Christianity | Cindy Wity

Ramparts

April 13, 2025 Leave a comment

A few days before he would lay down his life to deal with the problem of evil, Jesus made the ascent to Jerusalem, not Rome. When he came near and saw the city, he wept over it. The city of peace would reject the Prince of Peace for the preservation of antipathy to any rule but its own.

Jesus came to his own and his own, with messianic hopes, wanted the evil in their lives – imperial Rome with its emperor worship and rule of Judea – to be dealt with. His own would also reject the testimony about him given by the prophets and John the Baptist. His own would deal with the landowner’s son to claim everything for themselves.

To acknowledge Jesus – what was said of him and what he said and did and who he claimed to be – meant acknowledging the evil within their own control. There were only two possible responses to the claims: repentance or rejection.

Jesus came to his own and found people who responded with hatred in the presence of goodness and who sought to destroy the good insofar as it was in their power to do so. They were not aware of their own evil and avoided any such awareness of it. They considered themselves above reproach and lashed out at Jesus for his reproach of them.

They were threatened by the spiritual health of those around them and refused to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness. They would destroy others to maintain their appearance of moral-purity. They deemed others unfit, unclean, and unworthy but refused any self-examination that would reveal the evil within themselves. Pride was their rampart.

These exercised political power with man-made traditions – religious obligations and taboos – and status quo policing in order to crush and demolish any spiritual life beyond their control. They built societal barriers to keep belief in check.

Jesus confronted and named their evil antilove first hand:

Legal experts grumbled that it was blasphemous for Jesus to say “Your sins are forgiven” to a paralytic who, with help from four friends, descended from an opened celling for healing. The “experts” were ready to pounce and cripple Jesus’ ministry for acting God-like. Jesus healed the cripple showing them that he had the authority on earth to forgive sins. Mk. 2: 1-12

Legal experts from the Pharisees became offended when they saw Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus told them that “It is the sick who need a doctor. I came to call the bad people, not the good.” Mk 2:14-17

Like those in Jesus’ parable about a victim of a robbery, the “experts” thought “Better to be separated from that than to get involved with unclean rabble.” Rather than seek the recovery and redemption of others, they will actually destroy others in the cause of protecting their own laziness and to preserve the integrity of their sick self.

People took note when they saw that John the Baptist’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples were fasting. They wanted to know why Jesus’ disciples didn’t get with the fasting program. These people had been taught to judge people with religious protocols. Why weren’t the questioners fasting? Mk 2:18-20

One sabbath Jesus and his disciples were walking through a cornfield. The disciples plucked corn to eat as they went along. This really bothered the Pharisees. They confronted Jesus asking “Why are they doing something illegal on the sabbath?”

Jesus reminded them of their history: David and his men, when distressed and hungry, ate the bread of the presence which only the priest is allowed to eat. Jesus then flipped the script on them, saying “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”

Though the religious police tried to throw up a man-made barrier against the good, in this case grabbing food to eat in a field, Jesus pushed back with the real intent for the sabbath rest – delighting in all that is good, just as God had done after six days of giving functions to the material cosmos. Mk 2: 23-27

On another sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue. People were watching to see if Jesus would heal the man with a withered hand on the sabbath so they could frame a charge against him. Jesus called the man to the front of the room.

He then asked those in attendance “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath or to do evil? To save life or to kill?” He waited and then asked, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” Unable to answer they remained silent. Mk 3: 1-6

Here was the essence of antilove they had been taught to submit to and emulate by those who, with a form of godliness, put up barriers to the spiritual health of others. On this day it revealed itself as a spiritual disability – the inability to show lovingkindness.

They gave priority to sabbath rules and the sabbath police and to their own well-being and status within their community and not to extending themselves for the physical and spiritual well-being of another.

Their hardheartedness made Jesus deeply upset. He looked around at them angrily. Then he healed the man’s hand. With this, the Pharisees – feeling a slap in the face – went off and collaborated with a political group to find a way to destroy Jesus. They sought to destroy the good insofar as it was in their power to do so. Mk 3: 1-6

Crowds constantly swarmed Jesus. He and the disciples were not able to have a meal. His family heard this and said “He’s out of his mind.” They, no doubt, thought that Jesus’ behavior would cause them to incur the disapproval of religious authorities and be kicked out of their synagogue into social isolation. This, in spite of the good that he was doing throughout Galilee. Preservation of self- status and inclusion – was important to them. Mk 3: 20-21

Legal experts showed up from Jerusalem. To get things back under their control they said of Jesus “He’s possessed by Beelzebul! He casts out demons by the prince of demons!” While they took action to preserve the integrity of their sick selves with projection, Jesus was plundering the “strong man’s house” right in their neighborhood. Mk 3: 22-30

When Jesus came to his home region, he began to teach in the synagogue on the sabbath. Those in attendance – townspeople who knew his family – were amazed at what they heard and took offense at him. For, they were ready for the same o ‘ same o ‘ sabbath and not for anything that disrupted status quo. Maintaining status quo, appearances, and antipathy was more important than spiritual growth.

Jesus said “Prophets are honored everywhere except in their own country, their own family, and their own home. Mk 6: 1-4

Pharisees and legal experts circled Jesus. They had seen some of his disciples eating with unwashed hands. This was against the tradition of the elders. They questioned Jesus wanting to know what’s up with that. Jesus calls them hypocrites and reads them the riot act from Isaiah:

With their lips this people honor me,

But with their hearts they turn away from me;

All in vain they think to worship me;

All they teach is human commands.

Jesus goes on to give them a prime example of them abandoning God’s commands and replacing them with human traditions that nullify God’s word.

Practicing human traditions gave religious leaders a pretense of righteousness. It also gave them leverage over the people and provided them the means to patrol them while avoiding any self-examination that would reveal the evil within themselves. They had fortified their evil selves with human commands while invalidating God’s word. Mk 7: 1-13

One day the Pharisees came to Jesus and wanted to test him out. They demanded a sign. They couldn’t see with their two good eyes. They couldn’t hear with their two good ears. The feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand, the healings, exorcisms, resurrections and authoritative teaching were not good enough for them. Antilove is blind and deaf in the presence of goodness. Mk 8: 11-12

When Jesus asked his disciples “Who do people say that I am?” Peter spoke up: “Messiah!”

But then Jesus told the disciples that there was big trouble up ahead – Jerusalem trouble as in “The elders, chief priests, and the scribes are going to finalize their rejection of me with death” – Peter began to scold Jesus, putting up resistance to the thought that their new-found messiah would die and not overthrow Roman rule in Judea and take his place as king. Mk 9: 31-33

Jesus had to scold Peter. His human thoughts were not Gods’ thoughts. The test had presented itself again.

A few years before his ascent to the “holy city”, it was to the pinnacle of the temple that Satan, Antilove Itself, brought Jesus to test him.

Jesus didn’t take Satan’s bait. He didn’t jump to reassure himself of His Father’s words. And though Adam, the father of humanity, failed a similar test by testing what God said, Jesus would not. Nor would he make a spectacle of himself for Satan or before a palm branch-waving crowd.

When he came near and saw the city, he wept over it and said of his own . . .

“If only you’d known on this day – even you! – what peace meant. But now it’s hidden, and you can’t see it. Yes, the days are coming upon you when your enemies will build up earthworks all around you, and encircle you, and squeeze you in every direction. They will bring you crashing to the ground, you and your children with you. They won’t leave one single stone on another, because you didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you.” Luke 19: 41-46

Antilove would reject the One that would lay down his life for his own. The ramparts of antipathy to any rule but its own would be torn down.

~~~~~

“The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.” – George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce

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Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds (3)

In the third podcast of this series, “Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds,” host Dr. Karyne Messina, psychologist, psychoanalyst and author talked about the problems that can emerge in Erik Erikson’s Identity versus Identity Diffusion stage of development along with Dr. Harry Gill, a psychiatrist who has a PhD in neuroscience. The two mental health professionals discussed major difficulties they see in their young patients when they are exposed to too much screen time. . .

They also focused on the impact of social media on the formation of identity, a critical part of healthy personality development. Drs. Messina and Gill shared the challenges young people have navigating in the digital age, which can include exposure to people who are inauthentic on social media, role confusion, and addiction to video games. They emphasized the importance of limiting screen time, encouraging adolescents to have real-life experiences versus having mainly on-line relationships while fostering healthy habits to support brain development and overall well-being during this crucial stage of development.

Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds (3)

Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds (3) – New Books Network

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Filed under Christianity, Evil, Palm Sunday Tagged with Bible, Christianity, evil, faith, Jesus, Palm Sunday, sabbath

Days of Waiting, Watching, and Waning?

April 4, 2025 Leave a comment

We, a community of those who confess the lordship of Jesus Christ, met on the Lord’s Day to hear again about the Day of the Lord. For us and for Rome, religion and politics are one. Under Roman rule we live with conflicting sovereignties. We met to hear about the ruler of the kings of earth returning to put things right.

We are a house church in Ephesus, a major seaport and capital city in the Roman province of Asia. The city stands at the entrance of a valley that reaches far into the province with highways to other important cities in the region. As a major trade route, Ephesus connects east and west. It also connects travelers with gods and goddesses.

Our city is renowned for the Greek temple devoted to the goddess of fertility Artemis or Diana. Images of Diana, crafted by local artisans and sold in the market place, are a big business. Likenesses of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, are seen on coins, sculptures, and architectural reliefs, triumphal arches, and monuments. Nike or Victoria is important to the Roman military. She represents speed, strength, and victory – characteristics of Rome’s overwhelming force.

As I said, our city is governed by Rome. Symbols of Roman power are everywhere you turn: statues, iconography, rituals, festivals. Several cohorts of Roman soldiers are stationed here. Our city is a center for the imperial cult.

There are two temples in the city devoted to the worship of the emperor. Images of the emperor, declaring him to be the “son of god”, are on the coins we trade with. Citizens are obligated to pay homage and offer worship to the ‘divine’ emperor. We do not do this, as there is only one divine Lord and ruler of us all. This defiance puts us in constant tension with our overseers.

Our community in Ephesus began when the apostle Paul passed through on his way to Jerusalem. He left with us Aquila and Priscilla, a couple of Jewish tentmakers he worked with and taught in Corinth. They were to teach us the Way of Jesus. Paul promised to come back if he could.

While Paul was away, a Jew named Apollos came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He spoke with great fervor about Jesus and began to speak boldly in the synagogue. He vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

When Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos speak, they learned that he only knew of the baptism of John. So, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

When Paul returned, he asked if we had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. We said no. We hadn’t heard about the Holy Spirit. He then asked into what we were baptized. We told him John’s baptism. He explained that John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.

We were then baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Paul had laid his hands on us and the Holy Spirit came upon us. We spoke in tongues and prophesied. Our hearts were filled with love, joy and peace. We shared the Way of Jesus with the Ephesians.

For three months, Paul preached in the synagogues. He spent three months speaking to the established Jewish community. But the Jews were not willing to accept gentiles into their church community. In spite of that resistance, over the next two years Paul baptized Hellenized Jews and gentile converts.

During his stay in Ephesus, Paul performed many miracles and exorcisms. Many in our city renounced their idolatrous ways. They rid themselves of images of Diana. This caused a riot with the craftsmen who made a steady profit from selling them.

The apostle later wrote a letter to our church. He wrote it from a prison in Rome, as Tychicus told us when he delivered the letter and read it to us.

Paul wrote about our redemption and prayed that we would see the hope that we were called to. God, he said, has made known to us the secret of his purpose just as he wanted to be. It was set it forward in Jesus as a blueprint for when the time was ripe. The plan was to sum up the whole cosmos in King Jesus – everything in heaven and earth.

Not long ago we received a letter from John the Elder. John had been a Jewish high priest” who had officiated in the Jerusalem temple early in his life. Because of his proximity to Jesus, John the Elder was an eyewitness of the events surrounding Jesus – his teaching, his miracles, his death, and his resurrection. John was at Jesus’ crucifixion and given charge over Mary. He eventually brought her with him to Ephesus.

In his pastoral letter for the churches in the province, John contrasted those born of the world and those born of the father, light versus darkness, truth versus falsehood, righteousness versus sin, love of the Father versus love of the world, and the Spirit of God versus the spirit of the antichrist

John warned us about antichrists in our community. He said to test the spirits to see if they are from God as many false prophets have gone out into the world. The test: “every spirit that agrees that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” These last, he said, are the spirit of the antichrist. We heard that it was coming, and now it is in our midst.

~~~

As is our habit when we meet and share the Lord’s table, we sing psalms and listen to the teachings of Jesus from the elders. We reread pastoral letters sent to us. We hang on every word, as we are a small community surrounded by every kind of darkness.

We also hear the prophets read. As the Jewish believers have told us, the Day of the Lord that brings judgement on the tyrannical rulers and salvation from tyrannical rule has been in the hearts and minds of God’s people for hundreds of years.

And how could it not be when Joel the prophet wrote “Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.”

And Amos the prophet wrote “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.”

And Isaiah the prophet wrote “Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. The haughty eyes of people shall be brought low, and the pride of everyone shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.”

~~~

Recently, I, Dionysius, an elder in our church, received a long letter from the island of Patmos. It was written by John- not John the Elder but John the prophet. John is a common name. I introduced the letter to those gathered:

“This letter is sent from John, a brother and partner in our suffering. He received a message from He Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come – Jesus, the Messiah, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. It is addressed to the seven churches in Asia.

“Here is the message to our church here in Ephesus:

“These are the words of the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and who walks in among the seven golden lampstands. I know what you have done, your hard labor and patience. I know that you cannot tolerate evil people, and that you have tested those who pass themselves off as apostles, but are not, and you have demonstrated them to be frauds. You have patience, and you have put up with a great deal because of my name, and you haven’t grown weary. I do, however, have one thing against you: you have abandoned the love you showed at the beginning. So remember the place from which you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at the beginning. If not – if you don’t repent – I will come and remove your lampstand out of its place. You do, though, have this in your favor: you hate what the Nicolaitans are doing, and I hate it too. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches. The tree of life stands in God’s paradise, and I will give to anyone who conquers the right to eat from it.”

This word affected us greatly. Our work and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ was recognized by him. We did as John the Elder said. We tested and then purged from our midst false prophets and antichrists. We took a stand against the Nicolaitans, idolatrous enemies of God.

But our love, born out of the love with which Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, had become a joyless sense of order. We were going through the motions, like those who worship idols. Over time, the truth worth dying for was not going out to the people Christ died for.

When Paul laid hands on us and we received the holy spirit, we were passionate about the love that brought us in, making us sons and daughters of God. We were passionate about sharing this love with the Ephesians.

I reminded everyone that the apostle Paul had ended his letter to us with “Grace be with all who love our Lord, King Jesus, with a love that never dies!”

Had our waiting and watching, and wanting a reckoning of those who claim ultimate power over us turned us inward and away from the love of Christ for the world?

We needed to reorient our hearts, minds, soul, desires, actions, and pursuits toward our first love, a love not defined by our circumstances but by the love that gave itself up for the world on the cross. If we don’t, our lampstand, our witness, will be removed and we will be like all the other religious practices around us.

As I continued to read the letter, Jewish believers in our community spoke of Daniel’s apocalypse and the coming of “one like the son of man.” Here, John wrote of “one like the son of man” standing in the middle of the seven lampstands and speaking to him.

The letter went on to reveal, as prophecy and apocalypse, a cosmic vision of “what soon must take place.”

With mythical imagery, things on earth – things well known to us – and things in heaven were interacting. What happened on earth affected things in heaven. What happened in heaven affected things on earth.

Imaginations took off as we recognized forces fighting against the true God and his kingdom on earth.

The dragon or serpent we understood as the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God. The beast or sea-monster was a deified Roman Emperor using military and political power for tyranny and economic exploitation. The second beast or earth-monster was the promoter of the imperial cult. It set up the image of the emperor to be worshipped and enforced its worship.

Babylon is the city of Rome exploiting the world for economic prosperity. The woman giving birth is Israel. The number of Nero’s name was 666.

The letter also provided counter-images to what we see daily in Ephesus.

God’s holiness is depicted with flashes of lightening, rumbling, peals of thunder, a violent earthquake, huge hailstones, and glory beyond all glory. There are scenes of a tree of life, a glassy sea, new creation, and the New Jerusalem.

Before the return of Christ and the final establishment of His eternal kingdom on earth, the long-prophesied Day of the Lord will bring judgements upon those -the living and the dead -who’ve turned away from God to worship the Beast.

With Seven seals, Seven trumpets, and Seven bowls, God’s wrath is revealed against all those in heaven and on earth who will not acknowledge him as the Sovereign God.

The letter began with Seven golden lampstands. They are the seven churches in Asia – bearers of light in our dark world.

Our prophetic mission here in Ephesus is to witness to the Ephesians and to the world that passes through our city before the terrible Day of the Lord, before “what soon must take place.”

Our witness is to bring about repentance and the conversion of all nations to the worship of the true God. So, we must endure all hardship and persevere to give witness to the truth worth dying for with the same love with which Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We must not turn inward.

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Eternal Father, strong to save

Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

O Christ, whose voice the waters heard
and hushed their raging at thy word,
who walkedst on the foaming deep,
and calm amid the storm didst sleep;
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

Most Holy Spirit, who didst brood
upon the chaos dark and rude,
and bid its angry tumult cease,
and give, for wild confusion, peace:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

O Trinity of love and power,
our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
from rock and tempest, fire and foe,
protect them wheresoe’er they go;
thus evermore shall rise to thee
glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

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Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Cultural Marxism

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss Communism’s transformation into a popular political position in the United States.

In “Marxism, Socialism, and Communism,” professors of history, politics, and economics look at Marx’s life and writings, the misery and brutality in the Soviet Union, the atrocities of communist China, and the proliferation of Cultural Marxism in America. They explore how many ideas animating American politics today are rooted in Marxism, and yet how they differ from Marx’s thought. By taking Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the Frankfurt School seriously, we can see the injustice and evil inherent in all strands of Marxism. We also better understand the critiques of communism made by Mises, Hayek, and Solzhenitsyn. We are, therefore, better equipped to defeat it.

Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Solzhenitsyn, Mises, and Hayek

Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Cultural Marxism – Hillsdale College Podcast Network

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The Culture of Convenience and Comfort:

What has happened to our ability to sit in discomfort? What has happened to our stamina for life, especially life when it gets hard?

As an employer of more than 350 people over the past decade, I’ve seen a shift in the younger generation. Many don’t seem to know how to tolerate even mild discomfort. There’s a deep urge to escape anything that doesn’t feel good—whether through substances, screens, sugar, or distractions. And I can’t help but trace this trend back to childhood: when we hand kids a screen so we can finish dinner in peace, when we give them sugar to soothe a meltdown, when we teach them—without ever saying it out loud—that the goal is to feel good all the time.

We’ve created a culture that treats discomfort like a pathology. If something is hard, we assume it must be wrong. But that’s not how life works.

Pain, struggle, and uncertainty are baked into the human experience. Maybe it’s not discomfort that’s the problem—but our inability to face it.

Yes, we should limit screen time. Yes, we should cut back on sugar. But more importantly, we need to stop teaching our children that discomfort is something to be avoided at all costs. It’s okay to be bored. It’s okay to be hot, or tired, or challenged. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Most worthwhile things—motherhood, entrepreneurship, marriage, community, growth—will feel hard at some point. That’s not a flaw. That’s the path.

Are we raising a generation of escape artists, or are we raising people who can stay present through difficulty, learn from it, and grow?

The Epidemic Beneath The Surface: Disconnection, Discomfort, & The Death Of Resilience | ZeroHedge

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Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2)

In this second podcast Dr. Karyne Messina, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, author and NBN host discusses the problems the emerge when children watch screens and digital devices too much. Dr. Messina talked about this topic with Dr. Harry Gill, a well-known psychiatrist who also has a PhD. in neuroscience. In this episode the focus was on Erik Eriksson’s 5th stage of development, Industry versus Inferiority. They discussed one of the greatest difficulties they see in their young patients who contend with way too much screen time.

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2)

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2) – New Books Network

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The top picture reminds me of the playground I had as a kid:

Filed under apocalypse, Christianity, Ephesians, Revelation, Scripture Tagged with apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, Day of the Lord, Ephesians, faith, God, Jesus, Scripture

What’s At Stake

March 21, 2025 Leave a comment

One day, after leaving the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus told the disciples that the temple would be leveled. His disciples then came to him privately and asked “What is the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” The conversation is recorded here: Matt. 24:1-35.

Jesus tells them what to watch out for and to not be fooled by. He warns of the persecution and death of disciples who bear witness to the truth they had seen and heard. He speaks of those who fall away and of those whose love for the kingdom of God grows cold because of a milieu of wickedness. Then he adds “The ones who stand firm to the end will be saved.”

The end of the age will come, he tells them, when the gospel of the kingdom is preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations.

Jesus goes on to reveal signs and wonders of the end times. He can’t tell them the day or hour of his return, as only his Father knows the timing. When it does happen, he says, many would be caught completely off guard.

Jesus went on to speak in parables about the signs and wonders he expected to see in those entrusted with the gospel of the kingdom before he returned.

In the Parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants (Matthew 24:45-51), the faithful servant follows through doing what his master had put him in charge of until he returned. He is rewarded with more responsibility. The unfaithful servant assumed that with the master’s delay he could do as he pleased. When the master showed up unexpectedly, the unfaithful servant is dealt with severely.

In The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25: 1-13) ten young women are involved in a wedding tradition. The bride and her bridesmaids, I imagine, learned that it was the beginning of the wedding week sometime before nightfall one evening. They may have caught word about extensive preparations being made for the marriage feast. The ten women prepare for their part in the ceremonies.

By tradition, the bridegroom would process with his friends at night to retrieve his bride and bring her back to his house for the wedding feast and ceremony. When he arrives, the bridesmaids join the procession carrying oil lamps.

Not knowing the exact day or hour of the bridegroom’s arrival, five of the women bring flasks of oil. I imagine that they are thinking “This may take time, but we’re gonna make it happen, we’re gonna do what we have to do to make the wedding and marriage feast a success. The bridegroom is counting on us.”

We learn that when the bridegroom is delayed the ten bridesmaids get drowsy and fall asleep. Then at midnight a shout awakes them: “The bridegroom is on his way!”

The ten get up and trim their lamps by cutting the burnt part of the wick and adding oil. But there is a problem. Five of the women had run out of fuel and brought no extra. They lacked the wherewithal to continue the simple task they were given. So, they ask for oil from the other five with extra oil.

But that’s not going to happen. The prepared five will do what is expected of them and the depleted five are sent to do what they need to do – go buy more oil. While the depleted five are away, the bridegroom arrives and the prepared bridesmaids process with the wedding party.

The depleted five, returning with lamps lit, find out that they are shut out of the wedding banquet and not even acknowledged. The prudent five were mindful of their duty to the Bride and Bridegroom. The foolish five missed an opportunity of a lifetime. It was lights-out for them.

In The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), a master goes on a trip. Before he leaves, he entrusts money to three slaves, each according to his ability. When he returns, he wants an account of their stewardship of what he entrusted to their care.

The slave given five talents has produced five more. The slave given two talents has produced two more. The slave given one talent has not increased its value. He played it safe.

The two slaves that produced a return on investment are rewarded with the master’s favor and receive more responsibility. The slave who did not increase the value of one talent, not even with accrued interest, has the talent taken away. The master gives the one talent to the one with ten talents. I imagine that the master wanted to see what he could do with eleven talents.

Keep watch!

In each of these parables the participants are given a responsibility and an opportunity to show themselves prudent and productive as they keep watch. But some foolishly don’t value what they have been entrusted with (signifying the gospel of the kingdom) and worse. They don’t fear or respect the master or bridegroom.

Did their love grow cold? Their indifferent attitude as to what was at stake for them and the master caught them completely off guard. If they had known the day and hour the master or bridegroom would show up and feigned readiness, how would the master or bridegroom assess who to keep around and who to get rid of and lock out?

No participation trophies were handed out when the master returns. Instead, the worthless are kicked outside, into the darkness. Their weeping and gnashing of teeth will not be acknowledged by the master. They had their day in the sun.

But those who, in the master’s absence, took their responsibility seriously without fail and for as long as it took and those with the sense and wherewithal to keep watch for as long as it took for the bridegroom to appear and those who knew what to do with what the master entrusted them with – these who “stand firm to the end will be saved.”

The main thrust of these parables: Remain vigilant. Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you don’t know the day or hour of the master’s return and your labor is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).

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Do you hear what Jesus said above echoed and amplified in his words, through John the Seer, to the church in Ephesus?

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:

“I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.

Revelation 2: 1-7

What’s at stake. In the prophetic messages to the seven churches in Asia Minor, when Jesus has something against a church it comes down to the consequences he alluded to in the parables above: if you do not repent and change your ways before the master returns there will be judgement.

Note: This is the same alternative that those of us who bear witness to the truth presents to the world.

~~~~~

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds

. . . this podcast covers the effects of too much screen time. Dr. Messina talks about this topic with Dr. Harry Gill, a renown psychiatrist who also has a PhD. in neuroscience. They discuss one of the greatest difficulties they see in their child, adolescent and adult patients who contend with way too much screen time, the all-encompassing phenomenon of ceaseless digital interactions that occur on various devices, over an array of social media platforms, and through multi-player online gaming. They contend that because we are bombarded with constant stimulation which causes us to be more distant and isolated from each other, various individual tragedies, addictions, and hollowed-out interpersonal lives are becoming commonplace in our world today. In addition, they talk about the fact that misinformation is spreading at a rapid pace while social structures are breaking down on a global scale. Their hope is to provide information that will help limit screen time for our listener and their family members.

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (1)

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (1) – New Books Network

~~~~~

Victor Davis Hanson: Democrats’ 10-Part Strategy to Stopping Trump (At Any Cost)

Home – VDH’s Blade of Perseus

Filed under apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, Kingdom of God, parables, The Gospel of Matthew Tagged with Bible, Christianity, end times, faith, God, gospel, Jesus, Parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants, parables, The Kingdom of God, The Parable of the Talents, The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

Sea Change

March 8, 2025 Leave a comment

Primordial disorder is the image presented at the opening of the creation account in Genesis. The earth, formless and empty (tohu wabohu), was completely covered by a deep (tehom) sea.

When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1: 1-2

Earth’s oceanic outer layer undergoes a sea change when the Spirit of God’s hovers.

Psalm 104: 5-9 describes, in poetic form, the ordering of the watery chaos:

He set the earth on its foundations;
    it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
    the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
    at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
    they went down into the valleys,
    to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
    never again will they cover the earth.

Reading on in Psalm 104 (v. 10-13) we find function. Channeled water provides the basic necessity for life on earth. Food growth follows.

Chaos Creatures Serve a Function

Once the chaotic waters of the primordial sea had been assigned functions, God, on the fifth day, created sea monsters, figures of menacing chaos (Gen. 1:21). Why bring order and then allow chaos creatures to exist? By God’s wisdom, we live in a world that has order, non-order, and disorder (See video below).

Mythical creatures from pagan myths, function in scripture as symbols of primordial chaos and opposition to God: sea-monsters, serpents, beasts, and dragons. Revelation presents them as fighting against God’s faithful witnesses who are working to restore order and bring God’s kingdom on earth.[i]

Sea Change Number Two

God created (gave functions to) the material cosmos over six days. Genesis 1 is a day-by-day account of establishing order from primordial disorder, establishing anthropic conditions and temple building. God pronounced each step in functional readiness “Good.” On the seventh day, he ‘rested’ in his temple to survey what had been done. The temple garden is a metaphor for the world.

Genesis 2. Mankind is placed in the temple garden and given instructions to maintain the good by God. But mankind goes off in a disordering direction. Evil and chaos ensues. God then acts to undo creation with the flood waters of chaos[ii] and to restore his “good” creation. Noah is the new caretaker.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. . .

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. Genesis 6: 11-13, 17

Sea Change Recalled

One day, Jesus’ disciples wanted Jesus to notice the temple buildings. Jesus then foretold the destruction of the temple. The perplexed and anxious disciples asked “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus goes on to speak of the signs of the end of the age. He then speaks about the necessity of watchfulness for, he tells them, no one knows the day or hour when end things will come to pass. To underscore this, he references a familiar story that involved a cataclysmic event that caught many unprepared.

For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24:36-39

History Lesson About the Moral Universe

The apostle Peter, in his second letter, tells his readers that there are scoffers who are saying that things on this earth have always continued the way they are now. He reminds them that this is not true. The earth was different when it was created and it was different again after the flood. He warns them that no one should scoff that God will make it different once again, judging the godless not with water but with fire. (2 Peter 3)

Jesus’ second coming will be a sea change for all of creation. Chaos will be removed.

It is Time for a Sea Change

Peter warned his readers, with reference to the Great Flood, about what can be expected if they continue as they are. John the Seer, alluding to the Great Flood in Revelation, writes that it is time (in his prophetic timeline) “for destroying those who destroy the earth.” – Revelation 11:18

“The ‘destroyers of the earth’ are the powers of evil: the dragon, the beast, and the harlot of Babylon (who in [Rev.] 19:2 is said to have ‘corrupted – or destroyed – the earth with her fornication’). With their violence, oppression, and idolatrous religion they are ruining God’s creation. His faithfulness to his creation requires that he destroy them in order to preserve and deliver it from evil. . . This he did in the flood, which was a divine judgement aimed at delivering God’s creation from the ruinous violence of its inhabitants.”[iii]

John the Seer wrote Revelation in the context of the tyranny of the Roman Empire, the imperial cult, and a permissive and polytheistic culture. The apostle Paul, in the same setting, writes to a church with a more detailed description of the ruinous inhabitants of the earth and their similar fate:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. -1 Corinthians 6:9-10

I imagine that the proud, the perverse, the purposefully vague, the self-serving, and those who want to create a new humanity with demonic forces[iv] – any who plunder the created order for power, wealth and self-righteous ends will be met with divine judgement. Some will receive punishment that matches their sin (Rev. 16:8; 18:6; Rev. 22:18-19).

John the Seer prophesied about an end time involving a series of warning judgements to bring about repentance and the ultimate restoring of creation’s order from mankind’s reversion of it to chaos.

Final Sea Change

Scripture begins by telling an old story and ends by retelling the old story with a new and final outcome. Both narratives involve chaos and creation. The lynchpin of the two theological narratives – Genesis 1-11 and Revelation – and of history itself is the earthly, risen, and returning Jesus.

A final sea change occurs to restore creation. John the Seer writes:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. –Rev. 21:1

Creation is not destroyed, just as it wasn’t with the Great Flood. Rather, creation’s corrupting influence is removed. Think in terms of no longer being overcome by evil but the overcoming of evil with good. Think in terms of “if anyone is in the Messiah, there is new creation! Old things have gone, and look – everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)

“The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.”[v]

~~~~~

Lent is a time for a sea change. It’s a time to remove chaos from your life.

This Lent appears to be the first time that corruption, misuse of funds, money laundering, excess, and disorder in the government are being shown the detox door. Hence, the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the MSM. Hence, destroyers of the earth want the chaos to continue as before.

A leviathan in Washington recently surfaced. What emerged was corrupt and destabilizing influence involving actors in the State Department, the Department of Defense, the “deep state”, the unaccountable administrative state, the unchecked CIA meddling in foreign affairs and a politically motivated FBI meddling in internal affairs, activist DOJ and federal judges, shady non-profits, and the propaganda of the MSM to maintain cover for the chaos.

Maelstroms are sucking us in: a proxy war with Russia, Middle East conflicts, a huge federal deficit, out of control spending by Congress, the Green New Deal wealth redistribution scam, and what to do with the over 12 million illegal economic migrants bringing with them neediness, disease and crime.

In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, ICE reported arresting over 14,000 convicted criminals, 9,800 migrants with pending criminal charges, 1,155 suspected gang members, and 44 foreign fugitives.

An additional 8,718 arrests were categorized as “immigration violators.”

ICE has arrested 32,000 violent criminals in Trump’s first 50 days.

And there’s a new beast on the horizon – AI.

AI is being touted as a new pathway to greater productivity (Why do we need that? For greater profits? To be unburdened by what has been?). It is said that disruptive AI will transform the workplace, replace jobs, shake up economies and reshape global alliances. Our world, with Promethean AI, will look different by 2030. AI will look at us differently, too.

~~~~~

Dr. John Walton, Job, Lecture 25, The world in the Book of Job: Order, non-order and disorder

[i] The creation of the “sporty” Leviathan (Ps. 104:26), a creature that cannot be tamed, shows us God’s mastery over powerful creatures. Leviathan was used metaphorically to instruct Job (Job 41). Job (a behemoth-like creature) cannot tame God to his ideas of how the world works.

[ii] Consider that several ancient Near East accounts of a devastating flood were understood as a god using force to restore order in the world. See Genesis 6-9 for the theological interpretation of the mythic flood.

The writer of the Genesis Flood account, using hyperbole, wanted to impress upon the reader the theological implications of a universal “cataclysmic event” that occurred to restore creation. There was no global deluge, as science has determined and Ps 104: 9 indirectly states. No matter. The author wanted the reader to understand the theological significance of God’s act.

The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate

The Flood – Undeceptions

[iii] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 52

[iv] Yuval Harari, historian and futurist, gay Israeli and WEF advisor comes to mind and so does the N.I.C.E., The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments in That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

[v] Ibid 53

~~~~~

Protect our food supply from the Cure worse Than the Problem

Action Over Talk: Join the Nationwide Protest Against Food Supply mRNA!

This Friday, Americans across the country are coming together to take a stand. Concern is growing as Secretary Rollins moves closer to approving mRNA vaccines for the beef, dairy, and poultry industry to combat diseases like Avian Flu. Many are voicing their opposition, demanding that these vaccines not be used in our food supply.

Make Your Voice Heard! Flood Secretary Rollins’ email with your concerns:

AgSec@usda.gov

Contact Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins of whitehouse

Here is a structured email template for Secretary @BrookeLRollins:

Subject: Immediate Halt to Meat Supply Vaccination

Dear Secretary Rollins,

As Americans who supported the election of Donald J. Trump, we are deeply concerned about your plan to introduce vaccines into our nation’s meat supply, including pork, cattle, poultry, and even seafood.

We do not merely request a pause—we demand a complete and permanent stop to this effort. The American people will not accept government-mandated intervention in our food supply, especially without full transparency and consent.

If the USDA continues to push forward with testing and implementation of the H5N1 vaccine, we are prepared to take action. Our voices will not be ignored, and we will make it clear to President Trump that millions of Americans oppose this overreach.

We stand firm in our right to protect our food, our health, and our families. This is non-negotiable.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your State]

With the news that mRNA vaccinated beef, dairy, eggs, and poultry are already in the food supply, some are demanding to know where our Secretary of Health is. You’ll be pleased to know he’s practicing self-care with long walks in the mountains, while currently reposting advice from the CDC.

https://x.com/SecKennedy

Filed under apocalypse, Christianity, creation, creation care, Culture, Political Commentary, Revelation, Revelation Tagged with apocalypse, atheism, Bible, chaos, Christianity, creation, culture, faith, God, Jesus, Kingdom of God, prophecy, Revelation, The Great Flood

Evil’s Last Grasp

February 22, 2025 Leave a comment

“Dog Bites Man.” Not news. Madness – “Man Bites Dog” – is a headline! And so is nauseating “ultra-violence” (a term used in the disturbing A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s film version of Anthony Burgesses’ book). To wit, a small sample of recent “ultra-violence” revelations in the headlines:

Cops identify NJ woman as mystery straphanger torched to death in horrific NYC subway attack

A homeless woman in the NYC subway was set on fire by an illegal immigrant who fanned the flames and then calmly watched her burn to death from a bench on the platform.

And, A mob attack at Edina Southdale YMCA leaves teen with brain injury

And, Metro-North rider stabbed in chest after complaining about loud music on passenger’s phone

And, NYC postal worker stabbed to death over food.

And, Transgender Teen Charged with Plotting Valentine’s Day School Massacre.

And, with taxpayer money, USAID funded Boko Haram slaughter of Christians in Nigeria – LeoHohmann.com

And, 70 Christians beheaded in church by Muslims.

To keep “ultra-violence” going Biden admin released 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected al Qaeda ties from Guantanamo Bay — including two alleged former bin Laden bodyguards

And, 158 DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAINST DEPORTING SEX OFFENDERS

Day after day headlines reveal man-made horrors beyond our comprehension and of absurdities that become received wisdom. Two more recent headlines:

Warrant executed for ‘child pornography’ at Texas Modern Art Museum’s LGBTQ exhibit… – Revolver News

Fauci approved $240 million for sexual mutilation (transgender) experiments on animals.

Shocking and bizarre evil permeates the moral order of the universe. And it is not ideological ordinariness, as seen by Hannah Arendt in her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

Perhaps our age does not like the idea of evil or does not know what to make of it. And yet if there is one thing that we ought to be able to do, it is to identify true evil—the profundity of evil—when we see it. In our own day, it is put on display for all to see by death-cults like Hamas. – “The profundity of evil,” by Douglas Murray

‘Pure Evil’: Hamas Hands Over Remains of Dead Israeli Mother, Toddler & Infant

Hamas holds public celebration to hand over murdered babies in coffins.

Along with the use of extreme force to hurt or kill people, evil in the form of disorder, lies, chaos, corruption, grift, and utter perversion is in the news.

Here in America, the Progressive Blue Beast, allied with the primeval source of all opposition to God, refuses to give up its hold on its imperial capital. With the aid of the imperial cult propaganda machine – the main stream media – it whines, panders for sympathy and looks for ways to claw back power to continue its rule of tyranny.

It wasn’t long ago when the same propaganda machine told us to “trust (worship) the science.” We were told to pay homage to the idol the Blue Beast had created with masking, social distancing, and vaxxing the COVID mRNA spike protein vaccine into our bloodstream.

(Did you know? Yale Scientists Confirm Covid ‘Vaccines’ Cause VAIDS – Slay News VAIDS = vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. One has to wonder if the COVID vax was used for population control. Was it used to keep the population weak, sick, and controlled? To create complete dependency on Big Pharma’s “science?”)

Remember, the Blue Beast told us to believe in the Russian collusion hoax and in many other lies that came from its mouth.

The last four years of the Biden regime and the eight years of Obama have given us a eye-opening look at the direction and speed with which evil can overtake aspects of our lives. The evil processes of the Blue Beast from those days have become so entrenched that activist federal judges are blocking the eradication of it from government. (Be aware that programs like discriminatory DEI, like all of evil’s deceptive programs, is the moral opposite of (social) justice. See Solzhenitsyn quote below.)

The Blue Beast worships power and itself and tolerates no rivals. Evil in all of it various forms (serpent, dragon, and human) and devices, and throughout time, worships power and itself. Evil tolerates no rivals, and certainly not the Risen and Conquering Christ that the prophecy of Revelation testifies about.

~~~

First century Christians, without newspapers and headlines, saw and heard about violence, oppression, and idolatries in the Roman Empire. Their world, like ours and Job’s, seemed arbitrarily mean, capricious and unfair.

These early Christians knew the enemies of God in terms of satanic forces invested in polytheism, the Roman empire’s tyranny, the imperial cult propaganda and the pressure to submit to it. And, there were those preaching another gospel other than the one they received from the apostles. The power of evil was all around them and they were looking for a divine rescue.

They were also likely aware of gospel accounts of Jesus exorcizing unclean spirits and plundering the strong man’s house (Mk 3:27). For them, awaiting Christ’s imminent return, these accounts prefigured a final victory over evil and the final realization of the kingdom of God on earth. Into that context at the end of the first century, seven struggling churches in a Roman province in Asia received a wake-up call, the letter of Revelation.

The letter begins by addressing issues in each church through a prophetic word. There’s critique of a church’s waywardness, its false teaching, its lethargy and compromises. And there are warnings to get each church on track to be victorious. The letter effectively summons each church to get involved in the divine war against evil and to conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer (Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:28; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21).

How they are to conquer and what victory means is described in the rest of the letter. (Hint: conquering in Revelation has nothing to do with how the world conquers. And victory? There’s a promise that comes at the end of the letter referring to what was promised at the beginning of the letter to each church that conquers (Rev. 21:7).

You will want to read the whole of Revelation in one sitting to find out about Evil’s Last Grasp (cf. Gen. 3:15) and whether the three petitions of the Lord’s prayer are fulfilled. Is God’s name hallowed? Does his Kingdom come? Is God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven?

What would be the Final Headline and will you be one of those who were victorious over the beast? (Rev. 15:2)

~~~~~

The Big Reveal

Everyone who does evil hates the light; people like that don’t come to the light, in case their deeds get shown up and reproved. -The Gospel According to John 3:20

2025: The most transparent administration in American history is following the money . . .

The recent incursion of DOGE into the labyrinth of government has made headlines. As DOGE sheds light on what lurks there, deep state denizens are scurrying to use measures to hide their dark ways:

Eruption In “BleachBit,” “Wipe Hard Drive,” “Offshore Bank” Searches In DC Suggest Deep State Panic Mode | ZeroHedge

DC Internet Searches For “Criminal Defense Lawyer” & “RICO Law” Erupt As DOGE Drains Swamp

Martha Bueno on X: “These Senators voted AGAINST cutting the federal budget $1.5 trillion dollars. They say they want accountability but vote against it. Which one is the biggest hypocrite here? https://t.co/E8GhjljHZ2” / X

~~~~~

As in A Clockwork Orange, where a government agency works to rehabilitate the violent criminal Alex with an experimental aversion therapy, the World has had ongoing attempts at manipulating humans with mind control programs. Such are the CIA psyops, MSM propaganda, AI, brain chips, transhumanism, and more.

How Did Communism Get into the Corporations

~~~~~

Podcast:

Andrew Klaven with Megan Basham discuss her book, Shepherds for Sale.

Churches are being infiltrated – Megan Basham with Andrew Klaven

~~~~~

The evil that State media doesn’t report: Democrats illegally allowed into our country over 12,000,000 unvetted (and unvaccinated) aliens. The migrants were brought in for Democrat’s purposes: to consolidate Democrat power with votes and to support Democrat’s billionaire benefactors with low-cost workers. The illegals are to become serfs serving their welfare state lords.

The open borders madness was aided by Progressives in pulpits and by USAID-funded NGOs who participated and became rich (nonprofit Catholic Relief Services received $4.6 billion, cf. Rev. 3:14–22 ) helping the ‘poor little foreigner’ based on some misconstrued scripture.

It is certainly costs nothing to be ‘magnanimous’ and free with other people’s taxed money, property, freedom, safety, and our vulnerable children when sitting in your safe neighborhood virtue signaling the ‘goodness’ of open borders and ‘helping’ the ‘poor little foreigner’ in a social media text or a sermon.

You will hear from the creepy SJ James Martin on ‘X’ that “Caring for migrants and refugees Is not optional.” This kind of debauched out-of-context and Christian-sounding mumbo-jumbo for the ‘other’, directed toward the gullible – SJWs, suburban women, soy boys, and the like – is used by Martin to justify open borders, not just of our country but also for all kinds of sexual perversion in the church. Have you heard of the Lavender Mafia?

U.S. Catholic Church Spends $5 billion on 16,276 Clergy Sex Abuse Allegations in 20 Years

Four in five victims were male and one-fifth of the victims were female, the survey recorded, confirming reports by The Stream and other experts of a “lavender mafia” dominating the Latin-rite Roman Catholic priesthood.

Beware These 3 Lavender Mafias Outside the Church| National Catholic Register

Myopic, naïve, unwise, illegal, and compromised ‘compassion’ does more harm than good. Self-righteous compassion under the guise of “social justice” has become more important than the greater good.

Of course, if you speak out against open borders you are called “mean”, “racist”, a “xenophobe”, “unscriptural’, and more.

Apparently, ‘compassionately’ aiding and abetting foreigners in breaking U.S. law and thereby importing violence, narco-terrorism, fentanyl deaths, criminal gangs, drugs, felons, pedos, all kinds of disease, and economic migrants who flee their own country for a better ‘opportunity’ is OK as long as you help the “vulnerable” plunder and gut America and disregard the fact that our neighbors are made vulnerable to the above and to the chaos, disorder, disease, and cost that open borders causes.

Democrats have “invited every microbe on the planet onto our soil. And, now we are facing the consequences.”

Deporting Illegals Is A Good First Step, But Unfortunately The Microbes They Brought With Them Will Stay

The Immorality of Illegal Immigration – Victor Davis Hanson

Todd Bensman Discusses the Costs of Illegal Immigration

Interview with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: The Pope’s Accusations Against the Trump Government are False and Delusional

More plundering of America enabled by the wicked. Activist federal judge is blocking deportation. His wife is “appears to be the former Vice President of National Immigration Forum, a pro-open borders advocacy group.”

“George Soros’s Open Society Foundation is also reportedly the group’s largest donor.”

~~~~~

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology—that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Filed under 2025 Current Events, apocalypse, Christianity, Culture, Immigration, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, Revelation, Revelation Tagged with apocalypse, art, Bible, books, Christianity, DOGE, evil, government, Illegal Immigration, politics, progressivism, Revelation

Reentry

February 8, 2025 Leave a comment

April 1961. The first human to travel into space returned to Earth after traveling 17,500 mph for 108 minutes. He circled the earth once at a maximum altitude of 203 miles.

About 4.35 miles above the Earth, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin ejected from Vostok 1, a pressurized spherical capsule just two meters wide. He parachuted to the ground.

This first of its kind scientific event made Gagarin a space hero and made for a compelling narrative for the Soviet system to promote socialism and scientific atheism:

“For Soviet Communism, cosmonauts were utopianism made flesh – Socialist Realist heroes come to life – and Socialist Realism and socialist reality were never closer than during the Soviet space age.”[i]

After Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, Soviet leaders during the Khrushchev era (1953-1964) were eager for a return to party purity. Stalin had given up trying to purge religion from Soviet Russia. He had wanted to produce an atheist society. But after seeing that the stubborn religiosity of the masses could not be eradicated, he finally decided to maintain authoritarian control over it. He heavily regulated churches and church leaders to keep them politically impotent.

“Under Khrushchev, then, the party realized that it was not enough to eliminate the political and economic base of religion. In order to transform the Soviet society of the present into the Communist society of the future, religion had to be eradicated not just from Soviet politics and public life but also from Soviet people’s consciousness.”[ii]

Khrushchev’s focus on party purity meant a return to campaigns to eradicate religious “survivals” and the promotion of a scientific materialist conception of the world as outlined by Marx-Leninism. The latter, in the form of secularist rituals, was supposed to fill the void left behind by a life without religion.

Soviet space flights were thought to show the world that the Soviet’s scientific, materialist, and atheistic worldview was superior to that of the religious and capitalist U.S. After all, wasn’t science the only path to knowledge, and matter the fundamental reality? And wasn’t it reason and not God who put a man into space? And a space-hero cosmonaut who didn’t see God in space, well . . .

Before a plenary session of the Central Committee, Russian Premiere Nikita Khrushchev gave all the Party and Komsomol organizations [Young Communists] the mission of promoting anti-religious propaganda. With that directive he said: “Why are you clinging to God? Here Gagarin flew into space and didn’t see God.”

Yuri Gagarin’s close friend and colleague, Colonel Valentin Petrov, denied that Gagarin ever said that. The words put in Gagarin’s mouth by Russian Premiere Nikita Khrushchev and Gagarin’s supposed godlessness became popular folklore and a party narrative created to support atheism. The party knew that people would have believed more in Gagarin’s words than in Khrushchev’s.

From out of the heavens, Yuri Gagarin, a baptized member of the Russian Orthodox Church, reentered into a world system that set itself up opposed to God. Gagarin was made a caricature of the atheistic propaganda the party wanted to propagate.

Khrushchev: “Why should you clutch at God” (you cannot see when you look out the capsule window into space when you can envision a materialist utopia in the successful figure of our own cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.)

~~~~~

A view through a window into heaven . . .

At the end of the first century CE, seven churches of Asia received a circular letter sent from the island of Patmos. The author composed the letter “in the spirit” on the Lord’s Day. The letter was to be read out loud in full on the Lord’s Day when Christians met for corporate worship. Their circumstances served as a type of inset in the letter’s cosmic space-time mapping.

The churches were situated in a Roman province in what is now western Turkey. Some twenty years before, the Roman Empire unleashed its full power against a Jewish rebellion resulting in the fall of Jerusalem and the complete destruction of the Second Temple.

Though Christian persecution had been sporadic, the oppressive nature of the Roman Empire made for distressful times for these early Christians. Devotion to and worship of only one Lord and God kept these Christians under suspicion by Roman authorities.

The surrounding Greco-Roman culture was polytheistic. The official state religion, headed by Jupiter, was the Roman pantheon of gods. Temples to Jupiter, Mars, and Venus were built throughout Rome. Being able to add your god or goddess to the local pantheon of gods worked to keep a diversity of religions in check for Pax Romana.

The Roman empire operated under ‘divine’ authority. The emperor, both a political and a deified religious figure, held absolute power. He maintained authority through political alliances, military might and a dutiful citizenry.

Public support for the imperial cult worked to solidify the emperor’s authority. Citizens were expected to show loyalty to the ‘divine’ emperor by participating in religious festivals, rituals, and emperor worship. Neglecting the imperial cult was considered treasonous.

Throughout the empire Roman power and political influence were on display with monuments, mosaics, iconography, frescos, and image-stamped coins. Adding to perceptions of Rome as a formidable world power was literature, inscriptions, myths, architecture, and elaborate public ceremonials.

All eyes on the emperor.

Roman imperial propaganda was also used to shape the public’s perception of the emperor. His presence, like Rome’s, was to be sensed everywhere – in public places and in the sanctuaries of the imperial cult in provincial towns.

Emperors were depicted as tough warrior and general types and as benevolent paternalistic protector and statesman types. At the time of the Patmos letter Emperor Domitian governed (81 to 96 CE) as divine monarch and benevolent despot. As such, he saw himself as a cultural and moral authority able to guide every aspect of a citizen’s life.

The expectation for everyone under Roman rule was to respond to Rome in its terms and beyond that, to show devotion to the sovereign emperor. Or, feel the force of the empire. Fear was the motivation. “Bread and circus games” were the distractions used to deflect from the fact that Roman emperors were selfish and incompetent tyrants.

The Patmos letter was sent to those who held an expectation of God’s coming universal rule and to those who lost that focus. A clash between an all-powerful Sovereign and his kingdom and the ubiquitous domineering emperor and empire was expected. The letter, with vivid prophetic imagery, did not disappoint.

Every eye will see him.

Christians in the seven churches, upon hearing “Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, yes, even those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of him. Yes! Amen,” looked out the window of their imagination to see Christ and the coming of God’s universal rule.

As the letter was read, they recognized the “satanic trinity” fighting against them and God’s kingdom on earth: “the dragon or serpent (the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God), the beast or sea-monster (the imperial power of Rome), and the second beast or earth-monster (the propaganda machine of the imperial cult).”[iii]

And they heard a devastating critique of Roman power dynamics. The letter recognized “the way a dominant culture, with its images and ideals, constructs the world for us, so that we perceive and respond to the world in its terms. Moreover, it unmasks this dominant construction of the world as an ideology of the powerful which serves to maintain their power.”[iv]

They also envisioned their role in saying “No” to the idolatries of Rome (Babylon) and to be a witness of the truth worth dying for to all tribes of the earth. And then the Day of the Lord.

After hearing the letter read, the church community once again reentered into a world system opposed to their Sovereign. But now they had something their imaginations could clutch – a view of God’s throne room and of “what must soon take place” – and a counter-cultural approach for the church.

More about John’s Apocalypse or The Revelation of John in the next post.

[i] Smolkin, Victoria. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism. Princeton University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1zgb089. PP 86-87

[ii] Ibid 61

[iii] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 89

[iii] Ibid 159

~~~~~

A counter-cultural approach for the church

In this parable of Jesus, recorded in the gospel of Mark (chap. 4), notice how the kingdom of God grows -not by power, might or militancy:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like. Once upon a time a man sowed seed on the ground. Every night he went to bed; every day he got up; and the seed sprouted and grew without him knowing how it did it. The ground produces crops by itself: first the stalk, then the ear, then the complete corn in the ear. But when the crop is ready, in goes the sickle at once, because harvest has arrived.”

~~~~~

Melanie Hempe, founder of Screen Strong, joins host Scot Bertram of Hillsdale College to discuss how to prevent your children from forming a lifelong screen addiction, simple tips for reducing screen time, and how to answer questions from other parents.

How to Combat Screen Addiction

How to Combat Screen Addiction – Hillsdale College Podcast Network

~~~~~

Filed under apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, Communism, Revelation, Revelation, Scripture Tagged with atheism, Bible, Christianity, history, Jesus, religion, Revelation, Roman Empire, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Communism

Surface Readings

January 25, 2025 Leave a comment

Now is the age of anxiety. ― W H Auden

“THE END IS NEAR.” Phenomena Pending.

Impending doom has been in the news during my entire lifetime. You can view some of the headlines and pronouncements here: Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.

Before I came on the scene in the early 50s, the advent of nuclear weapons in the 40s posed the threat of nuclear war annihilation. Adding to American’s anxiety and panic during the Cold War period that followed was the new mass medium of 1950s television. Its B&W news, public service announcements, documentaries, and science fiction programming brought into homes the stark magnitude of the nuclear age.

One response during that anxious time was to use ‘Duck and Cover’ drills in schools across the United States. Students were trained as to what they should do in case of an atomic attack – dive under their desks and cover their heads (Producing another Atomic Kid!).

And though in the early 60s the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was discussed as a mutual deterrent, no one knew what would happen as in 1962 when the Cold War nearly escalated into nuclear war. The United States and the Soviet Union faced off during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The escalating arms race was at issue.

Released in 1965, Barry McGuire’s The Eve Of Destruction protest song addressed the instability in the world – the prospect of nuclear war, the Vietnam War, the middle east conflict and civil rights.

During the late 60s and early 70s, I was involved in the Chicago area Jesus People movement. I remember attending a Larry Norman concert where he sang, I Wish We’d All Been Ready. (Sadly, the song refers to a “Rapture” event, a popular escape plan for Christians based on a mis-reading of scripture.)

Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we’d all been ready . . .

There’s no time to change your mind
The Son has come and you’ve been left behind . . .

A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head
He’s gone
I wish we’d all been ready . . .

Spectacularly wrong environmental and climate predictions were made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970. Some in 1971 predicted an Ice Age. Not one of the alarmist climate crisis predictions during my lifetime (or yours) have ever come to pass.

Nor did the wild claims of ‘The Adam and Eve Story’, written by a former US Air Force employee, UFO researcher and self-proclaimed psychic Chan Thomas in 1966. For the past 59 years the book has been kept under wraps by the CIA. The claims of the book are based around periodic cataclysmic events in history. The next one he proposed would be a sudden reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, thereby wreaking havoc and total destruction to the planet in a matter of hours.

“You Never Want a Serious Crisis to Go to Waste.”

Along with the many end-of the world scenarios came Pop eschatology. The end-times prophecy business has been around during my entire lifetime. Not long ago I received a flyer announcing a weekend End-Times Prophecy seminar to be held at a local hotel.

In 1995 a series of books fictionalizing events surrounding a supposed rapture and seven-year tribulation period prior to the second coming of Christ began to appear on best-seller lists. The 16 Left Behind lowbrow thrillers of the Left Behind series, authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, arrived on the scene twenty-five years after another end-times book.

When Hal Lindsey and C. C. Carlson came out with The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 it sold millions of copies. Their ‘non-fiction’ end-times book was later adapted (1979) into a documentary film narrated by Orson Welles.

Some readers might recall that Orson Well’s, on October 30, 1938, gave a dramatic War of the Worlds radio broadcast. It scared the heck out of a lot of people. Some say Lindsey’s book did the same.

The Pop eschatology of LGPE, applied to current events such as the Cold War, was released shortly after the Israel’s Six-Day War. The authors aligned their dispensational theology with contemporary geopolitical events to show that civilization was headed for doomsday. They pushed hardcore Zionism.

Men Who Stare at Charts

The Left Behind series, The Late Great Planet Earth, and much of today’s “prophecy”, are steeped in John Nelson Darby’s dispensational theology and “rapture” nonsense. Darby (1800-1882) was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, clergyman, and founder of the Plymouth Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren. Among other things, he thought that Christians should not be involved in politics (as if Jesus ascended to the Father only to leave us here to ponder salvation in different epochs, to develop dispensational theology charts to schedule God’s acts, and to console ourselves with millennial dreams.)

In my estimation, dispensational theology, which didn’t exist in the church history until Darby came along and the Scofield Bible expanded its reach, is a way of charting Scripture into manageable chunks of salvation history and a way of managing God and expectations. This theology proposed to show how God planned for people’s salvation in each historical period by what relates to Israel, what relates to the church, and what the End Times will look like. It was a way to get a handle on dates and times and God.

Dispensational theology and its offshoot Pop eschatology seem to be a science project applied to theology. Darby, the originator of a pre-trib rapture, lived during the 1800s, a period following the Enlightenment when knowledge by way of rationalism and of empiricism was emphasized.

I don’t know that anyone cares about dispensational theology except for a few wonky theologians. If you do, then see The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation and What Is Dispensationalism and Who Believes It?

Pop eschatology looks at the geopolitical landscape, cherry picks what is literal and symbolic, and crams headline news into end-time predictions. But “de-coding” symbolic scripture prophecies to give a detailed scenario of end-time events is not Christian eschatology. It’s trying to time the market for the I wish we’d all been ready crowd to jump in. It’s manipulation of scripture and of people to produce a turn to God out of FOMO.

~~~

Added 6-23-2025, in light of the Israel/US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities:

I have a great deal of sympathy for Christians who still believe the lore that dispensationalism offers. I understand what motivates them and why. But, it is well past time for the church to provide better Bible teaching that does not encourage American Christians to develop misplaced loyalties. American Christians have duties to their nation and their church. But for too many American Christians, misplaced theological convictions have led to political loyalties that prioritize Israel over both the church and their own nation.

https://www.jchasedavis.com/p/rumors-of-war

Questions Abound

This post is not meant to be a reproach to making sense and order of what is happening around us. That’s what we do, especially in a time and under those who “forsake the law and praise the wicked” (Prov. 28:4):

Why did Joe Biden award the wicked Hillary Clinton and George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

And why did Biden pardon the treasonous General Mark Milley and the murderous Anthony Fauci? Why did Joe Biden preemptively pardon them and the illegal Jan. 6 committee? (I don’t believe these Federal pardons are legal. In any case, states can bring charges against them.)

Why did Joe Biden commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — a list that includes at least five child killers and several mass murderers? Biden gave the reprieve to some of the nation’s most violent murderers — nine of them found too dangerous to live after butchering fellow inmates — as part of his effort at “ensuring a fair and effective justice system.”

Why did Joe Biden preemptively pardon capitol police officer Michael Byrd, the one who murdered unarmed US Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit on J6?

Why haven’t the “Spies Who Lie” – 51 intelligence agents – who signed a letter in 2020 saying emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop carried “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation in an effort to interfere with the election been brought to justice? (Trump just yanked their security clearances.)

How does one justify Biden protecting Ukraine’s border with billions and billions of US taxpayer dollars and weapons as being more important than protecting our own overrun borders and our exposed citizens? And how does one justify Biden and Ukraine escalating the war with Russia to a point that’s dangerously close to nuclear war?

And what about those (Globalists, WEF, WHO) who appear to use dystopian novels as their guidebook to immanentize the eschaton with their version of sense and order – a New World Order – under the guise of saving the planet (from the people living here)?

And, going forward, why turn over our future to godless pagan Globalists and their anti-human tokenization of life? Why let them concentrate power in human-replacing AI?

(Thank God. Trump just signed executive orders to get the U.S. out of the WHO and out of the Paris Climate Accord. He also signed an EO barring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). CBDCs could facilitate a social credit scoring system that controlled a person’s behavior and assets.

Trump also signed EOs to secure the border with a National Emergency and EOs that work to eliminate “government censorship of free speech” and the “weaponization of government” against “political adversaries of the previous administration.” Thank God Christians were involved in politics this last election!

Seeing evil expand its reach over the last four years of the illegitimate Biden regime and finding out that there were Christians who supported four more years of it just to say “No” to Trump, had me horrified at where this world is headed. With Trump as president now we have some buffer against the evil that works to overcome us. The fight against dark forces is not over.)

Alarm bells should go off when you hear dogmatic pronouncements such as “Trump will destroy democracy” and “humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.” These preposterous statements are meant to manipulate. We must be careful as to what and who we put our trust in.

When things converge and become dark, ugly and threatening, imaginations take on visions of the end times. And unless you are a nihilist and believe in Nothing except power, you desire a time when things will be put right. Most of us want justice to prevail in the end and to see all of our best hopes realized.

Despite literal, surface-level interpretations of conditions here on earth leading to end-of the world predictions, false prophecies, doomsday scenarios, worries about near-Earth asteroids, hyperbolic threats of “mass extinction” due to a “climate crisis”, and a “global crisis of unprecedented reach and proportion” (Fauci’s gain-of-function pandemic) The End has not happened during my 70+ years. Why?

“THE END IS IN PROCESS.”

The delay of The End, the delay in Christ’s Parousia or Second Coming, is God’s patience and grace giving people time hear the truth and to repent. How do they hear the truth? Those who have entered God’s kingdom as a result of his first appearance have a role in bearing witness to the nations to bring about God’s universal kingdom before his Second Coming.

Before “God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all” (Paul in Rom. 2:16), all nations are to hear the gospel message. God’s desire is that all people hear the truth about His Son and turn to him and away from the worship of false gods and false power. This is what John of Patmos communicates to seven struggling churches in a Roman province in Asia with his apocalyptic prophecy Revelation.

John of Patmos writes to the seven churches, each in their own context, about their witness within the context of the worldwide tyranny of Rome and the broader context of God’s cosmic battle against evil and his purpose for his creation and kingdom.

John makes it clear that witness of the truth proceeds based on the church’s loyalty to God’s kingdom and the church knowing the truth worth dying for and on the church being a faithful witness of that truth even unto death. The truth: Jesus Christ, the Lamb Who was slain, is One with God and worthy of all worship and praise.

Revelation was written within the setting of the Roman empire. Early Christians were struggling against the “satanic trinity: the dragon or serpent (the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God), the beast or sea-monster (the imperial power of Rome), and the second beast or earth-monster (the propaganda machine of the imperial cult).”[i] The worship and witness of only the One True God and not of the Roman emperor put these early Christians in serious opposition to this “satanic trinity.”

Regarding a surface reading of events and of scripture (sometimes called “the plain meaning of the text”), consider the reverse engineering applied to the Genesis creation account to create a ‘Biblical origins’ response to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and later, for the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Based on research that includes astrophysics, geology, and the James Webb Space Telescope, the universe is estimated to be 13.8 -26.7 billion years old. But reverse engineering of earth’s age using a literal surface reading interpretation of the creation account in Genesis estimates the earth to be about 6-10,000 years old. In terms of Jewish and Chrisitan thinking over millennia, the young earth creationism (YEC) position came about recently.

The YEC position has tied itself to concerns of Biblical inerrancy as if only a plain reading of the text, the lowest level of understanding, is what makes the Bible the Word of God. The fact that the Bible was written for us but not to us, the YEC position doesn’t allow for a historically contextual understanding to be taken into account.

Consider that the same reverse engineering used for the creation account (recently, the attempt to conform physical evidence into a Young-Earth biblical framework) has often been applied to End Time accounts in scripture to conform events to dispensational theology.

The prophecy and theology of Revelation relates not literal dates and geopolitical events but cosmic eventualities and resolutions. Its message for those in Christ is to persevere while living with evil opposition all around and with the tension of the imminence and delay of Christ’s return.

John encourages the churches: the enemies of God are finally defeated to make way for the ushering in of God’s fully realized everlasting kingdom. Heaven and earth will be joined together.

The delay of The End is a concern in heaven. John writes (Rev. 6): When [the Lamb] broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”

John’s apocalyptic vision, filled with symbols and with descriptions of mythical characters evoking the book of Daniel, summons our imaginations to visualize things as heaven sees them. John’s prophecy, like the hundreds of OT prophecies he alludes to, is to reveal God’s POV.

Revelation, you see, is what history has been all about. With that understanding, we carry on “knowing what soon must take place” (Rev. 1:1).

More about Revelation in my next post.

[i] Bauckham, R. (1993/2018). The theology of the Book of Revelation. PP 88-89

~~~~~

The Tribulation and the Rapture – Dr. Walter Martin (Historic Premillennial)

~~~~~

“Can you give me a hand moving these?”

Daily Cartoon: Monday, May 13th | The New Yorker

Reports from Davos before President Trump speaks:

Personhood For Rivers And Trees: Larry Taunton On The Fundamentally Anti-Human Sentiment Of WEF

Noor Bin Ladin Reporting From WEF: The Golden Age Is Incompatible With AI Replacement

Filed under 2024 Current Events, Christianity, end times, Kingdom of God, prophecy, Revelation, Revelation, The Great Reset, The Kingdom of God Tagged with apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, end times, God, Jesus, prophecy, Revelation, The Late Great Planet Earth, The Left Behind Series

A Place of Worship

January 12, 2025 Leave a comment

Like all buildings, the building at 133 Adams St., was built for a purpose.

The west-side structure wasn’t a grand soaring Gothic edifice like other churches in Chicago. Rather, it was a simple structure built with minimal resources under the direction of a simple man and his wife: Daan and Linnea De Leeuw. They wanted a blue-collar Bible church for their growing family and the growing community.

The church was built according to the De Leeuw’s plans and the money God provided. Once the corner lot with an existing house was purchased and a permit issued, church members raised the structure as they could only afford to pay the building contractor.

Around a cornerstone with the inscription “1952+”, a concrete block building was erected with a pitched roof and no steeple. Three white stone crosses were set in relief on the brick face of the building. A parking lot was created. The old house on the corner became the parsonage.

The interior of the sanctuary was no nonsense. The concrete block side walls were painted-beige. Three windows with amber bubble glass lined each side wall. Forest green curtains bordered the windows. The walls around the windows were bare except for a small wooden rack near the organ. It held the numbers of the previous service and Sunday school attendance and the offering amount.

Front and center on the platform stood a large wing pulpit. Three large minister chairs were behind it along the choir loft. A piano and an organ flanked the platform. On the back wall above the choir loft was a plaque which read “God is in His Holy Temple. Let All the Earth Keep Silent. Hab. 2:20.”

To the right of the platform and behind a large rectangular hole in the wall was the baptistry. A landscape was painted on the walls surrounding the water tank.

On the main floor in front of the pulpit was the oak communion table. “This Do In Remembrance of Me” was carved on the front. The table held the offering plates and a flower arrangement – the only element of beauty in the building.

Opposite the platform, sixteen rows of chairs back, was the entrance to the sanctuary. A clock was hung centered above the double door entrance to let the minister know when to end the service.

When the church was dedicated, Daan became its pastor. Thirty families joined the church. Over time there were altars calls, baptisms, weddings, and banquets. Weekly children’s programs were developed. The church membership grew. Two hundred more voices were added to the congregational government.

At one point it was decided that the church could take on more debt and expand. A large wing, at a right angle to the sanctuary, was added. The addition included a gym and kitchen upstairs and classrooms downstairs.

With a growth in membership came an increase in disagreements. Disputes arose about what Biblical texts meant, about how things should be handled, about who should or shouldn’t be a member, and about finances. Church business meetings became so rancorous that Daan and Linnea decided to leave the church, move far away, and abandon the building and its original purpose. With the De Leeuw’s departure, a pastoral search committee was formed to find a replacement.

The search would repeat itself over and over every few years as there was always dissatisfaction and disappointment with each person they brought in. Interim pastors would fill the pulpit more often than a full-time minister. Families, frustrated with the lack of cohesion, stopped coming.

Many began attending other local churches and some moved away. Membership dropped down to just a few of the original builders and attendees. As such, the church was no longer financially sustainable. The building and property were sold to a Jehovah’s Witness congregation which turned it into a Kingdom Hall.

A few years later the JWs sold the church when they moved across town to another building. The new owner was a restaurateur.

After rezoning to change the corner property to commercial use, he converted the gym into a banquet hall. There was a large kitchen adjacent to it. The sanctuary was converted into an entertainment venue. The classrooms became multipurpose rooms. One large room was made into a salon with hairstylists, nail specialists and an electrologist. A Yoga studio was set up in another and the other rooms became storage and stock rooms.

A large sign that said Transitions Banquet Hall & Entertainment Venue was installed in front of the three raised crosses. Garish lighting illuminated the sign and the outside walls. Neighbors were none too pleased about the lights, the traffic and the noise so close to their homes. They had lived by a non-disruptive house of worship and now a disturbing spectacle had taken its place.

Wedding receptions were held in the banquet hall. The room could accommodate two-hundred guests, a DJ and a dance floor. Strobe lights and a disco ball light hung from the ceiling.

In the sanctuary, singers, comedians, and magicians performed. Drinks were served. The concrete block walls, painted red, were covered with photographs of past and present entertainers. Sound speakers hung in the corners of the room.

The banquet hall and entertainment venue operated successfully for seven years, but there was something about it that was always at odds with the neighbor’s conventionalism. Concerned also about the area’s decline, its noise, rising crime, and rising property taxes, and wanting a better quality of life, homeowners fled the area. Boarded up properties, trash, and overgrown weeds began to appear.

It was only a matter of time before Transitions’ customer base eroded away. Wedding bookings dropped off and entertainment acts no longer booked. With the loss of customers and income, the building’s upkeep went into disrepair and service quality dropped off. The owner decided to start up again somewhere else. So, he put the property up for sale. But no offers were forthcoming.

Over a decade the abandoned buildings became covered with graffiti. The cornerstone and crosses, too. The onetime place of worship became an eyesore condemned by the community. At city board meetings neighbors voiced concerns about what was going on in the building and in the former parsonage. People were coming and going day and night. Was the building, once a symbol of hope for those who met there, now a heroin den?

The onetime house of worship would be fondly remembered through pictures on Facebook and good times associated with it. But the deserted and decaying house of worship now stands as a remembrance of the disputes which brought about its demise and abandonment of purpose.

Would a developer come along and renovate and repurpose the existing buildings? Would the developer know the building’s original purpose? Would he, instead, tear it down and build new? Would he keep the cornerstone or discard it for a new milestone?

~~~~~

The Angelus – Jean-Francois Millet 1857-1859

Millet: “The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed.

An X-ray of the painting on request of Dali who was impressed greatly by the contrast between the idyllic background and tragic poses of the peasants. It appeared that originally instead of the basket of potatoes Millet had depicted a baby coffin. Thus the couple was burying their child.

The Angelus (painting) – Wikipedia

Filed under Christianity Tagged with Bible, Christianity, church, faith, Jesus

Birding

December 14, 2024 Leave a comment

Thanksgiving morning Toby woke up to noise and smells. He got out of bed and went downstairs in his PJs. The noise and smells were coming from the kitchen. His mother, aunt Susie and grandma Evans were talking and cooking. His seven-year-old sister Tilly was sitting on the counter singing one of her happy songs.

In the family room, Uncle Kevin and his father were sitting at a card table. Grandpa was sitting in the big chair reading a book. Toby went over to the card table.

“Hey Tob,” said Uncle Kevin.

“What are you doing?” Toby asked.

“We’re playing Risk,” replied his father.

“Can I play?” Toby asked.

“I think this game is a bit too hard for you,” his father replied. “We’ll play a different game later.”

Grandpa called Toby to come over and sit on his lap. Five-year old Toby did just that. He wanted to know what grandpa was looking at.

“It’s A Year-Round Guide to Indiana Bird Watching,” grandpa told him.

“Why you reading that grandpa?

“I like birds, Tobias. Do you?”

“Uh-huh.” Toby rubbed his eyes and lifted the book to see the pictures. “What’s that?’ He pointed to the page.

“That’s a Dark-eyed Junco,” grandpa replied. “It says here that they like to eat seeds, insects and berries.”

“Huh. His name is Junco?”

“Yes. If you were a bird, I’d call you a Blue-eyed Tobias.” Grandpa smiled.

Toby turned the page. “Why do you like birds, grandpa?”

“Birds are special creatures. They seem to be wherever we are, as if God wanted to make sure we notice them. They are free and at the same time totally dependent on God and His created order.

“And there are so many kinds of birds, Tobias.” Grandpa flipped through the pages. “They bring color and sound to our lives. Seeing them and hearing them is proof that nature is healthy. I try to spot a bird by its coloring and by its songs and calls.”

“Birds have songs?”

“They sure do. Male birds sing to attract female birds. They also sing to scare off other birds from their territory and to bond with mates and young’uns. You want to hear a Mourning Dove Song?”

“Yeah.”

Grandpa took a deep breath, formed his mouth and went “coo-AH-oo coo-coo”. He waited and then again “coo-AH-oo coo-coo.”

“The Mourning Dove keeps repeating this song until a female is attracted. That’s how I met your grandmother.” Toby’s eyes lit up when he saw grandma smile.

“Bird experts can tell the species of a bird by just listening to its song. Each species has its own song.”

“What’s speecheese?”

“A species is a way to name animals that are alike and have babies like them. Let’s see,” he found the page. “It says here that the Dark-eyed Junco is a species of Junco, a group of small, grayish sparrows.”

“It also says that Male Dark-eyed Juncos sing a sweet, high-pitched trill that sounds similar to the songs of the Chipping Sparrow and Pine Warbler. And during the winter, Juncos come to backyard feeders for millet and bird seed. I saw one at my bird feeder this morning.”

Toby looked over at the kitchen. “Let’s see if your mother has something for you to eat.” Grandpa moved Toby to his feet, got up, and the two of them went into the kitchen.

Toby was given a yogurt by his mother. Eating it, he watched Grandpa put his finger into the cranberry sauce, taste it and pucker his lips. Then grandpa put his finger into the mashed sweet potatoes, tasted it and said “Yum!” And then he put his finger into the pumpkin pie mix, tasted it and said “mm-mmm.”

When he reached for the stuffing, Grandma, hands on her hips, said, “Shoo you two. Come back when we’re ready to eat, in about two hours.”

“Let’s go for a walk Toby,” Grandpa said. “Get dressed in warm clothes. We’re going birding.”

A voice in the next room said, “Dad, the weather man said that central Indiana is 30 degrees and cloudy.”

Before Toby left the kitchen his mother said, “Go make your bed first and then put on your corduroy pants and blue sweater and then comb your hair.”

Toby shot upstairs and came back down two minutes later. His mother looked him over and then had grandpa put on his winter coat, his gloves, and the knitted hat that grandma made for him.

Outside, grandpa went over to his car and took out a pair of binoculars. He showed Toby and said “Maybe we will see a cardinal today.”

As they walked down two blocks past houses, they saw no birds. But then Grandpa spotted a Mourning Dove on a roof. He handed Toby the binoculars after adjusting the focus. “Let’s wait here and listen.”

When the dove began its song, Toby was transfixed until the dove flew out of sight.

They walked to the end of the street and came to a T-intersection. On the other side of the crossroad was open farmland. Wind whistled through the field of corn stalk stumps. Grandpa tied the ear flaps of Toby’s knitted hat below his chin.

To their left and down the road about forty yards was a small group of trees and undergrowth. “Let’s head there,” Grandpa told Toby.

As they walked along on the farm side of the road, Toby found a corn cob. Holding the smooth kernelled end, Toby showed grandpa the half-eaten end.

Grandpa looked it over and said, “Probably some squirrel started eating it. Or may be a goose.”

As they neared the trees, grandpa stopped and brought the binoculars to his eyes. He then handed them to Toby. “What do you see in that tree?” Grandpa pointed.

Toby looked and said, “The birds keep moving so I can’t see them.”

“They might be getting ready for winter,” Grandpa replied. They’re probably in a hurry to get out of the wind and get things settled for winter.”

Then Grandpa spotted a falcon perched on top of a utility pole that was about thirty yards down the road. He adjusted the focus of the binoculars and handed them to Toby. “Look up there. Can you see that falcon, Tobias?” He pointed to the electric pole.

Toby looked and said, “That is a falcon?”

Grandpa looked again. “Yes. A falcon known as the American Kestrel. I can tell by dark gray head, the rust-colored back and tail, the white cheeks and throat and blue-black bill. It’s the smallest of falcons. Some call it a “Sparrow Hawk”.”

“They like open areas without dense cover. He’s sitting up there to view the whole area for food. He’s scanning for prey on the ground. He’ll sit and wait. He’ll only attack when he’s sure that he will succeed. When he has prey in sight, he will either catch it on the ground or in flight.

“In the summer months he’ll hunt and eat dragonflies, cicadas, beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies and moths, scorpions, and spiders. He’ll hover and capture insects in the air.

“In winter weather, like right now, he’ll hunt small mammals like mice, voles, shrews, and bats. And he’ll hunt small birds . . . like that little sparrow that just flew into the field. He pointed to it.

Grandpa let Toby use the binoculars to observe the falcon. “Let’s see what happens,” he said. “I wonder if that falcon noticed that small bird.”

A moment later, the falcon swooped down, grabbed the bird with his claws, and flew back to his high perch.

“Did you see that grandpa?” Toby asked.

“I sure did. He’s going back to his perch to eat it. Take another look.”

“Do birds eat other birds, grandpa?”

“They sure do. Birds of prey, like this falcon, have evolved to catch diverse things like insects, small mammals, and birds.

“I just remembered something. When I was a boy, Tobias, my father took me birding. One day he said “Frankie, there are so many birds but you never see dead birds. He told me that dead birds vanish because predators and scavengers come along and eat them. That’s why most bird bodies disappear. Creatures like foxes, badgers, ants, and birds of prey scavenge dead birds. The value of the bird’s life is returned to nature. Nature, he said, provides food for itself. Live birds and dead birds contribute to the lifecycle of our ecosystem.”

The sun never came out. The icy wind blowing across the open field made Toby’s nose and cheeks red. Grandpa said it was time for them to head back.

When they arrived home and opened the door, they were met with a rush of warm air, laughter, and savory smells. They saw the dining room table was set and the food ready to come out.

“Go wash your hands you two,” mom said. “We are ready to eat.”

When everyone had found their place at the table, mom asked grandpa to pray the blessing.

We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the beauty of
earth and sky and sea; for the richness of mountains, plains,
and rivers; for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers.
We praise you for these good gifts, and pray that we may
safeguard them for our posterity. Grant that we may continue
to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation.
And now we ask Your blessing on this food we are about to eat. Amen.

A loud “AMEN!” followed.

Toby’s mother then handed Toby’s father a knife and said, “Carve the bird.” Toby gulped when he heard that. He looked over at grandpa.

“Tom turkey has been well fed. Now, he feeds us. Tobias, do you know which bird is at every meal?”

“No.”

“A swallow. Do you know which birds go to church a lot?

“No.”

“Birds of prey. What do you call a mean turkey?”

“I dunno.”

“A jerk-ey. What do you give a sick bird?”

“I dunno.”

“Tweetment! Did you hear about the owl with no friends?

“No.”

“He was owl by himself.”

The adults groaned. Toby wanted more.

After plates were filled and people were busy eating, Uncle Kevin asked Toby to tell everyone what he saw birding with grandpa.

“I saw a falcon. It came down and got a bird and ate it,” Toby exclaimed.

“Ewwwww!” Tilly didn’t like the thought.

Toby forked a piece a turkey, held it up, looked at his sister and said “Now I am a falcon!” and gobbled it down.

~~~~~

American Kestrel

American Kestral – Call of the Male

Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-Eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco Sounds, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Bird Sounds and Songs of the Dark-eyed Junco | The Old Farmer’s Almanac

Dark-eyed Junco | Audubon Field Guide

Easter Morning Central Indiana Bird Song

~~~~~

American Kestrel – Photo by John Mariani

Vermilion Flycatcher at Cattail Marsh in Beaumont, TX – Photo by John Mariani

Eastern Phoebe at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, TX – Photo by John Mariani

American Tree Sparrow, Northwest Ohio – Photo by American_Phoenix

The quirky nature humor of https://rosemarymosco.com/

Northern Shrike, new cartoon by Rosemary Mosco.

~~~~~

The presence of birds in our lives brings good health. Indeed research shows that the richer and more various the birds in a neighborhood, the higher people’s satisfaction with life. Birdsong is the natural sound linked most strongly to reducing stress and promoting restoration, particularly when it is more diverse and people are prompted to notice it. Birds bring joy.

Five curious health benefits of dark midwinter, according to science | The Independent

~~~~~

Imagination sees a parallel universe.

Filed under Christianity, Holiday, nature, Ornithology, short piece, Short Story, Thanksgiving, Writing Tagged with birding, birds, Christianity, family, nature, Ornithology, Photography, Short Story, Thanksgiving, wildlife

What’s Your Relationship with Wisdom?

November 27, 2024 Leave a comment

Imagine. You are the half-brother of a new baby brother. The little guy seems to be prized above all else. Certainly, there was a big fuss about his birth. Field workers showed up just to see him. They talked of angels appearing.

A couple years later, sages come from a long way away. They talk of being guided by a star to find a newborn king. They give your half-brother expensive gifts.

Then your father has a dream. He says that authorities want to kill your brother. Your father and step-mother suddenly take your brother and flee to another country. You and your brothers and sisters stay with relatives in Bethlehem. When they return with the boy, your family moves to Nazareth in Galilee. There are too many eyes on Bethlehem, your father says.

You can’t forget the time your family went to up Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. Afterward, walking for a day toward home, your step-mother finds out that your half-brother is not around. When asked about his whereabouts, you said “How should I know where he is? Am I his baby sitter?”

Your family walks back to Jerusalem to look for him. Your father and mother ask folks along the way if they’ve seen your brother. It turns out, after three days of looking for that guy, that you find him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. He’s got their attention! The nerve of your twelve-year kid brother!

Your step-mother was panicky. She was not at all happy when we finally found him. She said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

And he says “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” That sounded like crazy talk.

You, Jacob, and your brothers, Joses, Judah, and Simon and your sisters Salome and Mary are astonished at the attention your father and step-mother and others give to your half-brother. You become jealous and find it easy to look askance at him. You are not alone in these feelings.

When he teaches in your synagogue, people whisper “Where’d he get all this? Where’d he get this wisdom? How does he have that kind of power in his hands?” Everyone was wondering “Who is this guy?” “Isn’t he just a local yokel like the rest of us?” They took offense at him.

He is your brother, so you try to reserve judgement. He does say and do astonishing things but you find it really hard to believe in him. He’s been a mystery since the beginning. You and your three brothers think that if he really is such a big deal he should go show himself to the whole world. The four of you push him to do this. But he goes in a deadly direction.

After your half-brother’s resurrection, you are convinced beyond any doubt that he is the Christ, God’s great mystery. You agree with the apostle Paul that he became to us wisdom from God. And, that everything that we have – right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start – comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

~~~

Who is Jacob, in translations called James? He was a half-brother of Jesus and therefore, an eyewitness of his life. He was likely one of the sources for the gospel of Luke along with Peter, Cleopas, Mary, and Joanna. James could vouch for the infancy narrative and childhood of Jesus. The gospel of Luke notes, in the account of the boy Jesus at the temple, that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Both James and Mary would know this.

James is mentioned in the gospel of Mark (6:3) and the gospel of Matthew (13:55). He is in Paul’s list of eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15: 5-7).

Paul mentions that he received his apostleship in the same tradition as the Jerusalem apostles, including Peter and James (Gal. 1:18). He mentions James first, and then Peter and John, as “pillars” in his allusion to the temple (Gal. 2:9).

After the resurrection, the Jerusalem church became the mother church of the Christian movement under the leadership of The Twelve and James. James is mentioned as head of that church (Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18-25). (It needs to be said: all first-century Christianity was Jewish. Early Christianity was a distinctive form of Judaism. James writes from the same Jewish heritage and wisdom tradition that Jesus taught from. “Christianity” was not a break from the past.)

Jacob wrote the letter/book of James.

James is considered the Proverbs of the New Testament. Written with knowledge of Jewish wisdom-traditions and Torah, James is simple and direct in his words. He writes wisdom sayings – practical moral instruction. He doesn’t pull any punches.

James instructs us to match faith with good works and to “Show by your good life that your works are done with the gentleness born of wisdom.” And not just any wisdom. We are to choose “wisdom from above” and not the “earthly, unspiritual, devilish” kind. (James 3: 13-18).

It has been suggested that the New Testament book of James “has been heavily influenced by two sources, the first of which is Jesus’ teaching about life in the Kingdom of God, especially the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).“ See “hearers and doers” example in Matthew 7: 24-27 and James 1:22-25.

“The second key influence is the biblical wisdom book of Proverbs, especially the poems in Proverbs 1-9.” See Proverbs 1-9 and James 1:5 regarding the importance of acquiring wisdom.

Reading James, I see the parallels and influence of Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount. I also read James in terms of another selection of wisdom literature: the Book of Job. Therein, hardships and trials require a new perspective. The letter of James, written to the Jewish Christians throughout the Diaspora, speaks of the need for wisdom and Job-like perseverance in a world where people struggle and suffer because of what they profess.

Read James with the Book of Job in mind:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

And . . .

Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when desire has conceived, it engenders sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. (James. 1: 12-15)

And . . .

Indeed, we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about, for the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James. 5:11)

The Book of Job tell us where not to look for wisdom. Job 28: 12-15 says that we won’t find wisdom and understanding in the human realm:

“But where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?

Mortals do not know the way to it,

and it is not found in the land of the living.

The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’

and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’

It cannot be gotten for gold,

and silver cannot be weighed out as its price.”

James tells us where to look for wisdom:

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. (James. 1: 5-8)

~~~

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
and the clouds drop down the dew.

Prov. 3: 19-20

The Lord created me [Lady Wisdom] at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth. . .

I was beside him, like a master worker,
and I was daily his delight,
playing before him always,
playing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Prov. 8: 22,30-31; Proverbs 1:20–33 and Proverbs 8:1—9:12

Christians typically start their version of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2. I start with what many scholars consider, based on archaic language, style, themes, and similar works, the oldest book of the Bible, the Book of Job. After hearing the human perspective about the cosmos from Job’s friends, I want the Divine perspective which includes the Wisdom Hymn in Job 28.

God alone knows the way to Wisdom,

he knows the exact place to find it.

He knows where everything is on earth,

he sees everything under heaven.

Job and his friends thought the world worked a certain way. They thought God acted a certain way. But they lacked Divine perspective – wisdom. After all that is said in the human realm, God questions Job from out of a whirlwind:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”

“Have you ever in your days commanded the morning light?”

“Where does light live, or where does darkness reside?”

“Can you lead out a constellation in its season?”

God reveals to Job and his friends their utter lack of understanding of how the complex cosmos is ordered. He describes intricate wonders of creation (Job 38-41) and challenges Job to even begin to understand His world. It becomes quickly evident that it is not their place to question God’s rectitude or wisdom.

To illustrate further, God instructs Job with the ways of Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40-41).

Wisdom from God matches us up with the created order and the Creator. Wisdom is working with God’s created order, avoiding disorder and recognizing non-order (John Walton). See Uncharted Understanding | Kingdom Venturers

Having information is not having knowledge. Having information is not having wisdom. Knowledge is knowing what to do with information. Wisdom is understanding, discernment, and character supplied by God and applied with knowledge. Lady Wisdom calls us to good sense, sound judgment, and moral understanding. Wisdom has the capacity to contemplate profounder problems of human life and destiny.

It is the wisdom of the clever to understand where they go,
but the folly of fools misleads. Prov. 14:8

To get wisdom is to love oneself;
to keep understanding is to prosper. Prov. 19:8

Buy truth, and do not sell it;
buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Prov. 23:23

James, steeped in Jewish wisdom-traditions, knows that wisdom belongs to the very nature of God himself. He knows that wisdom comes to man only as a divine gift. He writes telling readers to ask for the divine gift of wisdom by faith.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. (James 1:5-8)

The beast Behemoth is not worried:

A raging river does not alarm it;
it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.

-Job 40: 23

~~~~~

Proverbs: Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly

Proverbs: Lady Wisdom & Lady Folly

~~~~~

Foster Care

Ronda Paulson and her husband Corey founded Isaiah 117 House to provide a safe and loving home for children awaiting placement in the foster care system. Isaiah 177 House was featured on Mike’s Facebook show, Returning the Favor. Ronda tells how her appearance on the show affected her mission, her life, and especially her health.

Podcast – Mike Rowe

Isaiah 117 House

~~~~~

O’Keefe strikes again.

https://x.com/i/status/1861189891985678696

Wisdom (and the restoration of Democracy):

The Trump-Vance transition team announced that Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, author of “The Great Barrington Declaration,” is his pick to lead the National Institutes of Health. This is a terrific choice; Dr. Bhattacharya is highly respected and was right about the negative effects of lockdowns during the COVID pandemic when so many others were wrong. He didn’t back down despite numerous attempts to silence him. (Emphasis mine.)

(Professor Jay Bhattacharya is ten-thousand times better than former NIH director Dr. Francis Collins!!)

Trump Nominates Professor Who Sounded Alarm on COVID Lockdowns—and Was Censored—to Lead NIH – RedState

What Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s NIH Pick, Has Said About Anthony Fauci – Newsweek

Restoring order (and Democracy):

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s renewed threats of steep tariffs this week, asserting that migrant caravans are no longer reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.

Migrant Caravans Not Reaching Border, Claudia Sheinbaum Says After Trump Threats – Newsweek

~~~

Doris Lee, Thanksgiving, 1935, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Filed under Christianity, Proverbs, Proverbs, Scripture, The book of Job, Wisdom, wisdom literature Tagged with Bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, Proverbs, The Book of James, The book of Job, wisdom, wisdom literature

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THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton

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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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