Embrace the Penitence

Posted on March 10, 2021 by ehurst

I want you to be encouraged.

It doesn’t require any kind of special gift from God; it’s well within the range of His common gifts to all His children. You should be able to sense this with your heart: A visitation of God’s wrath always brings renewed spiritual activity. If we come running out of the ruins of a dying society to greet Him when He comes in His wrath, His cleansing power falls on us. And with cleansing comes empowerment.

God is doing something fresh and new with His people. I keep hammering how the mainstream religious institutions have moved so far away from the Covenant of Christ that a great many of them will be shut down by this period of tribulation. There’s a reason why He’s doing that: The mainstream institutions make no room for the works He wants to do in His people.

He sent His Son to bring back the wandering nation, but that nation rejected Him. Well, this is rather like that situation all over again; it’s the pattern of how He operates. If the established structure of His people doesn’t allow Him to do His work, then it will be broken up and His people as individuals will do His work anyway. The institutions aren’t ready to allow His work, so this mighty work will shatter the old structures.

But there’s more: He will be doing this work in new ways. Don’t look for the old patterns of revival. Look for new expressions of faith and calling that have never been seen before. God is going to break all the old rules about faith. He is not bound by those rules; He is endlessly creative when He pours out His power on the earth.

So while we are watching for destruction and catastrophes, let us also look for surprising new ways to serve His glory. This is the pattern of how God does things established in the Scriptures. Faith and trust in God works the same, but it manifests in fresh ways every now and then — and this is one of those times.

Again, you should be able to see this yourself. Let me confirm what His Spirit is already saying to you. A visitation of God is a two-edged sword. When His wrath falls on sinners, those who repent will find His glory. Embrace the penitence; tribulation means blessings.

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It’s a Miracle

Posted on March 7, 2021 by ehurst

I’ve studied the cultures and civilizations of the ANE. I assure you that there is so much to know about this stuff that only a tiny handful of people can actually claim any expertise. I’m not one of them. However, I did my best to examine the materials I could access. Part of the problem is that experts didn’t often address things from the angle I’m taking here, so it’s a lot of estimation and best guesses.

Abraham appears to have been Akkadian. That’s not a race, but a culture and language background. They were sometimes among the nobility of the Sumerian Empire, but the one slender thread that ties Ur with Harran is they both had temples to Sin, the moon god. Whatever it is his father did for a living, Abraham’s life was likely attached to a level of scholarship that was common in temple communities. Keep in mind that temples in those days could be like major corporations in a sense, with folks doing all kinds of work within the community.

At any rate, Abraham was wealthy enough to be nobility, and educated enough to be fluent in Aramaic, which held the place that English does in our world today. It wasn’t necessarily the native tongue of many, but very efficient for commerce and communications, and it seemed like everyone who was anyone could use it.

We aren’t told much about how God managed to get his attention. Whatever it was, Abraham was able to exercise a kind of otherworldly faith that might have been more common in his day, but certainly not today. After his father Terah moved the entire extended family household to Harran, Abraham was told to become a tent-dwelling nomad in another land altogether. This would have been a major demand we can scarcely comprehend from this distance. It meant become the kind of man his entire civilization hated. Just the circumcision alone was considered barbaric and despicable by everyone Abraham knew.

His descendants managed to hang onto at least some of his culture and intellectual background. However, it’s a good bet that Abraham was selective about what he passed on, in order that they not have to struggle over the same things he did.

Then we jump to the time when Moses rises up in Pharaoh’s household with an Egyptian education. He needs to get reacquainted with the “wandering Aramaean” culture. So God had him chased out into the wilderness where he spent 40 years with Jethro, whose identity is a little hard to nail down. He’s also called Reuel (a title, “Friend of God”) and Hobab in some texts. He apparently is a priest of the same God Abraham served, and so was able to teach Moses all the ways of the wandering Aramaeans, as well as the God of Abraham.

We can speculate, and perhaps justify piecing together hints about an enduring lore, a knowledge of God under the name “El” (usually combined with other honorifics). Balaam certainly knew what was contained in the Covenant of Noah, and apparently much more. He recognized the Kenites on sight (Numbers 24:21) and knew their religion. We get the impression that this “El” was also the national deity of the Kenites, though we hardly know where they come from. All we know is that they mixed with Israel throughout the Exodus and Conquest, and lived among them in the Promised Land.

It was to Moses that El revealed Himself as Yahweh/Jehovah.

Up through the reign of King Hezekiah, the knowledge of God grew and became rather firm in the hearts of Judah, at least. Granted, such knowledge of the lore and history was more common among the upper classes, but plenty of peasants seemed to have a solid faith in God. It’s one thing to have the knowledge in your head, but it’s another to be driven by what your heart can grasp without your head.

Then came that awful reign of Manasseh, when the written copies of the Covenant were lost or destroyed. King Josiah did his best to seize upon the one copy found in the foundation of the Temple, but it’s a simple and obvious fact that the people as a whole had lost much. The reforms of Josiah simply did not have time to take root and change the people back into what they once were. A certain amount of their identity was forever lost.

When the Exile came, the whole nation suffered a one-two punch (Babylon and Persia) that really put a big kink in their assumptions about reality. Both empires brought into the mix a strong element of money-grubbing that simply wasn’t part of the Hebrew culture. At the same time, we can’t simply call it materialism, because it doesn’t quite fit that label. It was frankly religious in nature. However, it did move the Judeans closer to materialism. The people building the Second Temple were struggling against a deficit in awareness of what God could do, and that depth of profound trust and commitment.

So during the Restoration, we see the people slipping constantly into a somewhat materialistic frame of mind. Then comes the conquest of Alexander the Great. While the Judeans rejected the external trappings of Hellenistic culture (loose morals), they did buy into the Aristotelian intellectual assumptions of Hellenism. Thus, we have the birth of Judaism: All the trappings of Hebrew culture, but none of the intellectual assumptions from the ancient Hebrew nomads.

This was the birth of legalism. It’s not quite the best of Hellenism with its high artistry, and definitely not the depth of Hebrew mysticism. It turns the mystical symbolism of the Pentateuch into a rule book over which semantic gamesmanship is actually encouraged.

It’s no wonder so many Jews choked on the claims of Jesus. You’ll notice they weren’t uniformly dead to faith, but it was rather rare. This is part of how we know that genuine faith is a miracle of God. But once that miracle comes to our awareness, we have an awful lot to reclaim.

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Law of Moses — Ezra 3

Posted on March 6, 2021 by ehurst

The Edict of Cyrus is dated most commonly 538 BC. It probably took a couple of years for the first group of 50,000 returnees to get everything organized. Then the journey would have taken no less than four months to travel some 900 miles or so. They would have followed the Euphrates north to Syria, then cross and make their way back down to southern Palestine. It took some time to assess the housing and farmland needs for this large group. This makes the start of Chapter 3 about 25 September 536 BC.

Once everyone had a place to live, the first order of business was building an altar to restore the daily sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord. This was just in time for the Feast of Trumpets (agricultural new year), followed soon by the Day of Atonement and then Tabernacles. The primary figures are Jeshua (Joshua) the High Priest, Zerubbabel the grandson of King Jehoiachin, while the appointed governor was Sheshbazzar.

A significant factor in their choice to build the altar first was the hostile environment of the local nations who had migrated into the land during Judah’s absence. The returnees had spread out to occupy the livable cities near Jerusalem. The point in that was to reclaim the agricultural land so they could feed themselves. This came with an imperial edict, so the squatters were none too happy with the eviction notice. The returnees needed Jehovah’s protection.

Cyrus had granted cypress trees from the Lebanese forest. These were cut, dragged down to the sea, and sailed in large rafts to Joppa. From there, they were dragged along the best roads to Jerusalem. All the other materials were assembled from local quarries, etc.

After Pentecost in the following spring (May-June), the foundation of the Temple was laid. The 341 Levites who made the long journey back were charged with overseeing the Temple construction. It was obviously smaller than the original; they simply didn’t have the resources to replicate Solomon’s massive project. Once the foundation was completed, they celebrated by singing Psalm 136 antiphonally. Those too young to have seen the first Temple shouted with joy, while those who remembered the grandeur of Solomon’s Temple were weeping, but it was hard for mere observers to tell the difference.

It’s important to notice that the people are apparently seeking the Lord’s favor, but are hindered by some false expectations. Also, the imperial throne changes hands rather often during this first few decades, so things can get a little confused back at the palace, while the distance makes communications very slow.

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Biblical Law’s Assumptions

Posted on March 4, 2021 by ehurst

Once again: Biblical Law is its own reward.

Nothing can take the place of shalom. It’s not a matter of the stuff that God promised; it’s the sense of peace with Him and His purpose. It’s knowing that you have shown the light of His glory.

What’s going to be left when Christ Returns? Nothing. The entire physical universe will be allowed to dissolve into subatomic particles, releasing all of the stored energy in one sudden burst. But God Himself will remember all the things we did for His glory. What He wants is not simply doing the commands, but a heart that passionately pursues Him.

So shalom is a moving target. You bow to Him as Lord and take up a life of penitence. It’s a path, not a place. You don’t gain some standing with Him, you stay in pursuit; you keep chasing Him down wherever He goes in Your life. Nothing matters to you except staying close to Him.

And whatever that brings with it, you rejoice and embrace it. Does it mean all the wonderful things we imagine Biblical Law should provide? That’s the wrong question. It is not a matter of instrumentality. Biblical Law is the gift in itself; it’s the power to conform to the Father’s divine intent and design. It’s overcoming the flesh, which resists to the last day of life.

I’ve been reading about all the wise things we might do to reconstruct the marriage market for Christians. The discussion about it is typical of mixed Christian backgrounds. But all of it together was focused on the instrumentality of men seeking good, life-long solid marriages with godly women.

Where would that have left Hosea? Remember his wife, Gomer? She was a prostitute before she married Hosea, and at times he would try to drag her back home, staying married to this worthless creature. Do you imagine Hosea reaped the consequences of failing to observe all the wise counsel of choosing a godly wife and building a blessed marriage? I promise you, he had a lot more going for him than we do today, living in a covenant community. Yet he suffered such a horrendous outcome.

That was where God wanted him. What? Did God really stick him with a worthless slut? Was that His will? It’s part of the poverty of English language to lack different expressions for the term “God’s will.” In one sense, it was God’s will for Hosea to endure that woman and stay faithful. God commanded him to marry a prostitute, so that was clearly “God’s will.” Yet we know that Biblical Law counsels us to avoid such situations; that is also “God’s will.” Can you discern the difference?

The folks commenting on Jack’s blog agree that it’s still a crap-shoot when you go into it with the best intentions, and here is Hosea intentionally picking a loser from the start. Do you suppose the Lord is going to let you choose someone who isn’t so obviously a slut, but might turn out to be that way later? Sure He will. Few men have such a clear word from God as Hosea did, and that’s already a problem in itself, but it’s another subject. My point is that a very strongly Spirit-led man of God can still stumble into some really bad situations, including something so important as the choice of a spouse.

My successful marriage is and was a miracle. I didn’t follow all the consensus of rules those folks on Jack’s blog came up with, but God blessed me. Why? Because that was what God wanted in my life to bring Him glory. And God wanted a hooker in Hosea’s life to bring Him glory. Right now, I’ll tell you that I would be willing to go wherever God leads me, despite what it does to me. That kind of attitude meant that I never became the pastor of any church. I obeyed Him and stood for the things He placed in my convictions, and it cost me a lot. My only regret is that I wasn’t even more faithful.

In my own way, I’m just as big a loser as Hosea was. But I have shalom. I wouldn’t trade any of that for all the wonderful things other men have gained in this life without my kind of faith. They have their rewards, and when Christ returns, it will all be forgotten. My reward is the stuff that God remembers.

It’s one thing to confer in prayer with others to discern a pattern of what God requires of those who serve Him. It’s another to try and hold God down and make Him pay off like a slot-machine with specific rewards for that obedience. That’s one of the primary errors of the Chosen People, so sure in their being chosen that they thought they had God over a barrel. They kept believing that until they were led away into exile. After they came back, it didn’t take long before they started believing it again.

The value of the Covenant was in granting the wisdom and power to obey regardless of what it produced in their lives. There is no magic formula in any of the Covenants.

God makes a lot of choices for us. He seldom tells us in advance what they are. The issue is that we either pursue Him as Lord, or we become alienated and live a life of rational rewards without His peace. If you follow reason, it will work well enough, but then it all goes up in smoke at Christ’s Return. If you follow conviction, sometimes you’ll do stuff that you know is going to hurt in this life; it will hurt simply because you are a fleshly creature. It makes no rational sense, but you do it anyway. You do it because Your Father wants you to do it. That’s all the reason you need.

It’s not a waste of time to contemplate choices you’ve made, and compare them with what you know about God’s Word. But don’t get hung up on how things turned out. A bunch of that is always in the hands of God, no matter what you do. And He doesn’t owe you an explanation. You couldn’t understand if He did explain, though He may give you enough grasp to find peace. That’s what really matters.

Do bad things happen to good people? It’s a trick question; there are no good people. There are some who have some good in their lives by God’s grace, but there are no good people. It’s better to understand that faithful servants see sorrow, sometimes because of their faith. We live in a fallen realm of existence, and it’s crappy. It’s one huge lie, and our job is to shine the light of truth. The best we can hope for is not the rewards of this life. The best we can hope for is the enlightenment of the Spirit and the power to obey some of that clarity of vision.

That’s the assumption behind Biblical Law.

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Boomer Crash Coming

Posted on March 3, 2021 by ehurst

In some ways, we could say that Boomer culture is the apex of Western Civilization. The generations following will watch the West die.

There’s lots of room to research, consider and even debate how Boomer culture was provoked by previous generations. There are two primary elements that are the chief sins: materialism and self-centeredness. Boomers are convinced that they are the greatest generation to ever live, and demand homage in the form of wealth that has already deeply impoverished succeeding generations. Worse, they refuse to let go of anything they control, striving to live way too long and rule until they collapse in place.

Let’s look at something quintessentially Boomer: the TV show American Idol. If you’ve ever wasted time watching it, you’ll notice that all the candidates are counseled in a particular brand of showmanship which is frankly arrogant. A signal motto of Boomers is “believe in yourself,” with the connotation of feeling entitled. Notice that it’s not really the words, but the assumed baggage of the words.

Meanwhile, there is a whole range musical talent that wouldn’t have anything to do with American Idol. They perform their music without the arrogance and swagger, drawing an audience on sheer talent and production. Some go out of their way to avoid showing their faces. While there is some overlap with the mainstream entertainment business, the distance between them is growing.

The entertainment industry is currently still almost entirely a Boomer creature. It will be interesting to watch it die, and see how that affects all of those who bought into the system.

The same could be said of mainstream churches, though. They reflect the Boomer culture. Even the new wave of entrepreneurial churches is just a half-step away from Boomer culture, offering a little less pretense. It was during my lifespan that your common country church started showing the US flag in the auditorium, and the vast majority embraced Dispensationalism. I can recall when no pastor would permit the American flag, and Zionism was disparaged as pure politics, not something that belongs in church. I can recall when Dispensationalism was pushed into the churches, and how it was marketed.

During my youth, it was really hard to avoid the Boomer culture. As an adult, I often embraced the negative consequences of rejecting the Boomer path on things. The only reason I hope to live a while longer is so I can see it all come crashing down.

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Contemplation: Community Lifespan

Posted on March 2, 2021 by ehurst

One of the most frustrating elements of a virtual faith community is how fragile it is. Had we all met face-to-face at some point in our aggregate journey, it would be different. Throughout my life I’ve had good close fellowships fade into the mists because the physical proximity ended. Without that constant contact, it’s hard to share the vital elements of our walk with the Lord.

Because I am so very alien to the world in which I live daily, this online community has been a real lifeline. It waxed and waned, and right now it seems waning. People who interacted with me in various ways have disappeared. There’s no sin in that; it’s just the way God leads us. Real life changes in our mission and calling can keep us from investing in the high maintenance of fellowship. Meanwhile, the honest truth is that there are no new people taking up the slack. I’m getting fewer emails, messages, etc.

Again, this is not to castigate anyone for doing what they feel God requires of them. I’m not whining. If you don’t need my fellowship, at the cost it requires, you really should move along. It’s in my best interest that other people follow their convictions. I think there is such significant moving and changing in the Kingdom right now that we really need to keep a loose grip on even our friendships. God be with you ’til we meet again, whether here, there or in the air.

Besides, you never know when something like this will bounce back with new folks joining the gang. The changes God is making in this world may necessitate a different kind of setting. So, I’m not cutting it all loose. I’m just making note here out loud so you’ll pray about something that seems to affect all of us in different ways. On the other hand, there are things I’m cutting loose aside from people, and it will affect how I relate to people.

Just a reminder: If you plan to stay active in the Radix Fidem community, be aware that the means to fellowship and communion will almost surely change. God is doing a mighty work; it’s going to change how we do what we do. I’ve got six email addresses you can use, and I don’t plan to shut down any of my blogging — yet. I’m open to Skype calls (br073n@outlook.com) and I’m trying to keep that line open as much as possible. If you need more from me, that’s a good way to do it.

I’m still on Facebook for now (as jedward.hurst), but I’m not sure I’ll stay there. My whole purpose there was a vector of outreach for my bikepacking activity. If I don’t see much return on that, I’ll drop it. Keeping in touch with my relatives is honestly secondary, though they would never understand that. Still, feel free to join me there if you like; it would change the value of that account for me.

I’ve always felt specially called of God for some divine service. At some point, that was formalized as a call to pastoral ministry. I invested a lot into that. Over the years as I tried to make it work in the real world, the door kept getting shut. My best understanding of what I was supposed to do never quite worked out. It was a conflict between perception and reality. Bit by bit, God peeled away from my perception the elements of my expectations, until we come to where I stand today. I’m still called to divine service, but it no longer has much to do with what people would expect under the label of “pastor.” The only thing left right now is presenting a witness to the gospel message. I’m not sure any of the common labels fit, so I’m not calling this mission anything but “teaching.” I’m quite certain being a teacher of faith is the bottom line, without which I’d cease being me altogether. So whatever is coming, it has to build from that.

Don’t feel bad if you think it’s time to graduate. My only interest is building His Kingdom; I have no use for any kingdom of my own.

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Again: Mission, Method, Means

Posted on February 28, 2021 by ehurst

The task before us is to shine the light of God’s glory into a fallen world. How people react to our testimony is virtually out of our control, but having a testimony is well within our grasp. Our frame of reference for this is mission and calling; it’s all about our convictions.

Within that frame of reference, most of us need to pay attention to how persecution works. Just what is it we testify against? What element of holiness do we project into a given context? So it’s a valid task to understand the dynamics of persecution arising against our testimonies. We should seek to understand the source and methods. It’s not enough to dismiss it all as the work of the Devil. A critical part of understanding the current tribulation is to recognize the trends.

For example, one of the things we learn from the Covenant of Moses is that God does not tolerate gender fluidity. Very specifically the Law says to keep the distinction between male and female obvious. Don’t dress ambiguously and don’t act outside your God appointed gender. It’s one thing to discuss and debate the boundaries; it’s another to explore ways to ignore them. Scripture uniformly declares fuzzing the distinction as foul and defiling.

Do I have to explain how the standards of what defines socially the boundaries of male and female is variable between cultures? We need not adhere to the ancient Hebrew packaging particulars for what defines male and female; we need to pay attention to the fundamentals by reading between the lines and applying it to our context.

This is the issue before us as Western society plunges down the slope of gender fluidity into Hell. This is not just an SJW thing; there is a fundamental social shift toward outright ignoring gender in the quest for sexual release, as if that release itself is a god. And it really is nothing more than simply the thrills without any real sense of attachment. There may some thin window dressing of romance, but it avoids any real sense of bonding. And in God’s Word, appropriate bonding is the whole point.

Our insistence on the biblical model makes us enemies of society. It’s not enough for them that we teach staying out of their way. We must present ourselves for their pleasure use, as a resource on which they pretend to have some claim. Merely holding to a personal standard makes us a threat to their idolatry.

So the trend is through homosexuality to pansexuality. I’ve seen lots of stats on this, and what seems close to the truth is that, among those who claim to be LGBTQ, something like half of Millennials and about 70% of GenZ consider themselves bisexual. There’s an increase in seeking pleasure in all directions. Granted, that’s a matter of self-reporting and virtue signaling, but that simply points out how the definition of “virtue” has shifted.

As a proportion of their age cohorts, the numbers of people identifying with LGBTQ is growing, of course. It used to be something like 2% of Boomers and is running nearly 5% for GenZ. Bear in mind that propaganda pushes a much higher percentage. However, the social acceptance for LGBTQ is approaching unanimity with the current generation. In short, women never call themselves “lesbian” any more; it’s now “queer” or “bisexual.” Meanwhile, far fewer kids these days can even comprehend the notion that a boy being gay is worthy of rough joking.

On the one hand, I never saw any purpose in the silly revulsion to homosexuality common in my youth. I came to faith as a child; very early I saw my faith as making me an alien within the ambient society. I had a tendency to feel some compassion for those abused by the majority, because when I revealed my own personal compass, I got the same harassment. I was always an outsider, so it didn’t much matter what it was that pushed anyone else outside.

However, now that accepting queers is official policy, I’m still on the outside as a man of faith. As a Christian Mystic, I have no interest in changing the world, but that’s not good enough for the world. I should not be allowed to exist, according to the raging orthodoxy of today. On a personal level, the queers I know have no complaint with me at all. They know that I’m not a religious head-hunter. Here in Oklahoma, harassing people of faith is not just illegal, but enforced. Meanwhile, I am not working for some big company that has to worry about obeying the rules of the marketplace. My private testimony is still effective; I’m under no significant personal physical threat.

It’s the public testimony where persecution is certain. In particular, Big Tech is now allied with a uniformly leftist government to silence such public testimony. The majority of my hassles are online. This is also very specifically a part of my mission and calling: an online presence with the gospel message. Knowing that the shift in social consciousness is with a generation that lives online makes this all very clear that for me, persecution will be mostly a matter of my online activities.

It’s not a question of promoting this or that technology for the sake of technology itself, but as the method and means of the mission.

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Law of Moses — Ezra 1

Posted on February 27, 2021 by ehurst

So we left off with the King of Judah being subject to Pharaoh. Josiah’s heir took the throne in 609 BC and lasted three months as an evil king before Pharaoh deported him to Egypt. Instead, a younger brother was placed on the throne. Fours later (605 BC) Pharaoh surrendered to Babylon in the Battle of Carchemish, on the upper Euphrates. Assyria finally ceased to exist and Egypt was forced to return home and stay within her own natural borders.

This made Josiah’s second son a tributary of Babylon. This was during Jeremiah’s ministry. After three years he revolted and Babylon sent troops. At this point, Nebuchadnezzar carried him away captive, and also plundered the Temple. The king’s son was placed on the throne, but three months later was deposed again. During this second event, all the nobles and skilled craftsmen in Jerusalem were taken into exile in Babylon. To hold the throne of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar installed the king’s uncle, whom he christened Zedekiah. This one also rebeled against Babylon.

And this is where the horrific siege of Jerusalem takes place, lasting a year and a half. Zedekiah and his entourage attempted to escape one night and are pursued south along the Kidron and captured. Meanwhile, the city is utterly destroyed (586 BC). At this point the population of Judah has been ravaged by raids, because Babylon had brought in as subject armies the Syrians, Ammonites and others who gleefully raided the countryside for provisions to support the siege. Everyone in any city who survived all of this was carried away to Babylon. Only the smaller villages were left to rebuild under the appointed governor Gedaliah. All he had was the poorest of the remaining population, whom he encouraged to move into the areas near the ruins of Jerusalem to serve quietly under Babylon.

Gedaliah was murdered by the petty nobles left in the land, and that bunch then fled to Egypt. We should not be surprised that neighboring nations migrated in and settled the ruined kingdom, but obeying the rule of Babylon, leaving Jerusalem vacant. Their own fortunes waxed and waned, with political alliances coming and going, but always under the watchful eye of Babylon.

During the wars of Babylon’s conquest, she had allies from farther east who supported her, among them the Medes and Persians. We read in the Book of Daniel how these in due time rose up against Babylon and took over the empire. This brings us to our text in Ezra. Keep in mind that the Medo-Persian Empire was rather unusual, with a complex treaty. At first, they traded the imperial throne back and forth, while each maintained their own rulers. On top of that, there are confusing titles we cannot understand, so that persons of significance appearing in Scripture don’t show up in the existing records of that period. The chronology of events is tough to follow at times, with Ezra and Nehemiah rotating in and out of service in Jerusalem.

Ezra takes up where 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles leave off. Cyrus’s policy was based on the Zoroastrian religion of his people, the organizing principle that allowed them to rise and conquer such a great empire. Near as we can tell, Cyrus regarded the deities of the nations Babylon had conquered as real gods, and that they were all associates of his god. It was in his empire’s interest to allow the nations to restore the shrines of their gods so that they could bless the Emperor and his empire. Thus, Judah was ordered to send back sufficient people and temple personnel to play their part in this grand vision. We have the Cylinder of Cyrus indicating this was his policy.

Thus, the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC. As promised by Jeremiah, this was roughly 70 years after the initial conquest by Babylon. Keep in mind that this proclamation is limited to rebuilding only the Temple and so much housing and supporting structures as is necessary to restore a valid Temple service of worship. The city walls are not included in this.

Cyrus released from the imperial treasury the vessels and whatever was left from the plundering of Solomon’s Temple. The Ark of Covenant is long gone, but plenty of smaller furnishings were available. Also, a hefty donation was included. Thus, the people of Judah were mobilized, and their own priests and nobles pitched in a large offering of priestly robes, musical instruments, and other forms of material support.

It should be clear right away that not many were willing to leave behind the property and wealth they had amassed while in exile. Also, the synagogue system was now well established in Babylon. The leadership regarded themselves as holy priestly blue-bloods of the Covenant religion, and refused to go back. If you glance at the next chapter of Ezra, you see that while a bunch of Levites do return, most of the priests do not. The number of bodies heading out in the first wave, under the protection of armed Medo-Persian escort, numbered about 50,000.

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The Lonely Place

Posted on February 26, 2021 by ehurst

I’ve always belonged to a different world. I didn’t always know it consciously, but some part of me never doubted it.

There’s been a long spell here when external events haven’t provoked me to point out some critical difference between society and the Word. Instead, I’ve been pulling up regrets and wounds. There are plenty of things I wish I could go back and do over. But there are also plenty of things wherein I have zero doubt I did the right thing and it wasn’t well received. The latter cases still signal to me times when people didn’t seize the moment of faith and glorify the Lord with me.

It reminds me just how completely most people who should know better just don’t exercise enough faith to seize the glory of the Lord. They act out of any number of human choices other than faith. The idea that His glory is, by definition, in our best interest is just too much for them. So they chose what the flesh demands instead.

I recognize this because I do it myself too often.

It’s bad enough when we have a ton of lies about what is or isn’t glorious to the Lord’s name. Here’s the thing: You and I cannot fix that problem. Yes, we can speak the truth, but we have to rely on God to drive it home in the hearts of those who hear. Often, the best we can do is simply live the truth and wait for those moments when the Spirit is ready to strum across their convictions.

But there are way too many times when the meaning of divine glory is too obvious, and they still won’t take it. My faith is not something I ginned up. It is all 100% a gift of grace. The biggest part I played was in deciding I wanted it. There’s no way I can explain how I came to this place except to point back to God’s mercy on me.

I also cannot explain how so many people avoid this place.

It is a very lonely place. The farther I push into faith, the more isolated I am, the more alien I feel in the world around me. I keep feeling Luke 18:8. If the Lord is coming back anytime soon, will He find faith on the earth? I don’t want to embarrass Him. I’m struggling to find fellowship in that desire.

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Imagine: Angelic Beings

Posted on February 22, 2021 by ehurst

For reference: I have no substantial dispute with this page from the Christian Thinktank. It covers a lot of ground (it’s encyclopedic in length), but in passing takes a look at the images of angelic beings who were depicted in statues and carvings for the Tabernacle and Temple furnishings. I rather like this outline, as well.

The Hebrew people borrowed the image of angelic guardians from the wider Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) culture. The most literal image of a cherub would be a lion’s body, avian wings (typically four, two pair) and a human face. On occasion they might be depicted as more human formed, but that was frankly rather rare. There is no reason to imagine the Hebrews used any other than the most common depiction. This is what would have been on the lid of the Ark of Covenant, not humanoids with a single pair of wings. Ezekiel in his vision describes cherubs as also having human arms and hands under their wings.

The Hebrew word seraph actually refers to a fiery serpent, something rather like a dragon. I’m not aware of any standard depictions from ANE cultures, and it gets far less mention in Scripture. It typically had six wings and they would be leathery reptile wings, not the feathery avian type. It was closer to a snake with limbs, rather than a lizard.

Neither of these beings are referred to as angels, but from our perspective, they are in the same class as other celestial beings. And no angel is ever depicted in the Bible as having wings. They have a standard human form, and are either glowing with divine glory, or masquerading as more common humans. We get a subtle impression they had a tendency to be about as large as the bigger common humans. They were always portrayed as physically intimidating, and can on occasion take a gigantic size.

We have a lot of unlearning to do in extracting ourselves from Western perversions of what the Bible says.

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