Bully's Blog

“…all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”  1 Cor 10:4

There is a well-known Australian children’s novel called The Nargun and the Stars based on an aboriginal legend. The Nargun is a living creature but it looks like a big rock. It doesn’t move much, but it when it does it is ferocious.

What is Paul going on about here? Discounting the various Jewish fables and Christian legends surrounding both the original wilderness texts and Paul’s words here, what is his meaning? Could the structure of the passage give us a clue?

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Dear Heathen   The Peskiest Chapter in the Bible

Regeneration Correctly Defined   Jesus the preterist   Altaration

or Becoming the Finger of God on the Eject Button

“Immediately, the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.” —Mark 1:12

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

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Oswald Chambers says:

The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because at a point away back I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because I have yielded myself to Him.

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or Submissible Evidence According to Paul

“…it is instructive that when the issue was so decisively drawn with his legalist opponents, Paul, at the climax of his argument, appealed to an allegory to refute the gainsayers of grace…”

Warren Gage writes:

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or Tearing the Old Adam in Two

Jesus comes to the Pharisees. Who are the Pharisees? They are us. Pharisees are the evangelicals. They are the faithful in Israel.

The Sadducees were the liberals, the zealots were the political activists and the Essenes were the dropouts, and Jesus doesn’t fool with them at all.

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More Thoughts on Prophetic Cauldrons

“Out of the frying pan into the fire.”

The structure of Ezekiel follows the “soundwaves” pattern found in a great deal of the Bible, particularly the prophets. The Lord speaks His word as liturgy from the Most Holy Place, it is pre-enacted by the prophet in a new “Holy Place” (from outside the city – see Rags to Robes) in some terrifying judgments as object lessons (see Liturgy as Prophecy), and then the same judgments are played out in greater detail in the “Outer Court.” All three sections are heptamerous, and in these three areas we have Word, Sacrament (the prophet as a kind of new “acting” High Priestly mediator – see How to Read the Prophets), and Government.

The book of Ezekiel begins with this pattern, so we have the prophetic cauldron turn up three times. Each cycle takes us through the Tabernacle speeches (Exodus 25-31) which follow the Creation Week, so this is a process of new Creation for the anointing of Ezekiel and of de-Creation for the old Tabernacle of Solomon’s Temple. It was decayed and ready to vanish away.

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At the centre of any good chiasm is the main point, the thesis. History is chiastic, with the life of Christ at the centre. The Bible’s main point is the union of God and man in Christ.

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Talking Animals

Called, Divided, Filled and Reunited

Exegetical Blinkers – 2

Prayer is Postmillennial

The End of Shadows

Evil Eve: The Harlotry of the First Century sons of Aaron

The Lord “called” Adam as Day 1, giving him one law (light). He divided him as Day 2 and built Eve as a Holy Place, a firmament to be filled with stars (godly offspring). As Day 3 He made a new covenant and married them, the first nearbringing. Adam as the Bronze Altar (dust elevated from the Land) then became the first High Priest, the Table. In his obedience, together they prefigured totus Christus.

Day 4 follows. As Adam represented singular light, Eve was plural light. She was the holy fire on the altar, the glory of Adam. [1] Day 4 is the Lampstand. Day 4 is also the wilderness. If Eve was seduced, it was because Adam’s priesthood was corrupt. There was strange fire on the altar, the biblical theme of harlotry. In the garden, the strange fire was the false lightbearer who filled the “firmament” with darkness.

With that background, look at how this plays out in Daniel 7. It also supports James Jordan’s assertion that the fact that the beast’s body is “feminine” carries some importance. [2] The false church is the body of totus diabolus, the locust swarm gathered as a tabernacle by the fallen head. Daniel seven is the history of the first century church as the Woman in the wilderness. But the faithfulness of the new Adam brought an end to the priesthood of the sons of Aaron.

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or OT as Mostly an Accommodation to Ancient Pop-Culture?

The Modern Evangelical Bible Academy, Model 2300X.

In his new book Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart has a great chapter called “The Text is a Husk: Modern Hermeneutics”. To distill his chapter down to its basic essence, he says that distilling the Scriptures down to their basic essence is not what God intends. The text is not a kernel hidden in a husk that can be discarded. We are not to heave our Bibles down to the threshingfloor. Every word of Scripture has significance.

Leithart presents a fascinating history of this methodology and the philosophies behind its various forms. Then he turns on “the good guys.”

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