surfaceanalysis

[surfaceanalysis]

"Maybe Jesus don't need no priest for His telephone wire. Maybe the blessed Carpenter has got Him a way of boring a hole right straight into a man's heart. Ever figure on that, brother?”

The silence became so long that they began to hoosh behind the curtains to the artist, wave their hands, prompting words, but he stood, as if in a lunacy stupor, and did not hear anything.

Finally, he trembles and looks with kind of fear at the open Gospel. His hands nervously tug on a tunic. Convulsions pass through the face. He lowers his eyes to the book and at first in a whisper, and then louder and louder begins to read further:

– “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy…”

Perhaps the power of his wonderful voice, or the charm of his artistic name, or the night longing for these persecuted and humiliated words of the Sermon on the Mount, or the image of the living Christ came before eyes, caused by the sacrilegious transformation of the artist influenced people – there was such silence in the theater that one could hear how it rang with a mosquito buzz.

And the words of Christ went like Easter candles around the church into this silence:

– “Ye are the light of the world… love your enemies… and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…”

Rostovtsev read the entire chapter, and no one in the audience moved. - Vasily Nikiforov-Volgin, eye witness

Oh how powerful our Lord's words are.

[surfaceanalysis]

Nala is like anti-Pharisee Raid. Flushes em all out.

The more I interact with Christians online, the more I hear about them, the more I am convinced that we need to be better about practicing radical love and kindness and grace.

I'm listening to Michael Knowles interview Nala Ray, the OnlyFans porn star who converted to Christianity and she talks about her experience with Christians who are trying to catch her out on theological mishaps or being upset that someone who was so promiscuous could become a faithful Christian. I see Christians on this site be unnecessarily rude and combative and unwilling to be civil to people who disagree with them.

Please, Christians. We are called to follow the example of Jesus. Welcome those who come home. Be kind to those who are lost. Be firm in the truth but do not use it to insult or drive away those who need it.

[surfaceanalysis]

I find it interesting that God made a perfect world, filled it with reproducing life, gave a man everything, including fellowship with Himself, and then stopped. He waited. He let man get a taste of being alone.

For although he had 'everything' he didn't have a relationship with anyone like himself. No bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And it was not good.

[surfaceanalysis]

Let me state first of all, for the record, that I don't care. I grew up in a world where women pastors were verboten. I always took it as a 'get out of jail free' card, to be honest. That was one thing I never had to worry about being 'called' to. For a shy person, this was a blessing, a weight off my terrified shoulders.

I don't think there is a sanctified system. Christ basically said, 'love each other, teach people and baptize them' and set us loose upon the world. We figured the rest out as we went. Is the primary work being done? Good. Don't care how it's happening. Do you think God cares really a lot about the structure of your church committee? Maybe it keeps him up at night, but I doubt it.

Your structure could be perfect and you could suck at actually doing the things you're supposed to do.

I address the weird double standards in the church I grew up in.

"I do not suffer a woman to teach." So women pastors are out of the question. Woman missionaries, on the other hand, perfectly fine.

My mother, who would faint dead away if I tried to preach within our local four walls, has often asked me hopefully if I felt called to go preach to a field full of people in some foreign country. I could preach over there, but not here. I could start a church, but not stick with one.

Figure that out.

Women can't teach. Except for when they can.

Most Sunday School teachers are chicks.

'Oh, but that's for kids. Women can teach kids, they just can't teach men.' But I don't recall an 'except for kids' clause in the text.

If Paul was around I would have some questions. Like why women can't do stuff cuz of Eve, but men can do stuff even tho Adam. Unfortunately I couldn't ask because he's not my husband at home, so. Oh well.

"Women should be silent. If they have questions they should ask their husbands at home." I guess us single chicks are just outta luck.

"There is no male or female, Jew or Greek in Christ." No male or female, until there is.

Imagine if distinctions were made between what Jews and Gentiles could do in church. "I do not suffer a Gentile to teach." Paul would be the first to throw a fit.

Why are your lines drawn where they are?

If women shouldn't teach, they shouldn't teach. If they should be silent, they should be silent. No Sunday school teachers, no committees. They come in, they sit there with their mouths shut, and they go home.

Hey, less work for me.

Although I feel attending at all would prove rather pointless. Ya'll men go ahead, we gals will be sleeping in.

[surfaceanalysis]

Genesis 28 -

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac...

John 1 -

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”  Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.... "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Listening to Malcolm Guite and he made this connection.

'I am the Way. I am the Door. I am the Connection between heaven and earth. I am the Son of God and the Son of Man. I am Jacob's ladder.'

[surfaceanalysis]

Skimming through the post about choice.

There's something about trees. I'm not sure what it is. But obviously something more is going on here. I'd have to delve into Mesopotamian mythologies.

But I immediately think of Yggdrasil, the world tree, the 'tree of life.' Holding/connecting different realms, different realities.

Anyway. There's something about trees.

[surfaceanalysis]

We really don't talk enough about God's love and mercy toward Cain.

God himself tried to reassure Cain that the rejection of his offering wasn't personal.

He could see where Cain's resentment was heading, and he tried to be like, 'hey. Why are you upset? It's not that I like Abel better, he just did the thing I said to do. If you would do it, you would also be accepted. There is no need for this jealousy. If you keep going down this road, a horrible sin awaits.'

And then he spared Cain's life. He punished him, but did not kill him.

[surfaceanalysis]

One Thing You Lack

It would seem that the incident with the rich young ruler disturbed the disciples as much as it disturbs us.

One cannot hear this parable without clinging a little harder to the nearest earthly possession.

Almost immediately following the sad dejection of the young man walking away we begin to console ourselves:

'It surely doesn't mean that. Surely the way to salvation can't be in selling everything and giving it to the poor. Surely there must be something in the whole 'he had much wealth' part of it.

'It was because he was sooo wealthy. I'm not that wealthy. Of course if we both gave up everything we'd both be in the exact same boat, it wouldn't matter where either of us started. But surely this isn't about me, anyway. After all, Jesus never told anyone else to do this.

'If everyone gave up everything they had and gave it to the poor, 'rich' and 'poor' would lose all definition and would begin a constant cycle, for the poor would become rich and would in turn have to become poor by giving up.....' etc...

I daresay we do more rationalizing with this parable than any other. Ah, how it exposes us.

If Jesus did show up and tell you to sell everything you had, would you do it?

We probably hope we would. We, of course, comfort ourselves with the notion that this event is extremely unlikely.

The disciples' reaction isn't so different from ours. A sort of bewilderment, a sort of helpless: 'Who, then, can be saved?!'

Perhaps Jesus' answer is the entire point - It is impossible.

You will never be good enough. You can follow every commandment to the letter, and there will still be something, some command that will prove insurmountable. There will be some failing.

Who then can be saved?

With man, it is impossible.

But with God, all things are possible.

[surfaceanalysis]

When you can’t find a decent book cover, make one yourself. 

Why should one idle spade, I wonder, Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder To smoke and choke the sun?

[surfaceanalysis]

The Suicide of Adam and the Resurrection

Two Trees

the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil

It occurred to me recently that the Garden of Eden could almost be read as a ‘choose your own adventure’ story. Like the pools in the Magician’s Nephew, different trees lead to different worlds.

The tree of Life - enjoy good and live forever. Good and immortality. 

The tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - know good still, but also evil. Man made mortal. Man will die. 

The God of the Living implores Man not to touch the latter. 

Man does not listen. 

Man chooses death. 

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

We live in a world full of beauty and pain. Blessing and cursing. Life and death. Justice and injustice. This is the world we chose. And we know instinctively that it was not the world that was meant to be. We were made for something else. Our Creator wanted us to choose another world. 

But he allowed us to have our way. Joy and sorrow. Brotherhood and murder. Crime and compassion. Lust and sacrificial love. 

Humanity seems to still love to commit suicide.

those who fail to find me harm themselves; all who hate me love death.

Blame Game

We blame God for the choice we made. First in the garden, and on down the line. For that choice. For our other choices.

Why are you angry?...If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? 

Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?

At least mortality ensures that this state we are in does not last forever.

Choice

Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

We still live in a world of choices. With one big one lying before us. 

Another ‘choose your own destiny’ story. Although from this it seems there is no second door. This choice seems to last forever, one way or another.

Garden of Eden Redux

Adam was the first of his kind. Christ is the first of another kind. 

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 

The great choice that lies before us now, the trees in front of us, are two Adams. 

Two progenitors of men. Two ‘mankinds.’   

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life.

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live

The Second

So as we all face the possibility of a life cut short due to something we cannot control, as we become all too aware of the fragile state we have always lived in, remember that we are mortal. That this is the fruit we ate. Death should not come as a surprise. 

But there is a new birth. A new man. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation

A grafting into a Second Adam. A second chance to choose the other way. To choose eternal life.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.

this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

[surfaceanalysis]

The Random Girl Power Section of the Old Testament

“The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.” 

Judges chapters 4 and 5 tell the story of Deborah and Jael. 

The book of Judges is about Israel pre-king. There was no king. No standing army. There was Moses’ law, there were prophets, and there were people you could bring your grievances to who would make judgments. Judges. Rulers, so to speak.

‘Judge’ could also refer to a military leader who fought off Israel’s oppressors for a time. Ad hoc ‘kings’ of Israel, so to speak. That sprung up when there was need and then went away.

Deborah

“Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.”

Deborah is the only woman judge mentioned. That might not necessarily mean she was the only one that existed. But it might.

What do we know about Deborah?

We know she was married.

We know she was kind of like the supreme court justice of Israel.

We know she was a prophet (prophetess is so clunky, let’s just gender neutral this thing. It's the same office, there's no Biblical distinction between the two.).

Setting the Scene

After the death of the previous big name judge (Ehud, another great and somewhat gross story that is never talked about ever), a Cannanite king named Jabin begins to oppress Israel.

He has nine hundred chariots of iron. He oppresses Israel for twenty years. 

The captain of Jabin’s host was a guy named Sisera. 

We get a little more background in Deborah’s song in chapter five:

In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.

The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.

They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

The picture painted is one where Israelites were afraid to walk on the main roads. They were weak and unarmed.

The tribes were somewhat divided, some of them sticking to the sea, and to hiding. But there is praise for those who fought back.

Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek; after thee, Benjamin, among thy people; out of Machir came down governors, and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar, and also Barak...

And curses for those who balked.

“Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.”

Blessed, by contrast, be Jael. But we’ll get to that part in a bit.

So there’s Jabin. Canaanite King, oppressor of Israel. 

Sisera. Commander of Jabin’s army.

Deborah. Israel’s judge and prophet. 

Barak. Ally of Deborah. Kind of her Sisera.

And a guy named Heber.

Heber

“Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.”

Moses’ father-in-law’s family were apparently known as the Kenites. 

Heber was a Kenite, but he had disassociated himself from his family and was living in the area where the battle would take place. 

And he was at peace with Jabin. 

“there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite”

Which brings us to the last player in this little drama:

Jael. Heber’s wife. 

The Call to Battle

Deborah’s house was under a palm tree that came to be known (super creatively) as the Palm Tree of Deborah. 

“and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment”

She was also a prophet. And one day she had a message for Barak:

“Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor.... I will draw unto thee...the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.”

Barak says he will go, but only if she comes with him. She agrees. They make their way to the battle site. 

The Battle

“They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.”

Barak takes ten thousand men from Zebulun and Naphtali. Deborah goes with, basically for moral support. 

Sisera hears that Barak has brought an army to Kedesh. He takes his army and goes to meet him. 

Deborah says it’s time.

“Deborah said unto Barak, ‘Up; for this is the day in which the LORD hath delivered Sisera into thine hand...’ So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.”

But Deborah had also told Barak that he would not be the one actually killing Sisera. A woman was going to do that. 

“the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman"

Barak might think she is speaking of herself. But it turns out to be a woman who is not even present at the battle. It’s a woman who doesn’t have to go to Sisera at all. God will bring Sisera to the woman. 

“Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael”

Jael

Barak and his army defeat Sisera. Sisera himself gets away and runs to the house of Heber, who was at peace with his boss, and therefore with him.

Heber’s wife, Jael, meets him. 

She tells him to come into her tent. Pretends that he has nothing to fear from her. She feeds him and assures him that she will deceive any who come looking for him.

And when he falls asleep, exhausted from the day’s events.... 

“Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.”

That last sentence is one of my favorite in the Old Testament.

‘She tent-staked him to the ground. So... yeah. He died.’ 

This is one of the most gruesome episodes in the entire Bible. She nailed him to the ground and then later cut off his head. Just for good measure. Just cuz.

“as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him...and when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.”

Celebration

There is a post battle song of celebration. And Deborah really, um, ‘hammers’ it home:

Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. 

...She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.

That last bit must have been the chorus. 

What’s the Point?

There must be some reason for all this.

God could easily have had Barak killing this guy. There was no need to involve someone else. 

But Deborah specifically prophesies that it is a woman who will kill Sisera. Why? Why was God intent that two women would be involved? One to prophesy his death and one carry it out in perhaps the most violent manner possible?

And another woman is mentioned in Deborah’s song at the end - Sisera’s mother. 

“The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?”

What messaging is going on here? Because there must be some messaging. 

Perhaps this was part of an extra level of insult, a warrior bested by a woman. But why in this particular case? 

Perhaps it was a condemnation of the men of Israel for their weakness. A contrast that while Heber was making nice with Jabin, his wife was cutting off Sisera’s head.

Perhaps it was specific to Sisera. 

Perhaps it was specific to Sisera’s.. mother?

I don’t know.

It’s never brought up again. Never commented on. It just is.

Whatever the reason, Deborah judging Israel predates this particular episode and extends beyond it. 

‘So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.’

And the land had rest forty years.