That is Completely UN Scriptural

What if… just what if… the world that we live in, that is, in the physical sense, is actually one big allegory for the inner struggle within our souls to find the reason for our existence?

For example, the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, though a very real historical event, at the same time captures what happens as part of the inner struggle within our souls when we ignore the teachings of Yeshua in the Way?

The Jews, and Judas both looking for a physical manifestation of the Kingdom, yet Jesus indicated that it was within. Modern day Christianity looking for a physical return of Jesus – the same thing the Jews were looking for, just stated in a different way. He who has eyes to see, let him see.  It gets really deep here. What if there is to be a physical return of the Messiah, but that also is a mere physical allegory for that which occurs within our souls.

Welcome to the Matrix

So yeah, I got ummmm… directed to  something tonight after praying. The tail end of Jeremiah 23.

Take from http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/sunnysweb/ – seems to offer a good explanation..

^{Now, a burden means a prophecy, which terrifies the despisers of God by threatening them with vengeance. As, then, their minds were exasperated, they called through hatred the word of Yahweh a burden, and used it as a proverbial saying, “It is a burden, a burden.” They ought to have been moved by Yahweh Yahovah’s threatenings, and to have trembled on hearing that he was angry with them. The word burden, then, ought to have humbled them; but, on the contrary, they became exasperated, first, through haughtiness, then through an indomitable contumacy, and thirdly, they kindled into rage.}

In the Mishnah it is stated: “To heal a blind man on the Sabbath it is prohibited to inject wine in his eyes. It is also prohibited to make mud with spittle and smear it on his eyes” (Shabbat 108:20).

According to the Mishna, “One should be willing to walk four miles to water in order to wash your hands rather than to eat with unwashed hands” (Sotah, 4b) .. . “He who neglects hand washing is as he who is a murderer” (Challah, J, 58:3).

Matt. 3:10-12;10:34-38; Mark 2:21-22; Luke 12:49; John 2:14-17; 4:21-24

I guess not only was Jesus rubbing spittle and mud in the man’s eyes that healed, but he was also rubbing it in the faces of the religious authorities.

Is it really just a big ol’ bear hug of love? Laying on the hands that is? They say that touch has healing powers. Mmmm… makes me wonder.

The Voyager probe is probably somewhere out there in the Oort cloud by now. Do you remember the Voyager probe? They referred to it in Star Trek I. Not a Trek fan?

Well what does this have to do with scripture? It is a passing thought that I had. Let’s consider a satellite or say a space probe 100 gajillion miles out there in outer space somewhere. NASA needs to be able to send and receive messages to this space probe right? Well sending may not be a big deal. After all, we can just build bigger beefier transmitters I suppose. Wait a second. Isn’t there a point to which the signal will eventually degrade to the noise floor? You know, that point at which a radio station starts to get staticy? That’s when the noise similar to what may show up on a television with no antenna has the same amount of power as the signal and it sounds all static. Well, this concept is not all that different in interstellar communications. Information gets sent and eventually after about 10000000 light years or something the signal may fade in strength or have a few static pulses in there that overwrite what was actually sent. Instead of a thrustre firing away from Saturn, suddenly the Voyager probe goes crashing into Saturn’s rings and we have the Solar System Protection Agency on our hands.

Well anyway, those clever communications scientists devised a way to encode extra “recovery” information into the signal. That is, the signal can be rebuilt from itself. Sort of like sending spare parts in the signal. If one of the parts gets broken, you can use the rest of the parts to reconstruct the signal. Make sense? If not, go study parity on wikipedia.

This is the question I have in my mind. We know that there are tons of variations in the manuscripts that form our modern Bibles. No biggie. They say that  they are 95-96% in agreement. Okay, that works great for most stuff – but sometimes there are big questions  – for example the Great Commission. There are those who say that the Great Commission  was actually a scribal interpolation or something like that (scribe adding something to a manuscript to support their own pet doctrine).

So my question really comes back to integrity of the scriptures. I suspect that God in His infinite wisdom would have perhaps built in “parity” into the scriptures. Taken from what we call the Old Testament, this would refer to the whole idea of two or three witnesses to confirm a fact. Look it up. It is somewhere in the law.

Had an interesting thought pop into my head yesterday  evening.
The Ark of the Covenant had a mercy seat on top, under which sat the stone tablets of the law. The Mosaic Covenant written into the stone tablets. Don’t do all of these things. The Renewed Covenant…. seems to focus quite a bit on forgiveness.

A thought came to me…. the Renewed Covenant may sit on top of the new Old Covenant (the law). Forgiveness over Law. Seems to be consistent with most of Jesus’ message.

King David got busted up by the prophet Nathan for adultery with Bethsheba. Nathan said something like hey there is this guy who stole some farmer’s last ewe. David responds – the farmer should pay back four fold and give up his life. That was the same justice that was delivered to David. 4 of his kids wound up dying. He didn’t have to give up his life though. What’s up with that? As King, He did repent and appealed to a higher authority, namely YHWH.

This pattern seems to be consistent with a lot of Jesus’ message. Focus on yourself before running around pointing out sin in everyone else’s life – be forgiving, etc.  At the same time though, if your brother… key word .. brother .. meaning you have a relationship with the person that is sinning, then go to him and help him in the right direction if you can. If he won’t listen, then take another brother. If still, then take the entire assembly. If still, then cast Him out. Let the devil deal with him so that he may be saved.

John 18:1 Having said these things, Jesus, went out, with his disciples, across the winter-torrent of the Kedron, where was a garden,—into which he entered, he, and his disciples.
Joh 18:2 Now, Judas also, who was delivering him up, knew the place: because, oft, had Jesus been gathered there, with his disciples.
Joh 18:3 Judas, therefore, receiving the band, and officers, from among the High-priests and from among the Pharisees, cometh thither, with lights and torches and weapons.
Joh 18:4 Jesus, therefore, knowing all the things coming upon him, went forth, and saith unto them—Whom, seek ye?
Joh 18:5 They answered him—Jesus, the Nazarene. He saith unto them—I, am he. Now Judas also, who was delivering him up, was standing with them.
Joh 18:6 When, therefore, he said unto them, I, am he, they went backwards, and fell to the ground.
Joh 18:7 Again, therefore, he questioned them—Whom, seek ye? And, they, said—Jesus, the Nazarene.

He said I AM and they fell to the ground. The he is not there in the Greek as far as I can tell.

I AM.

So here I am doing a little Bible study from precept ministries today about the anger of God. Basically, He just wants us to do the right thing, be humble, help the poor and innocent, etc. We can all talk about doing these things, but sometimes it seems hard. Discipline – self control, etc. are hard for me sometimes – let’s be real a lot of the time.

I mess up, say sorry – bitterly weeping, and He picks me up again.  Anyway, I noticed that in Micah about Ch 5 or 6 or so, it looks like a Messianic prophecy jumps up out of nowhere. The passage that talks about Bethlehem in most English bibles. Well I just happened to be inquiring about this with a pastor friend who then told me about the prayer of Jabez…. this one is really wild. There you are reading along in the Bible in I Chronicles  – Geneology Geneology Geneology – Yawn – Geneology then you hit Ch 4 vs 9-10…. Hello – what in the world is this doing here?

This is from a  “The Scriptures 1998” translation.

1Ch 4:8 and Qots brought forth Anuḇ, and Tsoḇĕḇah, and the clans of Aḥarḥĕl son of Harum.
1Ch 4:9 And Yaḇĕts was more esteemed than his brothers, and his mother called his name Yaḇĕts, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.”
1Ch 4:10 And Yaḇĕts called on the Elohim of Yisra’ĕl saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, not to be my pain!” And Elohim gave him what he asked.
1Ch 4:11 And Keluḇ the brother of Shuḥah brought forth Meḥir, who was the father of Eshton.

My life application study bible seems to imply that this is all about prosperity. Pardon the pun, but I don’t buy it. There is something deeper here. It seems like it is more about doing His will – you know – staying free from evil, doing right, walking humbly, etc and getting better at that with His help. Perhaps even expansion of one’s ministry,  spiritual relationship, etc. Pain can sometimes mean obedience to our God? So Pain’s mother named her child Pain and pain was more esteemed than his brothers? The only question I’ve got here is – who were pain’s brothers?

Man acting like animal – man acting like animal man acting like animal… wait hold up – here’s one who is special – man acting like animal man acting like animal.

Okay, well I guess I probably should have just searched google a little bit more, but I found a site which contains a list of all the lunar and solar eclipses forwards and backwards for thousands of years. The April 3, 33 CE date agrees with my now waste of time article previously written.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat/LE0001-0100.html

There is another guy who has already done most of the work in this department as far as looking for interesting details in the stars and heavens that would have occurred on schedule with events in the Messiah’s life -> http://www.bethlehemstar.net/ A friend gave me the video to watch and it was really breath taking some of the things that this guy came up with.

Here is what has me puzzled though. The less luminary that rules the night (Genesis) had its light dimmed on the eve of the death of the Messiah provided it occurred on the date above. Seems poetic, but I’m still thinking about this.  I started looking into future eclipses. Wondering if there may be something significant. there as well.