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 , , , , , , , , ,

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 , , , ,

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 , , , , , , , ,

Image Bearers in the Age of Images

September 15, 2024 Leave a comment

Ephesus, a major seaport on the eastern Mediterranean and the capital of a Roman province in Asia, was a vibrant hub of commerce, and a center of Roman rule and the Roman imperial cult.

Centuries before becoming a political capital, Ephesus was a center of religious activity. Communities of Jesus-followers living in the Greek city of Ephesus at the end of the first century AD would be confronted daily with political and cultic imagery. The city was renowned for its devotion to various gods and goddesses.

Artemis

Christians in that Greco-Roman setting would be well aware of one of the most prominent goddesses: Artemis. Her temple was famous for its great size and for the magnificent works of art that adorned it (See video below.)

The Greek goddess Artemis was worshipped as the goddess of hunting, wild animals, and fertility. Her Roman counterpart was Diana. Goddess Diana shared similar aspects of deity with Artemis. She was worshipped as a benefactress of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon (See video below.)

During his second missionary journey to Ephesus, the Apostle Paul caused a big stir with the Artemis image industry (c. A.D. 52) (Acts 18:19).

The Lady of Ephesus no 718 1st century AD Ephesus Archaeological Museum

“Around that time there was a major disturbance because of the Way. There was a silversmith called Demetrius who made silver statues of Artemis, which brought the workmen a tidy income. He got them all together, along with other workers in the same business.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “You know that the reason we are doing rather well for ourselves is quite simply this business of ours. And now you see, and hear, that this fellow Paul is going around not only Ephesus but pretty well the whole of Asia, persuading the masses to change their way of life, telling them that gods made with hands are not gods after all! This not only threatens to bring our business into disrepute, but it looks as if it might make people disregard the temple of the great goddess Artemis. Then she – and, after all, the whole of Asia, indeed the whole world worships her! – she might lose her great majesty.” (Acts 19:23-28)

The temple of Artemis was one of the wonders of the world. Its great size and lavish decorations were a major attraction for the many pilgrims and tourists who came to Ephesus. Their Artemis image purchases provided the guild of silversmiths the coin to produce more images and to sustain their livelihoods. After listening to Demetrius, “the whole city was filled with uproar” and people shouted “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”

We read in Acts 19 that the town clerk quieted the crowd. A riot would bring the Roman army down on them. He said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?”

Nike

Jesus-followers living in Ephesus would also be conscious of ubiquitous images of Nike, a Greek goddess who personified Victory. That Muse website has more about Nike:

“. . .she was almost always represented in Greek art as a beautiful, winged woman. Her main role in life was to fly around battlefields, rewarding victors. The winning soldiers received a wreath of laurel leaves, symbolizing fame and glory. But she also visited and crowned outstanding athletes and heroes.”

In Roman mythology Nike is called Victoria. She is depicted as holding a palm leaf with her right hand while carrying a laurel wreath on the other. She was worshipped by the Roman army as personifying speed, strength, and victory.

Polytheism

The citizens of cosmopolitan Ephesus were polytheistic. It was common for them to add new gods to their personal pantheon. Like with Artemis (Diana) and Nike (Victoria), different gods had different roles.

Polytheism was not a religion with written scriptures. People knew the multiplicity of Greco-Roman deities by their images and myths – their form of theology. Seeing their gods was a way to believe and to practice their contractual religion (do ut des, “I give that you might give”). Offerings and sacrifices were offered to the gods in return for certain favors.

Contrary to the explicit polytheism all around them – pagan temples, pagan priests, pagan priestesses, pagan worshippers and pagan idols – Christians, along with the Jews, were monotheistic. Ephesians tolerated Christians who worshipped a new and different god (except as noted above with Paul) as there were many gods divided up among many peoples. And it seems, at that time, that the Roman government did not yet have a policy of persecution of the Christians; official action was based on the need to maintain good order, not on religious hostility. 

Political and Cultic Imagery

Citizens of this capital of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor would also celebrate and worship deified Emperors who claimed being a divine son of god. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, and subsequent Roman emperors were regularly referred to as “son of god” (divi filius). Coins were struck with the imperial image on one side and “son of god” on the other.

The Roman Empire, claiming divine authority on earth, spread its political influence in religious terms using monuments, iconography, myths, and Imperial cult rituals.

Symbolizing victory, Victoria’s (nike’s) image was vital to the Roman military. Her likeness, with crowns, laurel wreaths, or palm branches as victory emblems, was seen on coins, sculptures, and architectural reliefs, triumphal arches, and monuments.

Worship of Victoria was also thought to bring good fortune and help with politics, business, and personal undertakings.

The goddess Artemis had been worshiped for centuries. Her great temple in Ephesus (one of the seven wonders of the world) and the cult of Ephesian Artemis was vitally important to the citizens, as notes N.L. Gill in his post The Cult Statue of Artemis of Ephesus:

“The Ephesians’ goddess was their protector, a goddess of the polis (‘political’), and more. The Ephesians’ history and fate were intertwined with hers, so they raised the funds needed to rebuild their temple and replace their statue of the Ephesian Artemis.”

The Dispatch

Into this political and cultic context at the end of the first century AD, a circular letter was sent around to Jesus-follower communities in and around Ephesus.

1 John is a pastoral letter that presents a no-nonsense counter-cultural narrative. It is full of contrasts: those born of the world and those born of the father, light vs. darkness, truth vs. falsehood, righteousness vs. sin, love of the Father vs. love of the world, and the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of the Antichrist. 

The letter was penned by an eyewitness of gospel events and one who had seen way beyond the images and idols and imperial power of Rome. 1 John is a rebuke to the claims of the Antimessiahs and to the appeal of a pagan culture. It also provided spiritual reinforcement for the letter’s recipients.

1 John was most likely written by John the Elder (and not John the son of Zebedee and one of the Twelve; more below) around 90 AD during the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.). (Domitian believed in the divine nature of his rule, aligning himself with the lineage of the first Roman emperor Augustus. He saw himself as an absolute ruler and took pride in being called master or god: “dominus et deus.”)

John opens his letter, not with the typical (“grace and peace”) greeting, but with an authoritative “we” reassurance of his and other’s experience of Jesus, the son of God. He speaks in terms of visual, aural, and physical contact with the Messiah. This is crucial for what he writes against the “Antimessiahs”.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have gazed at, and our hands have handled – concerning the Word of Life!” That life was displayed, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and we announce to you the life of God’s coming age, which was with the father and was displayed to us. That which we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father, and with his son Jesus the Messiah. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1: 1-4)

John the Elder closes the circle of the fellowship of the joy bound by linking those (“we”) who were physically present with the Messiah with the Ephesian Christians who heard the gospel message and believed that Jesus is the Messiah, so that “our joy may be complete.”

(NB: The “joy” talked about here is not the DNC slogan “Joy”– a cover for the Harris cackle. Rather, John’s “our joy” completed would be the satisfaction of a deep yearning by the “we” for the readers to believe that Jesus is the son of God and the Messiah and for them to be included in the dancing embrace of the father, son and spirit.)

John then writes in terms of the associative “we” about what it means for followers of Jesus to have fellowship with him: we are not to deceive ourselves about our sin, we keep the Lord’s commandments and we show rightly ordered love. (1 John 1: 6 – 2:11).

Conflict Within and Without

The letter’s opening brings to the fore one of the main purposes of the letter: to reaffirm that Jesus, the son of God and the Christ, (mentioned some 24 times in the letter) did have a real body and not, as some were saying, that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion (Docetism). This thinking had come into Ephesian churches.

Stephen Bedard writes at the History of Christianity:

“Docetism was a doctrine in the early years of the Christian church that claimed that Jesus didn’t have a physical body. The name comes from the Greek dókēsis which means “to seem.” It refers to the belief that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body. . .

“It was understood that mind/spirit was good and body was bad. Since Jesus is good, he must be all spirit and not body at all. In modern language, Jesus was almost a hologram. He looked perfectly human but underneath the image, there was no muscle or bone.”

Those worshipping images would not believe that a god would come down and dwell in the flesh. They believed the gods stayed up and away from humans and did their own thing. Intellectual sorts, who were anti-incarnation, unethical, and loveless Gnostics, were deceiving Ephesian Christians (1 John 2:26).

John presented truth tests to discern whether they were false teachers. Anyone who denied that Jesus is the Messiah was not from God (1 John 4:2-3). They were a “liar” and an “Antimessiah” (1 John 2:22).

He writes about “the spirit of truth” and the spirit of error (1 John 4:6). And, that “many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). “They went out from among us, but they were not really of our number” (1 John 2:19)

Denying that Jesus was the Messiah, the Antimessiahs split off from the church community. They didn’t accept Scripture’s references about Jesus or the testimony of eyewitnesses. (They were revisionist historians who, like many in Progressive churches today, homed in on his sayings. They think of Jesus in terms of being a fellow traveler who imparted esoteric truths.) Whatever love or joy the Antimessiahs had went with them when they left the church.

In his second letter, John echoes this warning: “Many deceivers, you see, have gone out into the world. These are people who do not admit that Jesus is the Messiah has come in the flesh. Such a person is the Deceiver – the Antimessiah!” (2 John 2:7)

(Ongoing conflict: Earlier (c. A.D. 52), Priscilla and Aquila, who had come to Ephesus with Paul, instructed a Jew named Apollos in the way of the Lord. Apollos then “vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. (Acts 18:28))

Beside the conflict within the local churches, there was the ever-present Roman Empire that expected worship of the emperor. John writing over and over that Jesus is the son of God (and not the emperor) put the Christians in direct opposition to Rome. But it seems that, at that time, Rome was somewhat lax about forcing the Jews and Christians to burn incense for the emperor. If these two groups did disturb Rome’s Pax Romana, they would be dealt with.

 (Calling Jesus “Lord” and having a “kingdom of God” message also conflicted with the Roman empire’s ‘divine’ prerogatives.)

Living as a Conquering Contradiction

As mentioned above, imperial Rome spread political propaganda through religion. And throughout Ephesus there would be visual representations of Roman conquest and power: grand architecture and monuments, centurions and soldiers all around, and the conquering, overcoming, prevailing, subduing, obtaining victory, Nike/Victoria images around the city and on coins.

Perhaps, with all of these images in mind, John the Elder writes:

“. . . everything fathered by God conquers the world. This is the victory (nike, νίκη) that conquers the world: our faith. (1 John 5:4):

Conquering Attitude

We, the “fathered by God” no longer continue sinning (1 John 3: 9; 5:18).

Because we are “fathered by God” we understand that we are God’s children (1 John 3: 1) and that loving one another is a character trait of all who know the father (1 John 4:7).

And because we are “fathered by God” and “God is love” (1 John 4:7-12), we as his children need not live in fear like the pagans who look to capricious gods and superstitious practices and the Roman state for understanding and favor. (Sounds like Progressives today.)

We understand that “the one in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (the Antimessiah) (1 John 4:4).

We believe that Jesus the Messiah has been fathered by God (1 John 5: 1), (The center of Christianity is the Incarnation of Jesus, God becoming flesh and dwelling among humanity. John railed against the Antimessiahs because he and others had witnessed the flesh and blood presence and power of the true Messiah. Jesus wasn’t some esoteric figure floating in the air. He wasn’t a statue or icon of a god. Jesus, son of God, Messiah, was “displayed” to John and others as a new way of being human.)

We understand that “we are from God, and the whole world is under the power of evil one” (1 John 5:19) (As Paul wrote to the Ephesian church some 30-40 years before:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” – Ephesians 6:12)

As the letter comes to a close, John reemphasizes his message:

“We know that the son of God has come and given us understanding so that we know the truth. And we are in the truth, in his son Jesus the Messiah. This is the true God; this is the life of the age to come. (1 John 5:20-21).

The letter of 1 John ends with a succinct pastoral exhortation based on what was said at the beginning of the letter about the reality of what John and others had witnessed: “keep yourself from idols.”

Christians are not to get involved with unreality. They are not to collude with evil. Early Christians believed that idol worship in its various forms was used by demonic forces. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:21–22:

“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”

Those of us born of the father live in the tension of contrasts: light vs. dark, truth vs. falsehood, righteousness vs. sin, love of the Father vs. love of the world, and the Spirit of God vs. the spirit of the Antimessiahs. We are to overcome that tension with the reality of Jesus, son of God and Messiah.

I see tremendous forces (DEI, ESG, LGBTQ, Critical Race theory, WEF, WHO, Globalism, etc.) at work to conform everyone into a monolithic unity of enforced pluralism subject to one Satanic Beast. Those who confess loyalty to the Beast will find it easier to get a job, move up, gain tenure and more. Those who don’t will be called “weird” and sacrificed to the Beast.

In the milieu of this sociocultural pluralism, it would be quite easy to glide into a religious pluralism and end up worshipping the vaunted images of the world and rage against those who don’t – “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”

And, with the multiplicity of political and cultic images generated daily to influence behavior, it would be quite easy to glide into a religious pluralism so as to be accepted, to have “likes” and clicks and to avoid the pressure being applied by the culture. One would thus end up having a form of godliness (virtue signaling) but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Neither John the Elder nor I want anything to do with such people.

For those who question the uniqueness or claims of Christian faith, John’s letter with truth tests would be in order.

Not longer just image bearers of the One True God, we are more: overcoming image bearers of Jesus, the son of God, Messiah, and Lord.

~~~~

This circular pastoral letter was most likely written by John the Elder and not John the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve. John was from an aristocratic family in Jerusalem and a member of the High Priest’s family.

According to Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus late in the second century, John (the Elder), “who leaned back on the Lord’s breast,” was a (Jewish high) “priest” (who had officiated in the Jerusalem temple early in his life), a “witness”, and a “teacher” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.24.2-7). (cf. Acts 4:6 & John 18:15, John’s record of Jesus’ high priestly intercessory prayer in John 17, and his courtyard access John 18:15).

John the Elder was most likely the Beloved disciple who was mentioned in John 21: 20-23. Because of his proximity to Jesus, John the Elder was an eyewitness of the events of gospel history. He was at Jesus’ crucifixion and given charge over Mary. He eventually brought her with him to Ephesus.

“When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:26-27)

Several years younger than the Twelve Apostles, John the Elder survived most of them. It seems that he lived into the reign of Trajan (AD 98-117) as prominent Christian teacher in Asia. (We don’t know why he is called John the Elder. “Elder” may refer to John’s old age (Likely 80-90 years old at the end of the first century) more than an honorific. He writes to his “little children” in his letters.

John the Elder most likely wrote the Gospel of John and the three Johannine letters – 1, 2 & 3 John.

~~~~~

What would Ancient Ephesus have looked like? (city that once housed an ancient wonder of the world) (youtube.com)

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus – Sanctuary of the Ephesian Diana (learning-history.com)

Greek Mythology Explained | Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt | Miscellaneous Myths (youtube.com)

~~~~~

Within days, global elitists will try to put world government on steroids. The perpetrators don’t want us to know it, but that’s the purpose of the upcoming “Summit of the Future” and the accord it is supposed to adopt, dubbed the “Pact for the Future.”

Rather than openly doing so by voting to revise the United Nations Charter, the idea is to launch a “process” to be conducted largely behind closed doors. The UN’s Secretary-General and former president of the Socialist International, Antonio Guterres, however, has let slip that process’ goal – namely, granting him authority unilaterally to declare and dictate the responses to emergencies caused by any of a number of so-called “complex global shocks.”

Read the UN document here>>>> “Pact for the Future” – The Socialist Manifesto (malone.news)

Contact your representatives!!

Take action here>>> THE U.N. IS NOT A WORLD GOVERNMENT – KEEP IT THAT WAY! | AlignAct

9-11-2024:

HOUSE TO VOTE TO ENSURE SENATE VOTES ON W.H.O. TYRANNY; IT MUST DO THE SAME ON THE U.N.’S NEXT (substack.com)

Globalist Ambitions at the U.N.’s Summit of the Future (rumble.com)

BRIEFING: Globalist Ambitions at the U.N.’s Summit of the Future – Sovereignty Coalition

~~~~~

My sister sent me this video. I agree with Hamrick:

Church, Unite for the Soul of America! | Ezekiel 33:1-5 | Gary Hamrick (youtube.com)

I get the sense that there are Christians who want to hurry off to heaven. They believe that there will be a rapture and they will be taken away from the trouble on earth and therefore voting doesn’t matter. Understand, there will be NO rapture. That is a misinterpretation of Scripture. Go vote!!

~~~~~

Nicole Shanahan on X: “Who really are the MAGA People? https://t.co/Zk6rvijCge” / X

~~~~~~

In late August officials [of China’s Communist Party] published regulations for dealing with them [the corrupt, criminal and disloyal], too. The aim is to reform or expel people who show a “lack of revolutionary spirit” . . .

Religious members are seen as another problem. Newbies must swear that they are atheist. But many still harbour beliefs in the supernatural. . . According to the regulations, religious folk should be given a chance to renounce their beliefs—and kicked out if they do not.

How to get kicked out of China’s Communist Party (archive.is)

~~~~~

Contentious Culture Wars in a Polarized Political Age: A Conversation with Sociologist James Davison Hunter

Contentious Culture Wars in a Political Age: A Conversation with Sociologist James Davison Hunter (youtube.com)

Contentious Culture Wars in a Polarized Political Age

Contentious Culture Wars in a Polarized Political Age: A Conversation with Sociologist James Davison Hunter – AlbertMohler.com

~~~~~

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

https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858

Filed under 1 John, 1 john, Bible, Christianity, Revelation, Scripture, theology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In Deep

July 28, 2024 Leave a comment

One day, Peter sat down with Mark and told him about the challenges of being a disciple of Jesus and what he witnessed.

“Jesus called the twelve of us together, gave us instructions, and sent us out in pairs to several areas in Galilee. We announced that the kingdom of God had arrived, and that people should repent. We cast out unclean spirits. And we anointed many sick people with oil and cured them. We were doing what he had been doing.

“When we returned from our mission, we were anxious to share with him all that we had done and taught. We must have looked tired and hungry. He said we all needed a break. People were constantly coming and going around us. So much so that we didn’t have time to eat.

“We got in the boat and sailed to a deserted spot. But the crowd saw us going, realized what was happening and arrived there first. When Jesus got out of the boat and saw the huge crowd, I could tell that he felt deeply sorry for them. He said they were like a flock without a shepherd. So, he began to teach them many things.

“There was nothing to eat at that deserted place and it was getting late in the day. We wanted the Teacher to send the crowd away so they could buy food in the countryside or in the villages. But then he said “We don’t need to send them away. Why don’t you give them something.”

“We looked at each other wondering what in the world he was suggesting. Was he serious? Philip said “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

“Then he said “Well, how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”

“My brother Andrew found a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. But we were standing in front of thousands of people.

“Jesus had us sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. So, we made everyone sit in companies of hundreds and fifties. Then Jesus took the five loves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the bread. He broke it and gave it to us to give to the crowd. Then he broke the fish into pieces and handed to it to us to give to the crowd. Everyone ate and had their fill including me and the others of our group. Over five thousand people were fed.

“We gathered up the leftovers and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces and of the fish. Everyone was full and tired.

“And then, just like that, Jesus told us to get into the boat and sail toward the opposite shore. He dismissed the crowd and then went off up the mountain to pray.

“Mark, you won’t believe what happened. We had rowed about three or four miles and were in the middle of the sea. It had been hard rowing all night. A stiff wind coming down from the mountains on the eastern shore of the lake was working against us.

“Then, in the dead of night, we all thought we saw a ghost walking on the water. It was about to go past our boat. We were scared out of our wits. We were yelling “Who goes there?!” And then, just like that, we hear “Cheer up! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” When the figure came closer, we could see that it was Jesus. He was walking on the water!

“I said “if it’s really you, Master, then give me the word and I’ll come to you on the water.” And he said “Come along, then.”

“So, I got out of the boat, and would you believe it Mark, I walked on the water. But then I saw the wind chopping the waves and the chaos at my feet and I began to sink just like that. I called out to the Teacher. He put his hand out and caught me before I went under. He looked at me and said “A fine lot of faith you’ve got! Why did you doubt?” I was shivering and feeling pretty low, so I said nothing as we walked to the boat and climbed in.

“As soon as we got in the boat the wind stopped blowing just like that. And just like that we reached the shore. And just like that we went from being scared out of our minds to being thunderstruck by what had taken place, just like before.

“I told you, Mark, about the last storm we faced on the Sea of Galilee. It came up suddenly from the West. Waves beat against the boat and it quickly began to fill with water. That time Jesus was with us. He was asleep and we woke him up to help us bale out water. He got up, scolded the wind, and said to the sea “Silence! Shut up!” Things went to a dead calm, just like that. Then he said “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”

We were terrified when we saw this. We looked at each other and said “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says.”

This time we fell down and worshipped Jesus saying, “You are really God’s son!”

“We made landfall at Gennesaret and tied the boat up. As soon as we landed people recognized Jesus. They began to bring sick people on stretchers to where they heard he was.

“And Mark, wherever Jesus went, in the villages, towns or open country, people brought their sick to the marketplace and begged him to let them touch the edge of his cloak. And whoever touched the hem became well. The healed were getting up from their stretchers and were running around praising God. You should have seen it.”

(The above is an imagined retelling of Mark chapter 6 referencing Matthew chapter 14, Luke chapter 9, and John chapter 6)

~~~

Did Jesus have Peter and the other apostles wade into waters over their heads to remove the scales from their eyes? Did he put them through the wringer to squeeze out unbelief? It would seem so.

The Twelve – fishermen, a tax collector, and other regular guys – are sent to districts of Galilee on a kingdom of God mission well outside the range of their experience. This while earthly kingdoms get word of their kingdom message and of the power at work in them. And this while there is news of the arrest and beheading of John the Baptist by Herod.

When the Twelve return to Jesus, he has the group sail to a deserted area for a break away from the constant flow of people. But upon arriving they are met by an enormous crowd that had figured out where they were going. Then the Twelve are asked to provide food for the thousands listening to Jesus.

Having no resources other than a meager five loaves and two fish, the Twelve are assigned by Jesus to have everyone sit down in groups, to pass out the baskets of bread and fish that he hands them, and to collect the leftovers. Menial labor after a lofty mission and no rest for the Twelve.

That evening, Jesus sends the Twelve rowing across a sea that was known for its challenges. (Nature is no respecter of persons except for Jesus.) And on that sea, in the early morning hours, they encounter a ghost-like figure that scares the beJesus into them.

We don’t always get the inner perspective of the disciple’s thoughts and feelings in the gospel of Mark. But in at least two accounts we learn that the Twelve were “terrified” (Mk. 4:41) and “astounded” (Mk. 6:51) by the Who of “Who is this?” and “Who goes there?”

It is one thing to hear about divine revelation in the synagogue, to hear the words He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel (Ps. 103:7). It is quite another to encounter God’s ways and deeds in person. And what the “terrified” and “astounded” Twelve experienced was God’s favor, care, and protection for those he chose to be with.

Peter, a fisherman who spent most of his time on the water in a boat, walked on the water with the Son of God right there urging him to do so and ready to catch him. For, faith is more than floating along on what you think you know.

The Twelve, schooled by each unsettling situation the Teacher had them face – strong winds and a sudden storm at sea, a scary specter, a supply shortage, and steady streams of the sick and sheep without a shepherd – discovered God’s power, His presence, His plenty, and His pity.

To their uncertainty, their fears, their inadequacy, and their helplessness, God’s presence was revealed.

“Who is this?” “Who goes there? “

“Cheer up! It is I AM.

~~~

Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Jeroboam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Jeremiah were promised the presence of God. The Presence was promised to Jacob:

“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15) (Emphasis mine.)

Jesus made the same promise to his followers before he ascended into heaven:

“I am with you, every single day, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)

And beyond . . .

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. (Rev. 21:3) (Emphasis mine.)

The Real Presence is with you in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, and divinity—in the elements of bread and wine. 

The age-to-age continuum of God’s promise of presence with us, expressing His covenant faithfulness, is the premise of our faith. He will not abandon us. The praxis of knowing that – living by faith – operates within The Presence continuum.

~~~

The time the Twelve spent with Jesus was eye-opening – but not always mind’s eye opening.

After Mark tells us that the apostles were overwhelmed with astonishment (having just watched Jesus walking on the water) he adds a comment (Mk. 6:52): they didn’t understand what Jesus had done with the fishes and loaves – their hearts were hardened.

Mark doesn’t explain this last note. Maybe, when presented with the existential reality of what took place that afternoon, the Twelve chose to ignore it or had no place in their imagination for it. Or maybe, their hearts were hardened by God.

Recall that during the Ten Plagues of Egypt, Pharoah’s heart was hardened by God and remained that way even after Pharoah’s magicians threw in the towel when they couldn’t fabricate further “miracles”:

The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s doing.” But Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. Just as God had said

Exodus 9:15-16 gives us the reason why Pharoah’s heart was hardened. God tells Moses to confront Pharaoh and tell him the following:

You know that by now I could have struck you and your people with deadly disease and there would be nothing left of you, not a trace. But for one reason only I’ve kept you on your feet: To make you recognize my power so that my reputation spreads in all the Earth. You are still building yourself up at my people’s expense. (Emphasis mine.)

We don’t know why the Twelve couldn’t take in what had happened that afternoon. But I wonder: did they later recollect that experience and understand the multiplication of loaves and fishes in the context of the Exodus? God fed thousands in the wilderness.

Did they later recollect their experiences (walking on water, Jesus intending to pass by the boat, disclosure of God’s presence with them, a healing hem) and understand them in context of the Exodus?

God controlled nature (the Red Sea) so that Israel can walk through/on it.

God passing by Moses (Ex. 33:22)

God revealed Himself to Moses as “I Am” in a physical phenomenon (a burning bush).

Israelites were healed by a physical object – by looking at a snake made of fiery copper (Num.21-4-9),

With the events described by Peter in Mark’s gospel and the events of Israel’s history, Jesus’ kingdom mission for the world is equated with the Exodus mission of rescue and redemption for Israel.

~~~~~

Podcast: Three books by O.T. scholar Iain Proven

The Old Testament is often maligned as an outmoded and even dangerous text. Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, and Derrick Jensen are prime examples of those who find the Old Testament to be problematic to modern sensibilities. In his new book Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor UP, 2014), Iain W. Provan counters that such easy and popular readings misunderstand the Old Testament

Discussed in this podcast are three books authored by OT scholar Iain Proven:

A Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition

Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World that Never Was

Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters

I’ve read Convenient Myths and Seriously Dangerous Religion. I recommend both books.

Iain W. Provan, “Seriously Dangerous Religion

Iain W. Provan, “Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters” (Baylor UP, 2014) – New Books Network

~~~~~

Filed under Bible, Christianity, faith, The Gospel of Mark Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Easter Morning

March 31, 2024 Leave a comment

Easter morning me and father are down in the basement brushing shoes. We put polish on them last night with a rag father keeps with his shoe shine kit on a shelf over the washing machine. I used the rag but brown polish came through on my fingers. We polish our shoes every Sunday but I know this Sunday is Easter because we went to church on Friday and we died eggs and my mother set the dining room table and there’s a lily in the front room and ham in the refrigerator and yellow jello with something in it and plastic eggs in a basket on the kitchen table and the sun shines like this only on Easter. I woke up cold this morning. I put on clean pajamas and put the wet ones in the clothes basket. Then I went into the kitchen and ate cereal. Father woke up. He got the Sunday paper off the front porch and came into the kitchen to make coffee. He waits for me to finish eating and scratches his belly and yawns. He tells me to let mum sleep in. She works too he says. After I’m done with my cereal we go downstairs to polish our shoes. We go back upstairs and father sits at the kitchen table drinks coffee. He opens the Sunday paper and gives me the funnies. We wait for mum and my brother to wake up. They wake up. My mother has coffee and my brother eats cereal. My mother says something to father in his ear. He tells us kids to go into the front room so he and mum can talk. We go. I share the funnies with my brother. We sit there for an hour. We look out the picture window and see father walking around the bushes with a basket of plastic eggs. We know what he is doing. We run to the back door. I hold the door handle and my brother bites his nails. Father comes to the door and says there are fifteen eggs hiding in our yard. See what you can find he says. We run to the front yard and look through the bushes and behind trees and in the mail box. The grass is wet and sparkly we find eggs but there are more we run to the back yard and find more. We pull up the bottoms of our PJ tops and hold the eggs there. We count them I have eight and my brother has seven we go back inside and see what’s inside Jelly beans gum tootsie rolls mother says to have only a couple she doesn’t want us bouncing around in church she says. Father is in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes. Mother is washing goblets. I don’t know why she calls them goblets. They are not scarry to me. Me and my brother get ready for church. The clothes feel stiff but I wear them to look nice mother says. Father combs my hair and my brother’s hair. We wait in the front room and read the funnies. Finally it is time to go. We get in the car and drive to our church. I’ve never seen so many people. Mother wants to get a seat before they are gone we sit next to my friend Jeremy’s parents I smell flowers. People are talking a lot. Mothers are telling kids to be quiet. My friend Jeremy is sitting on the other side of his parents. Hes kicking the pew in front of him. The lady in front of him with a flower hat turns around looks angry but she smiles when Jeremys mom puts a hand on Jeremys knee and makes him stop. My best friend Billy isn’t here his family doesn’t go to church. We have to stand up and sit down a lot and listen a lot the seat is hard and I can’t sit still and I can’t listen a big woman is singing a high song that hurts my ears. I want to draw. I take the pencil in front of me and a card I draw Easter eggs and the face of the big woman I show it to Jeremy and he laughs. The man up front walks back and forth and then he stops and says o death, where is thy sting o grave, where is thy victory and I think about bee stings and moms gravy. Finally he stops and we stand up again and my pencil and card fall under the seat. A man behind me picks them up and gives them to me and smiles. Everyone smiles today even the woman at the organ who made a big burp sound when the music fell. Father and mother talk and talk and talk and finally we get back into the car and go home. On the counter is a strawburry pie. Mother puts on her apron and puts the ham in the oven. Father mashes the sweet potatoes. I tell them don’t forget to put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. Mother takes a bag off the shelf and gives me and my brother a marshmallow. She tells us to go watch TV while they make dinner. We go downstairs. I turn on the TV and only Charlie Chan is on. Finally mother calls us and we go upstairs to eat we have to wash our hands before we sit down. Mother lights two candles on our table before the food comes father prays he thanks God for the food and Jesus and empty tomb abundant life heaven and earth sea and dry land family and friends those present and not present wonders great and small and mother says amen. Finally mother brings out the ham and the sweet potatoes and something green. Everything is hot she says. When the rolls come out me and my brother grab one. My mother asks me if I washed my hands. I look at them and my fingers are brown. They smell like polish it’s shoe polish soap and water and some scrubbing will take it off father says I tell them I better eat first because scrubbing is a lot of work. The end of what we did special on Easter Mrs Meyers your student Micheal M Skokram.

~~~

©Lena Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2024, All Rights Reserved

Filed under Christianity, Short Story, short story, Writing Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Unbroken Chain of Truth in the Lives of Broken People

March 30, 2024 Leave a comment

Our common understanding of what Peter’s betrayal of Jesus meant. Our shared history of misery and redemption. Our interrelated human experience of being guided by truth and beauty. Each of these connections are considered by a twenty-two-year-old clerical student named Ivan Velikopolsky in the very short story The Student (1894) by Anton Chekhov.

Things start out fine for hunter Ivan on Good Friday. The weather is agreeable. But when it begins to grow dark the weather turns cold and stiff winds blow. He starts to walk home.

On the path, he feels that nature itself is “ill at ease” by the change in weather and that darkness in response is falling more quickly. He senses overwhelming isolation and unusual despair surrounding him and the village three miles away where he spots the only light – a blazing fire in the widow’s garden near the river.

As he walks, he remembers what is waiting for him at home – a miserable situation that he sees as the desperation, poverty, hunger, and oppression of what people have dealt with over time and that it’s always been this way no matter the secular changes by those who come along. He doesn’t want to go home. Instead, he walks over to the campfire at the widow’s garden.

There, by the fire, are two widows – Vasilisa and her daughter Lukerya. He greets them and they talk.

Ivan relates the gospel events to the two widows. This has an acute effect on them. As he heads home, Ivan reflects on the implications of this and has an epiphany.

“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must have been cold then, too. Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!”

 . . .it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present — to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people.

He returns home with a different outlook. He sees the “same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression” differently – with an attitude of “unknown mysterious happiness”. There’s a sense of resurrection in Ivan’s attitude as he rises out of the despondency of dark winter’s return to a new life of hope based on the human connection to enduring truth and with Easter on the horizon.

Was Ivan’s new attitude born out of the women’s reaction that signaled an age-old inherent understanding of what the betrayal of truth produces?

It seems to me that Ivan is more than just a clerical student. He’s also a student of history and cultural anthropology. And he knows scripture. He is able to see our common plight and our common redemption through the broken lives of others.

I’m not going to share any more of this gem of a very short story (2 min. read). Ivan has more to say to us from his epiphany. I recommend reading the story before listening to the audio version of it with commentary at the end.

The Student was written 130 years ago. Chekhov’s realist fiction hands to readers today one end of an unbroken chain of truth.

Will the human condition improve with Progressivism or when humans stop betraying the truth and seek what is above instead of materialism?

John Donne wrote “No man is an island entire of itself”.  Certainly, no man is a context entirely of himself.

And Thomas Dubay said

The acute experience of great beauty readily evokes a nameless yearning for something more than earth can offer. Elegant splendor reawakens our spirit’s aching need for the infinite, a hunger for more than matter can provide.

The Student – Anton ChekhovDownload
Reading Chekhov’s The Student

~~~~~

Beauty out of brokenness?

“Poetically translated to “golden joinery,” kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi, is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive, the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares, giving a one-of-a-kind appearance to each “repaired” piece.”Kintsugi, a Centuries-Old Japanese Method of Repairing Pottery with Gold (mymodernmet.com)

“The aesthetic that embraces insufficiency in terms of physical attributes, that is the aesthetic that characterizes mended ceramics, exerts an appeal to the emotions that is more powerful than formal visual qualities, at least in the tearoom. Whether or not the story of how an object came to be mended is known, the affection in which it was held is evident in its rebirth as a mended object. What are some of the emotional resonances these objects project?

“Mended ceramics foremost convey a sense of the passage of time. The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, an empathetic compassion for, or perhaps identification with, beings outside oneself. It may be perceived in the slow inexorable work of time (sabi) or in a moment of sharp demarcation between pristine or whole and shattered. In the latter case, the notion of rupture returns but with regard to immaterial qualities, the passage of time with relation to states of being. A mirage of “before” suffuses the beauty of mended objects.”

Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics (12/51

“What kind of a church would we become if we simply allowed broken people to gather, and did not try to “fix” them but simply to love and behold them, contemplating the shapes that broken pieces can inspire?”
― Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making

Mending Trauma | Theology of Making (youtube.com)

Online Conversation | Art + Faith: A Theology of Making, with Makoto Fujimura | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

https://makotofujimura.com

~~~~~

Filed under Art, Chekhov, Christianity, Easter, Easter, Literature, Russian Literature, Russian Literature Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Your Best Lent Now

February 18, 2024 Leave a comment

“Be All You Can Be” is not just the Army’s recruiting slogan. It is the appeal of self-help books, magazines, videos, seminars, and podcasts. It is the allure of prosperity gospel and the appeal of bucket lists. It is also the speculative assurance of transhumanism, the technological heir of evolutionary progressivism. There are plenty of gurus, gimmicks, and gizmos ready to give you Your Best Life Now.

We can live at full potential by taking seven steps. We can name-it-and-claim-it wealth, health, and total victory over circumstances. We can choose to have incredible experiences and to do incredible things before we die. And we can, one day, live with boosted cognition and become a radically enhanced superhuman. Why, we can conquer the whole universe by human will and consciousness and with a little help from my “Be All You Can Be” friends.

Certainly, such offerings have purchase. People want to be healthy, financially secure and control outcomes. And people want to “feel” alive.

Just as certain, “Be All You Can Be” taps into a fear of missing out on Your Best Life Now before you kick the bucket. “You Only Live Once” is the high-octane fuel in the motivator engine – get busy and live full throttle. The FOMO messaging comes from all corners, including from the expected self-help speakers both secular and Christian and from celebrities.

“Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.”

Wayne Dyer, self-help author and a motivational speaker.

“A life of adventure is ours for the taking, whether we’re seven or seventy. Life for the most part is what me make it. We have been given a responsibility to live it fully, joyfully, completely, and richly, in whatever span of time God grants us on this earth.

Luci Swindoll, author and speaker with Women of Faith

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

James Dean

The possibility of “A New You” born out of the intensity of experiences and the dramatic are oft portrayed as producing “real” life, while the prosaic life of simple acts of truth, goodness, and beauty are deemed ho-hum and therefore not worth exploring and exploiting. (The dramatic life vs. the prosaic life is found in a close reading of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.)

The self-improvement racket has spawned cottage industries such as “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”. Such topics, that get at our core identities and callings, are prone to scams, as Karen Swallow Prior writes in her Opinion: The ‘Biblical Manhood’ Industry Is A Scam:

In my recent book, “The Evangelical Imagination,” I devote an entire chapter to the notion of “improvement,” showing how this early modern concept contributed to the rise of the self-help movement in the 19th century and has spilled over into Christian thinking and practice today.

Many of the publications centered on “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” are just a continuation of this Victorian (and secular) movement.

As you reflect on how to be within the time you have, do you envision having a multiplicity and intensity of experiences – 101 Incredible Things to Do Before You Die? Do you hear yourself speaking the “it” you want and believing you will receive “it” and “it” will come to pass? Do you see yourself embracing a you-can-have-it-all “Be All You Can Be” life? Is the bucket list of your now filled to the brim with FOMO activity?

Does submission to digital technology effect how to be within the time you have?

An interesting concept, noted in the context of the digital revolution suddenly increasing
“the rate and scale of change in almost everyone’s lives,” is presented by the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities Edward Mendelson in his essay “In the Depths of the Digital Age”:

In Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), an engineer named Kurt Mondaugen enunciates a law of human existence: “Personal density … is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth.” The narrator explains:

“Temporal bandwidth” is the width of your present, your now…. The more you dwell in the past and future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your [bandwidth] sense of Now, the more tenuous you are.

The genius of Mondaugen’s Law is its understanding that the unmeasurable moral aspects of life are as subject to necessity as are the measurable physical ones; that unmeasurable necessity, in Wittgenstein’s phrase about ethics, is “a condition of the world, like logic.” You cannot reduce your engagement with the past and future without diminishing yourself, without becoming “more tenuous.”

As I read this: if you’re just constantly in the moment rushing from one thing to the next without the context of the past and future, your personal density becomes diffuse and unsupportable.

Alan Jacobs, the Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University, provides his insight into Mondaugen’s Law, in his web article To survive our high-speed society, cultivate ‘temporal bandwidth’. He writes that a . . .

. . . benefit of reflecting on the past is awareness of the ways that actions in one moment reverberate into the future. You see that some decisions that seemed trivial when they were made proved immensely important, while others which seemed world-transforming quickly sank into insignificance. The “tenuous” self, sensitive only to the needs of This Instant, always believes – often incorrectly – that the present is infinitely consequential.

It seems to me, and your own experience will bear this out, that This Instant is the impetus of Your Best Life Now and that self-help schemes produce the thinness and self-deception of a tenuous now.

(The wicked thrive in the tenuous now. The wicked want nothing to do with the past or the future. The narcissistic now is all the wicked care about.)

Is there a better way to address our frailty, finitude, imperfection, and self-esteem and produce a thicker bandwidth?

As a follower of Jesus, I look to him for affirmation and not from the world’s gurus, gimmicks, and gizmos.

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve seen that for the world, the drive to succeed is paramount and can be all-consuming. But I’ve come to understand that I can’t have it all and be it all in my mortal life. I am content with that. I have no fear of missing out. The Lord knows the desires of my heart and what I need. (See Psalm 37 & Matt. 6:32)

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve come to understand that the density of my “Temporal bandwidth” does not consist in an abundance of possessions (Luke 12:15) nor in the abundance of experiences (Luke 10: 20).

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve learned from Job to not be deceived into thinking of life in terms of “what’s in it for me”. Nor will I be incentivized by a Retribution Principle that has God prospering the “righteous” with material gain and health while inflicting suffering on the wicked.

As a follower of Jesus, I understand, contrary to the world’s notion of acquiring power, that I am a sheep cared for by the Good Shepherd. (See Psalm 23 & John 10: 1-30) My Temporal bandwidth is within his care. My personal density is being thickened; my persona becoming more solid. Seven decades into life and I know this to be true.

And, there’s the realization that unmeasurable moral aspects of life are as subject to necessity as are the measurable physical ones. They’re a condition of the world, like logic.

Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” With these words and the ash-cross marked on our foreheads we are engaged with our past and our future.

Ash Wednesday and Lent, the 40-day season of prayer, fasting and of giving up things, addresses our frailty, finitude, imperfection, and self-esteem. This Lent Be All You Can’t Be before the Lord and He will lift you up.

~~~~~

The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler – February 21, 2023

In this conversation, Kate shares about her work detailing the Prosperity Gospel movement from an academic standpoint, and how her own setbacks and health catastrophe in a cancer diagnosis both deepened her sense of being loved by God and softened her toward those desperate for a miracle.

Kate and Cherie’s conversation goes through deep waters, but does so with much humor and heart. We hope you’ll listen and share it with your friends and loved ones.

The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler

Episode 56 | Blessings for Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

Blessings for Imperfect Days – YouTube

I WAS ON THE TODAY SHOW (youtube.com)

Kate Bowler, in her dissertation and later book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel argues that these diverse of Christian faith-fueled abundance can be understood as a movement, for they stem from a cohesive set of shared understandings. First, the movement centered on Faith. It conceived of faith as an “activator,” a power given to believers that bound and loosed spiritual forces and turned the spoken word into reality. Second and third respectively, the movement depicted faith as palpably demonstrated in wealth and health. It could be measured in both in the wallet–one’s personal wealth–and in the body–one’s personal health–making material reality the measure of the success of immaterial faith. Last, the movement expected faith to be marked by victory. Believers trusted that culture held no political, social, or economic impediment to faith, and no circumstance could stop believers from living in total victory here on earth.

~~~~~

Escaping the Prosperity Gospel

In this episode Mikel Del Rosario and Costi Hinn discuss the prosperity gospel, focusing on Hinn’s spiritual journey out of the religious movement. This interview was recorded before March 2020.

Escaping the Prosperity Gospel – The Hendricks Center (dts.edu)

~~~~~

For those committed to human flourishing, absorbing that transhumanism is a scientific nonstarter would be a major boon. But a singular focus on information is not limited to this arena. It increasingly pervades our day-to-day existences, in terms of how we proceed in our professional and social lives, as well as when others decide what counts about us (or even who we “are”), often without our awareness. Prospects for societal improvement depend, in part, on our becoming more conscious of this informational frame, especially where it is a mismatch with the nonlinear and richly contextual nature of what matters most to us as human beings.

Why transhumanism is fundamentally wrong. (slate.com)

~~~~~

Filed under Christianity Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

2024: “Don’t You Care?”

December 31, 2023 Leave a comment

What do we talk about when we talk about apocalypse?

Are we talkin’ Steppenwolf and his legions of Parademons attempting to take over the Earth using the combined energies of the three Mother Boxes?

Are we talkin’ nuclear war? World War Z?

Are we talkin’ The Late Great Planet Earth?

Are we talkin’ a supposed climate change catastrophe prophesied as either a meltdown or an ice age?

In popular use, “apocalypse” tags something with the worst possible outcome usually in terms of an end-of-the-world scenario and mankind’s role in events much bigger than himself. But the Greek word apokálypsis, from which “apocalypse” is derived, means an uncovering or revelation.

In terms of scripture, “apocalypse” is a genre in which God reveals His point of view. Such are the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah, Daniel and Revelation. The “apocalypse” as an author’s vision of the end times or the end of the age became a distinct literary genre during the Second Temple period and into the Common Era.

Apocalyptic “non-canonical” literature helped pave the way for the Jesus movement in the first century CE. Many in Israel, based on these writings and OT texts (Psalm 146:7-8, Isaiah 61: 1-2), held a belief in a Messianic Apocalypse – the anointed one, a divine messianic agent, revealed at the end time who executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, and lifts up those who are bowed down.

Within this millenarist writing context and using explicit connections to the Old Testament via quotes, and with accounts of eyewitness testimony, the four gospels record God’s revelation in Jesus Christ as the Messianic Apocalypse. And, they record the apocalyptic pronouncements of Jesus, including Matthew 24 (The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times) and in Matthew 25 (The Sheep and the Goats; Judgement). Jesus’ words and works throughout the four gospels disclose God’s POV.

Near the end of the John’s gospel account we are given the reason why John wrote to reveal Jesus:

“Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that the Messiah, the son of God, is none other than Jesus; and that, with this faith, you may have life in his name.” (Jn. 20:31)

The gospel according to Mark, written from a Petrine perspective, recorded what Jesus did and said in the presence of his disciples so that with the centurion standing watch at the cross, we might say “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39)

Throughout the first six chapters of the gospel according to Mark, chapters I am memorizing, I find Jesus over and over again revealing who he is to the Twelve and the group of disciples around him. Yet, they are not making the connection. They consider him a great prophet and a maybe-Messiah Apocalypse but nothing more.

When Jesus is in the synagogue teaching, the gathered are astonished by his teaching. He speaks with authority. Then a man with an unclean spirit reveals Jesus’s identity:

“What business have you got with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” he yelled. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: you’re God’s Holy One!”

Jesus commands the unclean spirit to be quiet and then casts out the unclean spirit. The buzz begins.

“What’s this?” they started to say to each other. “New teaching – with real authority! He even tells the unclean spirits what to do and they do it!”

Before chapter one ends, Jesus has healed many people suffering from all kinds of diseases and cast out many demons – exactly what Psalm 146 and Isaiah 61 talk about.

I learn from Mark that Jesus won’t let the demons speak. They would reveal his identity. I understand this as Jesus wanting each person to come to grips with who he is on their own.

In chapter two, Jesus heals a paralyzed man. But first he recognizes the faith of those who bring the man to him. He tells the cripple that his sins are forgiven. Upon hearing this the legal experts in the room start grumbling “Its’ blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God?” They are so ready to pounce that they don’t understand who is standing before them. And why would they?

Who would expect the invisible God to be incarnate, to be physically present? And who would expect a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24) to be in their midst?

Chapter Four:  After teaching a huge crowd about the kingdom of God, Jesus and the disciples set sail across the sea. A big wind storm comes up. Waves beat against the boat and it quickly begins to fill up. Jesus, however, is asleep on a cushion in the stern. Very anxious disciples wake him up and say “We’re going down. Don’t you care?”

Now, I don’t believe that any of the disciples were thinking that Jesus would get up and end the storm. They were likely thinking that they needed another hand to bail water out of the boat (kind of like my prayers at times).

Jesus gets up. He scolds the wind and says to the sea, “Silence! Shut up!”. Nature calms down but not the sailors. They had been ‘apocalypsed’. Someone in their boat just took control of the cosmic order. Someone in their boat just revealed God-like properties.

Great fear stole over the crew (survivors in the mini-Noah’s arc). “Who is this?” they said to each other. “Even the wind and sea do what he says!”

Jesus had looked at them and said “Why are you scared?” Don’t you believe yet?” That was his response to the disciple’s “Don’t You care?”

Jesus’ response to the disciples was not to shame them. It was to reveal their unbelief in what has been revealed to them: God was walking among them; God was in the boat with them; God’s love as demonstrated would see them through.

“Don’t you care?” is the corporate expression of anxious Israel waiting for Messianic Apocalypse.

“Don’t you care?” is the corporate expression of an anxious world that, with chronic uncertainty, is focused on a coming the-ship-is-going-down apocalypse and not on the certainty of the revelation of Jesus.

What do I talk about when I talk about apocalypse? This: what’s been revealed of Jesus is greater than what could ever possibly be revealed – whether in nature or alien or made-made or imagination-made.

2024: “We’re going down. Don’t you care?”

“Don’t you believe yet?”

~~~~~

Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang and Curt Thompson

We are in an anxious age. By some estimates, a third of all Americans will struggle with anxiety in their lives, and nearly 20% currently suffer from an anxiety disorder. For those suffering the mental distortions of anxiety, life can be difficult, and hope elusive. And for many Christians who have tried and failed to stop their slide into fear and worry by simply “laying down their burdens,” they may feel an added sense of spiritual failure as well.

We’re joined on our podcast by psychiatrist Curt Thopmson and theologian Curtis Chang who help us explore a counterintuitive approach to understanding our anxiety:

Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang and Curt Thompson – the Trinity Forum

Episode 70 | Hope in an Age of Anxiety | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

~~~

Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson

How do we seek, find and share hope and healing in hard times?

Psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson and Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder discuss healing, grace, and reintegration — both for our individual and spiritual lives, and our shared life together. Together they consider how being known and believing what is true about our stories can transform our perspective and bring hope and healing:

“Shame is the antithesis and is that force that evil wants to use to undermine not only our ability to be known by one another deeply, which we were made for, we were made to be known, but we were also made to be known on the way to creating artifacts of beauty, whether those artifacts are relationships, whether they’re new pieces of music, art, businesses, and so forth.”
– Curt Thompson

Episode 45 | Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

~~~~~

Must have been all those Venusian women with SUVs . . .

Filed under 2024 Election, apocalypse, Christianity, Eschatology, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, New Year's Eve Tagged with , , , , , , ,

You and Euaggélion

November 26, 2023 Leave a comment

We are entering a season of celebrating Good News. But hold on. There are some, the same some since before 2016, who are now heralding a disastrous 2024.

Today, at the top of media’s Richter scale of catastrophic “Oh Nos!” and bumping “climate crisis” to number TWO is word of a disastrous new year as speculated in The Economist magazine article Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024  !!!!

To add to the hysteria known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, unhinged Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe said that Trump “will end democracy as we know it.” Wow!!! What a power calculus!!

Joe, hyperbolizing on a New York Times Op-Ed [“Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent”] went beyond calling Trump an authoritarian. He implied that Trump’s a murderous fascist: “he will imprison” “he will execute” enemies if reelected. Scarborough knows this because of “his past”. (I’d like to see those press clippings. Anyone?)

N.B.: MSNBC is where people go to completely lose all touch with reality because Orange Man Bad.

Here’s Mika man:

Trump Acquitted of Inciting Insurrection, Even as Bipartisan Majority Votes ‘Guilty’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

And there’s more from the ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ MSNBC:

“Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “everybody should vote for” President Joe Biden if they wanted democracy to survive.” Wow!!! Again!!!

Before we exit the land of the unhinged, there’s another unbalanced MSNBC political contributor who weighs in on Trump: former Democrat U.S. Senator of Missouri, the very rich Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill claims that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler!!! In the process of loathing Trump, McCaskill also has to mock MAGA supporters. You should know that the schtick of MSNBC contributors – our hoity-toity betters – is making their viewers feel superior to the deplorable hoi polloi.

The above insanity should tell you that the Left – Wokes, LGBTQ+ mafia, Antifa, the climate overwrought, BLM, race hustlers and all – are terrified of Trump. And they want you to be terrified of him, too. They see their world, supported by the vast administrative State that sustains their power and control over America, as threatened by Trump. For, in Trump’s next term, he will begin to pull apart the leviathan deep state apparatus that destroys Democracy and America itself.

That and the Left’s constant lawfare against Trump is an indicator to me that Trump is the right man for the job. He’s about saving what’s left of our Republic – namely, the Constitution, free speech, the right to bear arms, religious freedom, and due process which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (14th Amendment).

The Left, on the other hand, want to abandon all that. The Left wants to seize life, liberty, and property and create a system of producing and distributing collectively owned goods via a centralized government that plans and controls the economy. The left’s economic reforms increase centralized state control to the extent that private ownership becomes virtually impossible.

See Mao’s Great Leap Forward for one example of the effects of collectivization. A Progressive’s collective communist State means that all labor, money, and production go to the State and the State determines who benefits and who must go without based on political loyalty.

And see North Korea for the Left’s brand of “Democracy!” which the braying MSNBC crew says is under threat and not because of their dictatorial ways but because of the guy who wants to keep them from their dictatorial ways.

Trump has also shown that he wants to ensure our country’s sovereignty. And that means a closed border with legal immigration. He also wants to safeguard America from another war. The Left, under the Biden regime, has shown us that open borders with constant war and anarchy are its will.

Another indicator that Trump is right for the WH job is that there are those, not just domestically but internationally, who want Trump and those around them out of the picture, e.g., Iran-linked hitmen. Trump is bothering all the right (evil) people.

Going forward, I sure don’t want someone representing me in the WH who folds or capitulates under pressure. I sure don’t want appeasers and accommodationists like members of Congress. I sure don’t want someone who, at one time in Indiana, looked the part of a respectable Christian leader but turned out to be a squish: Don’t Ever Forget That Mike Pence Threw Religious Liberty Under the Bus | National Review

Results, not presentation, earn my respect.

And though New Yorker Trump could always pick out better words and phrasing to explain his thoughts and his frustrations with the stolen 2020 election, he wasn’t chosen to be president in 2016 and 2020 and once again in 2024 because he’s a poet laureate or a pastor or a prefab politician. Trump’s a producer for the American people.

The firing-on-all cylinders low-inflation economy (before the subterfuge of COVID) and the strong dollar Trump delivered – both are being destroyed by the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the American people as are the times of peace Trump fostered.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Americans have faced increasingly higher prices for food, gasoline, and other common household items. And while prices have been going up, wages have been going down, placing additional stress on family finances. This, per The Biden Inflation Tracker. This per Full-Time Nurse and Mother Breaks Down as She Discusses Tough Financial Struggles Under Bidenomics — Family Living ‘Paycheck-to-Paycheck’ Despite Decent Income (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

Since Biden took office Home sales fell to a 13-year low in October as prices rose (cnbc.com),

Since the illegitimate President took office in January 2021, our southern border has been invaded. Biden-Mayorkas have allowed in (6 million +) all kinds of illegal immigrants including narco-terrorists, gangs, CCP migrants, Hamas terrorists, and more unsavory types along with fentanyl and disease. 2024 will be disastrous as the effects of the open border hit home.

Under the corrupt, compromised, incompetent, and incorrigible Joe Biden, Americans now risk getting pulled into wars on three major fronts: Europe, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. That didn’t happen under Trump.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Unlike those who are “ashamed” or “embarrassed” by Trump and want to condemn his unrefined ways as being beneath them, my working life was spent in the real world outside the cloisters of academia, religious organizations, and armchair punditry. I learned which people get things done and what needs to get done.

As a business partner in a multi-million-dollar manufacturing enterprise for many years, I found out who was needed and what was needed to bring success to both employees and the bottom line. The things that Trump got done during his first term allowed me to get things done in the Kingdom of God.

N.B.: There are imperfect people like Trump and tax-collector Matthew in the kingdom of heaven. (Mk. 2:15-17). So, it is best for the offended and the ‘high-minded’ to stick with the gospels and to stay away from tea leaves.

Consider a Trump economy. With a thriving economy, I am able to support myself and give to help others in need in a closely tied relationship. But under a Leftist Joe Biden economy, disposable personal income shrinks. Financial survival kicks in. And worse.

You should be aware that Leftists are intent on neutralizing Christianity and its charity. As mentioned above, the Left wants everything to be funneled through the State and the State to be the only effect on society. This is what Progressives do. They make everyone and everything dependent on ruling class ‘good will’. And that is the substance of State media’s MSNBC and their ilk.

So, while the prophets of Baal, enflamed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, shout louder and slash themselves with swords and spears in the hope that viewers will pay attention to their frantic prophesying and let their fire rain down on Trump, let’s turn to the Good News that has already come down from the heavens with its fire poured out through the Holy Spirit.

The beginning of Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον or euaggélion – literally, “God’s good news.”):

This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Anointed King, God’s son.

Everything in Scripture (and specifically Isaiah 40-55) up to this time pointed to the Kingdom of God on earth. Mark writes (vs.14-15):

After John’s arrest, Jesus came into Galilee, announcing God’s good news.

“The time is fulfilled!”  he said; “God Kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”

“Turn back”? When Jesus launched the long-promised kingdom of God on earth, allegiances and lifestyles began to change direction, as he began to talk about and show what that meant.

Jesus spoke of kingdom of God in parables and directly, as in Matthew 5-7. He showed what the kingdom of God meant – unclean spirits are cast out (Mk. 1:39), people are healed (Mt. 4:23), there is restoration (Lk. 15) and resurrection (Jn. 11:38-44). And, that the kingdom of God on earth was a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Mt. 5:17-18).

When he taught his disciples how to pray, he prayed

May your kingdom come,

May your will be done

As in heaven, so on earth

I wonder. Is that prayer being realized? Instead of allegiance to King Jesus the ultimate restorer and to the kingdom of God on earth, have the followers of Jesus become accommodationists of the world to fit in and find ease?

Have the followers of Jesus understood what the good news is? Have they reduced the gospel (euaggélion) to the formulaic four spiritual laws and an escape from the world into heaven?

Below are two podcasts that offer an understanding of the Good News and the kingdom of God on earth. Download and listen as you enter the season of celebrating the birth of a King who brought us good news and a kingdom.

But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. Daniel 7:18

We, the King’s holy ones, are to herald the good news of God’s Kingdom with a new way of life to a world that sees answers in profoundly short-sighted ways rather than in the Way of King Jesus. And then . . .

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
    and of his Messiah,
and he will reign forever and ever.” Rev 11:15

~~~~~

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn’t about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.

Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright

Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright

Trinity Forum Conversations | Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright (transistor.fm)

~~~~~

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus bringing the Kingdom of God to the world looks much different than what his friends, family members, and Jewish community thought.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus & the Kingdom of God (bibleproject.com)

~~~~~

Informed Dissent:

A year of determination, the help of world-renowned doctors, and this mother’s research exposed the world to the known toxins in the Covid-19 vaccines that nearly killed her son.

“In 2021, after my then 21-year-old son went from running miles a day to walking with a cane, diagnosed with a rare, catastrophic blood disorder, this mom knows it is time for vaccine injury victims & families to ignite an intelligent, rational conversation about what the mRNA vaccines put into our bodies. We don’t buy food or health products without reading the labels and knowing the ingredients, and it’s time we do the same with the vaccines for our children.”

The Shot Heard Around The World – A Mother’s Anthem (substack.com)

Livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely given a range of veterinary drugs to prevent disease, and some of those drugs could potentially impact the health of those who eat their meat.

Common Drug Used by Pork Industry Has Human Cancer Risk (mercola.com)

Thousands of vials of biological substances — including some labeled “HIV” — and a freezer marked “Ebola” were found inside a secret Chinese-owned biolab in California which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FBI initially refused to investigate, according to a House committee report released Wednesday. 

Pathogens labeled ‘HIV’ and ‘Ebola’ found inside illegal Chinese-owned biolab in California (nypost.com)

“This is really a massive cover-up. And I suspect it’s because there’s many more links to the funding, and there was probably discussion of the funding,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).

HHS and NIH More Secretive Than CIA on COVID Origin Documents: Sen. Rand Paul | EpochTV (theepochtimes.com)

~~~~~

https://youtu.be/2V6jH-6F6K0?si=ToHSRRpYjgap6CpX

Brace Yourself For What’s Coming in 2024 – Victor Davis Hanson – YouTube

Victor Davis Hanson Warns America: ‘Brace Yourself for What’s Coming in 2024’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance

Filed under 2023 current events, 2024 Election, Christianity, cultural Marxism, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Kingdom of God, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

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