Desirable to make one wise

Mark Horne writes:

The first time wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, it is used to describe what tempted Eve about the tree–that it was desirable to make her wise.

This seems to be the equivalent of gaining the knowledge of good and evil, having one’s eyes opened… and being like God.

At the end of Genesis 3 God seems to agree with these equivalences:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil…”

Adam and Eve are naked in the beginning of Genesis. Genesis ends with a man who, after repeatedly losing his robe of authority through injustice, gains authority over the whole world… precisely because he is wise.

This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.

“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing…” Matthew 6:3

When it comes to doctrine, Mark Driscoll defines all issues as either closed-handed or open-handed. The non-negotiable fundamentals are held with a closed hand. In the open hand are issues that can be debated without shafting a church’s faithfulness to the apostles’ doctrine.

The Tabernacle was a metal man. In His left hand were bread and wine: servanthood, or more correctly, slavedom. In His right hand were the seven stars of the Lampstand: kingdom. The process of maturity, from obedience to wisdom, from slave to son, is the process of binding and loosing, from closed-handed issues to the open hand of the king. A priest is a silent servant in God’s house, and the details of his obedience are non-negotiable. His is an ear to be bored with an awl. A king is a vassal-son in God’s house, and he is counted as a friend, a courtly advisor. [1] His is a loosed tongue precisely because it has been bridled.

Of course, it takes a king to decide which issues should be held with a closed hand and which with an open one.

The true king is the son of the freewoman who was willing, like Isaac, to be bound as a sacrifice in order to free the generations of the people of God, the Bride. Likewise, Paul, the greatest apostle, was bound with a chain, held in the iron grip of Rome, for the hope of Israel. And the faithfulness of the apostolic church led to the binding of Satan–with a chain.

There is great wisdom in pastors requiring young Christians to focus on the fundamental doctrines, not simply in word but in practice, before allowing them, as qualified rhetors, to enter the debating arena. Doctrinal debates are a privilege of the New Covenant Church, but our motives must be pure. If we wish to speak in kingly courts, we must enter the arena from the place of the bondslave. Adam didn’t. Jesus did. The speech of a broken heart is not bitter but fragrant.

The vows of Church membership are, in this sense, a submission to chains for the sake of the gospel. So often, when tongues are afire, the Word of God is hindered, and when we are chained, the Word is loosed. The principle of intercession, of substitutionary sacrifice, permeates every area of ministry.

And soon enough, the chains might be real ones.

“…and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” Philippians 1:14

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[1] See God Chooses His Friends.

James Jordan has a great little commentary on Proverbs 30, the words of Agur (“sojourner”). Some believe the author of this chapter is Jacob. Jordan runs with this possibility and makes some wonderful observations.

The true son of God – or daughter of God – is a sojourner. That was true of Christ Jesus, and it is also true of us. For this reason, the proverbs of Agur the Sojourner are most relevant to us. These Sojourning Proverbs have a common theme, and that theme, announced in the opening paragraph, is humility. These are the proverbs of a man who learned wisdom by practicing humility…

The words of the Sojourner (Jacob?) the son of Yahweh,
blessed is He, the burden:
The man declares, “I have wearied myself, O God!
I have wearied myself, O God, and I have come to an end!
For I am more stupid than any man,
And I do not have the understanding of a man.”

Compare this with what Jacob said to Pharaoh: “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, nor have they reached the days of the years of the life of my fathers during the days of their sojourning” (Gen. 47:9).

I’m going to assume in these studies that these proverbs were written by Jacob. They were written at the end of his life, when he had “come to an end.” It is possible that there is a better solution to the puzzle of the opening verses of Proverbs 30, and if that is indeed the case, it will not change very much of what we shall find in the rest of the chapter. Whether Jacob wrote this chapter or not, it is certainly the case that Jacob’s life illustrates what we find here. The applications to us today will be the same in any event.

Notice Jacob’s [or Agur's] remarkable humility at the end of his life. Age and experience have not made him arrogant and proud. Rather, as Jacob considers things, he says that he is stupider than anyone he knows. He does not have the understanding that we can expect of any ordinary person. He has not learned wisdom (v. 3).

Have you ever felt this way? I believe that “the more you know, the more you don’t know.” The word “sophomore” means “wise fool,” or “sophisticated moron.” It is used of young people who think they have learned wisdom, but who obviously have not. In fact, the wiser we become, the more aware we are of how little we know. The more we learn about God, the greater is our awareness of the tremendous depth of His infinity. The older we grow in Christ, the more child-like we become-not childish in the sense of irresponsibility, but child-like in the sense of wonder and humility. Remember, the book of Proverbs is addressed to children (Prov. 1: 8).

But Jacob the Sojourner knows one thing that changes everything: “But I have knowledge of the Holy One” (v. 3; compare the old man’s knowledge in 1 John). Jacob may be worn out with living. He may feel defeated in his attempts to “exercise dominion.” He may be overwhelmed by his lack of personal wisdom; but there is one thing he does know: He knows God. And he knows that knowing God is the beginning of true wisdom (Prov. 1:7).

Knowing God makes for humility. Job 38-42 expand on what we find in verse 4 here. The questions Agur asks, such as “Who has gathered the wind in His fist?” are just like the questions God asks Job. As God humbled Job by revealing Himself, so Agur expresses humility before the knowledge of the God who created and reigns in heaven and earth.

What Job realized and what Agur realized, and what we must realize, is that we don’t need to understand everything. We don’t need to understand everything because we have God as our Father and He understands everything. Moreover, we don’t have to do everything. If we are tired, and can’t go any farther, it’s all right, because God is our Father, and He can do everything. The tired Sojourner can rest in the comfort of God’s Omnipotence.

James B. Jordan, Advice From a Sojourner, Humility and Dominion in Proverbs 30. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com

“Let his days be few, and let another take his office.” Psalm 109:8

The imprecatory Psalms seem to contradict the instruction of Christ to love our enemies. Ben Myers recently noted a campaign to pray for President Obama, to pray Psalm 109:8, that is:

Apparently some Southern Baptist pastors have been using Psalm 109:8 as a prayer for Obama’s death: “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” This even inspired a line of creepy bumper stickers and T-shirts that read “Pray for Obama.”

 One of these pastors says: “You’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things. Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.”

I replied:

Yes, these guys are nuts, but…

Modern Christians fail to understand the need for imprecatory prayer. When leaders do evil, praying for God’s judgment is what we are called to do. That is our ministry. We are Spirit-filled elders with access to the true throneroom. When we pray, in unity, it changes history. 

We are to obey those in power, and we are also to leave vengeance to God. Praying for judgment upon a leader with bloodlust of any kind (whether murdering civilians overseas or slaughtering the unborn) is godly ministry. Bombing abortion clinics is not. 

These bumper sticker guys, despite the gimmick, and the attitude Hauerwas describes, are correct. But what action would Hauerwas advocate? To withhold such judgment is to hand your culture over to Satan. Biblically, there is such a thing as good death. It is a judicial death to be carried out by the state. [1]

When you actually read the offending psalm, it seems like these politically incorrect gents picked the least offensive verse. Its context appears to make matters even worse.

One commenter quoted Scot McKnight with a possible resolution:

“Here’s the sad and tragic irony: interpreters today (Goldingay, Alter) agree that vv. 6-19 are the words of the opponents, the accusers, the enemies of God’s king (David) and not the words of the man of God! … In other words, these folks have clipped — probably reading the psalm mistakenly — words from the opponents of God and used for themselves.”

This is a possibility. The accusers are plural, yet the curses are invoked upon a single man. Moreover, they are Covenant curses for crimes against God’s Law. We know David did not commit these crimes. Like Satan the arch accuser, like Job’s accusers, and like those who accused Jesus, the crimes for which they invoke the curses are slanderous lies.

But even this theory backfires against those who doubt the lawfulness of imprecatory prayer, for after recounting the curses, David says:

“Let this be the Lord’s reward to my accusers, and to those who speak evil against my person.”

David might not have been the one who spoke the curses, but he did ask that these same curses would fall upon his accusers. This is exactly what happened to Jesus’ accusers. The Covenant curses fell and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The great Accuser was thrown down “like lightning” and replaced with the Advocate.

“I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth;
Yes, I will praise Him among the multitude.
For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor,
To save him from those who condemn him. “

So, after some thought, it seems like both sides might have this psalm wrong. It is not a psalm about vengeance but about vindication. Just as Paul waited for the Day of the Lord in AD70 to reveal who were the true “sons of God” (ie. the Christians or the Jews/Judaisers), David waited for the Lord’s judgment to reveal his innocence. We know that he was vindicated against his enemies. Even the ones he failed to destroy were eliminated wisely and efficiently by his Covenant-successor, Solomon.

But then, what are we to do with this song?

The best conclusion might be that, like all of the Old Testament, application takes wisdom. Not all of the Bible is “timeless.” Much of it actually is contextual. That sort of “Greek” thinking leads not only to this wooden quoting of single verses to put on T-shirts and bumper stickers, but to things like the Jews’ manufactured Oral Law or the idolising of creeds and traditions. It leaves no room for growth. James Jordan writes:

“The Jews and the Circumcision rightly said that God had given the Law and that the old arrangement was good. That’s true: It was good as long as we were children. But now we must move on toward adulthood. This movement into the future was what is rejected by the Jews and the Circumcision. For them, all time was the same, and there is no progress in history. They had become philosophers, treating the Law as a timeless ideal instead of as rules for children in their home.

This is how all paganism thinks. For them, time and change are evils. The writings of Mircea Eliade explore this hostility to time in depth. The pagan will admit to eternal cycles, but not to any real progress or maturation in history and biography. It is for this reason that pagans never grow up. They never progress beyond childhood and adolescence. Any missionary will tell you this, that the heathen are just like children. Greek philosophy and literature also never progresses beyond adolescence and Homer’s two great poems are about adolescents. Stuck in the time before marriage, the Greeks became homosexuals. Because this hostility to God’s plan is part of our sinful nature, we find that the Church repeatedly falls into the same way of thinking…

While it is true that a major sin is to cling to the past, to the old way, and not embrace the new birth and the new marriage, it is also possible to move into a new future that is a false future. Think of adolescence. Our very bodies impel us toward a new relationship with a member of the opposite sex. It is possible to enter a sinful future by having sex without marrying first, to seize forbidden fruit. It is possible to leave home in a rebellious way.

We see this phenomenon in a very striking way in the New Testament history. The fact is that what we call the Old Testament was not complete, for the completion awaited the New Testament writings. In the Restoration era, the Jews became wonderfully enamoured with the Bible and studied it constantly. At some deep level of their psyche they became conscious that it was incomplete. But then they jumped the gun and created their own new testament, their own completion of the Bible. This was the demonic Oral Law tradition that Jesus fought, which was eventually written down as the Mishnah and is commented upon in the Talmuds. Thus, they were impelled forward, but they refused to remain patient.

This false future was really no future at all. The Oral Law is not a new kingdom, but a perversion of the old. The Law of God was taken as timeless truths, as an Ideal, on the model of Greek philosophy, and then turned in upon itself to generate new laws in order to create a perfect, static timeless order, a Jewish version of Plato’s Republic and Laws. Thus, the Oral Law provided nothing new at all, but rather reflected a complete rejection of time and history.” [2]

The Bible is anchored in history for a people growing from childhood to maturity. New situations and applications arise to make us use our noggins (as the Jews were forced to do after the exile). But the Bible also makes clear what is obsolete and what is not, like any good parent. The Covenant under which David lived is not the New Covenant, although the latter grew out of the former. The New Covenant, like the Restoration Covenant, calls for greater maturity than its predecessor. Things aren’t quite as cut-and-dried once we are out of school; there’s no longer any truant officer to harass us if we don’t attend lectures.

However, this factor certainly leaves the Scriptures open to abuse from both sides, not just the hardliners. Both sides use isolated Bible verses as simplistic slogans. For the fuzzy-thinking liberal theologian, the gradual revelation of truth is a handy excuse to make “obsolete” the very delineations and categories inherent in the created order (ie. male and female)– the ones that offend their modern sensibilities, anyway. That is not honest exegesis. [3] It is not wisdom, either. They invoke the Covenant curses upon themselves, twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction. Being a biblical Covenant, even the New Covenant has both blessings and curses. This has more to do with those within the church than those without.

Timeless truth is a tree. The trunk is not the branch is not the fruit, yet they are all parts of the whole. President Obama is not the king of Israel, nor his accuser, but just as the Jews were priests within Ezekiel’s Jew-Gentile Temple, Christians are a royal priesthood in a New Jerusalem that is gradually conquering the world. When a Gentile empire turned bad, God eventually replaced it. We live in a situation that is similar and yet even wider in its scope. Our “oikoumene” is global. Governing it by prayer requires the wisdom found only in Christ. We no longer have to draw lots. We have the Spirit of God.

Any leader who rejects the lordship of Christ (by his actions and policies) is an enemy of Christ and His people. This is the reign of Christ and we are required to pray for those whom He has put in government. We blindly follow neither the sycophants of the left or the right. Our goal is the vindication of Jesus Christ and His gospel. If this means asking God to bring the slanderous curses of unrepentant murderers down upon their own heads, so be it. God’s judgment is exactly that—a judgment. He chooses between the goats with wisdom beyond our understanding. It is God’s call. Jacob’s Pharaoh was converted. Moses’ Pharaoh was hardened. In both cases, the people of God were vindicated. [4]

If the slanderers repent, we sing with the angels and welcome them into the holy city. If they harden their hearts, we also sing. We sing like the firstfruits church sang over the destruction of the Jezebel-city who twice let the blood of innocents run freely in her streets.

So, pray for President Obama with the wisdom of greater Solomon, Christ. Pray that both His love and His truth would be vindicated.

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[1] See Good Death – 7 and Dashing Her Little Ones.
[2] Excerpts from James B. Jordan, From Bread to Wine, Toward a More Biblical Liturgical Theology. Booklet available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
[3] See Timeless Truths?
[4] We could also mention the contrast between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. Also, the book of Esther contains one of my favourite examples of God’s people praying for a leader.

or Being a Truly Impure Thinker

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15

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

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[1] Available from www.wordmp3.com
[2] Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy, “Farewell to Descartes” in I Am an Impure Thinker [PDF]
[3] See Marriage as a Promise of Wine.
[4] See Eat Local and Die.
[5]  See Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not.
[6] See Knowledge and Wisdom.

Warren Gage/Christopher Barber and then James Jordan on Joseph’s wisdom:

“How strange Joseph’s behaviour toward his brothers appears to a modern reader! He recognises his brothers immediately but maintains his Egyptian disguise. He speaks harshly to them and then only through an interpreter. He charges them with spying — a capital crime for which he can sentence them to death. He takes one brother as a hostage. He returns their silver as they go home for the first time, and then he sets the brothers up in order to accuse them of stealing his silver cup on their second return trip, at which point he has them arrested. In short, he terrifies them.

What does this all mean? Is Joseph seeking revenge? Clearly that is not the case, for he so loves them he can hardly restrain himself fom revealing his identity — and his forgiveness — to them. Surely he is not vengeful. Why does he act this way? And why does the text go to such lengths to describe all of this?

Joseph is remarkable in the Bible for his wisdom. If we watch carefully what Joseph does, we will learn much about wisdom, a quality sorely lacking today. In our overly sentimental day, we might expect Joseph immediately to embrace his brothers. We would expect, perhaps, that he should welcome them immediately and tell them right away that the past injustice is forgiven. Because he does not, some today would probably charge him with being unforgiving and manipulative. But Joseph is certainly forgiving. He is also wise.

And thus, even though he longs to be reunited with his family, he cannot do so until he knows the condition of their hearts. It is not difficult imagine the questions swirling through Joseph’s mind. Have the brothers shown the same enmity toward his younger brother Benjamin as they showed toward him? If have have not changed, Benjamin’s life could be in jeopardy. Only ten brothers have come to Egypt. Jacob has kept Benjamin behind. Is Jacob showing Rachel’s other son the same favouritism he once showed Joseph? How will he truly discover the secrets of their hearts?

In short, Joseph wonders if God has redeemed his brothers in the intervening years. The mark of saving faith is love for the brethren (John 13:35). Do they love one another? Joseph knows that for reconciliation to be genuine, he must answer that question. He is not interested in revenge. His heart is willing to forgive. But until he knows whether they love one another, he will not reveal himself to them.

His great wisdom is displayed as he devises three tests for the brothers, each with the goal of revealing another aspect of the condition of their hearts. As he puts his plan into action, we can imagine Joseph watching from behind his Egyptian disguise and listening to the words they speak in their native Hebrew. He learns through his tests that God has done an amazing work in the lives of those who once hated him.

At the conclusion of his final text, where young Benjamin is made to appear as a thief, Judah steps forward. In the last lesson, we saw Judah declare to his father that he would stand as surety for Benjamin’s return. Now that promise is put to the test. Surely Judah could not be blamed if he and the others left Benjamin behind, when for all they know he has committed such a great crime! Even though Judah must believe Benjamin has committed a senseless act of petty theft, we see that the transformation of his heart is complete. Judah informs the Egyptian official of his promise to Jacob to stand as surety for the life of Benjamin and offers himself in Benjamin’s place.

The tests are now over. Joseph recognises that God has been faithful to keep His covenant with this family, He has changed the hearts of the brothers so that now they love one another. He has made the twelve sons worthy of the faith of their father Jacob and of their grandfather Isaac and of their great-grandfather Abraham. They are now brothers in faith as well as brothers in flesh. Now that Joseph knows they love each other, he is able at last to reveal himsel to them. Having restrained his love so long, his tears begin to well up as he longs to embrace them. He cries out, “I am Joseph!”…

What can we apply from this lesson in our own lives? Firstly, it should be a great encouragement to all of us to see the severely dysfunctional family we met in chapter 2 of our study now marvelously restored by God’s grace… no person, no family, no circumstance, is beyond the reach of God’s ability to heal. All of us, like Joseph, face relationships with others which are especially difficult, and we often do not know what to do. Should you confront the person who wronged you? Should you simply forgive and forget? What should you do? In times like these, we need the kind of wisdom Joseph showed to cooperate with the working out of God’s proises in the lives of others, rather than raking matters into our own hands. Joseph’s wisdom was displayed in his obedience to God’s timing, remaining faithful through many years despite great injustice and suffering.”

Warren Gage and Christopher Barber, The Story of Joseph and Judah (Bible Study), pp. 90-94. Expounds on how the text of Genesis deliberately contrasts these two brothers.

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“Joseph’s manipulation of his brothers, like Rebekah’s ‘wise woman’ manipulation of Isaac, is a model of great wisdom. It is not something Christians should try to copy unless they are very wise and insightful. Joseph’s manipulation of his brethren should be seen as the way Jesus manipulates our lives. Just as the circumstances of their lives showed the brothers their sins, so we must be alert to ironies that God brings about in our own lives, and we must change our ways if necessary…The road to dominion through service is often difficult. Doubtless there were many days when Joseph had to pray for God to give him a gracious and obedient spirit because he simply did not want to work. Yet he found God was gracious to help him do what had been set before him…

The road to dominion must never be understood in a pagan sense of sheer triumph and overlording. Joseph was given dominion precisely so that he could become a more effective servant…”

Humble service and dominion can never be separated.”

James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints, pp.127-128.

“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful
than you can possibly imagine.” —Ben Kenobi

Herod and Vader are maggot-filled men. They are the living dead. Christ and Kenobi are willing to die. They become the dead living.

One factor the Bible matrix continually brings out in its various occurrences throughout Scripture is the transformation of knowledge into wisdom — through death. In some profound way, knowledge is singular but wisdom is plural.

The Lord gives Adam the knowledge of the Law, and Adam is expected to obey and become wise. We can see, in his failure to confess his sin, that he was no wiser than before.

Moses silently receives the Law on Sinai, then is tested as Israel’s leader in the wilderness. When we get to Deuteronomy, Moses sits enthroned as wisdom incarnate. It is knowledge digested, bringing death to self, and then being resurrected as wisdom. After Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, He gave the Sermon on the Mount. The male head falls into the ground and dies and the harvested (female) body is sophia, witnessing on street corners.

Men go to Bible college and they know it all. Then the Lord brings a marriage difficulty, a sick child, poverty, bereavement, betrayal, church schism, unemployment, a failed career or some temptation, and Gandalf the Grey is torn apart. God, why are you smashing up everything you built me for? Because I am frankincense, or garlic at the very least. Like these and olives and grapes, I was made to be crushed.[1] And novices are terrible leaders.

Pentecost is the wilderness. It is the Lampstand, the eyes of God watching over us. Trumpets is the wisdom of Deuteronomy. It is the Incense Altar. We have been offered, torn apart, set on fire, and now ascend as holy smoke, a fragrant, mature wisdom that finally commands the respect of God’s armies. We are broken so we can fill others. God makes us into a Promised Land others can inherit. They see our testimony and fear, the beginning of their own wisdom.

Someone wise said we will have trials in one of three areas: marriage, health or finances. [2] This year I have had all three. I’m not complaining. I’m finally starting to stink less and be health to others instead of a canker. The Law kills precisely so that the Spirit can bring life, and resurrection is always plural.

Fighting death makes you death incarnate. Vader learned this lesson in the end. He threw down his idol and submitted to ascension as smoke. He finally joined the rank of the heavenly elders as a bowl of incense, a father of light.

“Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?”   1 Corinthians 6:7 

“He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 1:6

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[1] See Toby Sumpter’s much better take on this here, and also Omega Males and True Gravity.
[2] If we are soft-hearted, every marriage (or friendship) trial is an opportunity for greater unity – for greater service.

The Nazirite Vow

(Article requested by Drew J.)

This vow in Numbers 6 follows the “inspection of jealousy” in Numbers 5. Mark Horne observed that, just as the woman in Numbers 5 was to be inspected for harlotry with her hair untamed, so the Nazirite (whether male or female) was not to cut his or her hair. A Nazirite is a human picture of the church as a warrior bride. Hair is glory. Hair is the cloud of angels (and now, saints) surrounding the throne of God.

“Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor. 11:10)

A woman is the glory of her man. A woman’s hair is a symbol of submission, but also a symbol of her own “cloud of angels” – her godly offspring (See Ezekiel 5 for the children of Israel symbolised as the prophet’s hair, Micah 1:16, Matthew 10:30 and also my comments on Nehemiah and his hair-pulling). In battle, a Nazirite was like a blazing torch (the Ark-chariot/Adam) and smoking firepot (the smoke clouds of the incense altar/Eve army), parting his enemies like the pillar of God.

The hair is her “crop”, the twelve stars around her head (Rev. 12), and the question constantly posed to Israel concerns her role as God’s mediatorial Land. Is her crop one of thorns and thistles, or is it godly grain? This is also the question in Numbers 5, and the Lord put Israel to this exact test after the idolatry with the golden calf. The “harlots” were slain with the Levitical sword.

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The church is the first form of the kingdom. The church is also the nursery of the kingdom. It’s within the institutional church that the fundamental principles of the kingdom are taught and learned. Christians learn government through the church government of elders. Having learned that, Christians are then ready to govern in more broad circumstances. We learn finances in the church, through the administration of the tithe. We learn charity in the church because we are starving and God feeds us bread and wine.

We learn music in the church. All of western music flows out of the music of the church. All of western theatre flows out of the liturgy of the church. All of western literature flows out of the literature of the church.

The church creates civilisation. The church is the nursery of culture.1

Western culture, then, is at the stage of Solomon with his idolatrous wives. The church is now just mimicking the corrupted culture of the world instead of being the pioneer. And we know what happened to Solomon’s kingdom.

1 Ten Principles of Worship, Lecture 1. Available from www.wordmp3.com

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. That goes back to the two trees in the garden, bread (obedient priesthood) and wine (kingly wisdom).

Jesus carried the people of God through Adam’s testing (breaking the bread), beyond the tree of life, to the tree of wisdom (poured out wine).

‘of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God’ (1 Cor. 1:30)

‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ (Col 2:3)

He is both trees, and now we eat and drink Him freely before God.