HeartBreakLog

Hope

Matthew 5
¹⁷"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

What is the Bible “for”? What is it “about”? The key word in the Greek text of Matthew’s Gospel is πληρῶσαι: to complete, to perfect, to fulfill

All of God’s requirements in the Law and His Promises through the Prophecies are completed and fulfilled in the Person, the Example, and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God is Love, and Jesus demonstrated God’s Love for us (Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:8-10).

Moses prophesied soon after the introduction of God’s Law that Israel would not keep it (ref). The reason God gives for the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:33 is that the original Covenant was broken. Jeremiah (ref) prophesied the terms of this completed Law, and Isaiah (ref) prophesied what would be required of the Messiah Who came to establish it.

There is foreshadowing of these requirements already in the Exodus, as Israel impatiently makes themselves a god of their own devising when Moses fails to show up on schedule:

Exodus 32
³¹So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written." ³³ The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book....” [my emphases]

Moses clearly isn’t the man for this particular job---taking the sins of the people of Israel, let alone the whole world, upon himself so that they could go on to fulfill God’s Promise in His Name. But through the Holy Spirit, Moses has begun to understand the awesome Sacrifice which would be required in God’s Plan for our Salvation.

The Completion of all these things in Jesus Christ didn’t change the rules, but it left a lot of people behind---still chained to their obsolete, or completely failed understanding of the picture God has been drawing for us:

Matthew 12
¹At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. ²When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." ³He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. ⁵Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? ⁶I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. [my emphases]

All of the righteous requirements of God for our admission into His Presence are fulfilled in Jesus (Hebrews10:11-17). Under the first Covenant, a priesthood had to perform sacrifices of cleansing and purification so that one selected priest
could briefly enter the Holy Presence of God once a year to ask for the atonement of the people’s sins---temporarily. But Jesus completed the requirements for our purification forever, “once for all”, to give us the right to be God’s adopted children, and to enter His Presence, to speak and---more importantly---to listen to Him for ourselves, with confidence (Hebrews 4:16). We will never need the services and ceremonies of such a specialized priesthood again, because that work is finished (John 19:30).

Many of the prophecies, such as those of Ezekiel and Daniel, fall into their complete context in Revelation (Ezekiel 1/ Revelation 4:7, Daniel 7/ Revelation 13). We have this striking image from the prophesy of Zechariah:

Zechariah 4
¹¹Then I asked the angel, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?" ¹² Again I asked him, "What are these two olive branches beside the two gold pipes that pour out golden oil?"
¹³He replied, "Do you not know what these are?"
"No, my lord," I said.
¹⁴ So he said, "These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth."

This prophesy is placed into its completed context in the prophesy of John:

Revelation 11
³ And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth." ⁴These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. ⁵If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. ⁶These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

The Law requires that testimony be established through at least two witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15). Are these literally two individuals, is this a symbol of the testimony of the Church to the world, or something else? They are killed for their testimony, and raised again to life, just as their Lord was. Pray for understanding, if you need to know more (James 1:5).

But look at what they are doing! As Moses and Aaron confronted the most powerful nation on Earth at that time with God’s Power as He led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, so these witnesses confront all the nations of the world with God’s Power as He leads all of His children in the final Exodus out of slavery to sin and death (Revelation 21:1-4)!

In this way, God brings all of these unbroken strands of history, Law, and Prophesy together into one cord, under One Name:

Philippians 2
⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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Mark 5
9Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?
"My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

I guess my October Festival scary-story repertoire is limited to one---from last year. It still scares me:
The Scariest Story Ever Told

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Instruction

John 14
26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to
you.

It is unlikely that anyone would trust his life to a surgeon who admitted that he hadn’t
attended medical school or served an internship, but protested that he had read all the
books. The practice of medicine requires not only memorization of facts about the care
and repair of the human body, but carefully supervised practice and instruction.

Why are there so many strange and often contradictory ideas about what the Bible says?
There are thousands of denominations, often founded on arguments about whether certain
things should be eaten or drunk (see Romans Chapter 14), whether there should be musical
instruments in worship (read a few of the Psalms of David), whether the things Paul
wrote in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 have the exactly opposite meaning to the one he
actually presented in the text, whether the strict literary interpretation of a few words at a
time from second- or third-hand translations of the Biblical texts into obsolete
Elizabethan English should take precedence over praying for God’s understanding of
what they mean (see James 1:5), and an apparently endless variety of similarly mystifying
conclusions that have little or no basis in what the text of the Scripture actually says.

Worse, there are probably more fraudulent or deceptive belief systems that pretend to be
Christian denominations than there are major non-Christian religions---Catholicism,
Mormonism, Adventism, the Witnesses, various Gnosticisms, Arianism, Deism, and a
bewildering variety of similar nonsense which often doesn’t bear even a superficial
resemblance to the teachings and Example of Jesus ( I can still remember when
Scientology presented itself as a Christian denomination, tomato cans and all ). Why
do people pursue these pretensions to Christianity when it is so much easier---and
infinitely more effective---to believe and practice what the Scripture actually says?

Like other vital, applied disciplines, Christian life cannot be based on merely reading and
memorizing the Textbook. We are required to undergo a rigorous course of instruction
and training---and an “internship” which requires the rest of our lives. We have to
quietly sit in the Presence of the Teacher and learn about His Ways, study His Examples,
and put the things we learn into practice in our lives.

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[Writing in Ubuntu Linux & Open Office today. Several problems are making the switch-over kind of difficult Hyperlinks are hard to use, etc. Still, it's not XP or Vista]

Revelation 22
¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

It is unfortunately becoming clearer why complaining to the Roman Catholics about the complete lack of Biblical authority for their claims seems to produce only the online equivalent of bemused condescension. They are correct in their judgment that I don't understand their religion:
Papal infallibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Papal supremacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It is a basic principle of Christian interpretation of God's Word that it must originate solely by exegesis (ἐξηγεῖσθα, "drawing out") from the valid testimony of contemporary witnesses to Jesus' Life recognized as the New Testament Canon, and from the recognized Canon of the Old Testament.
Instead the Roman Catholics have determined that a fallible, mortal individual selected as Earthly monarch over their assembly may at his sole whim, apparently by adopting a certain format and demeanor (e.g.. ex cathedra ), write edicts which instantly attain a status among Catholics equal to Canonical Scripture.

[The Wikipedia entry on "Infallibility" sums up the problem fairly concisely:
“Protestants generally reject the doctrine because they do not consider the development of dogmatic theology to be authoritative apart from Biblical exegesis....]
Jesus encountered a somewhat similar problem among the Jewish religious leaders (Matthew 15:3-9} and their "traditions". The difference is that the Pharisees practiced a faith which at least contained a kernel of God's Word, and bore some resemblance to His Will at times. Some of the Pharisees were able to recognize the Truth that Jesus represented, like Nicodemus and Paul, based in part on their background in the Law and the Prophets.
Roman Catholicism, on the contrary, is a completely different religion from Christianity, which merely takes on Christian names for its entities and proceedings to delude people who haven't been paying attention. This is a horrendous tragedy affecting millions of people around the world, and it is entirely unnecessary.
How much simpler is it to just accept that God means what He says? Why not set aside all of this "secret handshake/decoder ring" religion (and old knuckles, and rebadged statuary, and seepages, and dribbles, and screen doors, and cave walls...), and commit yourselves in humility and repentance to become God's children, to grow up to be like Jesus---obeying His Commands, believing His Words, living according to His Example, receiving the Instruction of His Holy Spirit, and speaking the Truth in Love?

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Technorati is getting me in a lot of trouble lately. I stumbled across this while innocently looking for something else, and of course didn’t have enough sense to leave it alone:
JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Adding Wine To The Precious Blood JIMMY AKIN.ORG: More On Adding Wine To The Precious Blood
I responded:

This is certainly revealing---what is its actual Scriptural basis? One begins to suspect that you all sit around making stuff up.

None of this seems to be described in Jesus’ presentation of the first Communion (Luke 22:18-20). His intent is clearly to present the ceremony of the Passover in its completed form under the New Covenant, with Himself as the Lamb of the Sacrifice(Hebrews 9:24-28), whose Blood turns aside the punishment for our sins. He said “Do this in Remembrance of me”.

Nor did the Ceremony itself confer the Holy Spirit, which the Apostles only received after His return to Heaven (Acts 2:1-4). The ceremony isn’t a magical incantation, it is our expression of remembrance of God’s Greatest Gift, our final Exodus from slavery to sin and death---as the Passover commemorated Israel’s Exodus from slavery in Egypt.

Nowhere in the descriptions of the Holy Spirit and His Purpose by Jesus (John 14:26) or Paul (1 Corinthians 12:7-11), for examples, is there any apparent reference to this “dilution” issue. Are we to believe that the Presence of the infinitely powerful, Living God, Who struck down the Israelites who rebelled, Who drove out nations before them, Who empowers us as the children of God, the “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:14) until ultimate Redemption, is somehow affected by solvents?!

If you had to present your discussion to the King Himself in person, wouldn’t you at least find it sort of embarassing?

[Further comments from the group seem to express continued comfort with the whole idea of containment of the Holy Spirit within fancy dinnerware by use of alcoholic beverages, and even to find the concept rather charming and perhaps personally enabling. Others think we are being unduly harsh by limiting our "understanding" of Scripture to the testimony of contemporary witnesses represented in the canonical New Testament writings.]

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Discernment

Until recently, I have always avoided television Bible teachers and evangelists. The reputation of the people who do televised preaching has always been poor, and for pretty good reasons. I am finding lately, however, that several of the current generation of televised ministers---men and women---are actually capable of genuine Spiritually-inspired edification.

Then there are these other guys---

I got too far from the remote one Sunday morning, and accidentally heard a man preaching what amounted to “Communion magic”. Far from the commandments of Jesus and Scriptural explanations of the purpose of this celebration, this person claimed that it released special power to control one’s circumstances. He even offered to send the unfortunate viewer a special “Communion set”---blessed personally by the miscreant preaching this foolishness, presumably a desirable service because he was actually appearing on television.

Others are more subtle. A popular preacher extracted a basic premise from an analysis of Genesis, Hebrews, and other Scriptures, that humans created in God’s Image shared His power to speak their desires into reality. Prayer, he had determined, would always be answered for a Christian, because God’s answer is always “Yes!”. If one is not happy and prosperous, it is because one has not faithfully announced “I will be happy and prosperous!” To deal with the stack of bills piling up on the kitchen table, one should demand “be paid!”. This sort of “magic money” sermon is very popular in many places.

On the contrary, what Jesus actually told us was:

Matthew 6
33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

He taught us to pray first for the completion of God’s Kingdom and Purpose (Matthew 6:10) and gave us His Example in ultimate submission to God’s Will (Matthew 26:42)---in spite of His earnest desire to avoid the terrible sacrifice required of Him.

Moreover, Jesus made---literally created---money (Matthew 17:24-27). He also demonstrated that He had the power to eliminate hunger and poverty from the face of the Earth (Matthew 14:19-21, Matthew 15:37). But rather than do this---by becoming an earthly king at the expense of God’s Will and our hope of Salvation---He withdrew to be alone with His Father (John 6:15).

If we should expect to command our hardships to cease without consideration of God's Purpose, what is Paul talking about in Philippians 4:11-13?

Then there is the phenomenon usually called “Dispensationalism” (Dispensationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Christian eschatology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Why I Believe In A Pre-Tribulation Rapture). Dispensationalism is so pervasive in many Protestant denominations that many of us grew up so immersed in it that we need to deliberately pray for understanding and discernment to know how to separate the Scriptures from the human efforts to "decode" them---but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Unlike the warfare of competing heresies which led to the dissolution of the Roman Catholic empire into Eastern and Western orthodoxies, most of these various "–isms" among the Protestant denominations seem to grow not out of a love of deception or spiritual morbidity, but out of un-Spiritual efforts to apply human understanding to things which must be “Spiritually discerned”( 1 Corinthians 2:14).

Lacking the Spiritual Wisdom to understand how the Church fits into the Old Testament prophecies, Dispensationalists appear to relegate the Church to a sort of “parenthetical” place in God’s Plan. It is as if Jesus sort of announced the Church in an embarrassing lapse, as if maybe He didn’t quite know the prophesies well enough. We would probably have to conclude that Paul’s dissertation on the future of Israel in Romans Chapter 11 was some sort of marginalia, or something.

All of this mis-reading requires a special “dispensation” for the present age, and a special extra-Biblical additional Second Coming of Jesus Christ to get the Church out of the way--- the Rapture, or ἁρπάζω (the "snatching away")--- so that the prophecies for an entirely literal Israel can be fulfilled according to the understanding available through a mere reading of words on paper, without all that troublesome Spiritual growth and insight. Many dispensationalists go on to fall into the trap of trying to scry the date and time of Second Coming-I out of their fundamentally literary understanding (e.g., Hal Lindsey: "The Late, Great Planet Earth", 1970. Later editions evidently omit the obviously erroneous prediction of Rapture in the late 1980's).

There are many problems with reading the Bible this way. Jesus said:

Matthew 24:
36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

If anyone thinks that he will be able to apply some heretofore secret augury of decryptions to scry out of the Scriptures a "desk calendar for the last days", information denied even to God’s own Son, they are sadly deluded.

Paul, who was certainly a highly literate man, if not a bone fide genius by human standards, went to a lot of trouble to explain the source and nature of Christian wisdom:

1 Corinthians 1
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

If your understanding or teaching of God’s Plan---past, present, and future---requires superhuman literacy, extraordinary charisma, advanced knowledge of encryption techniques, mathematical set diagrams, or color-coded wall charts with transparent overlays, you may safely assume that you have missed the point somewhere.

What is the Church? How does it “fit” into prophecy? Jesus placed it definitively into the completed context of Law and Prophecy (Mark 3:31-34). If we could stop and listen to Him instead of jibbering so much nonsense in our meetings and prayers, we might actually become the Family He intended (John 1:12).

How, then, do we miss the point so badly?---by not listening when God talks to us. Each of us is called to exercise Spiritual discernment.

Jesus says:

John 14
26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Paul says:

Romans 12
2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Ephesians 3
16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Philippians 1
9And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

John says:

1 John 4
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Yes, this is terrifyingly dangerous thinking. Christianity is the most dangerous idea ever conceived. Christianity is nothing short of a revolution against everything that humans understand by their own wisdom and intend by their own strength.

This means that all of us---even those of us who don’t read and write too well, or hold menial jobs, or no jobs at all---are responsible for knowing in their hearts, minds, and souls what the Truth is. This is that Law given by God through Jesus Christ, the Law “placed in our minds, and written on our hearts” by the Holy Spirit of the Living God (Jeremiah 31:33), the Law which will stand for Eternity.

Jesus summed up His Ministry this way:

John 3
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So, where does all of this get us? What is the result of my own simplistic, semi-educated, non-cryptographic individual discernment of Biblical Truth? Feel free, if it makes you more comfortable, to copy, resize, or color code it, maybe draw in a few precisely overlapping circles or tack on some color overlays (but no PowerPoint™, please, or at least don’t tell me about it):

God loves you. Love Him back, and each other in the same way.
Accept His Sacrifice on your behalf, and spend the rest of your life trying to be like His Son. Look forward to His Return.
Tell everyone.

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Matthew 22
37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

New Scientist SPACE - Premium- Was our universe made for us or not? - News [subscription-based article]
There finally seems to be a sort of hesitant acknowledgement among a few physicists that the fundamentals of our Universe don’t really make sense as a purely stochastic process---meaning that someone must have made it. Of course, people who have been approaching the problem from other directions have been saying that for centuries.
There also seems to be a requirement in science---going back at least to Einstein----that when a scientist is compelled to speak seriously about the possibility of an intelligent Creator, he must also conclude that the Creator must have lost interest and moved on immediately after the act of Creation and will have no further personal involvement in the outcome. It’s the most important scientific discovery that we could possibly make, but it is apparently necessary to reach a completely unfounded assumption about the character and purpose of the Creator in order to---what? Avoid ostracism? Avoid personal involvement in the most personally involving fact about the Universe that there could possibly be? Avoid losing control? Avoid copyright infringement?
So, if we conclude otherwise (as some of the rest of us are compelled to do: Romans 5:8)---that the Creator really cares what happens to His Creation---what sort of plans would we expect Him to make for a Universe evidently designed to contain not only life, but intelligent life?
Intelligence, as we are all learning at great personal cost, is a very dangerous thing. It obviously cannot be controlled by pre-written instructions---intelligent, “self-aware” beings defy “programming” for the very reason that they are independently intelligent. Look at the state of our national legal systems. The legal system of the U.S. has deteriorated into an anarchy, albeit limited to privileged group who simply “interprets” the useless written codes, constitutions, and laws, to mean whatever whim or perhaps current socially trendy fads dictate at the time. How many human governments have come and gone in similar ways? Actually, the ingenuity invested by the human species in circumventing every conceivable system designed to maintain order and prevent its self-destructive behaviors is one of its most consistent achievements.
B.F. Skinner was wrong; we are not social automata, or we wouldn’t be having all these problems. We would just implement a big behavioral programming environment, maybe something like Asimov’s Foundation, and everybody would settle into mindless, “scientificized”, psychologically-automated prosperity.
No, intelligent, “self-aware” beings must conclude independently that the fundamental requirements for the maintenance of their Universe are necessary, and actually desirable for their own comfort and well-being. So, what would this Plan look like, in its simplest possible form?

Where have you people been looking?

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....Telling the Truth, even when it hurts like hell, and makes people very angry. Jesus also said:

Matthew 23:
15"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

Matthew 23:
33"You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

Jesus said these things to a people who persisted in teaching hateful lies to impressionable children using the authority of the Name. Put aside whatever you arrogantly assumed you knew, and humbly listen to His voice before you get to this point.

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...about Catholicism:

Exodus 19
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you ^[a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."

Jeremiah 31
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

1 Peter 2
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Ephesians 3
12In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Hebrews 4
16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 10
19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body....

[My emphases]
Even if this current separate "priesthood" you are allowing to teach your children, who call Peter their predecessor, wasn't lying to you, they're obsolete!

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Continuing our commentary on the “Judas” document:

In the comments from National Geographic: Gospel of Judas Pages Endured Long, Strange Journey, we find:

"We can consider it a real miracle [my emphasis] that [such an ancient literary work]—especially one threatened by the hatred of the great majority of its contemporary readers, who saw it as a shame and a scandal, destined to be lost … would suddenly appear and be brought to light," said scholar Rodolphe Kasser.

But early Christians and their doctrines and teachings endured the concerted and ongoing efforts of the most powerful empire ever seen on the Earth up to that time to destroy them. How many ancient copies of the Greek texts of the New Testament are available to us [http://www.greekbible.com/]? How many current copies of the Bible are there, in how many languages?
It is a salient fact about the "Judas" document that its contemporaries endured its "loss", while the legitimate, Inspired Christian Gospels and Letters live on without interruption.
NG’s “news” story goes on to embellish this collective hallucination of the 2^nd Century Cainite cult as one of the “diverse beliefs”, or “alternative theological views” to the ”more structured faith based on the New Testament Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.” That the sole surviing ancient copy of these lunatic gnostic ravings [So, read them yourself, if you don’t believe me: http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html] more closely resembles a modern Scientology tract (so, sue me...oops.) than any bone fide Old or New Testament teaching doesn’t seem to have infiltrated the cocoon of sensationalized melodrama which has engulfed these “researchers’” point of view.

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Our Easter sermon included a strong rebuttal of the latest fads in pseudo-Biblical sensationalism, including the “Gospel of Judas”. I dismissed the whole "Judas" document last week as “just another heresy”, but the additional information makes it clear just how far the TV documentaries and the rash of news stories went to avoid legitimate academic thought and virtually all other relevant facts to sensationalize the document as somehow revolutionary, or requiring a complete re-thinking of Christian doctrine. Yes, the “Gospel of Judas” is an authentic 3^rd-Century document, which is historically and academically interesting in some respects. No, in every other sense, it isn’t remotely worth the papyrus it’s written on.
I was kind of surprised to find that the Wikipedia entry for "Gospel of Judas" includes the broader academic and historical context. It identifies it as a "gnostic gospel", fundamentally opposed to Christian tradition, and associates it with the gnostic Cainite cult of the 2nd Century A.D.. It also mentions the rebuttal to the gnostics and this “gospel” by Irenaeus, who repudiated it in 180 A.D. as “fictional”.
To see how National Geographic views Christian criticism of the Judas document, such as the anti-heretical writings of Iranaeus, see Gospel of Judas Pages Endured Long, Strange Journey :

"St. Irenaeus's method was to savage alternative theological views...."

National Geographic has made a translation of the surviving portion of the "gospel" available on its "Gospel of Judas" site , but reasonable people shouldn’t have to read much of it to identify it as basically pathological.

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Ephesians 4:14-15
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

[I was hoping to hit the intellecual snooze button on this, but it just isn’t going away fast enough.]
the "Good News", usually tranlated as "Gospel", properly referring to the "Good News" of God's Love, and our Salvation and freedom from slavery to sin and death through Jesus Christ. [graphic NT Greek text from http://www.greekbible.com/]
Then, there's this other...stuff. Over the centuries, every possible permutation of every possible combination of lies, insults, and venomous assaults against Jesus and the other personalities of the Gospel and writings of the Apostles must have been committed to writing or other media at least once. In the last couple of decades, fanciful melodramas (aka "soap operas") featuring New Testament names for their characters have become very popular. Evidently the whole "Bible code" fad was losing steam, though...
National Geographic presented a documentary about the latest fantasy last night on their cable channel [also in The Lost Gospel of Judas--Photos, Time Line, Maps--National Geographic]. Here we have either a) an extremely clever and scientifically/ archeologically literate forgery involving authentic 3^rd -Century papyri and sophisticated “missing link” ink, or, b) a real 3^rd-Century example of an uncountable number of psuedo-Christian heresies, here involving a purported plot between Judas and Jesus to vault Jesus to world stardom through martyrdom, or something---ignoring the fact that Jesus had repeatedly rejected such opportunities throughout His life, and nearly every other possible fact involved in the legitimate Gospels. Moreover, unlike Gnosticism, Arianism/Monophysitism/Monoelitism, Catholicism, Mormonism, and other heresies that caught on to various degrees, this one was so poorly received that it survives only as a single fragmented copy stuck in a book, probably to distract the roaches from the important papyri in the stack (okay, so I’m not an archeologist, I’m mostly disinterested, I’m overdue for my afternoon espresso drink---why expect more scientific rigor from me than from these “Bible coders” you’ve been wasting your time on?).
Don’t you people have anything better to do? Who paid for this, anyway?

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2 Corinthians 10
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Well, we provoked a response, which is not to say, a "discussion". I suppose it is at least a little encouraging that modern Catholicism has progressed from flogging and hanging its critics to merely "demagoging" them as hate-filled bigots.

I've had virtually the same non-discussion with Buddhists, Muslims, and representives of other religious groups, lawyers, business managers.... A "pretension" to the Truth does not elevate itself to reality by impassioned repetition in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Such powerful "walling-off" from criticism does not make the pretense intimidating, only even sillier.

Consider how dangerous our world has become. On one hand, we have a zealous religious group which believes it can “run around and do as it pleases” and call it a religion [FOXNews.com [AP]], which is collecting impassioned warriors and suicides and nuclear weapons technology. In another place, we have a belief system that encourages followers to collect trinkets and view relics and recite stuff that their leaders made up, distracting them from the Truth that renews spiritually dead, fallen sinners to Life. Others think that with sufficient self-will and analysis and technological sophistication, we can “think” our way out of this mess. Perhaps we can “teach” people ethics as a kind of self-improvement course, and learn to explore the deadly unknown of the Universe with “bleeding edge management theory”. The American justice system, and probably most others, thinks one can exploit weaknesses in our political system to place one’s fellow criminals in judicial and legal positions of authority to facilitate wholesale stealing and oppression and call it the “law”, and everyone will simply have to blindly follow this "anarchy of priviledge" through an orderly cradle-to-grave feeding frenzy.

There is one answer to all of this “skubalon”---demolition. Nothing but the Truth will stand in the end---everything else will pass away. Which side do you want to be on when it does?

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Isaiah 29
13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

I'm finally processing the digital stills and movie clips from last year's trip to France and Italy. These seemed relevant to the point I've been trying to make in recent posts:

Notre Dame, Paris: The left entrance, depicting Jesus and apostles

Notre Dame, Paris: the right entrance: Mary, depicted as the "regina caelorum"

Notre Dame, Paris: a typical reliquary from the cathedral treasures

Vatican Museum: Murals by Rafael, depicting the Ascension of Jesus (center), and the ascension of Mary, (right)

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Matthew 7
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

[See also: Benedict says stuff: FOXNews.com - U.S. & World News - Pope Encyclical Mandates Charity from the article on the Other Page.]
This topic keeps coming up, probably because the discipline required to counteract it causes so much pain on both sides. I grew up with Catholic schoolmates...there are quite a few Catholics in our extended family. I'm not saying these things out of hatred or anger at Catholics. There have been many examples of courageous and positive role models among Catholics in recent memory---John Paul II, Teresa, and others. A lot of peoples’ favorite author and one of mine, J.R.R. Tolkein, was Catholic. In the referenced news story, Benedict has said some things that sound remarkably like real Christian theology. Are we to conclude that these genuinely admirable individuals and their contributions to humanity somehow missed the point, fell short of the mark, and ultimately failed to meet God’s requirements for Salvation?

Romans 3
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We continue to believe and teach, as Paul did, that our Salvation is solely in our faith in Jesus, in our acceptance of His Sacrifice which reconciles us to God (Romans 10:9-11).
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, Paul proclaims the things that Love worthy of God is not. Contrary to all human expectation, it is possible to have superhuman wisdom, to give everything we have to the poor, and even give up our lives for others, and still utterly miss the point. What is this “Love” that Paul is talking about? John also speaks to the subject:

1 John 4
8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Last year, we visited churches in France and the Vatican. I stood in these architecturally awesome places, and felt that deathly emptiness imbued with an overpowering aura of unapproachable superiority that can only come from an appalling ignorance of God. This is that horrific and ancient cult that teaches the “ascension and coronation of the virgin”, and the “eternal ever-virgin”, and leads people to worship ground-water seepages on underpasses and wrinkles in screen doors, and to travel to obscure grottos in Eastern Europe to see apparitions of their “great lady”, and so lures them away from the freely offered Grace of God’s Love in the person of Jesus Christ, and the Power that rescues hopeless sinners like all of us and changes their lives forever.
If your faith is in foolishness the people have made up because God’s Way doesn’t meet their expectations, you are going to live and die separated from His Love. Even very good and noble people are not good and noble enough to meet God’s standards apart from the Grace that comes through Jesus Christ. There is still time for the rest of us.

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Interesting, that for all the hatred in your last paragraph, you still made a pilgrimage to the Vatican in Rome.

# posted by  Anonymous : 5:13 AM 

I'm afraid you describe the Catholic Church that exists only in your own mind and in the propaganda you've swallowed.

It might help if you actually learn what the Catholic Church truly is before you begin to tell other Christians that they're going to hell for being Catholics.

Then again, you can continue to blaspheme against the Lord and his body. I'm sure that will spread the Gospel quite well!

# posted by  A Holy Fool : 3:18 PM 

Well, at least I finally provoked non-spam comments. Now I discover that I didn't have all the options set up.

Anonymous, there's a difference between legitimate criticism and "hatred". I think I covered the "hatred" issue pretty well. (In fact, the recent postings were actually directed mostly to the other Baptists.)
The "pilgrimage" wasn't religious. Christians have no need for Holy sites, other than the one in their hearts occupied by the Holy Spirit.
Most of my interest in St. Peter's and the French Gothic cathedrals, for example, stems from my engineering background. That Michelangelo topped off his artistic career by designing much of the architectural wonder of St. Peter’s and its two-layered dome is of great historical and technical interest. That he also had to hide his designs until construction began to avoid constant political meddling is perhaps symptomatic of his environment.
We also sent postcards from the Vatican post office to various friends and family, noting that they were postmarked from the world's smallest nation.

"Holy", please provide a reference to Scripture to show me what blasphemy I might have committed. The charge would require that I have spoken in contradiction to God's Word. Although I may indulge in anger a little too often, that's not the same as blasphemy.
As I mentioned in the article, I have about as much experience with Roman Catholicism as is possible without actual participation. There is a significant number of recent converts from Catholicism in our local Church, so I also have some basis for understanding aside from my own experience as well.
I would like to understand the Scriptural basis for such doctrines of the Roman Catholic church as the "ascention and coronation of the virgin". (I didn't happen to get any pictures of that basilica) The only Scriptural refenence I know of for the "queen of heaven" is from Jeremiah, and that isn't very supportive of the concept. Please explain.

# posted by  JJR2 : 4:45 PM 

...about what I expected. A week later, and no response.

If you're going to post cut-and-paste comments, and least be ready with cut-and-paste Scriptural references to support them.

...and if the religious practices which you characterize as "Christian" have no basis in the Christian Scriptures, what should that be telling you?

# posted by  JJR2 : 6:31 PM 

Sorry for the delay in responding; however, I've been ill with the flu that's been going around.

My main point is that you went from the beautiful and loving Book of Romans to a fairly ugly ending paragraph.

I fail to see how phrases like "unapproachable superiority", "appalling ignorance of God", and "horrific and ancient cult" are "legitimate criticism". They seem more like name calling than factual arguements.

I'm just a bit sad that you were able to enter a place where God has been worshiped for nearly a millenium (centuries before America was discovered) and not feel any connection to the early church, our Christian ancestors, or the real presence of Christ. I was positively thrilled when, living on Crete, I had the oportunity to worship at the Church of St Titus, which Paul established. Cold, windy, drizzle, no roof, barely any walls and yet I was in communion with Christians from nearly 2000 years before.

I do understand your phrase "deathly emptiness imbued" as I feel that emotion when in most Protestant churches. Although I never felt that in any of the old Anglican churches and cathedrals in England.

While your comment concerning wayward Catholics in your Church is meant to persuade and add gravitas, I am more persuaded by the testimonies of these non-Catholic men of the cloth.

Marcus Grodi
http://www.chnetwork.org/marcusconv.htm

Scott Hahn
http://www.chnetwork.org/scotthconv.htm

and the more than 40 other similar testimonies
http://www.chnetwork.org/converts.htm

God bless and keep you on your journey home...

- Timothy

# posted by  Timothy : 9:25 PM 

Hi Tim---
Even the "beautiful and loving Book of Romans" wasn't uncritical. Paul wasn’t “nice” to the Romans or the Corinthians, and he certainly didn’t hold back when he wrote the Galatians! He wrote the way he did because he cared what happened to them!
For an example of "ugly", see the third picture in my next post. We paid a small fee to see the "treasury" of Notre Dame in Paris; a collection of presumably historic vestments and utensils, and dozens of jars of nasty, blackened knuckle bones and other skeletal body parts. They had both of this poor guy’s femurs in gold boxes on pillows. It took months to get that image out of my head. The morbidity of the place was literal as well as figurative and spiritual.
[I had a few things to say earlier about morbidity problems among Baptists. The Baptists would “protest”, incidentally, that they aren’t Protestants, because they didn’t derive their religious practices from “reformation” of Roman Catholicism. They still frequently manage to make their own style of hellishness out of church-going.]
We could bandy architectural metaphors at length, but this is all unresponsive to the original question: What does Catholic religious practice have to do with the teachings of Jesus? Does this worship/adoration of the “virgin”, “ascension and coronation” business have any basis in the Law, the Prophets, or the Gospels, or is it simply a rebadged Ishtar/Asteroth/Juno/Hera/”queen of heaven” for people to cling to so they won’t have to be challenged with the Truth that would otherwise change their lives (2 Corinthians 5:17)?
Catholics use some of the most convoluted “theology” I have ever heard to demand that Mary was “ever-virgin”---that His “adelphoi” were “cousins”, that Joseph was married to another woman named Mary…Why? To what conceivable advantage?!
Why do you need this horrific baggage of dead mens’ bones and renamed goddesses, when you can simply learn what Jesus said and did, accept His Sacrifice by faith (Romans 8:1-4), and put His words into action in your life?

# posted by  JJR2 : 3:01 PM 

I'm sorry, Tim, but I just don't have the column inches to continue the discussion in this direction, or to publicize other discussions that may or may not be responsive to the question at hand. You mentioned a Protestant minister named Hahn, but didn't supply a link.
Again, if there is no basis in the Gospels or the apostles' letters for what you think of as Christianity, you're mistaken. Let's leave the bones and the stones, and talk about the Spiritual basics of the faith.
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (John 14:26, NIV).

# posted by  JJR2 : 8:05 AM 

Oh, I met the "other Mary" theory in several places on the Web. It is probably of recent origin, since the contrived reinterpretation of the Greek "adelphoi" doesn't exactly resonate.

# posted by  JJR2 : 8:17 AM 

Guys? Oh, well...can we at least conclude by your lack of relevant response that your “belief system” has no basis in Jesus’ teachings or Example, or in any other place in the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, or the letters of the apostles? It is by every reasonable definition a completely different religion from Christianity, which necessarily implies some reference to what Jesus said and did.
Okay, so you obviously can expound whatever crank theology you wish, along with the Scientologists, the Mormons, the Adventists, the Witnesses, the Branch Davidiwhatits, and so on and on. The deep, genuine offense is that this institution presumes to authoritatively teach these preposterous legends to others in the Name (cp. Matthew 23:13-15). Can you at least explain why?

# posted by  JJR2 : 12:58 PM 

California Executes Tookie Williams [FOXNews.com/AP]
When Williams was declared dead, supporters chanted, "The state of California just killed an innocent man". Surely this assertion must have seemed preposterous even to the various celebrities and diginitaries who protested his execution. Williams was the founder of one of the most notorious, murderous criminal organizations in recent U.S. history, and himself murdered four helpless people in cold blood and bragged about it. Despite Williams’ childrens’ books teaching against gangs and drugs, and Nobel Prize nominations, CA Governor A. Schwarzenegger denied last-moment appeals for clemency.
So, what about the death penalty? The death penalty is an entirely just and appropriate response to murder and other crimes against humanity, ordained by God:

Genesis 9
⁶ "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.

Jesus expanded the definition later---saying that holding someone in contempt is essentially the same crime against God and man as murder. Here’s where the trouble really starts:

Matthew 5
²¹"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' ²²But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

The problem with the death penalty isn’t any inherent injustice, but its universal applicability:

Romans 3:
²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 6
²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

By His Grace, God has provided not only clemency, but a full Pardon for all of us through Jesus Christ, if we will accept it. There is no indication in any of these news accounts that Tookie Williams ever did. There is still time for the rest of us.

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James 1
⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

The news lately has been almost all bad, and it’s getting worse. There’s some new shock somewhere in the world almost every day. War, pandemic, corruption, vice, poor judgment by political, social, business, and religious leaders on every side plague the people of the world. In the U.S., in particular, recent crises and natural disasters have been severely aggravated by failures of personal judgment in our leaders. For that matter, when was the last time anyone in a modern position of leadership consistently demonstrated wisdom? Wisdom almost seems to be a disqualification for positions of responsible authority in our world. How do we correct this? Where did we collectively miss the exit on the expressway to world destruction?

Matthew 22
³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

What is God trying to tell us? Is everything He was trying to show us through 1500 years of the painful, often brutal history of Israel and the world really summed up by our relationships with Him and with each other?
Our misunderstanding of this summation is at the very root of the tragedy of human history, and evidently, of our future. God has been trying to explain this to us, but nobody listens. Wisdom isn’t an inherited trait, or a talent, or a gift, it’s a relationship .

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Mark 5
⁹Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?
"My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

Jesus was probably very tired. He had been teaching from town to town, and finally had to get in a fishing boat to avoid the press of the crowds that came to hear Him. In spite of many successes, His inner circle still seemed to completely misunderstand nearly everything He said.
So, one day, Jesus directed them to sail away to the other side of the lake. On the way, He was awakened by the terrified disciples as a storm threatened to swamp the boat, and simply ordered the raging tempest to be quiet.
If the disciples were afraid of the weather, what happened next must have left them weak with terror. For as they stepped from their boats, a literal walking vision of Hell emerged from the nearby graveyard to meet them. The monster was living in the tombs with the rotting corpses, and repeatedly tore off chains and irons meant to restrain him from terrorizing the countryside.
But now, the demons possessing this horror were the ones helpless with terror. They knew exactly who Jesus is, and what His presence meant for them. They could only beg for mercy, to avoid their ultimate fate just a little longer. But their reprieve was short indeed. Legion, which had been housed comfortably in a living human for many years, drove a herd of pigs---almost a definition of spiritual uncleaness to the Jews---to suicide.
The people of the surrounding area arrived to find that the horror had become a man again. Jesus reached into the very heart of Hell, and rescued from unspeakable filth and depravity a living soul! The people, who had apparently resigned themselves to living with Hell walking among them, were so terrified of the Power that set him free, that they asked Jesus to go away.
But this is a happy ending, and a pattern for what is to come. People often ask why we never see demons any more, and similarly foolish questions---well, here’s an answer. Once the Light of the Truth clears the horizon, even the most depraved demon has no dark place in which to hide. Hell has lost the battle, and the war. Its entire army is a quivering wreck of misery and terror.
But the horror isn’t over by any means. Those foolish enough to oppose the Omnipotent with nothing but lies aren’t going to know enough to stop because the conflict is a lost cause. Satan had another army to build---one that could blindly lash out against a Power that reduces the fallen angels of Hell to grovelling submission.
We see them already rising up, mustering even as Jesus goes about His ministry on earth:

Matthew 12
²⁴But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."

Here is a new horror, to make the previous one seem like a minor inconvenience. These religious people witnessed the healing of a man who was blind, mute, and possessed. Jesus, with compassion beyond any human understanding, has again freed the lost and untouchable from slavery to sin and death, and brought out a whole, free human being to the Kingdom of God. But far from being moved by this incredible dsplay of God’s Love, these religious people actually mistook it for the work of the devil! Jesus proclaimed them guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the one sin that can’t be forgiven---because in its terminal stage it prevents its only cure.
They’re still with us today, of course, and they won’t be stopped until Jesus finally comes back to deal with them. They often inhabit our churches, where as we’ve often heard, Hell does some of its finest work. In a typical church, they can gossip, lie, backstab, tear down, belittle, or exclude anyone who might seem ready to stand up for something, and they can be assured of the aid and comfort of other churchgoers in doing so. More importantly, they can replace any suggestion of legitimate Christian doctrine with mindless ritual observances or regulations which they can make up themselves or acquire prefabricated from outside sources without any personal spiritual investment. They may sit lifelessly through the weekly ministerial stage show, or shamble about the halls until they find an opportunity to tear at something that offers lasting hope or threatens to genuinely change a life, restoring everything they touch to the dead, lifeless grey of institutional routine. They are often drawn to positions of authority over others, particularly in churches and other religious institutions, where they can most easily feed on the weak, the misguided, the empty, and the lost.
You should learn to recognize them as soon as possible, from a safe distance, as if your life depends on it. They’re Hell’s new army....

...of the spiritual walking dead.

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^{Ecclesiastes 9
11} I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Solomon was undoubtedly one of the wisest, most capable, and wealthiest men who ever lived. Yet he wrote ( as far as scholars can tell ) one of the darkest, most depressing, seemingly hopeless works of literature ever penned. “It’s all a waste of time, nothing you do matters, it will all count for absolutely nothing once they bury you.”
He was right, of course. It is all “meaningless”---and worse, there is no point to learning anything, acquiring any skills or proficiencies, achieving anything, inventing, deducing, earning, saving, or storing up for the future. There is no reward or credit that you can earn, nothing you can set aside for yourself or others that won’t be taken away from you, seemingly at whim. Need more? Try this search of Ecclesiastes.
But Solomon seems to have been lacking a key item of information which has been provided to us.

John 11
²⁵Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; ²⁶and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
John 14
¹"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. ²In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Do what you need to do to get by for now, but look forward to what God has prepared for us---a Government and a Law that are for our good, a Way of life that makes sense, a Prosperity that can never be taken away.

Romans 8
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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What would Jesus do?

John 6
⁸Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, ⁹"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
¹⁰Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
¹²When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." ¹³So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
¹⁴After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." ¹⁵Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

The Law of God, as passed down through Moses, is remarkable even if viewed from a narrow humanistic perspective, as if it were a mere legal document. It transcends all the norms and practices of the ancient world in its provisions for social justice, equitable use of property, and the welfare of all the people of the nation. The land was given to Israel by God, and the people, from the least to the greatest, were to consider themselves His tenants on the land, rather than landowners. Those who were in need were to be provided loans without interest, or gleanings from the fields of those with plenty. Every seventh year, all loans were to be forgiven, all indentured servants were to be released, and lands taken in security of loans were to be returned to their original owners according to the tribal distributions decreed by God. It was in this context that He provided the commandments that Jesus called the Greatest--- Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 ---which virtually equate love for God with love for neighbor. God promised them prosperity as long as they lived according to these commands.
He also promised them severe punishment if they disobeyed these commandments by oppressing the poor and helpless or ignoring their needs. After Israel spent much of its history doing just these things, God sent His indictments against them through the prophets:

Isaiah 1
²³ Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow's case does not come before them. ²⁴ Therefore the Lord, the LORD Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
"Ah, I will get relief from my foes and avenge myself on my enemies.

Isaiah 3
¹⁴ The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people:
"It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. ¹⁵ What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?" declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.

Isaiah 10
¹ Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, ² to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
³ What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

When Jesus arrived, and was rejected in turn, and as God prepared yet another exile of Judah from His land, Jesus repeated these indictments (among many others) once again:

Luke 20
⁴⁶"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁷They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

Matthew 23
²³"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. “

Jesus showed love and compassion beyond human understanding toward the poor, the hungry, the sick, dying, lost, and outcast. He showed power beyond human comprehension in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and raising the dead. Now, in John 6, we see Him finally getting the recognition He deserved. He only had to reach out, and all the suffering and affliction of humanity would end, replaced by His glory and power. In response to this awesome opportunity, Jesus....
...ran away?!
Why? He answered very similar suggestions elsewhere---Luke 4:5-8 and John 7:2-7, for example. As before, all He had to do to end the unspeakable misery of poverty, hunger and disease according to the wishes of the people was---establish His Goverment among men, place God’s stamp of approval on human political power and earthly civilization, and agree to fit into our understanding---give up on ever freeing us from slavery to sin and death---exchange the Kingdom of God for Hell on Earth.
As a practical matter, everyone knows how the imaginary scenario mentioned at the end of part one would turn out. Jesus talked about what happens when you remove evil from an individual's life but don't put anything back to replace it (Luke 11:24-26)---the same things would happen to collections of individuals. You can't fix human misery---the product of millenia of evil, abuse and neglect---by a new UN initiative, economic aid, new laws, trade incentives, international condemnation, intervention, or warfare. The cure for human misery and evil requires change in the hearts, minds, and souls of people
(Jeremiah 31:33, 2 Corinthians 5:17) .
One of Jesus’ best known parables is in Luke 15:11-32. The parable of the lost, or “prodigal”, son is not really the example of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness we might think. The son in the story does have to do something. He has to come to his senses, admit that what he has done was sinful, and prepare to humble himself before his father and accept the consequences according to his father’s judgment. Then he has to get up, and go home. After that, it doesn’t matter to his father that he only came to his senses after the money was gone, only that his son who was lost has been found!
But what if the story was a little different? Perhaps the son could just send a note to his father demanding some more money. Better yet, he could go home, and demand that his father give him a place in the family home, that his “friends” be allowed to come and go as they please, that the father respect his “privacy”, his need for “his own space”. What would the consequences to the household be? What would happen to all the other members of the family, the workers and servants who have acted faithfully and depend on the integrity and prosperity of the house for their sustenance?
The question often comes up---why does God allow us to suffer? The lesson we have to learn about suffering is harsh, and a lot of people---especially those who might have gotten more than their share of the suffering ---aren’t going to want to hear this, but it can’t be avoided. Human suffering wasn’t God’s idea---it was ours. We all accepted it as the reasonable cost of doing business when we decided that we could run our lives, our governments, our world, and our relationships without God.
These great and necessary tasks---feeding the hungry, healing the sick, lifting up the impoverished and oppressed, and teaching the people of the world about God's Love in Jesus Christ---are not separate. They are the same job, and none will succeed without the others. The beginning of the end of human suffering---including the “here and now” afflictions of poverty, disease, and malnutrition---is in His Love, acting through each of us.
None of us is invisible to God ---from the smallest, sickly child in southern Africa to the head of state to the neighbor next door that we’ve never met --- and we must not be invisible to each other. The solution is still within our grasp, if we admit the foolishness of our own ways, humble ourselves before His Judgment, accept His Son as King in our lives, and go home.

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Wow! Blog Comment Spam---no possibility for exploitation will go unexplored. I found the "word verification" option, which should take care of the spambots.

# posted by  JJR2 : 3:52 AM 

The Price of Invisibility---Poverty, Malnutrition, and Disease

Proverbs 14
³¹ He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

This is an extremely difficult subject, provoked by a local sermon and concerns alluded to in earlier installments. It is particularly important that this topic be approached prayerfully, while avoiding the obscuring influences of political views, and I’m not very good at that. Everyone sees this subject-matter all the time, to the point that (much as Stalin supposedly said) it often fades from tragedy to statistic. It isn’t clear, yet, what it will take to make us aware of the horrific magnitude of this worldwide crisis, but we have to start somewhere.
Here’s what the World Health Organization’s report on malnutrition has to say:

“Chronic food deficits affect about 792 million people in the world (FAO 2000), including 20% of the population in developing countries. Worldwide, malnutrition affects one in three people and each of its major forms dwarfs most other diseases globally (WHO, 2000). Malnutrition affects all age groups, but it is especially common among the poor and those with inadequate access to health education and to clean water and good sanitation. More than 70% of children with protein-energy malnutrition live in Asia, 26% live in Africa, and 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean (WHO 2000). ” [ Wikipedia definition and description of PEM ]

I recognize that WHO’s information and statistics might be found less than respectable by many, due to various economic and political agendas, but they are readily accessible and mostly in one place. The above looks like a reasonable summary of the nature and factors of world malnutrition---with its most devastating effects in underdeveloped countries, where it is exacerbated by poverty, poor access to health care and information, and bad living conditions.
WHO’s document Nutrition for health and development: A global agenda for combating malnutrition contains more detail on this subject. Almost half of the deaths of children each year are due to malnutrition. Nutritional deficiencies are among the most common preventable causes of brain damage and blindness in children. Section 2.1, “The spectrum of malnutrition”, contains a summary of the situation (although they seem determined to throw in overnutrition (obesity) and misnutrution? (as a cause of cancer) to complicate the issue).
Meanwhile, disease also ravages the developing world. An admittedly cursory scan of the CIA World Factbook shows high risks of the same “laundry list” of diseases among most of these countries, especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid fever, malaria, meningitis, as well as deficiency-related diseases including mental retardation, blindness, and developmental deformities which can be readily treated or prevented with a ridiculously small investment in supplemental iodine, vitamins, iron, and other micronutrients. Poor sanitation, filthy drinking water, and living conditions which in America would result in serious jail time if inflicted upon dogs or cattle, are the facts of life of millions in the 21st Century.
Then there’s HIV/AIDS. [ WHO is in significant denial here; when homosexuality---which WHO always refers to as “men having sex with men”---is addressed, it is usually about the role of stigmatization and anti-sodomy laws as barriers to victims seeking treatment, not the role of this elective behavior as the original and still major vector of the disease. WHO apparently declines to admit that abstinence from homosexual behavior might have any benefits in preventing the spread of the disease, while the remarkable effect of abstinence from premarital heterosexual relations in Uganda on infection rates of HIV is mentioned. Obviously the beneficial role of Christian doctrine as a response to both the destructive behavior and the unforgiving repression of those suffering the consequences ( 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ) will not be found in UN literature. ] WHO’s “2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic ” refers to HIV/AIDS as an “extraordinary kind of a crisis ”, “unique in human history in its rapid spread, its extent and the depth of its impact. ” 20 years after the disease was first recognized, the toll is 20 million people dead, with 37.8 million infected as of the time of the Report, and the goals of simply stopping the acceleration of rates of new infections are nowhere near to being realized. Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 10% of the world’s population, has about two-thirds of the people infected. 57% of the infected in these countries are women, who often suffer repression and mistreatment due to prevailing customs and traditions, who are usually required to care for the ill, and who are biologically more susceptible to the infection.
There has been remarkable success in the development of anti-retroviral drugs to prolong life and restore a measure of health to the HIV-infected, and significant reductions in the cost of the drugs, but in the poorer countries only about 7% of the infected have access to these life-sustaining medications. Meanwhile, about 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS, and many of these ever-growing numbers of “AIDS orphans” are neglected
All of these conditions contribute to a hellish cycle of deprivation and death. Poverty leads to chronic malnutrition, which makes the victims more susceptible to disease. AIDS and other diseases drastically diminish income potential and educational opportunity, destroy economies and individual resources, and kill in increasing numbers, leaving impoverished survivors, including unsupported children.
Nor are the degree and distribution of this suffering just an accident of geography. Political, economic, and social priorities in the powerful industrialized nations as well as in many of the poor, devastated countries themselves are primary ingredients in the world's suffering. Few could argue that that the resources to end the misery of the world's poor are not available to us, or that much of the death, disease, and loss which afflicts them is preventable. What is the problem then? As an example, UNAID’s executive summary to the Report calls for funding of a global AIDS response of $20 billion USD per year by 2007, to cover antiretroviral therapy for 6 million people, support for 22 million orphans, adult counseling and testing, and education programs in schools. Funding as of the Report was at about $5 billion USD. Even if the funding calls are inflated by bureaucracy and corruption in the decrepit UN organizations, this “burden” on industrialized nations needs to be put into perspective: that’s about 9 B-2 “Stealth” Bombers , about 15 Shuttle launches. or about one-fifth of an International Space Station (The remaining four-fifths of an ISS would probably go a long way to relieve other diseases, malnutrition, and poverty).
No nation can “wall off” the horrors of the rest of the world and go on to develop its military power and national prestige in isolation. It is particularly apparent from recent outbreaks of virulent diseases, including hemorrhagic fevers such as Marburg and Ebola, and Avian Influenza, that there’s no such thing as “somebody else’s problem”. Death for millions in any country on the planet could be a mutation and an airplane flight away.
Political, social, and military conditions in many of the most affected countries themselves undoubtedly contribute heavily to the suffering. Another cursory scan of the CIA World Factbook, for example, shows that a disproportionate number of African nations are or have been at war with one or more neighbors recently. It seems that almost all of them are forced to support large refugee populations from one or more neighbors due to other nations’ wars.
Few outrages could be more sickening than the situation in Rwanda, site of one of the bloodiest genocides in modern history (which an American President was too busy to notice) in revenge for an overthrow and exile which was, in turn, a reprisal for years of repression of one African tribe by another. According to the CIA’s Factbook, Rwanda has a 60% poverty rate (mean per capita GDP $1300USD per year), a 5% adult AIDS prevalence (2003), and an economy decimated by the genocide, warfare, collapse of the world market for coffee, and lack of infrastructure. It still depends heavily on international aid. Nevertheless, it spends 3.2% of its GDP ( a percentage comparable to the military expenditures of the U.S.) to support its military so that it can continue its border disputes with its neighbors, maintain an insurgency in the Congo, and resist various internal insurgencies and rebel groups.
Then there’s Angola---devastated by a quarter-century of a civil war which was often exploited and encouraged by other nations, with a 70% poverty rate, inflation rates over 100%, and over 50% unemployment. Angola’s government nevertheless sees fit to spend an incomprehensible 10.6% of its GDP to support its military!
This is not an acceptable outcome---the world, particularly the people of God’s Kingdom dedicated in Christ to showing His Love to the world, cannot stand by and suffer the loss of entire continents of human beings. The condition of a third of the world’s population beggars all pretense of basic human decency. Even if the statistics were skewed or the descriptions exaggerated somehow, the fact of the abject failure of humanity to rectify this monstrous evil is an unanswerable indictment against us all. While people can die of invisibility, we are all guilty.
So what should be done? Imagine , as John Lennon was found of saying, that we could set aside the arrogant lust for power, our endless appetite for evil, and would no longer tolerate the indecency of allowing millions to suffer and die when the resources are clearly available to save them. We only need to convince world and local leaders to act fairly and honestly, and to reorganize their priorities to equitably insure the health and well-being of all humanity---our most precious and irreplaceable resource.
But everyone knows that none of this will ever work. The reason that none of this will ever happen is that we---WHO, the UN, presidents, kings, politicians, and everyone else on this planet, have been completely missing the point.

NEXT: A Practical Matter, Part II: What would Jesus do?

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John 7:14-16 (NIV)

¹⁴Not until halfway through the Feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. ¹⁵The Jews were amazed and asked, "How did this man get such learning without having studied?"
¹⁶Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me.

Many commentators (this one, for example) have addressed the significance of this exchange between Jesus and the contemporary Jewish religious leaders. They remark that Jesus hasn’t “studied”---learned the religious discipline from an established rabbi---but they cannot help but be amazed at His understanding. Jesus replies that His understanding of God comes from God Himself!
Christians who are properly instructed in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit would not normally find this statement unusual. But to these Pharisees and leaders, this statement must have seemed not only astounding, but the height of blasphemy. Indeed, they tried to seize Jesus when He repeated this incredible claim about Himself; that the Almighty, Eternal God is His Teacher! The Pharisees sent guards to arrest Him, but they came back empty-handed, too astonished at His words to carry out their orders.
What’s the problem here? In Matthew 9:16-17, Jesus talks about old and new things---a parable about fabric and wineskins. The old is reaching the end of its purpose, and the New has arrived. John hints later in 7:39 at exactly what is coming. Not everyone is ready.
It is almost possible to partially understand the dilemma faced by the practitioners of the old ways. In the Old Testament, the Presence of God was a mighty and terrible power, often afflicting or killing those who affront the Most Holy, like Nadab and Abihu and Uzziah. Only one person, selected from the elite of the descendants of Aaron, could enter the Holiest Place where the Ark of the Covenant and God’s very Presence resided, and only on the Day of Antonement prescribed by God. That priest made careful preparations, lest he offend God’s Presence and die there. Tradition says that he went in with a rope around his ankle, so his body could be removed if he made a mistake---no one else dared to enter there to remove the uncleaness of a corpse.
The Holy Spirit empowered select individuals to fulfill His Purpose, like Moses, Bezalel and Oholiab, Sampson, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and other judges and prophets. Everyone else had to wait for the prophets and selected leaders to reveal God’s intentions to them, even the Kings. Most of the ordinary people could not even approach the precinct of the Sanctuary without special permission.
But the Prophets, for those who were listening, were already telling of what God had in store for us. Isaiah (11:1-2) says of Jesus:

¹ A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. ² The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -

Jeremiah (31:31-34) proclaims God’s New Covenant, saying:

³¹ "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.³² It will not be like the covenantI made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.

³³ "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.I will be their God, and they will be my people.

³⁴ No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

The New Covenant is Jesus, the Christ, the Law placed in our minds and written on our hearts by His Holy Spirit. God proclaims that under the new Way, we will all know Him directly, as His Spirit resides with each of us.
Isaiah (54:13) likewise says:

¹³ All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace.

Somehow the leadership, steeped in the old ways and their traditions, missed the most revolutionary change in human history, in spite of centuries of God’s preparation and instruction to bring us to His Christ, the New Covenant.
Jesus later makes even more astounding statements about these momentous changes.

John 16:14-15

¹⁴He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. ¹⁵All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

As if His ultimate Sacrifice on our behalf to save us from our sins wasn’t enough, Jesus proclaims that He will share with us His rights as God’s Son:

John 14:26

²⁶But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit writes God’s Word on our hearts, recreates us according to His Ways, provides a deposit to confirm for us our coming inheritance in God’s Kingdom, finally gives us real power over the sins and lusts that torment us, and so much more.
There is a recurring “rationalism”about all of this, especially in the Baptist Churches with which I am familiar. It’s as if many of us are actually afraid that someone who begins to talk about these things might suddenly start waving his hands in the air or do something else embarrassing. Others in the Church, especially the more technically or scientifically minded, seem to find the subject too “supernatural”---some actually think that Christianity can be lived and practiced without it!
Make no mistake about this. There is a serious problem with “natural” things---they are imperfect, and they die. Unless you gain the power to transcend the “natural”, so will you. We must never set aside this “other” Gift, bought for us by the priceless Sacrifice of Jesus Christ:

Hebrews 4:14-16

¹⁴Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,^[e] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

This is the confidence that allows us to press on toward the Purpose God has set for us, even though we fail, in spite of everything in Hell and on Earth set up against us:

Philippians 3:12-14

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:37-39

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Numbers 21
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

When Israel was suffering in Egypt, God saved them and brought them out to make a nation of them to serve His Purpose. In the desert, when they needed food and water, He provided for them. But again and again, it just wasn’t good enough for them.
And every so often, the incessant griping started to make even the loving God of Israel angry. Worse, His Provision for their needs was now “miserable” to them. God sends poisonous snakes among the people to afflict them, and many die. But God relents, as always, and provides relief to His People when they repent of their sins. But there is something very different about the relief this time. First of all, God doesn't remove the affliction of venomous reptiles from the camp like they asked (v.7). Instead, Moses is to make an image of one of the snakes out of bronze, and lift it up over the camp on a pole. When anyone is bitten, they can be healed by looking at the bronze snake.
What’s going on here? They most certainly aren’t being asked to worship the image of the snake (Their descendants tried that for a while, and fared badly for it. King Hezekiah had to clean up that mess ( 2 Kings 18:4 ) ). No, they are simply to look at it. What is God trying to tell them, and us?
Later, Jesus says:

John 3
14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus has begun to show us the purposes of His death, the reasons for the terrible manner in which He is to die. Like the display commanded to Moses, Jesus is to become a spectacle for all generations to come of the consequences of our sin. People---Jews and Romans--- who thought, acted, and made their decisions just like we do today, subjected history’s only truly innocent Man to a humiliating criminal’s death because He insisted on telling the Truth. Jesus is the Indictment against us, our lives, our governments, and the way we live our lives in rejection of God.
Blessedly, however, there’s more. I have always found it easy to remember the first halves of Romans 3:23,24 and 6:23, but for some reason I have a problem remembering the most important part of each:

Romans 3
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 6
23For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We deserve to be cast away by God, but He loved us too much to leave us under that curse:

Romans 5
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus is also our Pardon. If we can be led by His Holy Spirit to acknowledge our crime against God, and to look up and see the inexpressable horror of its consequences, and repent, God will forgive us.
But even that wasn’t all! If we acknowledge our powerlessness against our sin, and place our faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9), He will restore us to God’s Presence, with full rights as the children and heirs of God (John 1:12), so that we may sit at the very feet of the Almighty and learn His Ways (John 14:26).
The unsearchable Miracle which restores us to God is found only in Jesus Christ---the condemning spectacle of His death, the Pardon in His Sacrifice, and the Hope in His conquest over death by His Resurrection---because only in Jesus is the whole Truth found, together with the Power to put it into effect in our lives.

Romans 8
38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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# posted by  Anonymous : 9:04 AM 

From those wacky guys at HowStuffWorks. I just had a feeling that there was some kind of major misconception at work here. Matthew 16 indeed says:

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

There is apparently an easy temptation to misinterpret verse 19, at least for some. However, Mounce, in Basics of Biblical Greek, uses verse 19 as a beginner's example of Greek exegesis , especially the phrases "estai dedemenon " and " estai lelumenon ", which are future passive pluperfect periphrastic contructions (See also http://www.greekbible.com/, if you have inclinations to 1st-Century Greek). This is also indicated in the NIV text notes. To make a long story shorter, the meaning is "will have been bound" and will have been loosed"--- Peter, and the other Apostles, aren't being given power to give orders to Heaven (or in place of Heaven!), but assurance of Divine Guidance in the decisions of the Church. This is, after all, pretty basic theology, fully consistent with doctrines established in the rest of the Gospel---unless for some reason you really want to mess it up.
Who is the Head of the Church on earth? No Christian would have to ask:

^{Ephesians 1
22}And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Jesus is the Leader of His Church, and His children on earth! All would be well advised to stay out of His Way.

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# posted by  Anonymous : 9:58 AM 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152273,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152176,00.html
http://www.anncoulter.org/ (this week’s commentary: “The Emperor's New Robes”)

Is it significant that the English language uses the same word for both judicial and sexual misconduct? We say “sexual perversion” and “perversion of justice”. Why? A reflection of the similarly severe consequences of both to our social structure? Certainly neither can be tolerated if a society is to survive for any length of time. And here we are, as citizens of the American Republic, suffering under both kinds in apparently unlimited abundance.

Isaiah 10
1 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. 3 What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

Why can’t we make a government that lasts? Why does every system either fail outright and disappear or become degenerate and abusive or succumb to the madness of power? While we can argue indefinitely about whether or not the American Republic has or hasn’t arrived at its “Rubicon” moment, there is no reason at all to believe that it is headed in some other, more constructive direction. Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Macedon, Rome, all gone. There is no reason to believe that any of the current crop of government systems will fare any better. Where else would we go for hope for the future? France? Saudi Arabia? China? It’s all been done, most of it more than once. In fact, in all of human history, the Truth is the only form of government that hasn’t been tried.
Before you look the other way while your judicial institution passes judgment on the Ten Commandments, think about how many human empires have fallen to dust since the Ten were written down.
The truth is, Civilization doesn’t actually work. It never has. It was a failure from the beginning---how many human civilizations have lasted more than a few hundred, perhaps a thousand years? Certainly none will last forever. If insanity is to be defined as trying the same thing over and over, fully expecting it to work “this time”, then our species is in serious trouble, if that wasn’t obvious from other observable parameters. I think we are able to continue to convince ourselves to keep trying the same mistake again and again, and to believe that Civilization is The Thing To Do, because at the end of every generation, we destroy the evidence. God instituted the Fifth of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:12) for a good reason.
Civilization doesn’t actually work, because the concept is flawed from its foundations up. It would require that we replace God’s Judgment with a mindless paper automaton of laws, sufficient to predict and counteract all the enormous number and ever-evolving variety of ways that an ill-motivated human can discover to cause evil and chaos. It would also require that we replace God’s Justice with some sort of administration for the impossible system of laws made up of men who, although evil and sick with power, are to be expected to act in the interest of the governed instead of for the personal political and financial gain of the administrator.
Worst of all, the very idea of human government apart from humanity’s Creator requires that we separate ourselves from God’s Presence. Civilization’s founding principle is the lie (John 8:44), and its driving ambition is evil. Evil is a terrible basis for a government. Remember the Third Reich? The Soviet Union? But maybe it will work next time.
Given a few generations at best, a given attempt at government most often differs from hell only in duration. Been in a court of law in the U.S. lately? Nor is the perversion limited to the judiciary. Had an elderly relative’s insurance near the finish line while they were under extended care in a hospital lately?
How do we escape this worst of all bad ideas? How do we fix this? By returning to God’s Kingdom, and submitting to the King He has placed on its Throne:

Isaiah 9
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, [a] Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

We admit our mistake, and accept Him by faith:

Romans 3:
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We re-admit His Presence into our lives:

John 14:
26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

We become God’s Nation:

Exodus 19:6
You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Matthew 16:18
…and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.

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# posted by  Anonymous : 7:50 PM 

Numbers 20:
2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD ! 4 Why did you bring the LORD's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!"
6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."
9 So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

This January, we traveled through France and Italy for three weeks. We saw all the major wonders, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (briefly), Normandy (I was only allowed one military history site in our itinerary), cathedrals, Colosseum, the Vatican, and numerous other famous places and internet cafes. It was very informative, to say the least. For example, I discovered that in France, “Notre Dame” is virtually a generic term for a cathedral. There are apparently “notre dame” cathedrals in almost every city of any size.
The Notre Dame in Paris, of course, is the one to see for architectural and engineering interest. The classic vaulting and buttresses leave one to wonder at the design of such a complex structure without any of the conveniences of modern engineering and mathematical discipline. Then there was the “treasury”of Notre Dame in Paris….
I have never been especially tolerant of faux Christianity ( Matthew 7:21-23 ), but I never could have imagined this. At least half of the “treasury” consisted of ornate jars and cases containing small pieces of dead people, apparently kept through the years for some presumed magical power they might possess. It took me several days to stop seeing this horrific stuff in my head.
Later, we travelled to Rome. The history, art, and architecture were fabulous, of course. But there is an entire basilica in Rome devoted to the “ascension and coronation of the virgin”. I hadn’t heard this story before---it must be one of those “inner circle” myths, like the ones from Scientology(trillion-year-old volcanoes) or Mormonism (spirit children“), that doesn’t get much public exposure because it is so preposterous that it would subject the “belief system” to ridicule.
We saw a lot of art in the Vatican museum from Renaissance and Medieval eras on this theme, including beautiful murals and mosaics by Rafael. Entirely without the knowledge of any of the Gospel writers, Mary apparently rose from her tomb, gave the apostle Thomas the gift of a belt (?!), and then ascended into heaven, where Jesus crowned her “queen of heaven”. Except that the story has no historical, Biblical, or doctrinal basis---it didn’t happen.
Remember this glorious birth announcement by the prophet Isaish:

^{Isaiah 9:
6} For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁷ Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

The whole of the Law and the Prophets of the old Covenant were written to direct us to Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords(Galatians 3:23-25). But none of this even suggests a queen!

Why, then, is so much effort and devotion given to maintaining this disastrous fiction? It is obvious enough that object of this misplaced worship isn’t Mary. The last previous holder of the title “queen of heaven” was Juno/Hera of Greco/Roman mythology---“queen of heaven”, “great lady”, wife and sister of Zeus. I suspect that the founders of this cult were so disappointed to find that the Gospel writers had omitted their favorite goddess from the texts that they dutifully wrote her back in.
Catholic theologians argue at length that Mary’s other children were cousins (based on a liberal, uncontextual translation of the Greek text), or that they were the children by Joseph with another woman named Mary, and so on. Why is it important to world Catholicism that Mary be a virgin throughout her life? I don’t know my Greco-Roman mythology well enough, and I’m frankly just too tired to work this one out---a Vestal virgin vestige?
It doesn’t take much effort to find out who the real Mary really was, and exactly why she was chosen for her role in God’s plan (Luke 1:26-38). It is also easy to find the example we have been given of her very human fallibility. In Mark 3:20-21, we see that Jesus’ family---including His mother---came to take Him home, because they thought He had lost His mind! Like so many others, Mary and the rest of Jesus’ earthly family lost faith in His Divine Purpose, and in God’s Will. Hearing of the enormous crowds surrounding Jesus, they decided to get Mary’s eldest back home where He couldn’t continue to make a fool of Himself and embarrass the family. Jesus answers them, and announces the Fulfilled form of the family, in verses 31-35. Mary was incredibly blessed by God, but she was also a sinner just like the rest of us (Romans 3:23-24), in need of the Savior.
Nor is this deification of a mortal woman just harmless folklore. Jesus said (Matthew 7):

21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

In fact, as we were approaching the Vatican on a tour bus, the recorded tour guide announced St. Peter’s Basilica as the “center of world Christianity”. Where do the news services go when they want to learn the position Christians of the world will take on a given issue or event? What do outsiders to the Christian faith think we believe, and where do they look to determine what Christians are like? Catholicism, like so many other fraudulent traditions which vainly use the Name, is a lie told about God. The cost to the people of the world that Jesus came to save is incalculable.
The Truth is, that Christians don’t have “holy sites”, other than the one in their hearts and minds occupied by the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 31:33). There isn’t a “saint” you need to call on before you start your vacation trip. We don’t have “relics”, “icons”, or even required special days of observance. Baptism and the Fulfilled observance of the Passover which known as “the Lord’s Supper” or “Communion”, are performed to honor and remember Jesus’ love and sacrifice on our behalf, not a requirement of Salvation, which is only through faith in Him (Ephesians 2:8-9). There are only two Laws in Christianity (Matthew 22: 37-40)! If the overwhelming Spiritual need to love and honor God isn’t in your mind and soul, ritual observances will have absolutely no value for you in any case.
And how does anyone who has ever read the Good News of Jesus Christ tolerate the existence of a priesthood? Are we to actually believe that God worked tirelessly among men and especially in the development of Israel and Judah for 3,000 years to lead us to understand the purpose of the Messiah, then endured the ultimate Sacrifice of His Son, tore the curtain of the Most Holy Place to show that the Way was now open for men to enter His Presence with confidence, as His children and heirs, all so that He could establish another system of written codes and rituals, and separate Himself from His people by another priesthood? Are you people deficient? Read it for yourselves! Pray for His Wisdom (James 1:5), and learn what Jesus actually said and did!
God did all these things, and paid this unimaginable Price, to set us free---to lead us in the final Exodus out of slavery to sin and death! Why would anyone want to go back to slavery?
Consider the example of Moses. He was so attuned to God’s Purpose and Will, that God called him His friend, and spoke to him plainly, face to face. God held Moses in higher standing than even His prophets. But Moses made a serious mistake, as seen in the Scripture above (Numbers 20). After years of frustration, worn out from the constant rebellion and failure of Israel to comprehend God’s Glory and Deliverance, Moses finally “lost it”. Just for a moment, after over 40 years of a job that would have mentally and physically crippled anyone else I can think of, Moses let his own will come between God’s Love and Forgiveness---and God’s people. God took away the ultimate desire of Moses’ life, the right to march into the Land of Promise with God’s people, and then took away his life.
Please consider this very carefully, all those of you who presume to regulate and administer God’s blessings according to rules and rituals you made up yourselves, or adopted from other traditions you like better than God’s Provision for our Salvation by faith in His Son. If God dealt with a man He called a friend so harshly for making this mistake just once, how will He deal with those who make a career of it?

Matthew 7
23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Jesus has promised to bless us and take care of us if we simply put His Will first (Matthew 6:33), and to be our Foundation if we put His Word into effect in our lives (Matthew 7:24-27). He also promised that God’s Holy Spirit would be with us to remind us of His commands and guide us according to His Ways (John 14:26). He showed us that the whole Law of God is summed up in just two closely-related commandments (Matthew 22: 37-40, Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18 ). Salvation is obtained solely by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:1-4, 10: 9-13, Ephesians 2:8-9). Our quest, as God’s children, to grow up to be like Jesus is motivated and enabled by His Holy Presence with us (Philippians 3:12-14, Ephesians 4:15). Our victory in Jesus is an accomplished fact, sealed by God’s Promise (Romans 8:37-39)!
Even if these other “traditions” were harmless---which they are not---why would anyone want them? We can be held in the protection of God’s Love, blessed with His Wisdom (James 1:5), by simply asking Him to come into our lives in the Person of Jesus Christ. Nobody needs to carry a baggage of mysticism or ideology, or any other sin, or their terrible consequences (Romans 6:23).
[edited 6.30.2005]
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Galatians 3:
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

This is one of the most wonderful statements in the New Testament about our freedom in Christ---that God loves us all as His children without regard to our race, social standing, gender, or any other of the factors that human societies use to try to separate us from each other---and from Him.
But Paul, in his other letters, says things like this:

1Corinthians 14:
As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

Ephesians 6:
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. 9And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

Did Paul go crazy or something? Change his mind? Change his message to suit different audiences? What was Paul thinking? If these differences have no effect on God’s love for us, why did it make a difference to Paul?
No, there is a good reason that the man who considered himself the “chief of sinners” is one of the most respected and loved ministers among the followers of Jesus; he faithfully delivered the message given to him by the Holy Spirit, patiently explaining the details so that even us “ignorant Gentiles” could understand. Nor is this message of submission inconsistent with those of the other apostles. Peter, for example, says:

1 Peter 2:
18Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

What, then? Paul is not referring to the value of a woman or a slave, but to their behavior and its effect on others within and outside the Church. He urges propriety in worship, even at the expense of public submission. Why?

1 Corinthians 9:
19Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Christianity is not a social or a political revolution. It’s not that these things are necessarily bad; think of how much worse the situation of America (my home country) would have been if we had been dragging the baggage of institutional racial segregation into the late 20th and 21st Century when the current crises befell us. Our nation owes a great deal to the Civil Rights efforts of the 1960’s. Of course, it would have been very difficult for me to write this with death squads in the street outside hunting for social, political, and "religious" nonconformity---we owe a lot to the costly establishment of our republican institutions. Nor can it be to our benefit to reduce half (or more) of the capacity of our marital unions to houseservants.

The limitation on such change is that it changes temporary things. As Paul says, “…this world in its present form is passing away.” (1 Corinthians 7:31). Christianity is nothing short of a Spiritual Revolution! Jesus didn’t settle for changing our outward forms of discourse or holding us together just until the next human idea for a political system inevitably fails and disintegrates into chaos.

Hebrews 9:
But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

This is an eternal Government (Revelation 5:12), based on the rebirth and renewal of individual men and women by God’s Grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Change is a good thing---we just need to get our priorities straight.

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I LOVE IT....

# posted by  Anonymous : 4:38 PM