Covenant Covering Is Our Ground

Posted on May 30, 2021 by ehurst

First, a little review. We know that the fundamental nature of spiritual warfare is fighting your own demons. Your own soul is the battleground. The phrase “victory in Jesus” refers to vanquishing your own fleshly nature; it has nothing to do with the world around us. You can’t really defeat the Devil in the world at large, only in your own domain. If your heart rules over your reactions in this life, then you are truly the master of your domain.

All of God’s covenant promises to Israel stood on this. Everything that was painted in terms of defeating the enemies of the nation stood on having defeated your own inner demons first. If you were truly devoted to Jehovah as Lord, then those images could have a literal application. However, without a spiritual victory in your soul, those promises remained unclaimed. Your heart had to serve the Lord before your earthly domain could defeat your enemies.

The meaning of the name “Israel” hung on the Covenant, not Jacob’s DNA. Thus, even under the Law of Moses, it was never a matter of being children of Jacob-Israel, but children of God. If the people stood in the full realization of being a member of His household, nothing earthly could be denied them. Without walking in Jehovah’s divine moral character, all the rote obedience they could muster meant nothing.

The whole issue turned not on the body of law, but in the heart-led obedience to conviction. The Covenant assumes that if you are truly devoted to the Lord, He can always carve out exceptions for most things. The verbal code was not the Law, but a mere manifestation of it. The ultimate manifestation of Biblical Law was the Person of the Messiah. In that sense, Jesus was the Covenant Himself, and still is today.

On the other hand, there could be issues with the covenant community. There was always this theoretical space in which truly following your convictions could get you in trouble with the community. Your convictions, of course, assumed seeking the benefit of the covenant community, of seeking shared shalom, but that doesn’t mean the community will agree with your choices, or even understand. If you could have a conversation today with people who were educated in ANE epistemology, they would all agree that you simply embraced that risk.

If it meant deciding between your convictions and the community, you always stood by your convictions. That was in the community’s best interest on a fundamental moral level. And the ANE people were otherworldly, so the idea of facing death for the sake of a private conviction was just part of being a human. But that convictions were the absolute imperative would never have been questioned by ANE philosophical assumptions.

Only in the West is it somehow “holy” to ignore your convictions for the sake of uniformity with the community. At the same time, it’s somehow sacred to follow your own impulses and not care a whit about anyone else. Notice how these two extremes are incompatible with each other, yet proudly promoted in our society. It’s a false dichotomy; together they are incompatible with the biblical assumptions about reality.

Putting your convictions first was inherent in the Biblical Law. The Word trains your awareness to grasp the imperatives of faith and conviction. The Law must be written on your heart first, or it meant nothing. You and I know that we live in a world that rejects all of this. Indeed, the world today rejects even the pretense of adhering to any biblical covenant. So we are reminded that we operate with each foot in two different worlds. Romans 13 says you make it a policy to obey as best you can the laws of men, but in the final analysis, all you really owe the world is your devotion to Christ. If you walk in agape, you have done all that the Lord asks you to do about human government.

So, for example, kindness is not law; it is a default policy. We want to offer kindness and mercy, but sometimes sacrificial love (agape) for the covenant community demands that we withhold mercy from specific individuals who threaten shalom. That’s the point: Your covenant community comes before the entire rest of the human race. No other agency can hold a tribal loyalty over your head. Their claims on your loyalty are invalid without the Covenant. Once you belong to Christ, all other identities are merely incidental and provisional.

Thus, anyone who threatens covenant shalom is taking a risk, whether they are inside or outside the covenant. We are morally obliged to offer a level of mercy to covenant family that we must deny to those outside the covenant. Given the dispersed context in which our covenant community exists, it rests entirely on your convictions whether the person you deal with warrants covenant mercy. There are a lot of people claiming Christ that don’t know Him, and that He does not know. Even more so, a secular edict that you are required to treat everyone equally whom the State claims as its own is simply not valid. For this reason, efforts to conflate the Cross with the American flag are anathema. America has never been a covenant nation.

The Covenant is not optional for us. It is the core identity of who we are in this world. Everything you encounter must be evaluated from the Covenant perspective. Without the Covenant this is no covering; Satan has full authority outside the Covenant.

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New Testament Doctrine: Matthew 2:1-15

Posted on May 29, 2021 by ehurst

It’s not possible to make sense of this passage without a substantial look at the historical background.

Astrology figures large in our text as the presumed background of the visiting Magi. While Matthew’s comment that they came from “the east” covers a very wide space of territory, his choice of the term “magi” is fairly well defined in the context of the First Century Ancient Near East. They were a tribe of Median wise men whose influence rose until they were regarded as priestly nobles and kingmakers.

They hailed from a kingdom on the southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and had been part of both the Assyrian and the Median Empires. Later, they rose in importance in the combined Medo-Persian Empire. Their influence was so great that no one became emperor without their support in the Babylonian and Persian Empires. During Matthew’s day, the Parthian Empire had pretty much reclaimed most of the old Persian Empire, minus Palestine, which they tried to seize. The Magi Kingdom was still a critical element at that time in Parthia, retaining much of the Persian culture. It was fashionable among kings outside of Parthia to mimic what they imagined was Persian grandeur.

At the same time, keep in mind that Herod himself had led Roman troops (39-37 BC) in battle against the Parthian Empire early in his career. They had chased him all over the place, and even sacked Jerusalem, until Rome gave him troops. He managed to drive the Parthians out of Palestine, but Rome never managed to conquer them. Herod’s limited success was part of why Rome made him King. So, what made the Judean court so uneasy was that these Parthian Magi kingmakers were back in his kingdom about to anoint someone to displace Herod, whom they regarded as something of an enemy.

We know that the Prophet Daniel had a tremendous influence on the Magi back in the Babylonian and Persian Empires. In the Babylonian Empire, they were the highest ranking among the caste of wise men Daniel joined. He saved their hides once. They would have had at least a copy of his writings, along with a smattering of whatever other Hebrew literature was available at the time. But a major element in their expectations was Daniel’s prophecy of the weeks of years, which fed into their belief in three coming messiahs, all born of virgins. They had a pretty good idea of when the Hebrew Messiah was supposed to appear.

Their astrology was not deterministic as we find in Western brands of of astrology. Rather, the Parthians were mystical about such things, as is typical of Zoroastrianism. For them, it was a matter of discerning when divine influences would be strong in support of this or that. In turn, we find their Zoroastrian thinking was strong among Syrian Christians and other groups that never influenced Western churches directly.

Keep in mind that there is a significant overlap between Zoroastrianism and Ancient Hebrew religion, but that’s not the same as borrowing. A certain amount of common background naturally breeds a shared approach to ultimate questions. It’s only natural that the Hebrew teaching of Jesus would sound somewhat similar to parts of Zoroastrianism. It’s also to be expected that a lot of the conflicts and schisms in the early Western Church came from influences that included Zoroastrianism. It’s not a question of which side was right, but that both sides diverged from the gospel, a divergence that increased as time wore on.

We have no way of knowing what this star was that the Magi saw; we have a lot of popular but faulty speculation drawn from Western astrology. There’s not a lot of good scholarship in the West covering actual Parthian Zoroastrian astrology. What we do have isn’t enough to clarify this question. Thus, we can only guess when they left their homes and made the long journey to Jerusalem.

What we do know is that Jesus’ parents did travel the relatively short distance to Jerusalem to present Him at the Temple after Mary’s forty days of purification. There, two different aged prophets approached and announced Him as the Messiah (Luke 2:22-38). Along with the shepherds and their report of the angelic choir, it’s hard to imagine what Joseph and Mary thought of all this. At any rate, after presenting Him according to the Law of Firstborn Sons, they apparently went back and stayed in Bethlehem among Joseph’s relatives.

Sometime later the Magi showed up and began making inquiries. Herod received them at his palace in the city and, being merely a superficial convert to Judaism, had to call in the Sanhedrin to ask them what was going on here. All he knew is that a Messiah would threaten his throne, so for him, this was just politics with a lot of mystical threats he needed to understand on his own terms. Eventually the priests told him about Micah’s prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

He then held a private conference with the Magi to find out how long they had been at this mission of chasing the star of the Messiah. We aren’t given any insight into their answer, only that Herod had a good estimate of the age of this alleged miraculous child who was prophesied to take his throne. Not wanting the Magi to know his true intent, he pretended to have a very grave interest in this matter and tasked them with finding the infant boy. We should doubt they took his words at face value.

As they approached Bethlehem, the Messiah Star appeared again, indicating to them precisely where to look. By this time, Joseph and Mary had a regular house. The Magi announced their business, yet another ponderous wonder Joseph and Mary added to everything else that came with the birth of their son. However many Magi there were, they brought out three representative gifts. Their business did not require very much of each item, just enough to symbolize their recognition of this Messiah. Gold betokens royalty, frankincense is for prayer to a deity, and myrrh was to embalm someone prophesied to die in a spectacular fashion.

Being men used to the mystical revelations of dreams and visions, they were warned in a shared dream not to keep their promise to Herod, because he would likely have killed them on some false pretext, and that meant most certainly a premature death of this Messiah. So they slipped off by another route and left the country quietly.

Even the small token gifts they left for Jesus were a substantial windfall for His middle-class family. When Gabriel came back to Joseph in another dream warning of Herod’s plot, those gifts funded their flight to Egypt, out of Herod’s jurisdiction. It fulfilled a prophesy (Hosea 11:1) that Jehovah would call His Son out of Egypt (again, after the Exodus). They had to stay until Herod died, and who could say how long that would be? So they used these gifts to make the journey and set up shop there in the Nile Delta somewhere among the cosmopolitan mixture of people, including a substantial Jewish community.

After a time of not hearing back from the Magi, Herod decided to hedge his bets. He had no way of knowing what prompted them to give him the slip and didn’t care. By this time they were likely out his reach. He had plenty of enemies within his own staff that would betray him, so this was nothing new. Still, there was a good chance the child’s family had not been alerted, as well. So, he dispatched his own Judean soldiers to the town with orders to execute any male child under two years. Knowing Herod, that was just for good measure; a reasonable estimate is that Jesus was just shy of a year old at the time.

And given the estimates of population at that time, it meant about a dozen or so children were slaughtered. Higher numbers are simply not realistic, and would have gotten Rome’s attention. He would have to justify it if it were as many as a hundred. But a dozen or so capriciously killed like that was typical of Herod’s behavior, so nobody would bat an eye about it. It was the price of having a reliable vassal of Rome to ignore small slaughters like that.

This brings us to yet another prophecy, this time from Jeremiah 31:15. Jeremiah points out Ramah in the tribal allotment of Benjamin, a very large flat open area perfect for staging exiles headed to Babylon. He pictures Rachel’s spirit weeping for her children, a reference to the Kingdom of Judah (as the remnant of the Nation of Israel). When she died giving birth to Benjamin, it’s likely she died very close to Ramah, but she was headed to Bethlehem (her celebrated tomb there is almost certainly bogus). What connects the two towns is this journey she was on; she had always been symbolically tied to Bethlehem as her destination.

In Matthew’s mind, the sin that took Rachel’s children to exile in Babylon is the same sin that sees a despotic king who hardly hesitates to slaughter those children later. In both cases, a horrific evil ruler was set loose on the nation because it refused the mission inherent in the Covenant.

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Trying to Control the Uncontrollable

Posted on May 27, 2021 by ehurst

It has been centuries since the world has seen a military force under covenant. Individual troopers can gain some limited measure of personal moral covering, but the institution itself is owned by Satan. Thus, any discussion of what the military is, or should be, must assume from the start that damnation is included. In other words, we can discuss it only from the viewpoint of knowing it is futile, that everything we are talking about will be devoid of consistent covering from the Lord. There is no hope of improvement; there is only observing the downward moral drift.

Thus, the only thing we can do is understand and learn lessons. We can discuss the problems of our military forces, and observe why those problems exist, but it will always be a part of the bigger picture of moral decline. We live with the problems, and they will touch us, but there is nothing anyone can do. The whole thing is founded on a rejection of Christ, so there was no hope from the very beginning.

What lessons can we learn, then?

Having been directly involved in any number of reforms aimed at making the military better, I can tell you that, even with the limited good that can be had outside the Covenant, the hive-mind of the military is determined to avoid the only real solutions.

Let’s get one thing clear: A military force exists to break things and kill people. What no one wants to admit is that a major element of what motivates men to do these things efficiently so that the enemy is forced to surrender is rape and plunder. The whole point of pulling men from their homes and corralling them in training camps, and then deploying them, is to frustrate their desires for comforts and sex. It is frustrated men who are most effective at humbling the enemy; these are the men who will fight the hardest.

And when the mission is wholly defensive, it is the matter of keeping their comforts and families that motivates them. If there is nothing there to gain or protect, they won’t fight with good motivation. Ancient commanders knew this. They didn’t allow plunder during the battle, but they did make sure everyone who bore the battle got a share of loot. Denying troops plunder, as if it were somehow immoral and unprofessional, guarantees a host of preventable discipline problems.

In other words, all the problems with our military are cultural. It’s based on a false understanding of what is real, of what human nature is actually like. Right now, the US military is facing a rising problem with sexual assault. The leadership is forced to work with something deeply broken in the first place, so they have every natural incentive to take no effective action against sexual misconduct within the ranks. They are saddled with an impossible task, and are deeply deceived about what works.

Nobody should have to explain why putting women in uniform is so utterly stupid. It’s an open invitation for misconduct. Where does it come from? It arises from the mythology that women are sacred creatures, morally superior to men, and certainly interchangeable with men in terms of what military forces do. This lie springs from the very root of Western identity. God Himself clearly declares that women cannot do what men do best on the battlefield. Women do it better defending the hearth, of course, so there’s nothing wrong with training and equipping them in home defense. But they are not wired to do what men need to do when marching against the enemy.

So the primary lesson here is that it will get worse. Further, we can predict to some degree how it will get worse. That’s because we know that the current generation of people coming into the military service are more deluded than ever, even while their leadership’s position is more impossible than ever. The whole thing is so deeply infested with demons that there is no hope for any measure of sanity. All the training and equipment we can buy will not turn black into white.

The lingering mythology that our military is somehow sacred is a despicable lie of Satan. The same goes for our police forces. Of course, it’s not as if everyone is inherently evil. Rather, it is that the system is so hopelessly corrupt that, in the long run, everyone will get burned. It may well be their divine mission to be involved in uniformed services, but individuals should know that things will decline until it becomes utterly chaotic and meaningless.

Don’t pour hatred and contempt on the people serving in uniform. They are deceived victims, for the most part. Rather, have pity on them when you can. Show mercy, which is how we reach out to the whole world enslaved by Satan. But for Christ’s sake, never look toward people in uniform for any kind of covering. They have none themselves. The full fire of Hell washes over their lives more than it does most, because they are on the front lines of trying to control the uncontrollable.

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An Apocalypse Frame of Mind

Posted on May 26, 2021 by ehurst

For those of you who have been looking into Suspicious Observers (YouTube channel), what do you make of the dire predictions? In case you didn’t catch it, they say that their research indicates some probability that the sun will kick off a massive amount of energy and particles sometime between now and about 2050. They can’t decide if it will be a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) or a micro-nova.

If either of these happens, among other things, it will provoke a massive power flux through anything that involves metallic wiring. If it can transmit electrons, it will be getting an overwhelming flood of them from the sun. In other words, the electrical energy delivery grid will likely burn up. Most electronic devices will fry. Only the stuff that is deep underground will avoid the energy flux, if even that. On top of all this, the earth’s magnetic field will go crazy. The poles will shift, and it will trigger an ice age. That magnetic field has already been weakening dramatically in the past few years. Apparently the earth itself has been receiving some kind of disruption of what we have come to consider the natural balance of things.

Their research indicates that our solar system, spinning around the core of our Milky Way Galaxy, will pass through a field of dust and energy particles, along with a massive energy field, and that this will cause the sun to overload. Their research indicates it does this about every 12,000 years, and we are due for another. At some point, the sun will have to expel all this excess, but not until it has gotten all heated up. Naturally, some of that expulsion will hit the earth. They also point out that there are two other stars that show evidence of having done this in recent decades, and those stars happen to be closer to the galactic core, meaning they have been hit first with the same wave of stuff coming at us. They are using that data to extrapolate a likely date for our sun to face that same wave, which is where the 2050 date comes from.

Yeah, it will be an apocalypse. But then, I’ve been under conviction that we’d face one for quite some time, long before I knew anything about the mechanics of these dire predictions. The folks who run that project insist we can survive this, that these things have happened before and there’s ample evidence that humanity has survived it at least once already. Indeed, we may now be better prepared than ever. The problem is not whether we can get through it, but whether we can be made to believe it’s coming, and to take appropriate action.

In our favor is that we now have the means to observe whether any of the stuff they foresee is actually happening. It’s hard to imagine the sun not giving off cues to indicate it’s about to get very ill and puke up a bunch of stuff. The folks at that project are willing to be proven wrong, but it seems like this is too likely to ignore. They trust their expertise.

And we have our expertise. Do you realize that your convictions can tell you a lot about this? The heart-led way of faith does have a lot to say about about life. For me, the first thing that comes to mind is what that it’s a wonderful way to remind ourselves how ephemeral our human existence is. Granted, it wouldn’t take much for this to become the Final Apocalypse. Yet I cannot shake the conviction that this isn’t it. Instead, it is an analog to Noah’s Flood, or the crustal upheaval on earth during Peleg’s time (Genesis 10:25). It may have something to do with the collapse of the Tower of Babel project, since a heavy magnetic flux would affect human psychology, provoking things like paranoia and confusion in anything with a brain. Either way, it will be a major upheaval that will reset most elements of human existence back to a rather primitive level.

My convictions keep telling me to prepare for hard times. Not in the sense of a panicky prepper buying up supplies and seeking to purchase a plot of land in the mountains with a cave, but I’m moved to make my mind ready to face unprecedented catastrophe. Yet, there is no fear attached to it, but a very potent sense of peace and calm. I’m pretty sure I could do things on my level to be ready for political/economic upheaval, but that will be just a mild prelude to the bigger event coming at us from the sun. For the latter catastrophe, all I can do is pray and wait on the hand of God to provide, because there’s no way I have the resources to do anything about that.

It’s a readiness to meet the day when it comes, all things in due time.

The whole point in staying alive in the first place is not for the sake of life itself. Rather, the only reason to live is to bring our Father glory. As long as there is a mission, I’m ready to serve. When my life is used up, it’s time to go Home. So the attitude is to make the most of what you have at this moment to shine the light of glory. Yes, I very much want to see at least a core group of people who embrace this Radix Fidem message that has done so much for me. Yes, I’m convinced this message is the ultimate truth of things, but I know that only God can awaken the hearts of people. I hope that this message will survive the coming apocalypse.

God’s Word says the Word is the whole point. My heart echoes that. And it echoes the call that the narrator in those YouTube videos keeps offering: “Eyes open; no fear.” Keep watching for opportunities to bless the Lord’s name, and don’t worry about what it will do to you. Even if none of their predictions come true, we have enough happening in the world around us to justify the warning of apocalypse on one level or another.

Meanwhile, their warnings help us to keep things in perspective. What really matters in this life? Keep that apocalypse frame of mind.

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Miscellaneous Notes 01

Posted on May 24, 2021 by ehurst

Just for the record, the current noise in the MSM about UFOs is another government lie. Notice what I’m saying here: I won’t suggest that there are no real UFOs, and I won’t say there are no aliens from other planets. I’m saying the current noise about it is bogus. I’ve spent too much time experiencing government cover-ups first hand to be fooled by this. As someone else notes, all the evidence comes out of US government agencies. That the MSM is parroting these stories is proof that it’s a lie. Look for the government to use this lie to cover up something awful.

Another reason to hate Google: forcing SJW language into your writing. A new Google Docs feature will nag and harass you about “inclusive” language. I foresee a time coming when I will use one Google account, and only because I’m using an Android phone. I’ll stop using every other service they offer. As governments drift farther and farther into the grip of Big Tech, it will be utterly impossible to go about your daily life without having some kind of account like that, but there’s no reason I have to use it for anything else.

This is probably a good time to remind you that, while I’ll still respond via Gmail, I’d rather you use any of my other email addresses: br073n@outlook.com, ehurst@radixfidem.blog, or jhurst18@cox.net.

Persecution: The federal government policy is increasingly anti-Christian — Christian schools can be forced to embrace LGBTQ policies. If the secular State can be forced at some time in history to honor Christian belief, it can also later use that force against such belief. The real crime here is the long-standing believers’ compromising with an inherently unbiblical system. This is just another of the many reasons we reject seeking State permission for anything.

In response to a question that may interest you folks: I don’t attempt to put a date on anything in the Bible prior to Abraham. I think it’s very fortunate that we have clues indicating he probably lived back around 2100 BC. Even that is pretty iffy, but it’s a workable assumption. The Tower of Babel? I can’t guess. It almost has to be before 5000 BC, and maybe closer to 10,000 BC. The Flood? Certainly at least as far back as 12,000 BC, and likely much farther.

The Hebrew language doesn’t work under the same assumptions as people who read English translations of the Bible. Was Noah’s Flood global? I believe it was, but it doesn’t matter for one reason: If there were other people on earth who survived that cataclysm for any reason at all, they play no role in the Bible narrative. I’d be willing to say they didn’t survive time itself, because the human race as we know it today all came from Noah. There’s more than one way to fulfill that assertion. All we get is a very bare narrative from a single point of view.

That point of view is all that matters to us. We shouldn’t care if someone decides they have found Atlantis or any other ancient civilization outside those mentioned in the Bible. The narrative doesn’t exclude the possibility at all, but it ignores them as having no significance in divine redemption.

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New Testament Doctrine — Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-7

Posted on May 22, 2021 by ehurst

We continue our efforts to demythologize the gospel.

Upon returning from her three-month visit with Elizabeth, Mary had no doubt that she was pregnant. It would start to show soon. We can be sure she tried to explain the whole thing as best she was able, but who would believe it? Apparently Joseph didn’t, but he had no stomach for destroying her and her family’s public reputation. He was pondering how to quietly and kindly dissolve the engagement.

It was then that the Angel Gabriel visited him in a dream. You should not doubt Joseph recognized this was more than just his own imagination at work. Greeting him as if he were royalty, Gabriel told Joseph not to worry about the embarrassment of Mary’s situation; this was God’s own hand at work. Then he predicted this would be a son, someone Joseph should be proud to raise. This arrangement was not unheard of; kings often farmed out their sons to be raised by subordinate nobles. This is how Joseph would have taken it. Further, the language would have registered in Joseph’s awareness as Messianic.

Matthew was a relative of Jesus, and already knew some of the background. Luke had two years’ leisure to interview Mary and any still surviving family and associates of Jesus, while Paul was confined awaiting trial. Nobody had a chance to talk to Joseph by the time Jesus went public. Joseph apparently died sometime after his firstborn’s bar-mitzvah. But there’s no doubt both Joseph and Mary discussed together the miraculous events they experienced. Thus, Matthew knew about this part of the story.

He connected it with an old prophesy — Isaiah 7:10-17. While neither the wording of Isaiah in Hebrew, nor as translated by Matthew into Greek, plainly states “virgin,” it is implied. At the same time, it is hardly a major emphasis for either of them.* Matthew was drawing on the context of Isaiah’s prophecy of how God redeems His people, sometimes for inscrutable reasons. However, those reasons are mysterious only to people who ignore God’s clearly stated intention to reveal Himself and His ways to fallen mankind. That Mary bore the Son of God in her womb at this point does not require legalistic semantics from the text, since Hebrew language and culture offers no support at all for such a thing. It all hangs on the clear declaration of God through the angel Gabriel.

The emphasis Matthew makes is on the title, Immanuel — “God with us.” Isaiah’s prophecy was about how God shepherded His Covenant Nation. Jesus would be the ultimate living expression of the divine moral character of God, born in human form to come be with us. Thus, we could become acquainted with God as a person. He would be as real to us as any other person we could encounter in this world.

Matthew’s wording indicates that this dream caused Joseph to awaken. We should assume that he then began pondering what was required to carry out the command of his Lord. Matthew says very little, but we can imagine Joseph skipping the formal wedding and simply bringing her home with him. It wouldn’t matter what they might have told people about it, the common assumption would be that Joseph couldn’t wait, and they hastily set up housekeeping because she was already pregnant with his child. Meanwhile, he actually did wait, not having sex with her during pregnancy. True to his commitment, he named his legal heir Jesus.

However, it is Luke who puts that birth in a far clearer historical context. As part of the oppressive Roman rule, Emperor Augustus ordered a poll tax on his empire. The records are spotty, but he probably did this more than once. It was how ancient empires carried out a census, an excuse to tax individuals directly. Normal protocol forced them to work through subordinate rulers, with hefty scraping before the money made its way back to the top. With a census, the emperor could collect directly, cutting out the middlemen, with only the need to hire contractors for physically collecting it. Every man was obliged to return to his ancestral home to register and pay that tax.

Luke was no Hebrew, but a Gentile with a solid Hellenic education. He notes that this was during the time when Quirinius first exercised authority from his base in Syria. This places the date somewhere between 10 and 6 BC. I’m not going to wrangle with the other complaints unbelievers make about this passage; see this page for more details.

So Joseph was obliged to make this long trip from Nazareth back to Bethlehem. This was late in her pregnancy, nearly six months after the two began living as husband and wife. They would have left as soon as possible, given it was a long hike of roughly 80-90 miles on the roads existing at the time. Healthy hikers could have made it in about four or five days, but this probably took Joseph and Mary quite a bit longer, given her condition.

Upon arriving, Joseph’s registration would include noting he was married. That would interest tax collectors thinking about how, in some later round of poll taxing, the head count for his household would grow. After such a long and expensive trip, the couple were stuck until their impending newborn could travel.

The place was packed and they ended up spending the first few nights among livestock somewhere. It wasn’t too much of a step down from staying in what folks called inns in those days. An inn was just a collection of stalls with at least one side open, since folks with any animal mounts would have kept them in the open courtyard adjacent to their space. It’s quite possible that Joseph and Mary simply slept in that open courtyard; Luke doesn’t actually say it was a stable or barn. He also doesn’t mention any animals.

The census was not a one-day affair, but people were coming and going over a period of weeks, at the least. During their initial stay in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth in that situation. There would have been enough folks hanging around that Mary would have some basic assistance, since virtually every older woman could perform midwifery in those days. The Hebrew maternal instinct was strong enough that random strangers would gladly have helped. So the baby was wrapped in the standard stuff women collect when expecting, and he was laid in the handiest thing that could function as a cradle: a feed trough.

——

*For those interested in the question, there is a Hebrew word emphasizing virginity, but Isaiah did not use it. He chose a word meaning a young lady, which would imply it in some contexts. The Hebrew mind would not have seized upon that point the way Western minds do. To the Hebrews it would not be a major doctrine, just a minor point in passing, on the way to a far more important truth about God’s divine moral character. Isaiah’s choice of words reflects the context of his prophecy, which turned on the issue of how long it would take for certain things to happen. God’s redemption of Ahaz’s kingdom would take about as long as a young woman to get married, have a child, and wean him, but before the child was morally accountable.

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The Covenant Perspective

Posted on May 22, 2021 by ehurst

As always, I can’t tell you what to believe. However, I can’t avoid sharing my convictions.

The oppressive elite do not have the upper hand. They only think they do. The resistance will find a way. No, it will not be like some cosmic justice, and there is no bright shining light at the end of the tunnel. Rather, there’s another dark tunnel after that. What we see going on is just another round of random human violence, something cyclical that comes in waves. Since none of this is connected to any of the biblical covenants, it is just more blind hatred for divine truth, people fighting over which flavor of rejection is better.

There are no good guys, and very few good ideas. It’s not a question of whether either the tyranny or the resistance is justified; what we see is inherent in the nature of human life outside of the Covenants.

But from within that perspective, we can see that resistance is a healthy thing. Oppression is normal, and so is resistance. It’s not right, but it is typical. The system is working as prophesied. It remains predictable from the heart-led point of view. We can continue walking in faith knowing that things will work as God promised. The only difficulty for us, then, is making sure we understand clearly what God has said about it all.

We say that the mainstream media will lie about everything, but how many of us actually have the mental habits that flow from that assumption? The other day I shared privately with someone a fracas that isn’t likely to show up in the mainstream news. It has to do with computer geeks and their peculiar culture. What amazed me most is that the two sides in this battle were so caught off guard, surprised at how the other side acted. One side is focused on the business of designing and developing software in a free and open environment; the other side is determined to silence freedom in the standard SJW attacks. The two sides are talking past each other. Even within that community, there is a mainstream press that lies and takes the side of the latter group.

You might assume in some ways that those who simply want to get on with their lives and focus on software are the good guys, but they aren’t. They represent ignoring all the underlying flaws that caused problems they don’t want to address. Their desire to keep from rocking the boat shows they don’t understand what’s wrong. But those who try to upend the system are certainly not interested in making things better; their solutions are just as misguided as those who established a flawed system.

Again, don’t get the idea that either side is righteous in any conflict that we see. The geek conflict shows that both sides are blinded by demonic guidance. Both sides are wrong, but for different reasons. The spirits of this age have established a pattern by which humanity will be divided. The seeds of conflict were sowed at the birth of every civilization, and the collapse of each civilization throughout history shows characteristic flaws. The West is no different.

Everything is being shattered. The conflict is invasive; it’s going to inflict itself into every corner of human existence. So you should not be surprised when it shows up in the mainstream religious organizations. Churches have been fracturing, and many more will follow. That’s because the vast majority of churches belong entirely too much to the fashionable mainstream run of human society, and not enough to the timeless biblical model of what churches are supposed to do. So we should expect this oppression and revolt theme to become visible everywhere we look.

Be very, very careful, Brothers and Sisters. Strive to keep your conscious awareness within the Covenant. Seek to check yourself at every turn: What is the Covenant viewpoint on this or that news or rumor? What really matters from within the Covenant perspective? Don’t be misled by temporal side-shows.

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Published: A Psychology of Nonconformist Faith

Posted on May 20, 2021 by ehurst

It’s published. The book still has to go through the Smashwords approval process, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem. You can get your copy here.

I used one of my scanned photos from the time I spent in Europe for the cover image.

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Like a Thief in the Night

Posted on May 20, 2021 by ehurst

I’m not trying to be a hermit. Despite being an introvert, I love people and can enjoy being social, even in large groups. The same goes for virtual encounters. I don’t mind a busy crowd on my blog; I don’t mind responding to lots of people. It’s part of my calling, and that it drains me is just something I live with.

For some decades, I’ve known that God would visit the USA. That’s “visit” in the sense of bringing His wrath on sin, and His blessings on obedience. I knew that it would mean sifting out the hearts, a level of polarization that is painful. That’s what the gospel message does. Regular readers will know I’ve sensed this getting closer, to the point of insisting that we are now in tribulation. Even more so, we are entering an apocalypse.

Thus, God has called on me to do things that would sift the people who associated with my ministry. I was waiting for the signal to shut down the old blog, and you know how that turned out. It’s not as if I couldn’t continue using it, but I felt a strong impression against it. When WP forced the issue with the editor, my heart said that was the signal. I very clearly stated on the other blog what was happening, and that folks could follow me here.

Just so you’ll gain a proper perspective, the stats on this blog indicate that our covenant community consists of ten or less. On the old blog, we did have a large number of regulars who showed up often. Some would even comment, indicating a level of interest. However, the way that WordPress “advertises” blogs on their social network pulls in a lot of people who are simply trying to beat boredom, or feeding some other low-effort curiosity. When I shut off that blog, most of those people never followed. It raised the threshold too high for their participation.

I don’t take that as an insult. If I stood alone, it wouldn’t change much. For those of you who choose to interact, there’s more time and attention for you, if you want it. But the central mission is repentance and a renewed effort to understand the boundaries of what must be cut off, and what must be treasured. It’s a call to holiness, and all I can do is echo my convictions in writing. I would naturally expect such things to be unpopular. There comes a point when the call to repentance means raising the barriers that exclude those who don’t feel the divine call to stay close. We are at the make-or-break point on a lot of things.

I’m utterly convinced God is about to drop some heavy wrath on us. I can’t give a human time frame, but it’s very close and very big. Yeah, I’ve been saying that for a long time. I’ve done my best to avoid the frantic tone of the hucksters. I’m not trying to keep you addicted to some emotional jolt, so I don’t need to adjust the message for the sake of entertainment; I’m not selling anything. If you don’t sense the moving of the Spirit, there’s nothing I can say to help you in the first place. The timing will seldom make sense to us on a human level; it follows divine wisdom, which encompasses far more than we could ever comprehend.

If it’s time for you to graduate and move on, don’t let me hold you back. You owe me nothing in this world. If you still feel led to seek my spiritual covering, stick around. Just be aware that some of what God drops catches me by surprise, too. Our Lord knows what it takes to get us in the right place to serve His agenda, and if we knew too much, our human frailties would simply get in the way of grace. But as much as possible, I’m sticking to the current path. I’m doing what I can to prepare for disasters, whether they come hard and fast, or rumble along slowly.

He said His wrath would come like a thief in the night. The kind of watchfulness God requires does wear on our human nerves, but it’s part of being mortal. Take some time each day to stop and refresh that connection to your convictions. Nothing I could say would help you half as much as just staying in the heart-led way.

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Truth Is Anti-Semitic

Posted on May 18, 2021 by ehurst

Back before the 2016 elections, I posted on my old blog how I had a strong sense of conviction that Trump had betrayed his divine commission. I can’t find which post that was, but I sensed that he had made a corrupt bargain with the Zionists. I had no evidence, and certainly no details about it, but I just knew it.

Today Ron Unz posted something that provided the details. While pursuing something else altogether, the author of the post — E. Michael Jones — gives us a little history on Trump’s buddy, Bannon:

The role Bannon played in co-opting America First in the interest of Donald Trump’s Jewish backers fit perfectly with the role he played as a founding member of Breitbart news…. After Bannon attended a Trump for president rally in 2015, he understood the force of nationalism which was sweeping the globe and volunteered his services for the Trump campaign. Bannon resurrected the America First message, purged it of the warnings about Jewish influence which made it unacceptable to big Jewish donors like Sheldon Adelson, and then forged it into the ideological backbone of the campaign which put Trump in the White House in 2016. Bannon was the spiritus movens behind the overtly America First ad, replete with pictures of George Soros, which put Trump over the top during the last week of the campaign.

This little nugget conveys to me far more than the words themselves say. It was not just Bannon, but he represented a bigger effort to hijack Trump’s campaign to represent Zionist interests more distinctly, when Trump was not apparently all that interested in Zionism before. I got the distinct impression Trump had been playing to a much wider crowd at first, willing to let the Zionists make some noise, while still trying to cultivate those who weren’t so enthusiastic about Israel. Bannon was part of a larger concerted effort to force Trump to narrow his public image in favor of Zionism.

It’s this kind of thing that Jones has written about for decades. Because I’m a history nerd, I decided to see how hard it would be to get a copy, or even an extract, of his book, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit. It purports to trace the history of how Jewish leadership have long sought to steer Gentile politics in their favor, typically in secrecy. Turns out that there is a document on the Internet Archives that appears to be that book.

Keep in mind: The definition of “anti-Semitism” is anything that Jews don’t like. If you buy my contention that the identity of Israel has always been the Covenant, and only incidentally a matter of racial lineage (Matthew 3:9), then we are forced to conclude that Zionism is a perversion of Old Testament faith. That makes us anti-Semites, by the standard definition.

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