NT Doctrine — 1 Corinthians 13

Posted on October 28, 2023 by ehurst

One thing Paul never had to say to the church at Corinth was that they were free from the Law. This was probably the one teaching they understood best. Unfortunately, it became the excuse for an awful lot of extreme behavior. In the chapters leading up to this, he had been hammering them for taking their liberties too far. He wanted them to learn self-constraint for the sake of our witness. Thus, he gives them a motive they cannot ignore: sacrificial compassion. In this context, that’s the meaning of the Greek word agape.

It should be obvious that the Corinthians got hung up on speaking in tongues, much as Charismatics do today. Thus, Paul starts off mentioning that gift, and notes that without sacrificial compassion, it’s just noise. Also similar to our day, they made much of prophecy and words of wisdom and knowledge, and he even throws in miracles. Those gifts without compassion make you useless to the Kingdom of Heaven. Even people who really do understand that our lives in this world are not worth much can miss the point. Suffering and sacrifice itself is not a virtue; it has to come from compassion.

How do we recognize love? It puts up with a lot of crap, tries to be useful, and does not covet what God gives others. Love doesn’t talk about itself or inflate its social reputation. It is not rude or defensive, and is not easily offended or resentful. It does not snicker at the misfortune of others but celebrates when someone finally figures things out. Compassion will do what it takes, covers the costs, trusts God to work through circumstances, and never quits.

Compassion outlasts human life. All those gifts of the Spirit will end with this world. The best we can hope for in this life is always lagging behind the potential. We will always struggle and come up short, but somewhere out there is a fully developed spiritual condition that we shoot for. It’s as if we are children; there’s only so much we can even understand, much less do. When the day of redemption comes, the Lord will make us spiritual adults. Or maybe it’s like seeing God only through a mirror, looking around a corner. Someday, we will see Him face to face.

This life cannot measure up, nor can we. The whole point is to know the Lord as clearly as He surely knows us. In this life we have been granted faith, confidence and compassion to carry us through to The End. The most powerful gift is that loving self-sacrifice that nailed Christ to the Cross.

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Whence Antisemitism

Posted on October 27, 2023 by ehurst

Someone asked a much more involved question than the title, but it works out about the same. Here goes.

Inasmuch as covenant believers deal with the outside world, we start with the essential idea that we are going to treat them all the same. White, black, red, brown, yellow — whatever, it doesn’t matter. What matters is faith in Christ and His Word. Everyone else is on the same level of damnation. They need Jesus. And that includes Jews, as far as we are concerned. They are most assuredly outside the Covenant of Christ, and no other covenant matters. In Christ, all your human identities are nailed to the Cross. We stop being white, black, red, brown or yellow. And Jews who embrace the Messiah stop being Jews.

Christ pays the debt of all your human sin. You owe no further debt but to show His divine compassion. Naturally, we tend to repay those imaginary debts because that’s how we testify of our Lord’s greatness, showing that we put no great value on the things of this world. And we forgive others who might owe us things on the human level. But in Christ, you and I have no debt to Jews for anything that happened to them in the past. Jesus paid that debt; they are the ones who refuse His blood redemption.

The whole purpose of the ADL is that Jews are not the same as everyone else. They are superior, not to be held to the same standard as Gentiles. They deserve a higher privilege, to be free to get away with things Gentiles do not get away with. The whole meaning of “antisemitism” is treating Jews as equals, holding them to the same standard as the rest of humanity. Jews assert that they alone are human; Gentiles are not human, not equal to them at all. We are animals.

Now, when anyone demands special treatment, such that they assert they are not equal, but superior — to the degree they make that demand, so much do they forfeit equal treatment. Now it becomes morally obligatory to treat them with special contempt. They have evinced a will, and likely a plan, to subject the rest of the world to their dreams of being special. They are a threat by their own admission.

Jews cry out to be treated equal when they have a disadvantage. Once they have any advantage at all, it becomes “antisemitism” to demand equality with them.

In the Covenant of Christ, we generally avoid getting involved in human politics. We let God handle that stuff, and I can assure you, He has passed all of that off to lesser beings. When Christ closed up the Mosaic Covenant on the Cross, that was the end of God’s poking around in human political affairs. For example, this being a fallen world, Satan is the lord of all fallen humans, by default. That means that all human politics is run by Satan. Since Jews, along with the rest of the world, are not serving the Messiah, all of their political engagement in human affairs is under the authority of Satan. They only think they are special.

So, we make no plans to get involved in the human conflicts between Jews and Gentiles. Let them kill each other all they like; there’s nothing we can do to change the value system of fallen mankind, and that includes Jews. Only the divine miracle of redemption, on the basis of Election, can raise your conscious awareness to that higher level of eternal affairs. Not only do we have zero commission from God to get involved, but we are pointedly warned not to.

But because of their peculiar insistence on being regarded as superior, we always treat Jews with suspicion. We are always watchful, expecting them to come up with something that will insult and degrade our Lord, the Messiah they rejected. I’m not suggesting hatred for them, but cynicism. And it’s holy cynicism. We give them room to act more like Christ, or to at least be treated the same as all the other cursed fallen humans. Once they demonstrate any sense of superiority, they warrant keeping a watchful distance. Exclude them from anything that really matters, because they carry the defilement of serving their true master.

And we’ll do the same for any other ethnic identity.

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No Exit Lane

Posted on October 25, 2023 by ehurst

On the one hand, everyone knows we are in a real bind right now. On the other hand, I suspect most people don’t really understand why. What’s the real threat? I’m not sure they are correct, but Tucker Carlson interviews retired General Doug Macgregor and the picture painted is not commonly recognized.

By their assessment, a genuine WW3 is unavoidable. The interview seems to hang on one primary issue: collective punishment. Israel is punishing the citizens of Gaza for the actions of Hamas, which everyone acknowledges does not represent the people of Gaza, but merely rules them. Further, the only way to get at Hamas is to invade Gaza and simply kill everything that moves. Nobody in the US government wants to put the brakes on that. And if this continues, it is almost guaranteed to pull in outside parties. And the US is not ready to engage this; our miliatry capabilities are not up to the task.

The biggest problem is the incandescent issue even these two refuse to acknowledge. Carlson and Macgregor act like too few decisive figures are unaware of this uniformly bad news. That’s false: They are fully aware and have every intention of sparking WW3. They’ve been working towards it for a very long time, and they are gleefully hoping to get it going soon.

None of the bad factors cited in the interview are miscalculations. They are doing this quite intentionally. The authorities stirring up this horror know what they are doing. They are crazy enough to believe they can survive and come out on top. I’ll grant there are plenty of lackeys and front-men who may not be aware, but the people running the show do know.

And I’m convinced our Lord will not stop them. This is part of His wrath on the sins of the West, as well as the rest of the world. We are heading for a Noah Event, and the human sourced part of this disaster is a part of God’s plans. It fits the pattern of mixing human and natural disasters to address evil.

Don’t panic. You know this is coming. We will have WW3; it is inevitable. There is a slender possibility TPTB will decide the time isn’t quite right, but don’t count on it. Don’t expect the people in charge to look for an exit from this crisis. They’ve been working hard to create it, and are determined to carry it through. And it doesn’t help much to pin down the details of who these people are. They have the power and they are using it to suit themselves. In due time, that power will break, but that’s still out a ways ahead of us.

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Always: Follow the Money

Posted on October 24, 2023 by ehurst

I’m hardly the first one to observe this fact: Uprisings and revolts do not arise from anger against oppression. That sort of rage is always there, from start to finish of every empire. There is always someone feeling oppressed and ready to revolt. The issue is that any attempt at revolt is very obviously hindered, squelched by the system that constitutes “oppression” in the first place. Thus, we can say that all revolts arise from opportunity, not from discontent. The presence and level of discontent mean nothing; it’s a given. Rather, it’s that the situation changed and revolt became possible.

Right now, a revolt in the US is not feasible. As long as this is true, there will be no civil war. The atrocious behavior of our government officials has no bearing on the question. Something has to change that removes the hindrance. For the various empires across history, internal revolts invariably followed when something external distracted the government. In most cases, the resources used to hinder revolt were redirected to address external threats, and the revolt came shortly after.

An American civil war waits for something that weakens the oppressive hand of our government in contrast to the strength of the opposition. Here in America, it is most likely to be the case that oppression will not weaken so much as the opposition will become relatively stronger. And that strength has nothing to do with actual violence. There will most certainly be violence, but it will be a symptom, not the thing itself. Rather, the strength of the opposition will come when they realize that the system will take more wealth than it enables.

Right now, what restrains the apparent opposition is a belief in the system. Dinesh D’Souza talks about that here while promoting his new film, Police State. I’m not going to promote the movie; I’m not likely to see it unless a copy is available for free. It’s not that I hate paying; I really hate theaters. I prefer to watch films alone. And as it is, I despise the medium enough that I won’t pay for the experience. They’ll have to come to me.

You probably believe that, in broad general terms, a civil war would be between conservatives and progressives. By now, you probably know that the two political parties are not actually aligned against each other on those viewpoints. Both are progressive in nature; it’s just a dispute over who benefits from the warfare-welfare state. A civil war will not be partisan in that sense because Republicans would never revolt. They are part of the system. Rather, a civil war seems more likely a fight between the system (leftist) and the oppressed subjects (more or less conservative).

D’Souza explains how the system is inherently unfair to conservatives. The pro-government folks are never held to any standards or restrictions; they can do anything they like. The rules don’t apply to them. Instead, they apply the rules to conservatives, because they know conservatives will always follow the rules. Those rules are the right-wing god. Until they lose their religion and stop serving that idol, they will not rise up against the government. It’s not likely.

The civil war will happen, but not from the basis of angry conservatives. D’Souza is wasting his time thinking he can stir up revolt. The interview linked above is worth your time because it reveals at least one thing few realize: The January 6 “insurrection” was actually staged by the Democrats to derail the proceedings in which the Republicans were striving to challenge the election results. They were in a hurry to stop that debate until they could trot out the heavy propaganda against challenging the election results, making them sacred. In other words, the conservatives shot themselves in the foot, and the foot soldiers are in prison for their pains.

And it will keep on going like this. The civil war will not come from conservatives. It will come from states having too strong of an interest in things the federal government is trying to destroy. It’s about the money. The livelihoods of too many wealthy people rest on fighting to keep the economy working, while the federal government frankly follows an agenda to destroy the economy. As with almost every revolt against empires in human history, a vassal government will rise up to oppose the imperium. In our case, it will be multiple subject governments, the states.

Again: Don’t pay attention to the atrocities our government commits against the people. Don’t pay attention to the rising grievances. That has no bearing on the future civil war. What matters is the big money interests of people operating without the support of any federal agencies, and generally against federal policy. They are already enemies of the imperial government. They will use conservative grievance to fire up the voters’ support for something that isn’t about the voters at all.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Corinthians 12

Posted on October 21, 2023 by ehurst

Paul moves from ritual matters to spiritual matters. There are lots of spirits in this world. Prior to Paul bringing the gospel to Corinth, some of the church members were idolaters, following whatever spiritual influences that got their attention. It was important that they be able to discern those spirits from the Holy Spirit of God. If someone at any time said words indicating that Jesus was anything less than the Son of God, the full and final manifestation of divine truth, then that did not come from God. On the other hand, no one could submit to Jesus as Lord without the power of God. It’s not a mere question of words; the Greek term for “say” (lego) means an organized teaching backed up by conduct.

We should learn to recognize the boundaries of Christ and the covenant in His blood. He endows His people with all sorts of richness: samples of eternal powers, ministry callings, and sometimes just the results of His work in them. All of them are gifts He bestows, and all of them are marked by the changes His lordship demands from us.

Not one of those gifts are for the private benefit of the one bearing the gift. All of them manifest for the sake of the faith community. He lists a handful of Holy Spirit manifestations: moral wisdom, discrete knowledge, the power to withstand testing, healings, miracles, prophecies, recognition of various spirits, foreign languages or the translation of languages. When the Body of Christ has a need for something the people do not bring with them, the Father provides through His divine Presence on the spot. It always aims at promoting His reputation as our Master.

Paul uses the parable of the human body. We have various parts with different functions. Just so, the Body of Christ of is composed of many parts with different appearances and functions. What a monstrosity it would be if human bodies were just detached ears or eyes or some other part! Is it too subtle to grasp that the Corinthians suffered from self-promotion and envy over gifts God didn’t give them? With their different miraculous endowments, some were strutting around as if they were really something special, somehow the very center of God’s Presence in that body.

What happens when spiritual adults get involved? Spiritual maturity has no need for applause. Instead, spiritually mature people are somewhat indulgent toward those who are struggling, as a way of encouraging them. They give extra attention to those suffering any sorrow, because they understand the necessity of the body uniting in bearing the load of divine glory.

A church body is not built by human design. It cannot serve divine glory to plan out who needs to show up to fill organizational roles. God doesn’t work that way. Instead, He moves hearts to show up and serve Him, so the game plan is to find a use for everyone with whatever gifts they bring. Organizational plans should grow out of the people you have.

Granted, the Lord has been known to give certain roles to people He chooses to serve Him: apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, those who solve problems, elders, people who deal with human languages, etc. What He does not supply, you pray for, but waiting on Him and His timing. You can’t just assign a task to whomever walks in the door. You seek to know what God has made of them already, and what He plans to do with them. Stop recruiting skill sets.

Use the people He gives you. Do the Corinthians understand the whole point of all this?

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Random Photos 14

Posted on October 20, 2023 by ehurst

The Katy Trail is rather winsome this time of year. This is looking down toward the northern end where the new bridge has been installed, but not yet fully usable. There were construction crews on the day I rode past prepping for the final concrete work on the aprons on both ends. As with most such projects, the city contracts are always way behind schedule.

For the past few weeks, a construction crew has been working on the new Base Camp building at the Water Adventure Park. This will be much bigger and more elaborate than the original structure. Meanwhile, the pump track has remained open, so it’s not as bad as it could be. Workers have also been sprucing up the practice equipment scattered around in the trees off to the right side.

The new Pratt and Whitney facility is progressing quickly. Every time I ride past, there are easily 50 workers or more and several pieces of major equipment running. The whole site is being worked at the same time, so that landscaping should be complete at or before the time the building is ready. I’m speculating that this will be an engine or other equipment manufacturing plant. It’s big enough to contain a whole town, so I just imagine there will be at least a hundred workers employed there when it opens for operations.

I visited Miracle Hill again. That’s not the official name; it’s just what I call it. I’m seriously considering the possibility that I may take my little Forte out on bikepacking trips. My right knee is almost cooperative again. I just need to either lose some weight on my body, or buy a bicycle trailer. Maybe I can compromise and buy some really lightweight camping gear and carry less cooking gear or something.

Unless the weather stays unusually mild here in Oklahoma, I’m not likely to be ready until the spring. I still have a lot of training to do, weight loss or not.

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No Surprise

Posted on October 18, 2023 by ehurst

Unless you are there in Gaza to look directly at the evidence, you cannot analyze what happened to that hospital that locals often called “Baptist Hospital”. Most certainly, you cannot take the word of any Israeli or Palestinian agency. That’s because they both lie so much that you cannot take their word for anything at all. The bombing of the hospital is typical of both sides; they would both do it intentionally and then lie about it.

Hamas is quite different from the average Palestinian. Elitist and corrupt, they could not care less what happens to their captive constituency. The same goes for the Ashkenazi Jews in Israel, lording it over the Mizrahi. You should look those terms if you aren’t familiar with them, two branches of Zionism. The Ashkenazi are leftist and worldly, and the Mizrahi range between center and right. There are no Mizrahi in government, except for a tiny few scattered here and there. Netanyahu is Ashkenazi, but he caters to the Mizrahi so he can get away with his corruption.

The Ashkenazi believe they should rule the world, and have infiltrated governments everywhere. In America, they have infiltrated Academia, Entertainment, Media, and wherever they found an opening that didn’t involve actually working. The Ashkenazi despise us Gentiles, but don’t want us to know it. The Mizrahi don’t care if we know it, but are primarily interested in ruling their ancient historical lands. The latter form the bulk of orthodox Judaism. Today, the Ashkenazi have replaced the Sadducees, and the Pharisees are now Mizrahi.

But of all Gentiles, both Zionist groups hate Arabs most of all, and Palestinians in particular. And Palestinians return the favor. Both would not hesitate to utterly destroy the other. The only way to stop the hatred is for one group to disappear. Then, whichever is left will turn their hatred on the rest of the world.

The problem is that if we were to completely remove one or both, the Devil and his friends would simply generate a new batch from somewhere else. This is particularly true of Jews; the Synagogue of Satan will remain standing until Christ returns. The Lord Himself allows Satan to keep his own nation until Judgment Day.

Anything that involves these two just naturally includes the most heartbreaking atrocities. Get used to it. Expect worse. We have no business getting involved. Nothing we could do would make any difference.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Corinthians 11

Posted on October 14, 2023 by ehurst

Keep track of how Paul’s teachings lead naturally from one thing to another. The previous chapter was about self-restraint for the sake of the gospel. We are feudal servants of Christ by covenant; His reputation is our first consideration in all things. The Covenant of Christ has boundaries, the same as any other covenant. But this New Covenant is different from the Old, in that it is not a covenant that creates a national identity.

Paul refers to feudal headship as an ancient tradition essential to Christians. The symbolism of headgear has not changed much, even in the post-modern West. Men under military orders today wear headgear to symbolize this headship, a national military authority. Whereas the Hebrew national covenant required men to wear headgear during worship, as if under a mobilization for war, the follower of Christ recognizes no human national authority. It disgraces Christ’s feudal claims for men to wear a head covering indoors, particularly during worship.

For women, a covering was never a matter of national identity; it has always been about how women are under the feudal moral covering of either father or husband. Equality of the sexes is anathema in Christ; male and female are not interchangeable. Just about the only females who were uncovered in public were either minors or prostitutes who had no moral covering. Paul uses ritual terminology to ensure there is no mistaking this. The human fact of birth through mothers does not change it. In Christian worship, women cover their heads and men do not, in order to portray the divine order of things.

That Paul also mentions hair has caused a lot of debate over the past two millennia. His point is that the two are related, at least in the context of what would be proper in his world. Not only did prostitutes avoid headgear, but they wore their hair short like men. In Corinth this saved time and confusion when sailors visiting town didn’t speak Greek or Latin; a woman with short hair was for rent. Women with long hair or coverings were off-limits. Men with long hair were gay prostitutes. Sailors passing a large building with people gathered in worship should not confuse a Christian church meeting with a pagan temple hosting sacred prostitutes of either flavor.

Christians who wanted to protest about these boundaries on the basis of “freedom in Christ” were out of bounds. Their self-indulgent streak made them a threat to the gospel witness. It’s that self-restraint principle again. The Corinthians struggled with that concept in everything.

The next example of that was in celebrating the Lord’s Supper, the Christian version of the Seder. It celebrates our deliverance from slavery. Instead of making us a human nation, we are part of an eternal family. How did the Corinthians manage to turn it into an individualized thing? What happened to being one in Christ?

Granted, there should be some degree of distinction. Some in the body are quite mature in their faith. The rest of the church needs to see their witness. But that’s not what happened in the Lord’s Supper there. They would gather together, but it was like little family picnics. Some families brought a large pile of food, and some brought enough wine to get themselves drunk, but nobody shared with anybody else. Some church members were compelled to watch others eat and drink but had nothing themselves. That might be a supper, but it was not the Christ’s Supper.

Eat your meals at home. This is a ritual celebration in which everyone shares as one, and it’s just a token amount of food and drink. Everyone gets an equal share or no one gets any at all. Pass around the bread and the cup to everyone. Christ implemented this ritual after the main meal was already consumed. The Bread of Promise became His Body, and the Kiddush Cup became His blood. It is a memorial of His sacrifice for us all. It’s as somber as a funeral until He returns, when it will become a wedding feast.

If you don’t get this right, you defile yourselves. Humility before the Lord is the best way to avoid His wrath. Too many Corinthian Christians suffered to the point their lives countered the testimony of Christ — weak, sickly and some died because the defilement kept them from the miracles of Christ. Do you not understand that if you embarrass Him, He will remove you from His Body, one way or another?

Flaunting your wealth during a church meeting is obscene. Serving each other is glorious. Other ritual matters they had asked about could wait until Paul showed up in person.

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Ride Photos 27

Posted on October 11, 2023 by ehurst

It’s been two years since I last visited some of the off-road points on Draper Lake. Today was 2 through 4, but in reverse order. I rode the trail starting at Point 4, which is currently under reconstruction. Lots of dirt, rocks and heavy equipment, but not much to see right now. Much of the lake is changing and the various agencies have invested in a lot of heavy work like that. This first image is a cove between Points 3 and 4.

Meanwhile, nature has been at work in the past two years. Depending on what direction the shoreline faces, there has been some erosion that exposed rocky areas like this. Indeed, this one is a case of more exposed. These rocks were here the last time I came by, but they have been washed out underneath and have shifted some. In this case, the results are quite winsome. Given that today’s wind was blowing right onshore at this point, the waves were making a lovely noise.

This is a case of the rock formations resisting the natural erosion. The shore on our right side has been eaten back a bit, but it served only to highlight the presence of the rocks. In this case, the rocks extend quite some distance out under the water, changing how the waves roll in. The rocks are not being undercut because they catch the waves too far out. Some of the construction is aimed at making some parts more accessible, but other parts less so, and this area is hard to get to unless you hike or bike.

At one point, this island was attached to the shore by a long rocky isthmus, but it wasn’t very hard sandstone. I used to walk out onto the narrow outcropping, but the path has been washed away. Keep in mind that the general water level of the lake is quite low right now, but it’s been almost that low for the past two years. Rocks hidden in deep water don’t erode much; it requires wave action on the surface of the water. This long rocky point will not come back, but the harder stone out on the island will preserve it as is for quite some time.

This is a bed of rose rock. I don’t know enough about geology to explain how it forms or where, but it’s about all that’s left of Point 3. This stuff forms in nodules that sometimes resemble flowers; if you poke around enough in places like this, you’ll find them of various sizes. This is very hard and heavy stone that isn’t likely to erode. This is actually being covered up. Point 3 used to be very lovely and dramatic, but because of where it faces, heavy rains have brought topsoil down over it, and this year an awful lot of grass grew up. The point is now just grass and dirt; the rocks are mostly covered.

Meanwhile, the new Pratt and Whitney facility is making fast progress. I lined it up with a hay bale on purpose for contrast. Farming will continue all around this monstrosity for a long time to come.

My Zizzo folding bike isn’t a mountain bike, but it can do some off-road stuff if I’m not in a hurry. It was a pleasant ride, and there’s evidence the scant trails will remain open simply because of high foot traffic and a modicum of cycling. But for me, the changes in Points 2 and 3 were actually quite disappointing. They used to bear a dramatic face, but they are now just a place to walk and ride.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Corinthians 10

Posted on October 7, 2023 by ehurst

The fleshly nature is an inveterate enemy of the Spirit. The flesh must be captured, humbled and kept enslaved. Once we are spiritually born, it must be made to surrender sight unseen to whatever the Spirit will direct through the heart.

The process of humbling the flesh is repentance by Biblical Law. The Law of Moses was how the Israeli people’s fleshly natures were introduced to their new spiritual Master. They knew the drill; they understood what was required. Their culture included an awareness of the symbolism in the flesh pointing to eternal things in the Spirit Realm. They had no excuse. Even more so, since they watched miracles with their very fleshly eyes — following and being guarded by the Pillar of Fire and Cloud, the waters standing aside when they crossed, the miraculous provision of manna and water.

They remained dry when crossing the Reed Sea, but they understood how it represented cleansing from the old way of life, and embracing a new identity in the Covenant as an adoption treaty as God’s own family household. Nobody imagined the written code could cover every possible situation. As I wrote elsewhere, “Laws but paint an image of godly living on the surface of the human conscience.” Israel knew that; there was no problem with legalism in ancient times. That was how silly children saw things. This written Covenant was meant to inform the flesh, to prepare it for how the heart would operate under Jehovah’s reign.

Obviously, a large number of Israelis just refused to take it seriously. Despite having seen the mighty powers of their God, they kept violating the code. They died for that. We are supposed to look back on that and learn something about following Christ. Symbolically, He followed them through the wilderness; He was there in Spirit, and He enforces the same lessons today. We cannot afford to make the same mistakes. It wasn’t the code that killed them, though obeying it could have kept them alive long enough to understand. Rather, it was the hand of God who became very disappointed with their truculent insistence on idolatry and self-indulgence.

They partied because they rejected their Lord’s boundaries. So they died by the thousands on that day, and plenty more died in the testing with fiery serpents. They complained and fussed to have their fleshly desires met, and the Angel of the Lord slew them. It wasn’t the law; it was the rejection of what the law indicated about God and His ways.

Paul says that we are here in the Last Days, a phrase meaning no new revelations are coming from God. We have all we need in Christ. There is no temptation we will face that hasn’t already been dealt with adequately. Change the commitments of your heart; the Lord has promised to carry us through everything we might face.

It’s a simple law: flee idolatry. The Corinthians should have understood what this is really all about. It’s not the code, but what the code indicates to our fleshly nature about a spiritual nature. We use a ritual called the Lord’s Supper, abstracted from the Seder Ritual. The ritual bread is all about feeding the fleshly nature the new restrictions, with plenty of examples. We all refer to the living law code of Christ’s life on earth in order to understand. That’s what a law code does. We also have the ritual wine, to remind us of the sacrifice of the flesh to empower the Spirit in us.

This is what we learn from Israel; we have inherited their calling. It’s one calling that binds us all together, just like that single loaf of bread we tear apart to share as one body in Christ. It’s all of us sipping from one cup to share in how His sacrifice set us all free. Sure, we realize that similar rituals taken in the name of pagan deities (the opposition elohim in disguise) has no spiritual reality behind it. It’s all about the flesh. Don’t make peace (what a ritual meal represents) with those demons as they keep the flesh away from the Spirit of God. You will serve one or the other.

Paul keeps quoting their doctrine that “everything is lawful”. True enough as a matter of law code, but not everything is spiritual. Some of those lawful things can actually hinder peace with God. It’s not about the code, but the commitment of faith. If hedonism and self-indulgence is what killed all those disobedient Israelis, don’t use the law code as an excuse to let those things creep in and rule your lives.

What would it look like? Sure, eat what you find in the open market. Give our Lord thanks for all things. If you are invited by an outsider to a private meal, by all means, go and eat so you can testify of your Lord. Don’t pick over the food; just eat what they offer. If someone tells you a dish came from the pagan temple stall, then don’t eat it. Not because of your own conscience, but because of theirs. They don’t know the Spirit and His wisdom; they are creatures of flesh bound under laws. What will they think if you eat something you know was offered at a pagan temple? What kind of testimony is that?

No, it’s not possible to meet everyone’s silly expectations, but some things are pretty obvious and not burdensome to observe. Be mindful of Jewish sensitivities as well as Gentile ones. You are a testimony of faith. Give your brothers and sisters a chance to grow in the same faith by not provoking them on those obvious issues of lingering human conscience.

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