Krissi

In the recent past, the poor, aliens and orphans were shoved aside by the court system, unable to defend themselves against other citizens or from the government itself because the system was rigged against them. Today, courts are corrupted and politicized in a different way with different victims. For example, "lawfare" harms a political opponent by using the court system to destroy his reputation, bankrupt and silence him. Today's courts are above the law. They create, not interpret, laws and use these newly created or fantastical re-interpretations of existing laws to destroy political opponents or people they don't like. Once targeted, a citizen's life will never be the same. He or she will never feel safe and will constantly worry about the next trumped up accusation their political enemies will make. Today's legal system uses the laws as a weapon to coerce submission and silence. Ray Donovan (who had some sort of job under Reagan, I believe) after finally being acquitted (as well as bankrupted), famously quipped, "Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?" He had been ruined by the courts. Unjustly. His acquittal didn't help him because his entire life, career, family and health had been devastated by weaponized courts. There are tens of thousands of people who have had experiences like Ray Donovan's ... harmed and destroyed by the government's judicial system. Today's court perverters of justice intellectualize the problem by pretending that justice is an airy-fairy concept that no longer exists -- "whose justice ... which rationality" -- but the rest of us know that justice remains an understandable concept. Corrupt judges are part of a corrupt system. That system seeks to harm individuals who critique or oppose it. Americans can no longer safely voice contrary opinions or challenge the government -- free speech has been gutted. For this reason, Solomon's wise sayings don't fit today's circumstances. In fact, Solomon's situation has been turned on it's head! The poor, disadvantaged and aliens are actually protected and acquitted by the courts even when guilty, while Christians, the innocent and reformers are persecuted relentlessly even though innocent. There is a positive bias toward criminals and Leftists in today's courts -- witness the lax punishment of those who steal, destroy property or are a public menace in San Fransisco and Portland, for example. The court is part of the insider's club which excludes true Christians -- governmental elitists are a law unto themselves. Social justice only will be manifested when governmental insiders are unable to change the laws to benefit themselves or to consider themselves above the law. Personally, I no longer think it is possible for Christians to work within the system to reform the system. Governmental corruption is too endemic and pervasive to be changed with the typical remedies of voting and activism.

Solomon’s answer is surprisingly wise for a young man – I have two twenty-something sons and am quite certain they wouldn’t ask for wisdom! That’s just not the sort of thing most young men think about. Thus, Solomon’s answer sets him apart from and above the typical male at that age, particularly considering he is a young man invested with great power. It is true that Solomon had expected to follow his father’s footsteps, to be a king. He must have been schooled by people around him including his father for the great responsibility he would assume. Still, think of all the egoistic, power-hungry, young kings … Solomon was different. Did Solomon talk to God as David did? I don’t see him having the same sort of intimacy with God as did his father. Scripture doesn’t record everything, and perhaps the dream that he had was just the tip of the iceberg of his relationship with God. I hope so. Clearly, Solomon recognized God was speaking to him in a dream, and he did so while dreaming! That’s amazing. God was pleased with his answer. But could he have asked for something better? I wonder what his father would have answered if asked this same question. Solomon could have asked for great faith, or the faith and intimacy of his father's relationship with God ... multiplied by ten, for example. That would have pleased God, but would it have pleased God more than his real answer? God was pleased for his request for wisdom enough to give him wealth and honor. He did NOT get a long life, however, because of his disobedience. It's interesting that God took this from him and not something else. To be honest, I serve God both for what He does for me as well as what I can do for him, though I feel that what I do is insignificant. I want to serve him more. And more deeply. By this I mean I want him to speak to me as he did David, leading me and telling me clearly what I should do. Singleness of heart is a phrase that means “focus.” Focusing on God, not myself or my needs, is very difficult when my needs are overwhelming. He is teaching me -- right now -- to not be distracted by my own desires and needs but instead focus on Him. I am trying to obey, but fear of the future loom large in my mind. It's a constant battle to focus on Him. I've learned that focusing on the tasks at hand, humble and insignificant though they may be, keeps my mind on Him.

Solomon's marriage to a foreigner's daughter is like making a treaty in today's world -- it was an act of expedience and calculation, a way of binding two countries in peace and mutual interests. In short, it doesn't seem like a bad thing, but to God, it sullied a pure people. Many years ago, (in New Jersey if I recall correctly), I visited a Christian retirement home which had, above the entrance doors, the words, "BE YE SEPARATE." This startled me. Separate from what? In what were these very old people going to intertwine themselves that was so dangerous? I think this must have been the same mentality that God had regarding Solomon -- Christian separationism is required to maintain the purity of faith. Separationism applies to marriage, obviously, but in the case of the elderly people, it must have referred to the people with whom they would spend their final years on earth. Marriage and sacrifice on hilltops are two examples of separation not done by Solomon. Both had a certain beneficial logic -- marriage was strategic and ensured peace; in the high places, the Israelites were worshipping Yahweh, not Baal. But the lack of cultural separation was still anathema to God. Israelites became involved with other cultures or ways of thinking that insidiously worked into the minds of Israel. The point is that some things seem to get a toehold in our minds, even our collective mind, and then expands with time. Then, it's a devastating problem. Compromises can be defined negatively, as things not done. Compromises are predicated on not morally and culturally separating ourselves from the world around us. Christian faith is fragile. We need to erect tall walls of separation to keep it pure. As a divorced woman who had been married to an unbeliever, I've experience firsthand the consequences of not separating from culture and fascinating men. My resultant children struggle in their faith, or lack thereof, which is a direct consequence of my stupid mistake. My witness was sullied. God couldn't use me. I pray that He both forgives, which He has, and changes my sin into something by which He can be glorified.

One of the attributes of Moses I wish I had, but don't, is his ability/permission to speak to God face-to-face. He communicated with God in ways no one, beside Jesus, has done. God talked to him. Led him. Worked with him in spite of his many weaknesses. And, I think God loved Moses because Moses desired to talk and be with God. But Moses' desire to hurry up the promise led him to do a horrible thing -- kill the Egyptian -- this is something I intuitively understand because I, too, am eager to be used, to get on with the promise (any promise will do!) and make my life worth living for HIm. But, the warning of this story is that a hurried promise is actually a horrible disobedience which may, in the end, keep that promise from being fulfilled. Unlike others on this forum, I believe that in the back of his mind, Moses always knew he would do something for the slaves in Egypt, though certainly he doubted and wondered what that would be and if he had heard incorrectly from God. One thing I learned from the life of Moses is that careful, exacting obedience -- waiting for the promise to unfold -- is highly important to God. THough He forgives, He also punishes those who do not do His will in detail. Moses was only able to see the promised land from a distance. How sad that is! What a horrible punishment. Moses' entire life had been spent working toward this end, of entering the promised land, but God saw to it that he never arrived. It is a scary thought that my own behavior, though forgiven, may keep me from experiencing the joy of accomplishment years down the line. It's such a crushing thought, that whatever promised land God may have had for me, I may have shut the door on without knowing it. I pray this is untrue, that I still have a chance of being used, that my promised land lies ahead of me, not in the dust of personal history.

Balak/Balaam remind me of weak politicians who do underhanded deeds in the dark rather than act openly and work to defend their positions and policies. These sorts of politicians often work through proxies, weak men and women who do their dirty work and cover their tracks. Phinheas is a good sort of religious radical, one consumed with a righteous passion that would cause his public execution in today's legal system -- he killed a man because of his arrogant sexual behavior. God rewarded and approved of Phinhaes' deed. We should take note of this. When God is for us, who can be against us? We are afraid to defend God's honor because the Western legal systems and governments stand against God's holy commands. Instead of upholding righteousness, our legal system enshrines, protects and encourages sexual perversion and human and child abuse. Those who openly and blatantly defy God are rewarded in our morally backward political system; those who defend the rights of God and live according to His dictates are maligned, hounded and imprisoned. Thus, most Christians are afraid. That's why they look away from sin meekly rather than expose it. In this, they dishonor God. Rather than revolt against evil structures and destroy evil people, they walk away or emigrate from corrupt Western countries, wiping their feet as they go.

All political transfers of power -- including that of Western leaders -- are accompanied by purging of people loyal to the competitor/opposer and putting one's own people into their influential positions. In ancient times, such purging didn't merely remove sinecures or jobs, but included killing one's political rivals. So, Solomon's behavior, though it seems quite harsh today, was rather run-of-the-mill for his time. What's remarkable, then, was Solomon's restraint. He patiently waited until his power had consolidated. He also waited for his enemies to trip themselves, which they did. This was not only politically clever as it ingratiated and gained the loyalty of the lower-ranked followers of Solomon's three big enemies, as well as being, according to scripture, God's intention. (I wonder why David didn't kill these three individuals himself? Why did he off-load that responsibility onto Solomon?) The balance, as I see it, isn't between the "protection of the throne" and justice, but a calculus between a raw, Machiavellian exercise of power and a more merciful exercise of justice. God/Solomon opted to consolidate Solomon's power against those who would challenge it. No mercy was shown. It was assumed that once a person had been disloyal, that person would forever be untrustworthy. It appears God was pleased with this calculus.

In this passage, God seems harsh to Moses even though He was protecting His own holiness. In another harsh-like/holiness passage, Uzzah was struck dead for trying to keep the ark of the covenant from tilting precariously and then falling. Thankfully, in other biblical passages God seems more kind. Much of his relationship with David was a display of grace and kindness, for example. Still, I sympathize with Moses. He had been on the receiving end of the Israelites' whining, grumbling, fear and avarice for many years! Think of this. It is understandable that in a moment of frustration, moses would speak to the people and not the rock. God explained His response, in a way, by exposing Moses' motive for speaking to the people harshly: “Because you didn’t trust me, didn’t treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of Israel, you two aren’t going to lead this company into the land that I am giving them.” Message version. But, immediately before this, had not Moses laid himself before God and His glory? At that moment, Moses must have trusted God. In other biblical passages, those who see His face die. Since Moses didn't die, God must have been pleased with Moses. As an aside, Moses had talked to God face-to-face on prior occasions. He had seen God's face (taken literally). But in the tabernacle, when Moses asked to see His glory, God responded by telling him that no one would live after seeing His face. I don't understand this. What is righteous anger anyway? Was Moses justified in his anger toward the Israelites? To me, it seems so. But to God ... apparently not: God saw Moses anger as a lack of faith and reverence toward Him. I must change my idea of righteous anger, then. What I see as justified anger, God sees as a lack of public humility. This passage ends with God revealing Himself as holy. God saw Moses' anger as an affront to His holiness. His own holiness, therefore, is important to God. In fact, God didn't let Moses have any earthly reward for his travails. Moses didn't see the promised land.

To what commandments is David referring? Is he pointing to the myriad of laws and regulations that have undoubtedly emerged, particularly around the priesthood and sacrificial system? The Ten Commandments? If David is referring to the Ten Commandments, then it’s interesting that he would command his son to uphold the same basic moral minimum to which we all must obey. The Ten Commandments were written for all people, not just kings. Everything in the Christian life is conditional except our salvation, which we cannot lose. Every promise is predicated on faith or behavior. That’s why we see so few of those promises actualized in our lives. It’s also why it feels as if we have to earn our salvation or sanctification. Nothing comes easily! We’re tempted to break the Ten Commandments because we’re sinful. Our core nature, yet to be redeemed fully, asserts itself constantly – it is our constant battle to subdue our inner self. Such self-discipline is a synonym for obedience. I’m not sure obedience and prosperity are connected as I’ve known many very good and obedient Christians who struggle financially. I’ve also known a few Christians who are quite wealthy and unable to handle wealth, prestige and power. A glorious thing to behold, in my wee opinion, is a worldly-powerful/wealthy/famous Christian who remains humble, giving and concerned for others. We need more of these people.

Within Christian organizations and collectivities, there exists a tension between spiritual egalitarianism (priesthood of all believers) and spiritual hierarchy. Perhaps, it’s not a tension but a balance. In some denominations, hierarchy is so overwhelming that believers have little to do, lack agency and defer to the priest rather than take initiative for their own spiritual development. In other denominations, it’s a free for all. So, I see Korah’s rebellion as an expression of this tension. He was saying, in so many words, that the balance has gone too far toward hierarchy and too far from egalitarianism. "The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them." Moses responded by reiterating the claim that He alone could speak for God, and that Korah was not only challenging Moses’ hierarchical position, but God Himself! God responded by killing Korah and his followers. Pretty brutal. God went further by killing anyone associated with Korah – the plague. Obviously, in this circumstance, God wanted the people to obey Moses, his mediator, and respect the hierarchy He had instituted. Is this a principle? Is this the New Testament pattern, too? Those are the big questions that remain, for me. -- Top-down organizations, including political structures, tend to ossify. In time, the people disregard them and revolt or move toward more responsive structures. Chaos is rare. Hierarchy is the norm in society. This doesn't make it moral or right in the eyes of God, but it is, I believe, an accurate observation to say that all societies tend toward striation and hierarchy, placing some people above others, and causing grave social inequities. After a long time, these political structures become stone-like, immovable and oppressive -- at this point, the only recourse is revolution. Does this apply to the church? Churches, because they're usually not part of the government or state-enforced, lose members when they no longer meet the needs of their congregants. Congregants vote with their feet -- they go to churches that grow them spiritually, which are often, though not always, churches that are less ossified and hierarchical.

No. Jesus' command to love enemies applies only to people. Enemies are people we know or know of, not institutions or forms of governance. The current government has been purposely depersonalized -- we do not know the names or faces of those who work for it, and if we do, we cannot know what they do. This information is hidden from us. Bureaucrats are purposely shielded from the gaze of ordinary Americans and long ago ceased to "re-present" our desires and points of view. I understand what it is to love non-human things. I love my dog. Passionately, in fact. I love modern art, sculpture, great architecture, sunsets, beautiful sentences and phrases, well-formed ideas, etc. I have a friend who loves food so much so that he drools and gets tongue-tied when he talks about grilled meat. This passion is real! It's a form of love. But it's NOT the sort of love that Jesus had in mind when He told us to love our enemies. Again, enemies are people who have harmed us. Actual people. I've often wondered what it would be like to be in a war and kill someone I do not know. I can understand why the surviving relatives of that person would hate me, even though I had no idea of the identity of the person I killed. Is anonymous hatred real? I think Jesus' command to love would extend to a war situation, though tentatively. There used to be an expression that went something like this: love the sinner and hate the sin. This doesn't make sense to me because sin isn't a little Platonic cloud hovering over us, but is in us. It's constitutive. Sin is part of who we are -- we are forgiven sinners. I can't extract and set aside a sin from a man's character anymore than I can extract the good things. Back to war. Most soldiers, historically, have been conscripted or drafted. They did not go to war voluntarily but under extreme duress. There are videos online, now, of Ukrainian soldiers grabbed off the streets, arms hogtied behind their backs, to be forcibly sent to their certain deaths on the frontlines. These unfortunate men and anyone who is coerced to harm/kill others should be placed in a different moral category than those who eagerly sign up to kill, or those who take salaries from governmental agencies instead of finding moral employment in the private sector. Those who choose to harm others by working for the government are individuals -- actual people with names -- who must be prayed for and, if they confess and repent, forgiven. But the system for which they work ... the government ... the bureaucracy ... is evil, in it's current permutation, and merits our total disdain and hatred. We are morally obligated -- reform or revolt -- to protect others from predation and unfair coercion, and keep them from the clutches of bureaucratic evil. We should be motivated by a hatred of injustice and unbridled power to upend or try to change a system that is raw evil to it's core.

This fascinating story could be out of Shakespeare or Sophocles. Palace intrigue. Big egos. The powerlessness and decline of the patriarch. Warring siblings. Intrigue. Potential murder. This story has it all. The presence of the prophets and religious leaders, and the insistence of Solomon's mum that David honor his promise is what made Solomon the leader, not his brother (whose claim to the throne makes sense.) As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the Bible that suggests that Solomon was a great person or leader. I don't know why Nathan protected Solomon first. Perhaps it was because he had special access to the backstory, how David had been prohibited from building the temple because he was a soldier who had taken innocent blood, how Solomon had been chosen by God to build the temple, and furthermore, how Bathsheba had been promised that her son would be the next ruler. I suppose, knowing all he did, Nathan the prophet and Zadok the high priest -- who both wore the mantle of God -- felt it was their duty to intervene and actualize God's will. I'm certain that God would have had His way even if the prophet/priest didn't intervene, but it is fascinating that they sought to manipulate events during a palace coup in such a way that Solomon became king. So much for separation of church and state, huh?

So many of us get close to our goal, but never reach it because we're afraid, sinful or just can't think big enough to imagine ourselves victorious when we're doing God's will. The Israelite failure to reach the promised land is an example of this. It's tragic. In fact, it makes me ill to think that the Israelites saw many miracles and blessings and yet still fell for disinformation and were fear-filled. Most of us are afraid when obstacles in front of us seem insurmountable. That's the mindset of the "ten." The majority. Most of us, too, fall for governmental disinformation. We are kept in a state of fear to make it easier for the government to control us. Think about history: the Israelites were rescued from Egypt, shown great forgiveness and blessing, and then, at the very end, were punished by not achieving the ONE goal they were promised, entrance into the promised land. How did they go on afterward knowing their lives were going to be wasted in the desert, that there would be no future or hope? The people were unused to thinking clearly and critically as they had been propagandized by their leaders for years. I pity them. Only "two" were clear thinking and faith-filled. Caleb and Joshua were the social rebels and God-obeyers of their time. How often have we, as Christians, started out on a journey of faith and then screwed up on the path along the way? Did God put us back on the path, or did he condemn us to wander forever in the desert? Our faith in Jesus changes the calculus of the time of Moses even though God is the same ... and so are we. Though we can be forgiven, the consequences of our sin could keep us in the desert forever. God doesn't necessarily or even often erase consequences of sin. Not one of us have stayed strictly on the path. Yes, the Israelites had repeatedly sinned in big ways, but haven't we all? Haven't we had fear? Distrust? Haven't we held back and thought of ourselves as grasshoppers and not "more than conquerers?" Yes, I think the punishment was too severe but I'm a softy and expect His forgiveness to overrule our sin, big or little. At least God didn't kill them, as He did in Sodom or with the Noatic floods. God, when He so chooses, cleans the slate.

What are the main provisions of the Davidic Covenant? What does it say about the temple? About David’s descendants? About discipline? About mercy? About the throne? The main point of the covenant, as I see it, is that David's bloodline would continue and would in some manner produce leaders. One of those "leaders" was Christ Himself. Thus, his claim to the throne would be everlasting. The two lesser points of the covenant have to do with the temple. David would not be the one to build the temple, but rather, one of his sons. Regarding discipline and mercy, I'm not sure I can answer this question correctly so will wait and learn from these lessons.

I think their disapproval of Moses’ wife was just a ruse or cover for their own pretensions to power. This is a common theme in literature and life – a minor player tries to usurp the power of those above him. From the point of view of Miriam and Aaron, it must have been difficult to watch their brother, who, after all, had been banished from Egypt and out of sight for decades, to suddenly come to power and have status above them. Was theirs, then, jealousy? Maybe. It could also have been the will to power (Nietzsche), a subconscious desire in all humans that seeks to dominate and crush others. So, though Moses may have been the most humble (least power-seeking) man alive, those around him did not seem to possess the same attribute, at least to his degree. Moses, in my opinion, didn’t handle this well. He should have recognized the plottings of his brother and sister and dealt with their urges to power before they manifested as rebellion. He only interceded to heal Miriam after the fact. Had Moses prayed to God to take away the cravings for power expressed by his siblings, or even asked for the wisdom to deal with them, this entire scene could have been avoided. At the least their stymied rebellion could have served as a example to others who could have also wanted to challenge Moses’ power and preeminence as God’s chosen leader. Asking God for protection and wisdom in dealing with those who contest leadership is not a sign of pride, but rather of humility. Had Moses been proud (and morally weak) he could have crushed his usurpers. That's the typical response. Instead, God inflicted Miriam with leprosy, a socially-shunning disease. Because she had this disease, she was removed from contact with others … for a week. Eventually God healed and restored her to fellowship.

What precipitated the plague of snakes? Is being impatient with God's provision a sin? Why or why not? What are the points of comparison between the bronze snake in the desert and Christ on the cross? God gets angry with us when we keep doing the same sin or complain repeatedly. God must not like whiners. I am not a whiner but I do complain about many things. There must be a thin line between persistent prayer and complaining -- I hope I haven't crossed it. Anyway, complaining, whining, ungratefulness and otherwise sinning angered God so much that he sent a plague of snakes. I do not put much stock in the idea that the level of grumbling had risen from complaining about people to complaining about God. The Israelites knew that the israelites identified with Yahweh, therefore what they did was supposed to be what God had commanded them to do. The good news is that the Israelites had actually learned something. They mentally connected their own behavior with the circumstances that befell them, that is, the sudden appearance of venomous snakes. Yes, being impatient or ungrateful with God's provision is a sin. I'm not sure why, but God seems particularly peeved by whiny people. I totally understand! There are no logical connections between the bronze snake and Christ on the cross. It's gross to think such connections or comparisons exist. I find the bronze snake story shocking, to be honest, and find it difficult that God would set up an idol to remind the people of their sin and his forgiving/healing.