Why do serious theologians persist with a story that reads like third-rate fan fiction?

This is a response to Andrew Wilson’s recent thinktheology post, “Nephilim, Anakim, and Why We Care.”

As the proponents of paedobaptism and full preterism doggedly continue to demonstrate, even the brightest theologians are susceptible to crazy ideas. Unsurprisingly, both of these erroneous doctrines – along with the “fallen angels” reading of Genesis 6 – are the result of a common flaw, and that flaw is a failure to put a finger on the pulse of the actual story.

Substandard fan fiction suffers from the same deficiency: while it is enthralled by the features of the original narratives, it mistakenly identifies these facets as the heart of the story rather than merely elements through which its genius is expressed. While paedobaptism, full preterism, and the “fallen angel” reading of Genesis 6 all manage to scrape together some semblance of support from the Scriptures, they seem oblivious to how “out-of-character” their stories are as intended explanations (or perhaps more correctly, adoring extensions) of the Bible. Many of the trappings of the sacred texts are present, which gives them a veneer of authenticity, but the internal logic – the unseen principle which governs the originals and makes them so captivating – is missing. As with the authors of substandard fan fiction, the driving force of the biblical narrative has not been comprehended by some of its most committed fans.

Ignorance of Covenant Structure

Wilson writes:

I take it as read that the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4) were the results of sexual relations between angels and women. Many don’t, and I used not to, but I now find the Jewish and early Christian witness compelling, the alternatives (Sethites and Cainites? Kings and harems?) quite unconvincing, and the best counterargument something of a tangent. (For those who are counting, the best counterargument is that Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that it is impossible for angels to have sex. The obvious response to which is simply: no, he doesn’t.)

Despite the fact that angels are never mentioned in Genesis 6, Wilson has mistakenly written off the intermarriage of Sethites and Cainites as being the best explanation of the story. This is because not only have modern theologians atomised the Bible, they have failed to comprehend the text as repeated iterations of the same sacred architecture. We do not have the freedom to treat the interpretation of Genesis 6 as a multiple choice question in an exam because all the questions in this exam have the same answer. Let me explain.

The history from Adam to Noah is a “macrocosmic” recapitulation of the testing of Adam. The step in the narrative where Adam and Eve grasp equality with God corresponds to the rise of these “god-like” mighty men in Genesis 6, the ultimate outcome of the “seed of the serpent.” This most likely explains the word nephilim which is derived from the word for fallen. These men were no more the offspring of angels than was Cain, who failed to “rule over sin” and instead established his own rival kingdom. Even more significantly, the step where the Lord covered Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 corresponds to the point where God revoked the Edenic atonement through animal blood and covered the entire world. The sin of Adam was “the one,” that is, the cultus, and the sin of the sons of God was “the many,” that is, the outcome of the same sin in the culture. The “fruit” that was stolen was the daughters of men, and they were not stolen by angels but by those, like Adam, who had access to the Sanctuary.

This raises another point: every biblical Covenant is a tour of duty, with a mission, a prize, and accountability. Adam faced blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The fivefold pattern of the commission in Genesis 2 establishes the sevenfold shape of the entire Edenic narrative.

Although an angel was involved in the temptation, it was only its “bestial” earthly counterpart which suffered a humiliating curse, since it was part of the world which God had promised to put under Adam’s feet. The angel was actually exalted to a place in the heavenly court, not as an advocate for mankind but as an accuser, an office he held until the ascension of Christ. Thus, the flood was the curse upon those who had broken the “new covenant” established by God in the shedding of sacrificial blood. The angels were not under any Covenant obligation which is why, for angels, who are mere servants and not sons, there is no redemption.

This micro/macro relationship between Eden and the world is the reason why both narratives work through the pattern established in Genesis 1. To help us to understand it, this pattern is later expressed not only in the elements of the Tabernacle, but also in Israel’s annual festal calendar (Leviticus 23):

Noah, whose name means rest, becomes the “Day 7” of the process, the first man to bear the sword on God’s behalf as the legal representative of heaven upon the earth. He entered into God’s rest and brought Sabbath to the entire world. Since Noah qualified, the word “covenant” is mentioned for the first time in the Bible.

This point concerning Covenant structure might seem obscure or perhaps even irrelevant to some but it is in fact the most potent argument against the “sons-of-God-were-angels” theory.¹If you care to study the fundamentals of the Bible’s fractal “Covenant-literary” structure, there are some helpful links here. The purpose of this sevenfold process is spiritual maturity. The Lord calls all men to submit to Him that He might exalt us. Priesthood must precede kingdom, just as it did in the history of Israel, and in the ministry of Christ. This is the core of the entire Bible. If we are humble, we will be lifted up. Adam was promised a kingdom but he would only qualify for government if he first submitted to God. It was the same for Jesus, of course, who now possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. What Adam seized, Jesus was given as a gift.

Following Adam’s sin, this rivalry between priesthood and kingdom became incarnate in Cain and Abel. The result was the division of humanity into a priestly line (the Sethites) and a kingly line (the Cainites). The priestly line continued to shed the blood of sacrifices on behalf of sinful people, but the kingly line rejected the mercy of God and instead shed the blood of human beings in unmitigated vengeance. Thus, the intermarriage between priests and kings led to the end of God’s mercy and long-suffering. The ultimate irony is that God once again gathered animals, as He had in Eden, but He destroyed all those who rejected the ministry of substitutionary atonement via the blood of “priestly” domestic beasts.

This revoking of mercy explains the reference to there being “no more sacrifice for sins” in Hebrews 10:26. Almost all mankind had trampled underfoot the blood of the Covenant established in Eden, just as the Jews rejected the offering of Christ for the sins of the world. That is why this exact Adam-to-Noah pattern can be overlaid upon the history of the Apostolic Church. Jesus, as Abel, was slain, which led to the prophetic warnings of the Apostles, as Noah, and finally a judgment which Jesus warned would not only be as sudden as the flood in the days of Noah, but would also bring an end to the “kingly” sins of the Herods, including intermarriage for political gain:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-40)

This rejection by Wilson of the Sethite/Cainite solution is due to an ignorance of the Bible’s consistency, which is governed by its Covenant-literary structure. However, it is also an outcome of a failure to understand the reason for the establishment of the Circumcision and the Law, which founded and set apart an entire nation as a priesthood which was prevented from intermarriage with the other “kingly” nations. This act by God was necessary to avoid another global judgment, and to maintain a faithful shedding of substitutionary blood on behalf of all nations. This gives us the context of the downfall of Solomon through intermarriage with idolaters, the destruction of the Temple, and of Ezra’s blunt condemnation of the Israelites’ marriages with pagans during the exile. This theme of the confusion of priestly and kingly offices through intermarriage runs throughout the Bible, and is an expression of the fundamental core: man’s unwillingness to humble himself before heaven and his theft of the promised dominion over the earth. If this were understood by most theologians, bogus theories like sex with angels would be relegated to the dust bin where they belong.

Fruit of Land and Womb

Wilson continues:

I also take it as read that the Anakim, the sons of Anak whom we meet in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua, are descended from the Nephilim: “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Numbers 13:33). Which is to say that, when Israel first spied out and then conquered the Land, there were very large individuals milling around, who could trace their lineage back to sexual relations between angels and women. Bizarre, admittedly. But biblical.

This claim by the Israelite spies looks like solid evidence only if we ignore the greater Covenant context. Firstly, it must be noted that the spies were executed for their “evil report,” so its veracity must be questioned. It is possible that they were exaggerating in an attempt to deceive their fellows, and simply threw in “of the nephilim” to terrify the Israelites. But does the word refer to an actual tribe whom everyone knew could trace their descent from the antediluvians, or does the Hebrew phrase simply mean “from among the giants”? After all, there were other over-sized warriors in and around the Land of Canaan.

Secondly, the notion that the nephilim as Nephilim, a separate people which somehow managed to survive interbreeding and was able to pass on its genetic attributes through the many centuries following the flood, is not only highly improbable, it also fails to explain how this people evaded inclusion in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which contains no mention of Anak or Nephilim. Moreover, where were these Nephilim when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sojourned in the Land? The giant Goliath was a Philistine, and we know that the Philistines shared a common descent with the Egyptians as sons of Mizraim, a son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). It seems far more likely that the stature of these people was due more to the abundance of food now available in Canaan than merely genetic factors, just as the average height of various races throughout recent history has increased as diet has improved.

Thirdly, and related to the second point, are we also to assume that the size of the haul of grapes from the Valley of Eshcol is due to its lineage from antediluvian grapes? The point of these observations concerning size is that the barrenness of the land promised to Abraham had been reversed by God, along with the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. The Adamic curses (from Genesis 3) were placed upon Abraham on behalf of all nations that they might be reversed by faith, the kind of faith in God which Adam had not demonstrated. (For more discussion, see Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation.) After four centuries, not only would the numerous oak trees planted by Abraham now be fully grown, but the size of the fruit of the Land and the fruit of the womb in the Land (its people) showed that it was now ripe for the taking. The mighty people of the Land were to be crushed like grapes, and their houses and vineyards seized as an inheritance for the righteous. The strength and the possessions of these kingly usurpers would be possessed by a priestly people as a witness to the power of God. Israel would defeat the Canaanites just as David would later bring about the fall of Goliath, the one who had called down the Covenant curses upon the people of God, and ultimately (but indirectly) King Saul, who was also a giant bearing a spear. The mighty men (gibborim) of the earth (including its nephilim) would fall before the mighty men of heaven, those whose victories resulted not from the strength of their limbs but from their faith in God (Psalm 147:10). The grapes of Eshcol were a promise of the same kind of rest enjoyed by Noah, so it should be no surprise that the “heptateuch” (the narrative from Joshua to Judges) follows the sevenfold pattern above. Interestingly, just as the nephilim appear at the centre of the Adamic/Noahic narrative, so David and Solomon appear at the center of the Old Testament narrative (see Destroy This Temple).

Numbers 13:33 can only be regarded as evidence for angel-human sexual relations if we lose our grip on the metanarrative of the Torah, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. Like many others, Wilson fails to interpret every text within the context of Covenant and thus misses the point of the story.

The End of all Flesh

The question is: why do we care? Besides being an intriguing sideshow that raises smirking questions on training courses, why does it matter? Let me suggest two reasons, both of them apologetic in nature.

The first is that they provide a biblical basis for biological continuity between antediluvians and postdiluvians. (Or, in English: they demonstrate that some people on earth, besides Noah’s family, survived the flood.) If everyone on earth apart from Noah’s family had died, then there would be nobody left who was descended from (min) the Nephilim—but the Anakim show that this is not the case. Therefore it is likely that, even from the perspective of Israelites in the Bronze Age, the cataclysmic flood did not wipe out every single person on planet earth outside the ark. Rather, it suggests that the scope of phrases like “the whole land” (qol erets) and “all mankind” (qol adam) is limited to the ancient Near East. Which, given that this was the entire world known to the writers at the time, is exactly what we would expect. It also indicates that attempts to demonstrate geologically that the flood covered the Himalayas are, at least, unnecessary.

I admire Wilson’s commitment to exegesis for the purpose of apologetics, but he fails on both counts.

Firstly, anyone who claims that the Great Flood was local has overlooked the fact that Adam was intended to be the legal representative of “all flesh.” Due to his failure, and the subsequent failure of the culture established by his offspring, “all flesh” was condemned to die “in him.” If anyone had survived the flood, then there were human beings who were outside of the jurisdiction of God. This also goes for those who claim (with a breathtaking cognitive dissonance and an even greater deficiency in basic logic) that the events in Genesis 2 are simply a “liturgical” description of Adam being chosen from among other human beings and given a special role or office before God. There were no “Adamites.” We are all Adamites. That is the foundation of Paul’s theology of the atonement. No one was outside the Noahic Covenant and no one is outside the jurisdiction of Christ. The separation of the human race came with the call of Abraham, not Adam. To claim otherwise is to pervert the narrative beyond recognition in a game of “kick the can.” Moreover, what was the “Covenantal” reason for the disinheritance of Adam’s contemporaries? Had they sinned in some way before Adam sinned? The miraculous integrity of the narrative exposes any tinkering for what it is: disingenuous theological posturing resulting from cowardice and unbelief. (For more discussion, see “Jenga Bible” in Michael Bull, Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.)

The real reason behind any toleration of the notion of a local flood is a desire to bow to the paganism which currently masquerades as science, the monkey religion which underpins every corruption in Western culture, and is quickly bringing about its end. As a friend once said, evolutionary theory – the unscientific assertion that chaos, sex and death somehow constitute a creative force – is just “Enuma Elish baptised in post-Enlightenment balloon juice.” Any attempt to harmonise the Bible with an old earth, let alone evolution, is an exercise in futility, and requires basic logic to be sacrificed on the altar of a misplaced faith.

However, what really concerns me here is the failure to understand the Promised Land of Canaan as a microcosm of the “dry land” of Genesis. That is the reason why the same word is used. These “lands” were not equivalent in size any more than the Canaanites constituted all the people of the globe. Canaan was to be a sacrificial substitute for the actual “dry land,” serving as its legal representative before God (see Cosmic Language), and this representation was an act of mercy for the peoples of the world. The story of Abraham’s qualification is a local recapitulation of the global narrative from Adam to Noah (see Microcosmic Abram). To claim that these were both local not only misses the point of the ministry of Israel as a nation among nations, but also demonstrates an utter ignorance of the layered construction of Covenant history: the Abrahamic Covenant was not established in place of the Noahic Covenant but within it (see The Myth of Covenant Membership). The “floods” of troops which invaded Israel under the judgment of God were the reason floods of waters could be averted. Indeed, the original “flooding” of Canaan was the armies of Israel come to claim the Land promised to their fathers, and importantly, to execute God’s judgment upon its inhabitants. This brings us to Wilson’s second failure.

Genesis Matters

If we allow an extraneous theory such as angel-human sexual relations to skew our take on the narrative, we find that scales eventually grow over our eyes and we are unable to interpret the text faithfully. This is evident in Wilson’s (and Michael Heiser’s) erroneous explanation of the kherem warfare in the book of Joshua.

The second is that they provide vital context for the kherem warfare that took place in Canaan under Joshua. This is a point I had never seen until I read Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm recently, and in particular his description of the “Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” in which Yahweh has disinherited the nations and assigned them to the rule of lesser gods (Deut 32:8 etc). Heiser explains:

Israel is Yahweh’s elect portion of humanity, and the land of Canaan is the geography that Yahweh, as owner, specifically allotted to his people. In the view of the biblical writers, Israel is at war with enemies spawned by rival divine beings. The Nephilim bloodlines were not like the peoples of the disinherited nations … the target of kherem was the Anakim.

Heiser offers a number of clues that he is right about this. (1) The emphasis on giantism in the initial spying mission (for all that this has since been domesticated in contemporary preaching, the point is not just that the people are large, but that they are descended from rival deities). (2) The explicit statement that the Israelite spies had seen the Nephilim in the Land (Numbers 13:33). The giant-like descriptions of enemies of God who live in the land, from Og (Deuteronomy 3:11) to Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and beyond (2 Samuel 21; 1 Chronicles 20). (4) The way in which the summary of Joshua’s kherem conquests (Joshua 11:21-23) focuses on the obliteration of the Anakim: “And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel.” (5) The fact that the very next verse points forward to the ongoing presence of giants in the land of the Philistines, who of course will be the key enemy for Samson, Samuel, Saul and David for the next couple of centuries: “Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some [Anakim] remain. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses” (Josh 11:22b-23). If Heiser is right here, then the motive for kherem warfare in Joshua was not merely the cleansing of God’s dwelling place, as we know, but the removal of the giant-like offspring of specific divinities.

So why should we care about the Nephilim and the Anakim? Partly because they help us think through the question of the global/local flood, and partly because they provide crucial context for our understanding of kherem warfare, which is one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation. And, of course, we should care about things that are in the Bible. There’s always that.

Wilson’s/Heiser’s misinterpretation of Genesis 6 (or failure to interpret it within the context of the biblical Covenants) renders them utterly clueless concerning the reason for the conquest of Canaan. And when I say clueless, I am not being cruel. They really have no idea what is going on. Instead of taking note of what is actually mentioned in the texts leading up to the kherem warfare, they seem totally oblivious to it, focussing instead on evidence for their bogus doctrine of some fictitious angelic bloodline within humanity. Not only does this lead to them offering a stupid “angel sex” explanation for “one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation,” they miss a golden opportunity to truly demonstrate the brilliance and integrity of the book of Genesis, and indeed the entire Bible.

The first and most heinous problem is the switch from the moral accountability of the people in the Promised Land to something which is merely racial or genetic. Modern skeptics love to level the charge of genocide against the nation of Israel (and the one true God) but that can only be done if all the previous texts are ignored. Asserting that the necessary context is found in their errant reading of Genesis 6 does nothing to help matters. The warfare is still genocide, but now the targets are giants. They are not destroyed because they have sinned, what they have done, but because of who they are. Besides the incredible theory concerning their origin, this does nothing at all for Christian apologetics.

When Abraham sojourned in the Land, he did not “call upon” the name of the Lord. He “proclaimed” it. He was an evangelist. The people of Canaan were accountable to God, just as later Gentile nations surrounding Israel became accountable once they heard the way of salvation. The books of the prophets all begin with judgment at the house of God (Garden), work their way out into the disobedient tribes of Israel (Land), then out again into the local Gentiles (World). This pattern originated in the history of Adam-to-Noah. As with that history, the process is chiastic, working back into the Land and then into worship established in a new Garden (Noah’s vineyard). The New Testament, as a Covenant lawsuit against first century Israel does exactly the same thing, which is why the letters to the Gentile Churches are placed before the final warnings to Christian Jews, followed by the book of Revelation which begins with a glorified “son of Adam” surrounded by fiery trees and ends with a barrage of Joshua imagery. Jerusalem would be circumcised – “cut around” with a Roman trench – just as Jericho was marched around by a newly circumcised Israelite army. Jericho was a devoted (kherem) firstfruits of the Land, and Jerusalem was a devoted firstfruits of the World.

But to understand the giving of Canaan to the children of Abraham as an inheritance, we must look further back than Abraham. Noah had cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, pronouncing that he would serve as a slave to both of his brothers (see Out of His Belly). So when we reach the book of Exodus, the fact that the Hebrews were serving as slaves in Egypt, “the Land of Ham,” is intended to strike us with horror. But once again, we are clueless as to what is going on because modern theology – which does not take Genesis seriously – has carved the living Word up as if it were a corpse requiring an autopsy. The descendants of Shem not only destroyed the Land of Ham, they also inherited the Land of Canaan. The context is Noahic, and the conflict in Egypt and the conquest of Canaan are both examples of the rivalry between priesthood and kingdom, and the constant attempts to cut off – not corrupt or hijack – the seed of the Woman. This not only renders the angelic bloodline theory redundant, but it also serves as a witness to those who doubt the integrity of the Bible.

A review of Birds of the Air: Theological Twitter

by Jared Leonard

“Birds of the air dropping bombs on your brain” or “Shot through the heart and you’re to blame”

This isn’t just a collection of tweets; it is more like a quiver of spiritual and cultural crossbow bolts aimed at the heart of secularism and theological syncretism. Mike has a well-oiled crossbow and impeccable aim as each barb pierces and punctures everything from progressive cultural liberalism to ivory tower elitism. Shoot some of these through your social media outlets and enjoy the writhing discomfort of those who enjoy darkness more than light.

“What does it look like when antiestablishmentarianism becomes the establishment?”

In July 2016, in a speech in Cleveland supporting the Republican party nominee Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson highlighted the connection between Hillary Clinton and her mentor, Saul Alinsky.

Famous for his strategies for community organising, Alinsky dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals,” to “Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom.” Carson said:

One of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton is that one of her heroes, her mentors, was Saul Alinsky. And her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. This was someone that she greatly admired and that affected all of her philosophies subsequently. Now, interestingly enough, let me tell you about Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals.” On the dedication page it acknowledges Lucifer, “the original radical who gained his own kingdom.”

Now think about that. This is a nation where our founding document the Declaration of Independence talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our Creator. This is a nation where our Pledge of Allegience says that we are “One Nation under God.” This is a nation where every coin in our pocket and every bill in our wallet says “In God we Trust.”

So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that. The secular progressive agenda is antithetical to the principles of the founding of this nation.

And if we continue to allow them to take God out of our lives, God will remove himself from us, we will not be blessed, and our nation will go down the tubes and we will be responsible for that. We don’t want that to happen.

Despite the continued mantra of Hope and Change, the Democratic agenda was nothing more than Alinsky’s “Eight Levels of Control” reheated, garnished with positive spin, and served up to a population now willing to trade true freedom to support an addiction to free sex and free money. Behind Obama’s (very selective) crocodile tears over tragic mass shootings were the cold eyes of Leviathan.

1. Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.
2. Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible; poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3. Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes and this will produce more poverty.
4. Gun control – Remove people’s ability to defend themselves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5. Welfare – Take control of every aspect of people’s lives (food, housing and income).
6. Education – Take control of what people read and listen to; take control of what children learn in school.
7. Religion – Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.
8. Class warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Throughout her college career, Clinton followed the community organiser closely, and even dedicated her senior thesis to his strategies for political subversion. Despite her public statements, it is clear from leaked emails and reports from staff that, like Lenin, she regarded her supporters as “useful idiots.”

However, the problem for those who gain power by subversion is that their strategy consists only of deconstruction, of negativity. Despite their empty promises, they are not really for anything but power. Once that power is gained, their incompetence is gradually exposed. The promised Utopia fails to materialise because dissatisfaction and entitlement are out of step with the way the world actually works. Robbery might lead to short term gains but always results in long term losses. This is exactly what the Man discovered in the Garden of Eden. The inability – or perhaps deliberate unwillingness – of even educated people, including the media, to consider the obvious connection between Obama/Clinton and Alinsky reveals just how keen human beings are to facilitate their own destruction for the sake of temporary trinkets and pleasures. Without Christ, even the wise of the world are no different at heart from our first father. So much for the “progress” in Progressivism. The apple never falls far from the Adamic family tree.

For Communism, Socialism, and Progressivism, the abstraction from reality of unworkable policies always becomes apparent in their bitter fruits. Hillary Clinton could not credibly promise any Hope because she offered no discernible Change. The silver lining in the dusty cloud of Obama’s second term was the opportunity it gave him to “reduct” his own agenda “ad absurdum.” Hope and Change turned out to be bribery and bullying, long running scandals, lack of transparency, a Supreme Court ruling that overturned democratic votes on marriage, unaffordable healthcare, gender neutral toilets and continued disasters in foreign policy. History has a habit of revealing what things – and people – really are, and the impotence of “Rabble-Rouser-as-President” has become plain. Woodstock’s laziness, promiscuity and lack of experience are fine until one actually has to produce something, whether it be GDP or the next generation of children, the modern equivalents of the “land” and “womb” curses in Genesis 3 and promises in Genesis 15.

What does it look like when antiestablishmentarianism becomes the establishment? One can only incite hatred between rich and poor in the name of generosity, between black and white in the name of unity, and work to excuse and empower bloodthirsty Islam under a banner of international peace, so many times, before the stench becomes undeniable even by a sycophantic mass media. The inspiring speeches of Obama and Clinton can no longer cover the red-handed evidence of their hypocrisy. Their pretty speeches tinkle emptily from mouths that are gaping, ravenous graves. What they sold as fairness and generosity was in fact the removal of personal, familial and national sovereignty – complete nakedness before enemies of every stripe and at every level. It is one thing to share America’s wealth and power with the world. It is quite another to cut America open, bleed it dry with parasites, expose it to predators and leave the remains for waiting scavengers. The death of America, as with the demise of all great civilisations, would be an inside job.

What follows here is an excerpt from Can Saul Alinsky Be Saved? by Richard Bledsoe, and a recent comment by the author which inspired this post, relating to the recent U.S. election result:

One of the great difficulties that theorists and practitioners are up against—from Blake, Shelley, and Byron to Alinsky—is what happens if their protagonists win? From Robespierre through Lenin to our current time, this becomes an insoluble dilemma. They now become the new Establishment. They have no doctrine of authority that does not see authority as oppressive and inherently evil. The only solution to this dilemma is to promote “eternal revolution,” endless chaos and endless opposition. That culture will masochistically undermine and destroy itself in orgies of self-hatred and self-contempt. Eventually, one reaches an inevitable point where chaos can only be completely destructive and nothing is left to rule. One reaches for the final possibility, which is simply to become an oppressive tyrant. Modern history is littered with terrible examples.

How remarkable that this entire election was an election that was in rebellion against The Establishment! Oh, how times have changed. Once upon a time, The Establishment meant Richard Nixon, Republicans, small businessmen, the mores and ethics of sexual prudes and the straight laced who condemned homosexuality, pre-marital sex, pornography, and promiscuity. It meant, above all, The Protestant Ethos and Churches. Things have completely turned upside-down since the 60s. We are the anti-60s now.

But alas, what happens when Leftists win, and they then become the Establishment? What follows is all that can follow. They have placed themselves in the same impossible position as Lucifer himself, who Alinsky very insightfully dedicated his Rules For Radicals to. What is that impossible position?

Michael Polanyi’s very great work, Personal Knowledge, outlines it all. Knowledge can never, never, never begin with doubt and rebellion as the first movement. All knowledge must begin by first believing something, and acting on that. All later doubt is built on a deeper belief. Lucifer wanted to make doubt and rebellion the first and foremost and even only foundation. After one has rebelled against all that is, there is nothing left, and one can only fall into the abyss. Alinsky is dead right. All Leftism is built on the rock solid foundation of ultimate doubt and rebellion. So what happens after you have won, and then become the Establishment yourself?

All that can happen is fake, fraud, and optical illusion. You become everything you originally claimed to hate and imputed and projected onto your enemy. You become a hypocrite.

The Progressive clatch has become the mirror image of the Ku Klux Klan. If you are a Klansman, you are righteous, and your enemy is the Jew and the Uppity Nigger. The righteousness of the Klansman is beyond doubt. There is no doubt, not about that. That is believed. One only believes in ones’ own outlook and righteousness. It is so beyond doubt that if anyone does doubt a Klansman, it is only because he is a traitor, a hater of all previous glories, a destroyer of civilization.

Now, the righteousness of the Progressive is so complete, so beyond all question, that to not agree with a Progressive can only be for the lowest of motives. To disagree, to vote otherwise, can only be because you are a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist. Riots are in order. Lynchings are in order. The enemy must be cleansed.

The hypocrisy is complete and total. One can only mimic the devil himself, who can be nothing but a hypocrite.

The rabble-rousing of king-of-the-trolls Donald Trump was poetic justice for the creeping death of the globalist “Nothing” of the Left. Just as Jacob outcrafted every serpent in his path, Trump turned the tactics of Alinskyites back upon themselves, and the “consensus” of the principalities and powers was exposed for what it really is – a lie. Trump is a man who has seen it all and done it all, and thus cannot be bought and cannot be shamed, like the world-weary but inevitably wiser author of Ecclesiastes. The major difference is that Shepherd-elect Trump and those with whom he is surrounding himself actually believe in Something. This is something beyond rabble-rousing which for Trump was a means to an end, and even beyond power, which for Trump means the power to serve. This something is a different solution to discontent, not a spiral of never ending revolution but an agenda of strategic construction. Unlike Obama and Clinton, the Washington DC swamp and the now-discredited mass media, the members of Trump’s dream team, despite their flaws, have a history of ingenuity, innovation and productivity.

However, as Voltaire famously said, “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” Turning around a big ship not only takes time, the ship has to really want to turn around. The next four years will certainly be interesting for the United States and for all of Western Culture. Christians know that the iron rod of Jesus, facilitating His agenda of not only salvation, but also of wisdom, among the nations, is the only true source of Hope and Change.

Richard Bledsoe’s Can Saul Alinsky Be Saved?: Jesus Christ in the Obama and Post-Obama Era is available here.

A Carved Stone Block Upends Assumptions About Ancient Judaism

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples.

But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot.

And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and considered the holiest place of worship for Jews, during a crucial period, when Judaism was on the cusp of the Christian era.

Continue reading at New York Times.

Christians have been taught for many years that the prophecies of Jesus regarding “end times” are yet to be fulfilled.

Matters such as the great tribulation as described by Jesus are found mentioned in the gospels and are the subject of many parables told by Jesus. However, John Alley explains that a careful examination of the writings of Josephus, a well-respected scholar and historian, when taken alongside the words of Jesus, paint a different picture. Many of the words of prophecy spoken by Jesus have already been fulfilled, says John. The understanding of this brings empowerment and great joy to the believer.

John goes on to explain that in this current age, when God reaches out to his people it is with a whole heart that offers nothing but mercy. A time is coming, however, when a day of reckoning will come upon all people. Rich with scripture verses as well as historical teaching, this message will encourage the listener to be found, when Jesus returns, carrying out the will of our Lord.

There is a proverb which states that the best place to hide a tree is in a forest. In the case of “relevant” Christianity, the hidden tree is a poisonous one which has to be identified, cut down and incinerated before it bears its bitter fruit.

The sad fact is that so many Christians today, who lack biblical discernment, react with horror at such a cutting response. They stand and stare and ask “Why did you pick that tree to cut down? It looked pretty much like all the others? And it was such a well-meaning tree.”

Well, firstly, we picked this one because there’s a serpent wrapped around it. Secondly, if you wait till the breeze dies down, you may notice a faint smell of rotting flesh. Thirdly, young church member Fotherington-Thomas just took a bite from its fruit and his body is being dragged into the bushes just over there.

There is another proverb which states that ”The devil will flood you with truth in order to float one lie.” The lie I want to deal with is the notion that understanding the Bible in a more mature way somehow leads to the Word of God being less offensive to its enemies. And the example in my cross hairs is an article by John Pavlovitz entitled 5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit About The Bible. Pastor John rightly takes issue with Christians who “want to make the Bible something it isn’t,” but then his solution to the problem is to commit exactly the same crime only in a slightly more educated, but far less faithful, way.

The reason I am picking on this article is that a friend posted it on Facebook as good advice. At first glance it certainly looks good, but those of us who have been around the theological block a few times are familiar with and thus more able to smell the first signs of spiritual decay.

John writes:

We do God and His Word a disservice when we turn Scripture into something it’s not.

The Bible.

Christians talk about it all the time, though what they mean by “The Bible” isn’t always clear. That is to say, other than the catch phrase “God’s Word” I’m not sure what the Bible is to many who claim it as the sacred text that guides their life. I’m positive we’re not all on the same page, so to speak.

Some Christians want to make the Bible something it isn’t, and it makes for some disastrous conversations and dangerous assumptions, especially in interactions with other Christians.

So good so far. Many Christians treat the Scriptures like fortune cookies, or a spiritual horoscope, or a wooden list of rules. But I’m wondering if John would include in his “disastrous conversations” the knock-down drag-out theological biffos that resulted in the numerous foundational synods and reformations in Church history. Theological controversy isn’t a bad thing if it drives us to further study and a greater desire to understand the Bible. Let’s see if that’s where he takes us.

Here are 5 things about the Bible I wish more believers would consider:

1. The Bible Isn’t a Magic Book.

The Bible isn’t The Good Book. It isn’t really a book at all. It’s a lot of books. It’s a library.

Its 66 individual books run the diverse gamut of writing styles, (poetry, history, biography, church teachings, letters), and those books have dozens of authors; from shepherds, to prophets, to doctors, to fishermen, to kings. These diverse writers each had very different target audiences, disparate life circumstances and specific agendas for their work; so we don’t approach each book the same way—for the same reason you wouldn’t read a poem about leaves the same way you read a botany textbook. Some are for inspiration and some for information; we receive and see them differently.

If we can see the Scriptures this way; as many diverse works telling one story in one collection, Christians can free themselves from the confusion about what they mean when they say “literal.” We don’t have to equate history with allegory with poetry, or read them in the same way. We can also see the Bible as a record not just of God, but of God’s people, and we can find ourselves within it.

On the surface, this is good advice. The problem is that many modern scholars, teachers and preachers use this “truth” to undermine the authority of the Bible at precisely the “pressure points” where they must either take a stand against the current cultural consensus and suffer the consequences, or take the easy route and compromise. The Bible haters know precisely where to pull out the rug, but well-meaning (or spineless) Christians who are afraid of hurting people’s feelings are strangely clueless about their own foundations. When the tables turn, as we have already seen, those whose feelings we are so afraid to hurt usually have no scruples when it comes to prosecuting, persecuting or even incarcerating Christians.

A prime example of such a “pressure point” is the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis, which are written in verse, but are also historical narrative. Moderns love to cut things up and classify the bits, so a history text written in a highly structured literary form shorts their little circuits, which are surprisingly low voltage. They claim they are reading the texts as the ancients would, but they are fooling themselves.¹See John Dickson, “The Genesis of Everything,” where the otherwise helpful Christian historian somehow interprets Genesis 1 “as the author intended” yet in a way that contradicts the interpretation of Moses, Jesus and Paul. The number of illogical comparisons and idiotic statements in this paper is surprising. Academia has its very own special kind of dumb. And they are deliberately fooling others, too. Somehow the twin facts that Genesis 1-3 does not follow Hebrew poetic forms, and that the same literary structures found in chapters 1-3 continue, though less obviously, throughout the rest of Genesis, are never mentioned. Moreover, the author does not even entertain the idea that the texts in question could be for both inspiration and information.

In theological schools from the cerebral Protestants to the gooey emergents, genre classification is often used as a mask for apostasy. We are to mature in our understanding of the Scriptures not so that we can capitulate to godless academia but so that we might believe and obey the texts better. Instead, those who claim to be reading the Bible “in its historical context” are more often than not using this “truth” as a way to make the Scriptures less relevant, not more.

Am I being too harsh? Have I misidentified this tree? What signs am I picking up?

If Pastor John did not have an agenda of compromise, he might have qualified his “true” statements in a way that would prevent them from giving undiscerning Christians the excuses they want to treat the Scriptures as an arbitrary collection of ancient inspirational verse. He might have mentioned that although there is amazing variety in the word of God, and many genres of literature written by many authors, the Bible is surprisingly consistent, “magic” in a more mature sense than a spiritual horoscope. He might also have mentioned that the key to understanding how it all fits together is called “Covenant theology,” and pointed the reader to some helpful books. But these caveats and guidelines are not included, presumably because they would not serve his purpose. What is mentioned is true, but what is not mentioned is far more telling. Yes, the Bible is a diverse assembly of literature, but here it seems this truth is being used to “divide and conquer.”

Pastor John is sick of fundamentalists who do not understand the difference between literal and literary. So am I. But give me a fundamentalist over a theological liberal any day. The Bible does use a lot of typology and symbols, but those enhance its veracity and historicity rather than detracting from them.


2. The Bible Isn’t as Clear as We’d Like It To Be.

Often, (especially when arguing), Christians like to begin with the phrase, “The Bible clearly says…” followed by their Scripture soundbite of choice.

Those people aren’t always taking the entire Bible into account.

If we’re honest, the Bible contains a great deal of tension and a whole lot of gray on all types of subjects. For example, we can read the clear Old Testament commandment from God not to murder, and later see Jesus telling His disciples that violence isn’t the path His people are to take.

But we also see God telling the Israelites to destroy every living thing in enemy villages, (women and children included), and we read of Moses murdering an Egyptian soldier without recourse from God.

That’s why some Christians believe all violence is sinful, while others think shooting someone in self-defense is OK. Some find war justifiable in some cases, while some believe all war is inherently immoral.

Same Bible. One subject. Several perspectives.

That’s not to say that truth is relative, that God doesn’t have an opinion on violence or that He hasn’t given us His opinion in the Bible. It’s just that the answer may not be as clear and straightforward as we like to pretend it is.

Many times, when Christians say the phrase “The Bible clearly says…”, what they really mean is, “The way I interpret this one verse allows me to feel justified in having this perspective.”

When you read and study this library in its totality, there are certainly themes and continuities and things that connect exquisitely, but if we’re honest we can also admit there are ambiguities. It doesn’t diminish the Scriptures to admit that they are complex. On the contrary, most great works throughout history are.

This point, once again, contains a lot of truth, but there is a lot of truth which should have been included which is missing. A summary explanation of why the Israelites were righteous in their destruction of Jericho, and why Moses was righteous in his execution of the Egyptian, would not go astray. But that would blow away the air of ambiguity the author is generating so he can more easily make his points. And there are a couple of lies here which steer the ship in a dangerous direction.

A number of years ago, my weekly schedule included lap swimming in the mid-afternoon. The lifeguard was a friend of mine, and he informed me that three weeks in a row, every Tuesday between 2.30 and 3pm, there was found floating a human turd in the learn-to-swim area. It wasn’t difficult to detect a pattern emerging, one particular child who attended weekly being the source of the problem.

In point two, despite most of the water being crystal clear, we have two turds, and a pattern is emerging. Can you spot them?

“If we’re honest, the Bible contains a great deal of tension and a whole lot of gray on all types of subjects;”

and,

“It doesn’t diminish the Scriptures to admit that they are complex. On the contrary, most great works throughout history are.”

These statements might appear to be harmless, but the author is buttering us up for more corruption in later points. “A great deal of tension” is only apparent tension. When taken in Covenant context, the ambiguities evaporate and every event makes perfect sense. “A whole lot of grey” subtly implies that because an issue might be more complex than we have been told, that the traditional stand of the church over the centuries might be completely wrong. It would have been helpful if this statement was clarified. Moreover, if the author was perhaps a little more informed, he might know that the “ambiguous” Hebrew Scriptures often make no judgment on the actions of a person precisely because they want us to think, to make our own assessment based on the previously revealed Law.

The Scriptures are certainly complex, as are most great works throughout history. But the subtext here is that the Scriptures are not a revelation from God, but the thoughts of men about God, a common assumption in modern academia, more akin to human literary works than to heavenly imperatives. Although this is only hinted at in this point, it is expanded upon in point three and hammered home in point five. Pastor John is clever enough not to push us astray, but instead to lead us. False teachers teach.

Regardless of the pristine appearance of the rest of the pool, at this point the discerning reader will contemplate getting out rather than risk swallowing something, um, unedifying.

3. The Bible Was Inspired by God, Not Dictated by God.

Christians will often rightly say that the Bible was “inspired by God,” and I completely agree. However, that idea often gets twisted in translation.

The Bible is “God’s Word,” but we need to be careful about what we mean when we say it was “written” by God. These are the words of men who were compelled by God to tell, not only what they claim to have heard God say, but things happening in and around them—their struggles, personal reasons for writing and specific experience of God. Of course they were inspired by God, but they remained inspired human beings, not God-manipulated puppets who checked their free will at the door and transcribed God’s monologues like zombies.

The book of Timothy says the Scriptures are “God-breathed,” that they originate from God, but it doesn’t claim they are God-dictated.

The perversion is becoming more obvious, now. The more mature Christian would respond that, yes, inspiration is not dictation, but that this difference is actually irrelevant to the point the author is trying to make. The Bible itself makes it clear that the inspired texts are as authoritative as if they had indeed been dictated.

Notice also the use of the word “claim.” Does Pastor John doubt some of these “claims”? And if he does, which ones? The manner in which he “personalises” the texts, tying them to the experiences and struggles of the biblical authors, once again is notable for what he doesn’t say. Certainly, we must take historical, Covenant and personal contexts into account. Nobody disputes this, and it would be a great help for the “fortune cookie” Christians to get a handle on this. But instead of making this point to enhance the power and authority of God’s Word, it is being used to undermine it. It is subtle, but that is my point. We must wise up to these lies wrapped in truth.

4. We All Pick and Choose the Bible We Believe, Preach and Defend.

Christians often accuse believers with differing opinions of “cherry picking” from the Bible; holding tightly to verses they agree with, while conveniently jettisoning ones they are uncomfortable with.

The only problem is, each time this assertion is made, the one making the accusation conveniently claims objectivity; as if they somehow have a firm, dispassionate understanding of the entirety of Scripture, without bias or prejudice, and that the other is violating that.

As we mature in our faith, some of us may be able to shake off some of our personal biases and get closer to the true meaning of Scripture. But until then, most of us have our own Bible, made somewhat in our image. There are as many specific individual interpretations of Scripture in history as there have been readers of it. Our understanding and belief about the Bible is a product of our upbringing, the amount of study we’ve had, the friends we’ve lived alongside, the area of the world we live in, the experiences we have and much more.

Is it really fair to accuse someone else of selectively using Scripture, unless we’re prepared to admit to the same crime in the process?

The words in the Bible point to someone for whom words simply fail. The words give us some frame of reference, but ultimately, God is far too big to be contained in those words.

Lots of truth, but two more lies:

“There are as many specific individual interpretations of Scripture in history as there have been readers of it.”

Despite the statement that shaking off our personal biases allows us to get “closer to the true meaning of Scripture,” this statement above is the ugly twin of a favourite objection of atheists. Certainly, there are different schools of theological thought, but in reality the picture is a great deal tidier than the one the author paints for us here. And once again, the necessary caveat is missing, allowing this accusation of “proof texting” to be used in issues where there has historically been no disagreement in the Church. He makes things worse rather than better. And instead of motivating us to more study and better understanding, this is really a call to just shut up. This is made clear by his nebulous conclusion, the second lie:

“The words in the Bible point to someone for whom words simply fail.”

One of my aunties once told me that while living in France, her appreciation of blue cheeses not only grew, but she slowly developed a taste for what she termed “more and more perverse cheeses.” Pastor John has led us up the garden path, and his final statement is gourmet cheese of the bluest kind. Once again, the statement itself is true. Our words do simply to fail to describe God. But the Words of God do not fail to describe Him. And this leads us to point five, where Pastor John is finally more forthright in telling us that the Bible is simply a bunch of human-authored poems about God, and that our personal experience of Him is in fact more authoritative. For the undiscerning, this is the point at which the boat is cut adrift from Christianity.

5. God Is Bigger Than The Bible.

This past week, I took a walk along the beach, taking in the ocean. For those who’ve ever done so, you understand the vastness; the staggering beauty and power; the relentless force of the tides. You know the smallness you feel; the overwhelming scale of creation you find yourself face-to-face with.

Billions of words have been written about the ocean. I could gather up every single one of them; the most beautiful, vivid, accurate descriptions from fisherman, marine biologists and poets. I could read every last word about the ocean to someone who has never been there—and it would never do it justice.

There’s simply no way to adequately describe the ocean in words. You have to experience it.

I wish more Christians would admit that the Bible, at its most perfect and inspired, is a collection of words about the ocean. They are not the ocean itself.

God is the ocean.

The words in the Bible point to someone for whom words simply fail. The words are filled with good and lovely things that give us some frame of reference, but ultimately, God is far too big to be contained in those words.

The Bible is not God. The Bible is a library filled with inspired words about God. We can discover and explore and find comfort there. We can seek the character of God, and the message of Christ and the path we’re to walk in its pages.

We can even love the Bible. I certainly do.

But we should worship the God who inspired the Bible.

Pastor John has told the “relevance” crowd exactly what they wanted to hear. “God is the ocean… The Bible is not God.” Metaphorically-speaking, a walk along the beach will tell us more about God than the Bible ever could. It is our own experience of what God is like, of what the world is like, of what love is, what the law should be in our own eyes, which interprets the Word of God, not the other way around. And we ourselves decide which of the words in this “library” are the inspired ones. And whether or not they are actual history is irrelevant.

Mature readers will also notice that this article is almost Scripture-free. It is just old-fashioned liberal theology, but the young have not been around long enough to recognise it as a sad attempt at recycling.

To summarise, despite the amount of truth slapped on as a clever veneer, Pastor John

a) condemned those who turn the Bible into something which it is not, and then subtly turned it into something else which it is not;

b) told us that the solution to interpreting the Bible through our own limited experience is to interpret the Bible through our own limited experiences; and finally,

c) condemned Bible text cherry picking which nonetheless exalts the Scriptures by giving us a licence to cherry pick our own non-binding “inspired words about God.”

Pastor John loves the Bible, but I get the impression he loves the Bible like I love W. H. Auden, or Dimple Scotch. The saddest part about all this is that, as of writing, over 90,000 suckers have shared John’s sentimental tripe on Facebook. But it’s not their fault. They lack discernment because they have not been taught by people with discernment.

The Bible is printed in black and white but if you hold it far enough away it is, quite conveniently, just a whole lot of grey.

BITTERSWEET

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”
(Proverbs 16:24)

If, in the language of biblical symbols, gold is solid light and oil is liquid light, then honey is liquid gold.

As the golden Ark contained the Ten Words, and the oil of the Lampstand lightened the path of the king, so honey is the Word of God in edible form. In the wilderness, manna tasted like honey wafers. In Canaan, the law of the Lord was even more desirable than its precious honey (Psalm 19:10; 119:103).

Bees are used to represent the hosts of the Land, a swarm possessed of a single mind, the Canaanites whose labors would be possessed by Israel. The gift of honey was part of Israel’s bittersweet inheritance. Thus bees and honey together perfectly picture the plunder and plagues meted out to Israel under the Law of Moses as blessings and curses, possession or oppression.

You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Leviticus 20:24)

The name of Deborah, “a mother in Israel” who led a successful counterattack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera, means “bee.”1 For Israel, milk and honey are symbols of the promise of the motherland, the favor of the Father as edible gold for His faithful Son. But not all of Israel’s fathers were good.

Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey.” (1 Samuel 14:29)

It is interesting that honey is found in the mouth of the blessed bride (Song of Solomon 4:11) and on the lips of the cursed harlot (Proverbs 5:3), images of a Covenant kingdom found faithful or unfaithful.

The ministry of bees also illustrates the eternal conversation between the Father and the Son by the Spirit. The Father commands and the Son brings His plans to fruition (John 1:3). The words of the Lord structure all reality, but it is obedience to them which brings life and glory. Just like the Creation of the world, the production of honey is a twofold process of forming and filling. Honeycomb is a many-roomed house. It is filled with glory through the “there-and-back-again” duties of faithful workers who “pollenate” the nations.

Theology should be a similar process. Sadly, so much of it is merely a haphazard collection of separate facts, ideas and opinions, without any consciousness of the wonderful “hive” pattern that is obviously inherent in everything if we have eyes to see.2

The fractal “matrix” of the Bible is a framework for understanding the world, and the Covenantal shape of all Scripture is the honeycomb within which all truth is contained. Every theological or natural observation is part of a process of transformation, which finds its origin in the to-and-fro of the Trinity. To be truly “filled,” theology must first be “formed” by the patterns in the words and works of God.

Douglas Wilson speaks of the “copiousness” of the writer. This is the practice of collecting and recording ideas for later use, much as a bee collects pollen.

Keep a commonplace book. Write down any notable phrases that occur to you, or that you have come across. If it is one that you have found in another writer, and it is striking, then quote it, as the fellow said, or modify it to make it yours.3

When you collect phrases, points, metaphors, and whatnot in this way, you are, as Cicero used to put it, loaded for bear. By linking “loaded for bear” up with Cicero, incidentally, I am providing another example of the previous point. But this last point is an important part of what the ancient rhetoricians called copiousness.

One time G.K. Chesterton, the rolypologist, was patted on the stomach by his adversary, George Bernard Shaw, a beanpole of an infidel, and was asked what they were going to name the baby. Chesterton replied immediately that if it was a boy, John, if a girl, then Mary. But if it turned out to only be gas, they were going to name it George Bernard Shaw. Now we hear that story and marvel at his amazing quickness. And it may well have been such, a prodigy of the moment. But I also wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that Chesterton had that particular pistol loaded beforehand, and concealed on his person. When copiousness is active, you not only know how to respond in the moment, but you can also see the moment coming, and prepare for it beforehand.

Your commonplace book is just a staging area. You are collecting things in order use them, to get them into your mind and heart, and thence into your writing.4

The writer’s life is a scavenger’s life. This should go also for pastors, teachers, fathers and mothers, and in fact any Christian: all our ministry is didactic and apologetic, discipleship and witness. We collect that we might not only pollenate but also build the kingdom. This means that copiousness alone is not enough. Only kingdom-shaped hearts can hold honey.

This process is exactly what is going on in the wisdom literature and the prophets, and I am constantly amazed at our failure to recognize it. Theirs was a biblical copiousness. Their guns were loaded, their pumps were primed, well before these remarkable minds fired and mouths gushed. All the writers had been Timothys waiting for a Paul to join the dots of the Law with the stylus of the Spirit. Every past event was ammunition for Israel’s future. This explains why the book of Revelation is an explosive spray of machine gun fire from a carefully collected and meticulously arranged cache of Old Testament texts.

Biblical copiousness is one thing we love about C. H. Spurgeon. The Bible was his muse. The biblical texts are high walls but they are not lonely, cold, disjointed bricks. Spurgeon preached from the fiery turrets of inspired literature with apparent ease while modern boffins do dog paddle below him in a moat of footnotes and call it scholarship. To these illiterati, the “apostolic hermeneutic” is a marvel and a mystery, an impenetrable keep, when it is simply the result of their biblical copiousness. The cinematic Covenantal ironies of the prophets are lost on the blind guides of today. Jesus and His prophets are far cleverer—and funnier—than even Chesterton. But so many of us do not get their inspired, bittersweet jokes.

Jesus, the Word, created a world where everything “speaks.” Every physical object is also mirror and metaphor and lyric and rant; every Covenant-historical event is a self-referencing innovation. Our Lord is the Master of Allusion, and we, as we read the Bible, are to be His commonplace books.

If God can quicken and glorify stone by writing on it with His own finger, then how much more will human hearts be glorified, quickened, made alive, and regenerated when the finger of God, the Holy Spirit Himself, writes on them? What is it to be born again? It is to become the Holy Spirit’s commonplace book.5

The defining feature of the New Israel is legal witness, and as you may be aware, the Greek word for witness is the source of our word “martyr.” Honey from the hive is life and death to those who hear it, for it ministers a blessing to the head and a curse to the body. It brightens the eyes but is a sting to the flesh. This was the case with Jonathan, and also with Ezekiel and John.

And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. (Ezekiel 3:1-3)

And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. (Revelation 10:10)

Ezekiel and the Revelation are sister books, following the same structure and serving the same purpose: the destruction of Israel, a witness to the nations, and the resurrection of Israel, renewed and made heir to a greater glory. Their message was both bitter and sweet, law and grace, plagues and plunder, death and life. John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey because his prophecies to a lawless king would bring the consuming armies of Rome and a heavenly country for the “beheaded” saints.

When Christ shared bread and wine with His disciples at Passover, He began their commission as witnesses of things they had heard and seen. The Lord’s supper is a bittersweet scroll, honey with a sting, manna for a mustering host. Christ brightens our eyes that we might bear His two-edged sword. We taste and see that He is good, and go out to take possession of His inheritance, the nations.

I hope these short essays not only brighten your eyes but kindle the fire in your belly.

Michael Bull
Katoomba, September 2014

______________________________________________
1 See also the discussion concerning Samson’s honey in “Out Of The Eater,” God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink, 289.
2 See the charts at the end of this book.
3 Douglas Wilson, Seven Basic & Brief Pointers for Writers, www.dougwils.com
4 Douglas Wilson, Uncommon Commonplaces, www.dougwils.com
5 Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 132.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: BITTERSWEET

CREATION
1 THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL
2 WAR OF THE WORLDVIEWS
3 JENGA BIBLE
4 RETURN OF THE RAVEN
5 THE ETERNAL PEOPLE

COVENANT
6 IMAGES OF GOD
7 SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
8 INTERNAL LAW
9 CASH AND COVENANT
10 I WILL KILL HER CHILDREN WITH DEATH

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
11 BETTER ANGELS
12 DOGS AND PIGS
13 A TONGUE OF GOLD
14 SCALES OF JUSTICE
15 SNAKES AND CHAINS

SECULARISM
16 ARMED WITH DEATH
17 NO COMMON GROUND
18 GOD GAVE THEM UP
19 LAMECH’S PATSY
20 THE EXORCISM OF CHRIST

HERMENEUTICS
21 THE PERILS OF DEEP STRUCTURE
22 TECHNICIANS AND INTUITIONS
23 CURING THE MINDBLIND
24 MERCURY RISING
25 TOMBOYS AND TOTEMS

COVENANT-LITERARY TEMPLATES

“If the creed is not considered dangerous, divine worship is emasculated.”

A creed is either worthless or worth everything we have. Here’s a classic quote from an essay by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy entitled “The Peace of the Pirates” in Planetary Service (1978).

I have had the honor to have been considered a public danger more than once in my life. The first time was in 1912 when I wrote, “Language is wiser than the person who speaks it.” My thesis almost foundered on this disturbing reality of the Holy Spirit which I had perceived. Balaam’s ass was considered unscientific!

It occurred a second time in February 1919 before the Versailles Treaty was signed. I called upon the German legal profession to offer their protection for the Kaiser and the generals, and let the Allies—as they in fact did in 1945—put the legal profession on trial instead, so that the indispensable new planetary law could come into being, once we had been made liable. The reader can imagine the effect. I wanted to do away with the immunity of the German professor! So I left the “institution of higher learning and limited liability.” It happened a third time in 1935 in the U.S.A. I was considered a blemish on pure science, because I referred to the workings of the living God in a lecture hall. Again, Harvard University, objective, free of “values,” felt that it could restore its honor only by contemptuously shoving me off into the theology department. These three opportunities were related to our three articles of faith, 1912 to the third, 1919 to the second, and 1935 to the first. I was so audacious as to invoke them. Presumably I have survived, thanks to this trinity. It cost me my native country, my colleagues, and so-called science.

…The distorted thing about our position today is that almost nobody who is earning his daily bread with the Christian creed realizes that the credo may be deadly dangerous. Only laymen believe that, or people like Bonhoeffer who take off their frocks. If the creed is not considered dangerous, divine worship is emasculated. The creed is either high voltage or empty straw.

(Thanks to Charles Hartman for the recommendation.)

John Milbank is a Christian theologian and Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham. Milbank is regarded as one of today’s most important intellectuals. He is known as the founder of the Radical Orthodoxy movement, which has attracted international attention in both religion and politics. His work crosses disciplinary boundaries, integrating subjects such as systematic theology, social theory, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy, and political theory. He was educated at both Oxford and Cambridge. During his time at Cambridge he studied under Rowan Williams. He then received his PhD from the University of Birmingham.