2000 Years of Drift

Posted on January 21, 2025 by ehurst

I turn once again to the matter of vision: What is Kiln of the Soul parish all about?

There is no way to summarize that in a single document, much less a single statement, as if we are somehow obliged to come up with a marketing brochure. The most important thing you’ll know about Kiln of the Soul are the people. We are the outreach simply by how we conduct ourselves in our lives.

Shaping that conduct is the teaching, starting with the Radix Fidem path and moving then to how it is applied by the elders in Kiln of the Soul parish. The elders’ vision includes a lot of things; we are elders because we invest ourselves in this mission. We are specialists in varying degrees, trying our best to absorb ourselves in the revelation of Christ. The reason it takes so much work is because Americans start out so very far from the ideal.

In the last 2000 years since Christ lived, died and rose again the world has drifted very, very far from things He was able to take for granted in sharing His message. His own nation had drifted far enough as it was, but the powers of this fallen world have driven it farther than most humans can imagine.

And part of that long migration away from Christ includes the very false assumption that where mainstream churchianity now stands is where following Christ has brought us. An expression of that delusion was the statement someone made once that following Christ shouldn’t require much of a specialized education, just read the Bible. This is a common contention that our English translations are adequate to express what Jesus was teaching.

The result is a vast horde of silly nonsense about Jesus, even to the point people actively resist and silence any effort to recover the frame of reference Jesus had as a Hebrew man among Hebrew people. The scholarship of grasping the radical difference between Hebrew thinking in the Bible versus American thinking today is why God calls elders and scholars to study these things. That scholarship is supposed to filter down from the specialists. Otherwise, there can be no body of Christ.

That last sentence riles a lot of American believers. They act as if Christ and His followers spoke English. They turn the Bible into a book of magic, trying to memorize the words, but never understanding what’s behind those words. They get to know a false image of Christ and defend that false image to the point they would easily crucify Him again, same as His government did for much the same reason. Judaism is a long-term drift away from the God Jews claim is theirs. They had redefined Him to the point they didn’t even recognize His Son. America has come to that place again.

Do you see our governments and our civilization fading and crumbling? Those things cannot stand because they are hostile to Christ in one way or another. It’s all owned by the Devil from the very beginning, reflecting his deception. Those things cannot stand.

We are striving to find a place to stand for Him in a hostile world. The effort to build a deep scholarship about thinking like God’s Hebrew Son is not aimed at blocking out people, but painting a clear picture of who He is and how to walk with Him. The only people outside the boundaries are those who refuse to come inside, people who demand that Christ shed His divine identity and meet them on their own terms. That won’t happen.

He is the Lord; you are not.

And we have infinite confidence in His power and leadership. The way we see it, if you truly submit to Him from the heart, He will eventually lead you to the same place we stand. It’s where He has led us and a lot of other folks out there. You aren’t required to agree with us, but we are all required to agree with Him. All we can do is faithfully discern with whom we should fellowship.

Here’s the bottom line: Just bow at Jesus’ feet. Make Him Lord; give Him your ultimate allegiance. Get the idea that you will need to nail your fleshly nature to the Cross, same as He did. He didn’t need that for Himself, but for us. We don’t mimic the literal action, but it symbolizes what we do internally by forsaking this world and it’s concerns, and embracing His divine concerns.

If you can do that, we have full confidence you will eventually end up on pretty much the same path as ours. Or, you can save time and hang out with us long enough to get some idea what we are doing. Even if the details are not for you, we are convinced you will find inspiration to chase the Lord back through that 2000 years of drift until you are walking with Him again.

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And the Lord’s Supper?

Posted on January 19, 2025 by ehurst

It’s the same drill as the post for Friday when we talk about the Lord’s Supper or Communion: I defer to Heiser’s analysis to ask the right questions and clarify the Bible passages most people refer to for the ritual.

  1. The Lord’s Supper and the Gospels, Part 1
  2. The Lord’s Supper and the Gospels, Part 2
  3. The Lord’s Supper and 1 Corinthians 8-11, Part 1
  4. The Lord’s Supper and 1 Corinthians 8-11, Part 2

The substance is that Jesus said we were to celebrate Him, and we do that best by observing what He said at the Last Supper in declaring His One Law: Love each other as He loves us. Everything Paul wrote about it reinforces this concept. The whole point is that this form of communion ritual must be communion in the Holy Spirit.

Historical evidence indicates that most early churches engaged in a love feast in conjunction with the communion ritual. It’s obvious that Corinth did based on Paul’s letters. A love feast is based on the Old Testament observance in which those who had plenty always brought extra and made it a point to share with those who didn’t. Nobody went away empty, and everyone had enough wine or other celebratory beverage to be joyful (i.e., buzzed but not drunk).

There are people who shouldn’t consume alcoholic beverages, to include recovering alcoholics and folks taking certain meds (like me). However, the whole temperance movement was actually a British middle-class thing that started in England under the guise of left-wing militant religious groups like the Salvation Army and some Baptists. You didn’t know that the today’s Baptists were rooted in social leftism? Temperance is most definitely not biblical. I’m fine with serving wine at communion.

Indeed, just about any combination of grain/bread and fermented beverage is fine. Jesus selected from the traditional Seder meal wine and unleavened bread. If you grow up in Iowa, maybe cornbread and apple cider fit better. (Hold the salt on mine; I have to live with a low-sodium diet.) The point was never the food itself, but the participation with God and His family household.

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NT Doctrine — 2 Peter 2

Posted on January 18, 2025 by ehurst

Peter describes the state of the Gnostic heresy as it was at the time. Israel had to contend with false prophets and so will the churches. They infiltrated and brought their false teaching into every church they could find. Things had drifted to the point they were even denying Christ Himself, the Lord who sacrificed His life to purchase them from slavery to the flesh. While many of them bore a strong charisma, they were morally wretched and self-serving. In due time, God would pour out His wrath on them.

Peter is confident that God’s wrath would not fail. The fallen elohim did not escape the Abyss, and their foul progeny — the Nephilim — did not escape dying in the Flood. Meanwhile, God kept Noah and his household alive. Just so, when the time was ripe, Sodom and Gomorrah were buried under volcanic ash while Lot’s household was preserved. Peter notes how Lot was tormented by the depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Thus, those who indulge the flesh will be destroyed, while those who seek God’s favor will find it, despite their trials and sorrows. These filthy Gnostics even went so far as to insult the powers of the Unseen Realm. Contrast that to the angels of God who were very careful how they addressed these higher authorities in the Lord’s name. The arrogant Gnostics were just begging for wrath. They had invested a lot of effort in learning how to prey on unsuspecting church folks.

They followed the teaching of Balaam. That ancient scholar was a genuine expert in what God had revealed up to that point but was motivated by personal greed to use that knowledge for evil. It took an onager speaking with a human voice to correct him and awaken humility. These Gnostics were no better than dry springs or clouds without rain, promising blessings they could not deliver. Their message claims to deliver the pagans from sorrow, but once they make a convert, he’s only worse off. They rant on and on about freedom while walking in slavery to their fleshly lusts.

Finally, Peter makes it clear that these filthy men were once followers of Christ. Having climbed up the mountain of God’s Presence, they have slipped to a place far below where they started. They learned the truth only to corrupt it and abuse its power, traitors who knowingly turned to Darkness. Peter offers two parables showing how disgusting these creatures are: dogs returning to eat again their own vomit, and pigs who went to the trouble to bathe only to immediately return to the smelly filth.

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What about Baptism?

Posted on January 17, 2025 by ehurst

We’ve talked about baptism before. Up to now, I’ve avoided trying to nail down the particulars. Over the years I’ve been influenced by several different traditions, and I played along with whatever was the practice of the church I attended. But, having no occasion to perform any such rituals, there was no need to settle on any particular answers to common questions. I never felt it mattered how or when one performed it, only that it be done.

I’ve never encountered a better balanced examination than the one Heiser offered way back some years ago when he first began his “Naked Bible Podcast” program. In ten short audio recordings, he covers the various questions and angles without telling you where you must land. Rather, he lays out his thesis that you must start with Colossians 2:11-12 where Paul says that circumcision and baptism are roughly equivalent. Recognize that whatever we say about baptism in the New Covenant must connect to what we can say about circumcision in the Old Covenant.

I’ll link directly to his archive of audio recordings:

  1. Baptism: What You Know May Not Be So
  2. Baptism: Contradictions in Creeds Part 1
  3. Baptism: Contradictions in Creeds Part 2
  4. Baptism: Contradictions in Creeds Part 3
  5. Baptism, Circumcision, and Biblical Theology
  6. Applying the Baptism – Circumcision Theology to Adult or Believer’s Baptism
  7. The Mode of Baptism and the Biblical Text
  8. Baptism & Problem Passages: 1 Peter 3:14-22
  9. Baptism & Problem Passages: Acts 22:16
  10. Baptism & Problem Passages: Acts 2:38

You can also find them on YouTube, if you prefer, by going to this page and laboriously scrolling down until you get to the bottom showing the first ten episodes.

The bottom line is that baptism marks the entrance into the covenant community where the Word of God resides. It doesn’t solve anything except your membership; it’s just a ritual of allegiance to Christ as Lord. It still depends on your heart-led choice to follow the teaching of that community and stand in God’s favor.

So, let the elder of the community decide the particulars. I see no particular point in re-baptizing except when someone feels the need personally. For people with no church background, I prefer believer’s baptism by full immersion, if possible, but I’m flexible. I would baptize your children if you commit to teaching them the Word (i.e., homeschooling, etc.). My personal preferences are not applicable outside of my covering.

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Ghosts, Poltergeists and Nature

Posted on January 13, 2025 by ehurst

It’s not merely that humans are fallen. Heiser talks about the Three Rebellions of God’s elohim staff: the Fall, the great corruption through the Nephilim, and the deception and idolatry after the Tower of Babel. Humans are in a bad way, and in desperate need of redemption from the effects of all three.

Each of these Three Rebellions has put us farther and farther away from Eden and our native place in Creation. We are separated from our God’s design and our rightful condition. We live in a world that is hostile to what we have become, instead of responsive to our management. We don’t understand it fully and must fight manually for what little we get from it. And what we get isn’t worth very much because it’s tainted by sin.

Creation in general, and the natural world around us in particular, is not fallen. It is also not passive and neutral. We have taught on this blog for many years that nature is alive, sentient and willful (in a certain sense). Satan and his allies do not have any control over the natural world that is not available to us, if we choose to understand and exercise the authority God gave us in the Garden. Granted, the authority we exercise in our current condition is limited, but it’s way more than what is commonly imagined in western mythology.

Jesus lived among us in our fallen condition, but without the moral taint of the Three Rebellions. He wasn’t in His eternal form; He was constrained by our mortal condition, but manifested what we could be with redemption. He lived in the condition we could gain if we embrace His teaching. Thus, He walked on water, calmed the storms, healed the sick and delivered captives. He flatly said that we could do things like that if we follow Him. He also said that His authority would not answer our whims and curiosities and desires, but would answer to the purpose and message of His Father.

The full range of His teaching is not explicitly stated in the Gospels; the authors themselves warned of that. Rather, His teaching references a wealth of what was signaled indirectly in the Old Testament. Ultimate truth cannot be stated in dry clinical terms. It cannot be contained and circumscribed by words. Truth is not propositional; it is personal. Truth is another name for the Person of our Creator and His Son. Thus, the teaching of Jesus opens a door to the privileges we lost in the Three Rebellions.

Creation is also a Person, a manifestation of His Word. God imbued it with His own Person and character. It responds to His will. If we walk in His will, it is our best ally. It knows His will and cooperates willingly. When the Nephilim walked on this earth, they taught all of the ways of Creation’s activities, but denied the power and will of God. Creation does a lot of things simply because of its nature; it has habits and instincts. You can fail to understand the divine purpose, but still have some limited access to ways of manipulating the natural world (“magic”).

Thus, we would end up using the limited authority of the rebel elohim and the disembodied Nephilim spirits (AKA, demons). That authority is quite substantial, but it does not match that of Christ. Their authority can deceive and destroy; it cannot build. They don’t own the natural world, but they do understand it a lot better than we can with our senses.

If you enter into the Covenant of Christ, the authority available to you trumps theirs. Given our situation here in America, I warn that it requires you consciously submit to Christ as your feudal master, making Him Lord. That includes entering into a covenant community and embracing the tribal feudalism inherent in Creation itself. But the main point is that you be in a community of faith, because that’s where divine authority resides. You cannot access divine authority outside of that situation.

Do you understand that so-called ghosts and poltergeists are simply manifestations of how the natural world operates? They are not specifically demonic. They can be used to manipulate us if we don’t understand them, and that’s the point of telling you that they are normal phenomena.

When a human dies, their spirit leaves their body and this world. They do not hang around. However, the natural world may for various reasons remember their presence. In certain locations and under certain conditions you may encounter a resonance of the person manifested by the memories held within the natural world. They do this as a function of God’s divine purpose in addressing our moral situation, about His wrath and our need for redemption. This is one of the ways that Creation speaks His truth. The lingering sorrows of humans are manifested as if those humans were still present. And sometimes the physical elements may act on their own accord to seek our attention to these things (“poltergeists”). They are simply acting on their designed nature.

If you get spooked, it’s part of the same deception that caused Adam and Eve to hide from God in the Garden. They instinctively feared the wrath of God on their sins. They knew they had elements in their lives that required covering, and their covering was gone. It was gone because they surrendered to the authority of Lucifer, and he offers no covering at all. Thus, people who face these normal operations of the natural world are typically fearful of them. They can represent the wrath of God on whatever caused the sorrow that still resonates in that context.

Those things could hurt us if we are not covered. If we operate under the authority of Lucifer — the entire realm of human activity outside the Covenant — then we have no protection from the natural world. Creation is not our ally but our enemy. [Edit: Demons can also masquerade as ghosts and poltergeists, but with the Holy Spirit’s Presence, you’ll know the difference.]

The only way to escape the authority of Lucifer and his friends is to submit to the authority of the One who created all these things. The key to “miracles” in which the natural world is our ally is that we operate according to the authority and message of Christ. He said the simplest statement of His authority and message was in the command that we should love each other as He does. That means forming a covenant community.

From within that context, we are allowed to know instinctively what His will and message should be in any given context. We then can exercise one or more gifts that He grants to the community and message of the Covenant. You can live for the Covenant or you can live for the Devil; there are no other options for humans.

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NT Doctrine — 2 Peter 1

Posted on January 11, 2025 by ehurst

The final chapter of 1 Peter contains admonition on practical matters but no doctrine. This second letter from Peter is to the same audience a couple of years later, near the end of Nero’s reign. Things have gotten worse for the Hebrew Christians in the Roman provinces along the Black Sea coasts of Asia Minor.

By now, the Judaizers had shifted their campaign. The old Talmudic law was passe, so a new crop of charismatic proto-Gnostics was making the rounds. Their doctrine sounded new, but it was simply an excuse for even greater moral depravity. This was the birth of, “Since the flesh is irreparably fallen, let it do what it wants. It won’t affect your salvation. Just keep your head on straight.” These men lived and promoted dissolute lives. This teaching served to completely dismantle the whole concept of living in this world by the power of the Spirit over the flesh.

He offers what we could call a chain of logic beginning with his greeting, proclaiming himself a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ (personally appointed while Jesus was still alive). But his audience had the same faith that propelled Peter’s ministry, made available to them because the righteous obedience of Jesus paid the price. Peter prays they continue finding more grace and peace with God by what they were learning about the Son. This is a subtle reference to learning the painful lesson of holiness in the face of persecution.

Peter has confidence this prayer is not pointless because he is quite certain that Christ won for us a generous supply of everything His followers need to walk in this world with a strong testimony of righteousness. We are called into Christ’s inner circle of disciples, privileged to receive the inside knowledge reserved for those who were nominated to experience a revelation of His glory and greatness. That selection further inducts us into a household of great wealth promised to those who participate in His divine nature. This means we have escaped the prison of the fleshly lusts.

But it’s not enough to simply get the concept. Your commitment should empower a diligent training of your will to seek the greatness of our Lord’s name, which opens the door to the real gnosis those liars keep talking about. True gnosis yields self-discipline, which in turn brings cheerful endurance in persecution, which in turn promotes a morally clean life, brotherly affection and sacrificial love.

That we should improve in these ways makes us very fruitful in drawing closer to Christ. Notice the drift here: Christ is the personal manifestation of our Creator, and anything that resembles a deeper acquaintance with Him results in a disciplined holy conduct in the flesh. This is a very plain counter to Gnosticism.

If you can’t grasp this necessity of holiness, what’s the point of personal spiritual redemption? What happened to being cleansed of the sins of the flesh? We should be diligent to prove by our holy walk that we are the Elect of Christ. If you seek holiness by His power, the whole point is not to stumble back into the sins of the flesh. You don’t defeat the flesh by surrendering to it.

Peter’s demise is very close, but as long as he yet lives, it is his duty to remind every believer of these things. Peter also planned on leaving a body of written material that would keep preaching his message after he was gone. He never forgot the warning Jesus gave him about how He would die, and it was obvious that was coming quite soon. Yes, Peter was a firsthand eyewitness to everything he claimed about Jesus. None of his teaching was dreamed up by human speculation. Unlike the Gnostics, Peter knew what he was talking about, and it wasn’t that hard to understand.

He never forgot that day God’s voice thundered from Heaven affirming that Jesus was His Son and His delight. It was up on that mountainside where Jesus was transformed into His eternal form. The gift of prophecy the Lord gave to Peter turned out to be utterly reliable. If nothing else, his readers could trust his message like a lighthouse in a fog, until the Day of the Lord itself dawns, and they see Him face to face. Meanwhile, the voice of prophecy never comes from a prophet’s own imagination but is the voice of God.

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NAR Bigger Than We Thought

Posted on January 10, 2025 by ehurst

Some of you may recall I previously mentioned the New Apostlic Reformation (NAR; also this). While there is some overlap, this is not the same movement as the American Redoubt up in Idaho. The latter is not Zionist; NAR is very Zionist.

I’m not in a position to investigate these things too deeply because I can’t travel to the locations and talk to the people involved. Of course, the folks who do travel and talk to them aren’t likely to share our background. Still, it’s all we’ve got, so we take it with a grain of salt: The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows.

It’s a long article, but I think it’s worth the reading. So, instead of blathering too much here, I’ll let you pursue it at your leisure. The key issue I hope my readers catch is the emphasis on this world, and secondly the very Americanized outlook on the Unseen Realm.

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Once More, Noah

Posted on January 9, 2025 by ehurst

It’s a major statement by itself for me to remind parishioners that the Code of Noah is part of any law we must obey for Kiln of the Soul. I’ve discussed it at length here before. Here is just a sample, and more recently I covered it in regards to Acts 15.

That’s enough for now. You should ask questions if you don’t quite get what it’s all about.

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No Word Magic

Posted on January 8, 2025 by ehurst

“But you said…”

The moment those words escape your lips, you are no longer under my spiritual covering. You would have left the community covenant. Of course, it’s not those words in themselves, but what they betray regarding your spiritual condition. When you imagine that my words are magic, that they have the power to bind me, then you are practicing the Dark Arts.

In the Kingdom of Heaven, God is not bound by His own words. Word magic was a Zoroastrian concept specifically, though it also manifested elsewhere, such as in the secularism of Hellenistic thought. For Christians, there is no useful distinction between “pagan” and “secular”. God’s words, and those of His servants, are not binding in themselves. Rather, they are merely a manifestation of the living truth of the person who uttered them. Words have no power; the power is in the person. God’s words mean nothing if the Word is not alive.

If you see a conflict between something I said and what you see me doing, then your Christian duty is to assume you misunderstood what I said, or that I am compelled to retract. Learn the distinction between your perception of my words versus who I am. Pay more attention to who I am. That’s true of God, as well. We do not form relationships with the words, but with each other as persons. Ideas are not people.

The “rule of law” concept is Satan’s idea. The rule of persons is the fundamental nature of Creation (AKA reality). You assume that the presence of any kind of power is the signature of personhood. Thus, what we have been taught to call “anthropomorphism” of natural forces is actually following Jesus, who commanded the natural elements, and those elements obeyed. This is how we are supposed to think and talk.

Surely we are flawed, but this is how God does business with His people. If you do not find a path that includes some level of submission to other humans, then you are not following God’s Path (Hebrew: torah). Every human serves some higher authority, and in practice, you must juggle the claims of multiple authorities. The mythology of free men and their human rights is straight out of Hell.

It boils down to this: I am an elder, a spiritual shepherd. I didn’t seek that role; it fell upon me. I obeyed my Master by giving vent to my convictions. Other people received my words as an expression of God’s Word, and drew closer to me. We formed a bond whereby they assumed I had some spiritual authority and we formed a community. At some point, I offered a written expression of covenant. That covenant does not bind any of us; it is merely an expression of who we are as a family. It helps to crystallize and synchronize however much of our thinking as is possible.

No matter how much I write, regardless of any supposed talent for clear expression in words, there remains a necessity of spending time talking about the implications. The personal interaction is the whole point; the written record is simply a time-saving device so that our conversations can get to the point. That’s how “church” is supposed to work. It is people interacting in real time, using resources to keep the connection alive, because God says that’s how we keep our connection with Him. He uses His servants, which includes us fallen humans, but that stretches out widely to all Creation. This is why we exist.

We use the label “Kiln of the Soul” for our community. To be a part of this requires you submit first to the Covenant of Christ, with Him as your Lord. Then, you need to communicate to me in some way that you wish to submit to my spiritual covering — me, a living person. We are all in flux here in time and space, so things might change. God’s Person is eternal (“unchanging”), but it is unavoidable that we never stop changing until we die. The root concept of mortality includes “variable”. In order to be a part of this community under our covenant, you’ll need to emphasize the personal element of connection, where it is now. You need to connect to the others, as well.

If you cannot connect to the rest of the family, then you stand outside of my primary reason for living. You are not under my covering and I cannot do very much for you. You cannot separate community and covenant. If Jesus the Messiah is the Living Word of God, then I am the living word of this covenant community, Kiln of the Soul.

Don’t like what I say? Follow your own convictions. If doing so interferes with my eldership, I’ll try to tell you. I’m just a mortal, and I have my own failings. You can tolerate them and receive my blessing, or you can move on. Some boundaries are hard and clear; a great many boundaries are by necessity soft and negotiable. At any given time, there may be some variation in what is and isn’t required for peace with each other. That’s how real families of faith operate.

I was nothing before a community formed around my ministry. I have been glad to serve and will continue serving until I die. Some day this will pass to someone else and adjustments will be made. This is Kiln of the Soul.

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Genders and Formality

Posted on January 7, 2025 by ehurst

So where do we start with a covenant law code for Kiln of the Soul parish?

Rather than wade through a bunch of particulars, let me pull some things together into more fundamental principles. Given our prevailing American culture, one of the first things I think we should assert is that wants us to avoid any hint of ambiguity about gender identity. This has always been a really big deal in divine revelation.

Somewhere in the balance between rejecting the fallen world and still communicating something they’ll understand, we should avoid anything that raises doubt about the sexual identity of our members. Rather assertively, women should be feminine and men should be masculine.

Instead of detailed rules, we should propose preferences. We prefer women to have long hair and wear distinctive clothing that makes it obvious this is a female. Women should in no way attempt to emulate men for any reason. Their actions and general behavior should be feminine. They don’t compete with guys doing manly things.

I’m not so worried about actual occupations, but roles in the social fabric. Yes, it would be nice if the Lord prospered our community to the point we could have stay-at-home mothers and a traditional division of labor, but I seriously doubt that’s even possible, given the coming tribulation. To be honest, I’m retired and do a lot of housekeeping, while my wife works outside the home, too young to retire yet. But no one doubts who wears the pants in the family.

Another preference is beards for men. The question of a man’s hair isn’t quite the issue some old timers might imagine. When Paul ranted about it, the issue was clearly not the hair itself, but what long hair on a man said about him in that society. The major issue was gay prostitution. Just how long is “long”? Personal style is one thing, but no one should doubt a man is a man.

On a related note, there should be no questions what the Bible says about human sexuality, and we’ve covered this repeatedly here. Again, it’s not about rules but a stated preference for one man, one woman, together for life, trying to make babies. That’s the ideal, but reality tends to intrude with a lot of messy details. Our point here should be that you recognize what you lose in covenant covering when you deviate from that standard. I’m sure whoever is the elder at hand can figure out whether any particular arrangement is a threat to leaves too many door open for Satan. Every elder should have some grasp of the limits of what they can cover in their domain.

Which brings us back to the whole point: The existence of a covenant demands a community. Most of the nitty-gritty rules depend on the community context. The bigger the community, the greater the formality required. That goes for gatherings and says something about how the community must operate in order to stay on track in general. And do I need to say it? Men must be in charge, but don’t waste a woman’s talents.

At some point it becomes necessary to split off some of the community when it gets too big for one elder to manage. Didn’t Abraham and Lot part company? Didn’t Jethro warn Moses to identify elders for groups down to about 50 each? Things got too big for just one guy to handle, and subdivision was necessary. Further, whoever becomes elder of the new group needs to come from the group. Elders are organic to the family they lead. Priests can be outsiders appointed to serve, but elders must be family. And you can still have senior elders guiding others as part of a much larger community.

But again, those aren’t rules. Those are preferences. Sometimes the situation calls for a very strong and charismatic leader over a much larger community. You’ll know when it happens. I learned long ago to put confidence in the Elect to manifest themselves by making good decisions in the Spirit. I’m one of those who is quick to delegate, because I love watching people blossom.

I’m always looking for people to take charge, encouraging them to stir up the gifts God has given them.

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