confront reality when playing with other kids. These other kids don’t always go along with everything. At first might complain, “They aren’t very nice.” If they continue through life focused only on their own inner voice, they will never be nice themselves. They simply will not develop the capacity to imagine what it’s like to — as the song says — “walk a mile in my shoes.” The capacity to see both sides of a debate at the same time, to make allowances for others to see things differently without the reflex to label it “evil,” these are marks of adulthood.
It doesn’t require the sort of self denial where one has no internally generated opinions, a sponge which absorbs everything and always does what they are told. Rather, it requires merely a willingness to step outside oneself for brief periods. We must learn we, too, can be a real problem for others, and to sense somewhat the pain we cause others. It’s called “having a conscience.” We decide the other beings around us deserve some consideration, and we try to offer some measure of accommodation, even to our loss at times.
Those of us who get it, whose conscience works reasonably well, find we really don’t lose all that much. There’s a big payoff in finding a majority of those around us are more likely to give in to us when it’s our turn, when there is something we really need, not just vaguely desire. Once we’ve learned this social skill, we have also pretty much learned when we must be inflexible. There are some things on which we simply cannot compromise. It’s asking too much. In this, too, we are actually doing something beneficial for others — we are firm in something connected to universal consequences, the big picture, maybe even Eternity.

And the Lord said, “To what shall I liken the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying:
‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance.
We mourned to you,
And you did not weep.'” (Luke 7:31-32)

Jesus’ illustration was about the scribes and Pharisees. They were the ones who had clustered around John the Baptist, too, but in the end rejected his message. Luke tells us the sinners who took the opportunity to repent under John’s ministry were a glory to God. Those of the Jewish leadership who had rejected John’s message were rejecting God, in reality.
Everything had to be the Pharisees’ way. If anything confronted them which didn’t fit into their nice, neat categories, it must be wrong. They had God figured out, and no one was permitted to question those assigned boundaries. That was the same as questioning God, in their eyes. What it really meant was God was not allowed to work outside their boundaries. “Now, now, Lord, get back in Your box.”
They were like children who never quite grew up. If someone saw God in a way they didn’t, then he simply could not be seeing God. They had no capacity to see God from any different perspective than their own. They reminded Jesus of those brats in the marketplace (the playground of ancient times) who insisted everyone else play whatever game they wanted to play. If they felt like playing wedding, the other kids had better be ready to dance. If they felt like playing funeral, the other kids had better have tears in their eyes.
John the Baptist came along, virtually reciting the Old Testament, but was rejected because he didn’t wear the first-century version of a suit and tie. Instead, John followed a strict regimen of self-denial, avoiding anything which might be mistaken for luxury. Oddly, his recommendations for repentance were fairly moderate, not demanding folks take up his personal habits. But because he was so ascetic, the Pharisees said he had a demon, he was a madman.
By comparison, Jesus lived a fairly easy life. He went to weddings, He slept in houses, accepted the generous gifts offered by rich folks, and hung out with the laid-back types who knew they couldn’t impress anybody. He quoted more of the Old Testament than John the Baptist did, and was quite popular in how He taught. He was everybody’s friend. The Pharisees called Him a drunk and a glutton, said He hung out with sinners.
Yet it was clear to anyone outside the elite hierarchy how both of these men were serving God. John had called Jesus the Lamb of God, and Jesus had said John was the greatest prophet who ever lived. Both very obviously cared deeply about people, and made a genuine effort to lead them closer to God. They were opposites in many ways, yet on the same side. The contrast pointed to a holiness which the Pharisees could never grasp, much less match.

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Soul Seeds: Self-Appointed Fools

Posted on November 4, 2012 by ehurst

Very early in Jesus’ ministry, He stayed mostly in Galilee. People came from all over that part of the world to see Him. With all the crowds constantly following Him around, it must have been at times quite maddening. While the Twelve got enough of it very early on, even Jesus found He, too, had to escape once in awhile. On the day after selecting the Twelve and giving them His power over sickness and demons, followed by their ecstatic report later, they all went back to their headquarters in Capernaum. But the crowd followed them, even into the house where they were staying.
Jesus’ family decided He had quite lost His mind, and were trying to rescue Him from the mob of needy folks. As these relatives made their way toward the house, they crossed paths with a deputation of scribes, sent from Jerusalem to investigate Jesus and His activities. This deputation, upon hearing this talk Jesus was perhaps not in His right mind, chimed in:

“He has Beelzebub,” and “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”
So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided he cannot stand, but has an end. No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.” (Mark 3:22-27)

The rabbis had it all figured out. They had studied the Hebrew Scriptures to death, and were absolutely certain they had it all nailed down. They knew precisely what the Messiah would be like, where he would come from, what sorts of things he would say, what he would do — the Messianic Expectations. They were equally certain he would include them into his new kingdom on earth as the leaders of The People of God, and that all the Gentiles would be made slaves. They had quite a large body of work demonstrating how these things simply must be.
Most Rabbis were members of the Pharisees, as were most scribes. The scribes were men who trained for their status as lawyers by engaging in several years of copying the Scriptures, particularly the Torah. Make enough copies, and a man could memorize a great deal of it. In the process, they would rely on established word counts, letter counts, etc. It was all down to a fine science; it produced a steady stream of educated men, as well as insuring replacements when a scroll of Scripture aged to the point of falling apart. This system of copying offered a tremendous degree of accuracy and fidelity to the original sacred texts.
For these men, it was a passion to guard the body of truth from any attack, no matter how subtle. Every teaching rabbi, especially if he was popular, was investigated by scribes. Those who didn’t pass muster were at the very least publicly discredited. Preliminary attempts to do that to Jesus had failed, because this was not just a popular teacher — this one did real miracles. To the average working-class Jew, such was pretty persuasive proof God Almighty was behind His teaching, and typically raised some anticipation this could be the Messiah. While the Pharisees wanted as much as anybody to see the Messiah appear, they were always on a hair trigger because such talk might get Roman attention.
A significant portion of Jesus’ miracles were in the form of delivering folks from the oppression of demons. We know little of that today, but the scribes sent to investigate weren’t arguing it was fake, only that they were certain this rabbi was not from God. He didn’t follow the prescribed lesson plans of the rabbinical colleges, and He dared to speak without referring to some established expert. Worst of all, He rejected their well-established interpretations. For all their memorization of Moses, they gave precedence to the Talmud, a body of Hellenistic analysis applied to Hebrew Scripture. It closed their minds to what Moses actually had to say. Their twisted understanding forced them to look for some other explanation of His power.
So they declared He was using the power of demons to control the demons and that He was operating from within the demonic chain of command. His personal demon was Beelzebub — a nickname for Satan, taken from a Canaanite deity. Thus, Jesus was possessed of Satan himself.
Jesus wasted no time in responding to this. He called the scribes into the house and asked them how they could suggest such a thing. Their own brand of Hellenistic logic alone was enough to make it false. Satan was not in the business of setting people free from his power by ordering his demons out of people. The very idea was silly. The only way a demon could be dispatched was for someone to have a higher authority than even Satan. That could only be God. Thus, Jesus was asserting once again He was from God, and used God’s power. The proof was in the results of that power.
Satan can do no good thing. He might well at times appear to do something which might be called “good” by most people, but only if he can gain an even greater evil by it. The purpose would be deception. And even then, what “good” he brought would certainly turn out to be evil soon enough. Satan can only pervert what God does. It might be accurate enough to say Satan has no authority to do good.
Of course, the scribes may have had another motive in all this: Jesus’ teaching of Moses was a threat to the system which made life so pleasant for them. If what Jesus taught was true, and if He was the Messiah, they were in big trouble. The whole structure of Jewish society at that time was at risk of being destroyed, and their comfortable situation was about to disappear. All the more so was there a threat to the Temple bureaucracy which employed these scribes.
Either way, their suggestion Jesus worked from Satan’s power, and not from God’s, was crossing way over the line. It wasn’t just a matter of them making fools of themselves in front of a man who could argue circles around them any time and every time, whether by their own logical rules or by Hebraic symbolic logic. They were at risk of finding themselves under God’s wrath permanently, with no opportunity of repentance.
Here they were, witnessing the very hand of God at work in the lives of people for whom the Temple hierarchy cared nothing. Folks were set free from the terror of living with evil powers which used them like cheap toys; they were relieved of debilitating infirmities. Best of all, they were hearing the Word of God. If the scribes were so far from God they could look at His handiwork and declare it the product of demons, there was no hope for them. Jesus warned them:

“Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter, but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” — because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.” (Mark 3:28-30)

What the scribes had said was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, which was the Spirit in Jesus. It was the literal presence of this Holy Spirit which made the miracles possible. To declare His work evil was an expression of contempt which was unforgivable. It takes a really hardened heart to do that. These men were not defending the God of their fathers, Jehovah. They were fighting for some other god.
This is the “Unpardonable Sin” or “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”. To “blaspheme” is to express contempt for God, either by talking bad about Him, or by claiming His attributes for yourself. You can talk bad about the Father; He will forgive you. You can bad-mouth Jesus, and if you change your mind later, He’ll still embrace you. But you can’t show contempt for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. If you can declare His good as satanic, you can never go back.
I’ve heard and read no end of speculation on what the Unpardonable Sin is, and heard folks express worries about it. The best answer is this: If you are worried about it, you didn’t do it. If you can fear God’s wrath, you are still safe. If you are already a believer, you most certainly haven’t, and won’t, commit that sin. The Holy Spirit living inside you will prevent that level of bitterness.

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Haggai: Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on November 3, 2012 by ehurst

Introduction
His name means “Festive” — the only figure in Scripture so named. In 538 BC, Cyrus released the Exiles to return to their various kingdoms whence Babylon had taken them. The decree for those of Judah was generous, but only a few were willing to leave the now prosperous life they had in Mesopotamia. So a mere 50,000 arrived to the ruins of Jerusalem after a long journey.
The task appeared impossible, but they began early clearing the Temple foundation. The Samaritans who had been living to the north welcomed the Judeans home, they thought, until the former Babylonian captives made it clear the Samaritans had no part in their worship of Jehovah. This was the start of a very ugly rivalry, which included all sorts of political intrigue and outright threats from the client rulers of Persia who had been in the land during the absence of the Judeans. This tension stopped the Temple building very early. So the Returnees went about building their homes and reclaiming the agricultural land which had lain fallow so many years. Eventually, the political tensions became a permanent excuse for not seeking the Lord’s face and getting back to building His Temple. Haggai worked with the prophet Zechariah to stir up their zeal and get the people back on task.
Chapter 1
The prophet offers clear and precise dates. He is by far the most literal of Hebrew prophets. Even then, it’s easy to mistake his pragmatism and direct language as saying something he did not. This is not a simple matter of earning God’s blessings, but a blunt accounting presented to people who had already forgotten too much of their ancient Hebrew culture. This is still Hebrew prophecy with all the otherworldly symbolism, but the prophet must catch the attention of some folks who are somewhat less Hebrew during his time.
The edict of Cyrus to return was 538 BC, and the Returnees left a year or so later. They have been back at least 15 years, having stopped working on the Temple after only clearing and repairing the foundation. Haggai is moved by the Lord to address them on the New Moon festival in what would be for us mid-August 520 BC. A new Emperor Darius was now on the throne, and had communicated his favor for the Judeans, willing to silence the local opposition to their temple. There was no longer any excuse.
Haggai first pokes at the leading residents of the city for repeating the worn excuse it just wasn’t yet the right time to start building on the Temple again. So while they were enjoying sumptuous quarters, God had to meet with them in the open. Could they not spare at least a covered shed for Him? The issue was not politics nor time nor resources. If they were short of resources, it was only because they had neglected the source. That is, they had not obeyed the Lord’s command. He had told them to rebuild; they resisted. If in every way they obeyed the Law of Moses, but didn’t obey simple and obvious commands, then the blessings of the Law would be withheld. They were doing without, because they made God do without. Creation would fight them because their moral motives were wrong.
Get to work, Judah! Haggai addressed his message directly to the regent, whom we know by the name Zerubabbel (“Born in Babylon”), and the High Priest Joshua. Because they obeyed, it was hard for the people to argue, and the work began. They realized their God was alive and paying attention. They organized and got their plans together, beginning the work in earnest about three weeks later.

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Soul Seeds: Taken for Judgment

Posted on November 3, 2012 by ehurst

Perhaps you’ve heard that song written by Larry Norman, “I Wished We’d All Been Ready.”
When I first became serious about serving Jesus Christ, it was early in the 1970s. So-called “Jesus Music” was just becoming commercially viable, and a whole generation of song writers put the gospel message to a contemporary beat. Not all of it was true to Scripture, any more than it is with the more recent Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). On top of this, several very famous artists have gotten some unwanted publicity due to scandalous behavior. On the one hand, we each have to ask: How I would do, if my life was under the spotlight? On the other hand, what James says of teachers in the Church (James 3:1) applies equally well to those who stand before crowds claiming to sing for Jesus. Too often CCM is marketing first, and only incidentally biblical.
To my knowledge, Larry Norman wasn’t guilty of that. No scandals, no dirty secrets brought to light, not even bad behavior behind the scenes. He was rather strange, but not rude. I first saw Larry in concert where I was attending college at Oklahoma Baptist University. He was taller than average, had pale blond (almost white) straight hair down on his shoulders, wore a brown leather jacket and carried nothing more than an acoustic guitar. He performed his whole concert just like that. I seem to recall he included that old favorite, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” (Readers should note he died some years ago.)
That concert was about the same time Hal Lindsay had thoroughly established himself as one of the top Christian book writers. The paperback Christian book business was just getting significant. Like most people I knew, I read Late Great Planet Earth, along with a couple of other books by Lindsay. At the time, it all sounded good to me and was highly recommended by people I respected.
In our passage for this lesson, Jesus had just completed a heavy-duty sermon against the Scribes and Pharisees. Tension was high and the anger was palpable. As He and the Twelve were departing the Temple grounds, the disciples were commenting on the beautiful work Herod had done building up and decorating the structure. Herod was a clever architect, and lavished a lot of expense on the project. Very generous, considering he had no legitimate right to go past the Court of Gentiles, despite having been circumcised. Jesus warned His disciples not to get too wrapped in the man-made structure: “Do you see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2).
Obviously this was a prophecy of future events, events which would be earth-shattering to them as Jews. Having already learned not to argue about it, they asked point blank, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (verse 3). Jesus answered at length. What follows in the next two chapters are some of the most debated verses in the Bible. Even the fans of Hal Lindsay can’t agree precisely on what all this means.
I am no longer a fan of Lindsay. However, I am not about to launch into an attack on him or his theology here. This is about parables and parabolic language, not about eschatology. Out of this long lesson Jesus gave on the Mount of Olives, one image is sorely abused and must be addressed.

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the Flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:36-42)

I have it on good authority Larry was thinking of these verses, or perhaps the parallel passage in Luke 17:34-36, when he wrote that still-popular song. Like most people I know, he thought Jesus was talking about the Rapture. In this he was quite mistaken.
As usual, it’s largely corrected by noting the context. Jesus refers to Noah and the Flood (Genesis 6). He talks about how, despite Noah’s prophesying, folks just went on with their partying lifestyle. “So will the coming of the Son of Man be” tells us when He comes back, it will be a surprise to those who aren’t His followers. That Day will come, and people will be taken away.
Which people will be taken away? In the days of Noah, it was the sinners, those who rejected his message. So it will be when the Son comes — sinners will be taken away. A common phrase in Jewish culture was to be “taken away” with the meaning always in terms of judgment. In Jesus’ day it would mean arrest by Roman soldiers or Temple guards. Even today, we hear the television policeman say, “Take `em away and book `em.”
I won’t fault Larry for taking poetic license in changing the words a bit. “Two men in a field” and “two men walking up a hill” is pretty much the same thing in this context, but “hill” rhymes better with “still.” His mistake is in assuming the one taken was whisked off to be with Jesus. That’s not what Jesus was saying. He was saying the one taken will be like those caught in the Flood, taken to their just punishment. The one left behind is the survivor, not the person who missed the rapture, as Norman suggests. The ones left alive in the days of Noah were those who heeded the warning. The Flood never took them, because they were protected.
So what’s the point? It’s enough to note here Jesus warns us we cannot really be “ready” for His return in the sense we will have no unfinished tasks at hand. It will not be convenient for anyone except God. Jesus said, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:44)
How can we be ready? How did Noah and his family get ready? They obeyed the Word of God, and went about the task given. The rains did not fall just as they finished; they were in that huge land-locked ship for seven days before the flood came (Genesis 7:10). The task for those of us following Jesus is in the next parable He gives, Matthew 24:45-51. This one has caused little difficulty for most people. The Unfaithful Steward is pretty obvious; it’s the Faithful Steward that is the point. He didn’t try to guess the time his master would return, and so make any special preparations to impress him. He simply did what he would have done had the master been there all along, looking over his shoulder.
That’s what Jesus expects of us. It’s not a matter of trying to calculate this or that subtle hint in Scripture, and setting forth probable dates. It’s not about symmetry in the number of years in each Dispensation. It’s not about whether you will have a chance to accomplish anything in particular in your life before He returns. It’s about living everyday the same as if He were here now, watching over your shoulder. He is, you know.

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