Bully’s Blog

or Insanity and Spiritual Songs

Van Gogh’s work has been regarded by some as “hallucinatory,” however his letters show that few artists were as intelligent and rational. His work was not the product of his dark times but of his struggle against them.

“I am feeling well just now… I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible—and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger and makes haste in what he does.” [1]

Continue reading

Psalm 114 - Family of Blood

Psalm 114 is one of those weird passages of Scripture that makes you wonder if the author was high on something. Without an understanding of the significance of the place of this song among these seven Psalms, the lyrics appear to be either the overly-clever, sophomoric crypticism of an ancient Bono or the fragmented derivatory prattlings of a madman.

Continue reading

“I am the Door.”

The second part of both the Covenant and matrix structures concerns the authority of the transcendent God being delegated to His servant. Very often, a book of prophecy begins with a vision of the Lord, which promptly knocks Adam onto his face as a dead man, and the destroyer passes over him in the darkness. He is “waters divided.” He is called to be separate from the world, and this sanctification begins with mortification. [1] So Psalm 112, as the second in this Covenant song-cycle, concerns the outcome in the world of the faithful use of God’s authority by His Adam.

Continue reading

Here’s my go at the structure of the first of these seven praise psalms. (The introduction is here.) Apparently, it has five verses, following the Covenant structure. Within this, each stanza also has five lines, which echo the same structure while maintaining the theme of the stanza. The only exception is verse 4 which concerns the Sanctions. It has seven lines. As I maintain, the 5-point Covenant model expands into the 7-point matrix as Ethics gets split into three: Law opened/Death under the Law/Resurrection fulfilling the Law. 5-point Word creates 7-point History. The Sanctions correspond to the Day of Atonement (Conquest) which has the theme of the resurrected body ascending to govern under God. On that Day, every year, Israel died and rose again.

Continue reading

Psalms 111 to 117 are the “Praise the Lord” psalms, an obvious unit due to the repetition of that phrase. Are they arranged in any order, or is there some internal logic going on? You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you?

Continue reading

or The Art of Noise

Must be wizards week!

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (NKJV) Hebrews 4:12

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (NKJV) James 2:18

The firmament was a veil to hide God’s throne from Man until he was ready to see God face to face. Of course, we see types of this throughout the Bible, Job, Jacob and Moses being notable examples. But no man had seen God until after Christ ascended and was presented as Facebread.

Your face is a veil of flesh that hides your brain, the source of your intentions. Your head is a microcosm of the Tabernacle at one level, and your entire body at another. You are a Garden and a Land.

Deceivers mask their true intentions with facial expressions and body language. Good spies can even pass a lie detector test. Between their true intentions and the flesh that is supposed to be communicating it, there is a deliberate disconnect. As in the Garden, it is the mind of a beast speaking with the eyes and mouth of a man.

Continue reading

The Distress of the Covenant-keeper

Dear friends, don’t be surprised or shocked that you are going through testing that is like walking through fire. (CEV) 1 Peter 4:12

The Covenant documents are the foundation for history. God sets things in motion, like any good farmer, and returns later to pour out the promised blessings or curses, to separate the wheat from the weeds. To be under Covenant is to be under these Words, to be transformed through testing into the shape given in blueprint on the mountain. This necessary process of being sifted like wheat is both personally and communally distressing.

From Douglas Green:

The most frequently recurring Psalm form is the lament. Out of 150 psalms, 50 concern individual lament and another 70 concern communal lament. That’s almost half the Psalter.

If the Psalter is a poetic portrayal of life in Covenant fellowship with God, then it is a lamentable life. It is a life with a surprising amount of hardship and suffering, conflict and pain, or to use Philip Johnson’s summary word, distress.

Continue reading

or Disputatio with God

Re The Wrath of Love, Michael Micklow commented:
(Correction - not Michael Shover - Michael got his Michael’s crossed)

“The prophet did not have to remind God, so much as he had to remind himself of the love of God, and to see God’s judgment as the wrath of love.”

What about the dangerous yet successful Mosaic paradigm in Exodus 32:7-14? In this section, the prophet is able to approach, contest and sway God’s wrath (vv. 11-13). In response to Moses’ challenge, the text tells us, “and the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (v. 14)…

… And what was the cornerstone of his defense? — the appeal to memory (v. 13). Moses cites the exodus event, and he further appeals to the covenant established with Abraham.

Continue reading

or Feasts in Psalm 116

I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

Continue reading

Timothy Edwards has some really interesting things to say about interpreting Psalm 1 over at Credenda/Agenda. Of course, I thought the matrix might help things as well. Here’s my go at it.

Continue reading