Tag: Fullness

Romans 13: 1-7 A Close Reading On Dealing With Governing Authorities

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Exegesis, Principles, Romans

Gang, what follows are going to be a close reading of a chunk of text. Let’s get to it.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from G-d, and those that exist have been instituted by G-d. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what G-d has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is G-d’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of G-d, an avenger who carries out G-d’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Romans 13:1-4

Class Is In Session

We have had people as tone-deaf as Jeff Sessions that have recently told us that we are to obey Romans 13. We have seen people in pulpits tell us that those who are elected rule over us.

However, there is a real sticking point here; namely, when someone that has been elected to SERVE and has been vested with STEWARDSHIP of the government machine, and they speak in their elected office to this sort of text, telling us to obey them, for me, that lands like the very summation of lorded authority of the Gentiles against which our L-rd Himself cautioned.

“I am in authority and you better listen to me.”

That sort of stuff butters my bacon.

Now, to what the text seems to mean.

Exegesis

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”

Submit to those people who are actually in authority.

“The authorities that exist have been instituted by G-d.”

G-d puts people into authority. The mechanism can differ from place to place, but the King puts people into places where they are given legitimate authority.

I am under the impression that G-d respects the mindset and design of a given population. He knows if that country is going to set up a democracy, a republic, a dictatorship, a monarchy, or some other form, and He sets stipulations on the nature of that authority. And He works within the framework of that nation.

And, because of that, He knows where those people are going to set up the framework of authority and works with those frameworks if given the opportunity, for He is an opportunist indeed.

Meaning, I am of the take that He knows the framework of a republic and respects their drive to liberty, and in the case of us specifically, He works with THE SPECIFIC framework that is in place, in our case, a constitutional republic, in order to ensure maximum liberty and minimal control. Given the Exodus, and the preceding

For He is viciously committed to liberty over control.

Critical to the fabric of this nation, the United States, are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which guarantee Natural Law (and for those of us who are or have been connected to Sapphire Leadership Group, the natural law in Arthur Burk’s delineation refers to three levels of principles, universal, non-optional, cause-and-effect relationships: and those three levels are the priniciples that govern the relationship between Man and Matter; Man and Man, and Man and the Spirit Realm), which is necessitated by the reality of our humanity, remains a safeguard to us.

The Natural Law is therefore designed “to be a beast on the throat of the legislator to restrain him from writing any law and regulating any behavior and taxing any event, and transferring any wealth.”

In other words, it is designed to be a built-in backstop agains those precise excesses that would eventually subjugate us if taken to logical end.

Natural Law is part of the fabric of reality, and in Prophet Nations like the United States, principles and ideology and Natural Law in all three of its manifestations (the relationships between man and matter; man and man; and man and the spirit realm) lie closer to the surface of reality than in other nations. More than for even the Roman Republic, which was Redemptive Gift of Exhorter, we were designed to be a nation of laws. Equal rights before the law and equal accountability for violating the law.

And as a result of this reality, it is not a subset of us that rule us, as a substitute for the King, but the People themselves, the Electorate, that governs in part through the ballot box and in part through the application of Universal, Non-Optional, Cause-And-Effect Relationships, among other dynamics.

And if we govern to good and moral ends, according to the roots at our foundation, safeguarding the vulnerable and building something that is useful and beautiful and good (καλός), then we will reap the benefit of that and that form of governance will yield to the benefit of all. And if we fail in that enterprise, it will be to the detriment of all.

In all cases of political institutions, they have been endowed, elected, put in place, set up, or coronated, in order to be SERVANTS…..

MINISTERS….

EXECUTORS of the will of G-d. Protectors of the vulnerable and ensurors of the liberties given to us by our Creator, as articulated the wisdom of that beautiful Redemptive Gift Teacher, Thomas Jefferson, in both his first draft and final copy of the Declaration of Independence.

For those that question Jefferson on the slave issue, it is curious that in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, he wrote the following as a challege to George III:

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

While I believe this was the mind of the Founding Fathers, I believe the reason it was ultimately left out was as follows, and I share this YouTube clip because the reputation and research of the Teacher David McCullough is unimpeachable. Franklin, the Exhorter, helped things to be made more palatable for the times in such a way that the Continental Congress would approve the Declaration of Independence, while the fiery Prophet, John Adams, listened to all that was said:

Next point.

“Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what G-d has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is G-d’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.”

Resisting true authority resists the will of G-d PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY ARE DESIGNED TO BE NOT A TERROR TO GOOD CONDUCT BUT TO BAD.

Period….

Do not come at me with “muh Nero”, “muh Nero”, “Paul wrote this while being subjected to one of the worst dictators in history, so you have to take that into account when reading this text”.

No, Paul is speaking to principles for the PROPER execution of government not with respect to his own political context, except to skillfully rebuke said context.

THE CONTEXT FOR ROMANS 13: THE PROPER AND BEST WORK OF THE EXHORTER

Romans 13, and, indeed, all of Romans, was written by the Exhorter Paul.

Note, I did not discuss his fivefold office. Rather I spoke in terms of his Redemptive Gift, which is tied to his design.

Back to the Redemptive Gift of Exhorter, for those who need a crash course of their core….

Exhorters, this is all you, more than the other six.

Exhorters WERE DESIGNED for solids in the following:

1) Because they might have a propensity below their best toward denial, G-d intends them to skillfully break BREAK DENIAL. They have an active imagination, and they usually have one single message that predominates throughout the course of their life. And that imagination was made to break the denial of a culture that cannot stay away from non-reality in terms of politics, communication, media, corporate behavior, government behavior, and the way Christ designed us to function as a redemptive body.

2) Because they can get wonky with being all over the place due to their social butterfly nature, G-d intends them for spiritual ASTROREGULATION, namely to bring the steadiness of regulation to those big-spirited people in their constellation. For the Exhorter, given the context of the Fourth Day with its focus on the rotating, revolving, and regularity of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, nay, all the galactic bodies, G-d intends them to be the most regular, and the most steady of the gifts when it comes to flow of horizontal relationships. Too many Exhorters run to their capacity to influence people to do their agenda, often at the risk of people’s stability, but the design is that the Exhorter help provide a safe place in time and in the context of the broad horizontal frame of their human relationships to have something steady, a Northern Star of sorts, on which they can count when everything else fails. Like the eclipses and the celestial phenomenon are among the most regular and predictable, and therefore worst prophetic timepieces in existence to calculate eschatological phenomenon, so also the Exhorter is MADE for predictability and reliability, if they will get their time under control and discipline themselves with the principles of time stewardship, so others can have that friend who is skilled and capable at helping to unpack the needful dynamics pertaining to human relationships.

3) Contrary to how many Exhorters function, flying by the seat of their pants and having very little under self-control when it comes to their schedule, G-d intends the Exhorter to TO USE TIME WELL (see Jesus’ usage of his time during His earthly ministry in the Gospels). Maria Woodworth-Etter had it wrong when she said, “Better to wear out for Jesus than rust out.” Jesus never meant for us to embrace that false dichotomy. We were never designed to wear out. No, we were designed to approach each day and complete each day with a mindset that we have left it all on the field of play, but not to the point of beyond exhaustion. Worn-out is not kingdom. Well-used is.

4). Finally, the Exhorter, with their many words, was made to COMMUNICATE THE CONCEPTS OF THE SPIRIT IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL, AND SHOW CAUSE AND EFFECT.

5) The Exhorter was made to speak in such a way that emphasizes the nature of G-d, most particularly as articulated in the person, work, and actions of Jesus.

In the context of Romans 13, Paul is not sharing principles based on what he saw in the empire of the time, nor any other political model. Rather, He was revealing the nature of leadership as found in the King of Kings. And he was laying out prerequisites and principles for how ultimately legitimate leadership functions.

BACK TO THE TEXT

Given this context, consider the following. My interpretation:

Translation: If an authority is terrorizing good conduct, G-d did not set that authority in place, and they will ultimately reap the consequences of their actions. And you are under no obligation to follow their edicts.

There are a variety of ways to respond to those edicts. You must learn the skill of developing creativity when responding to the behavior of tyrants.

Further, when leaders are tyrannically behaving, G-d will provide correctives.

Paging Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dr. Bonhoeffer, your nation needs action.

AUTHORITY

ἐξουσία is the legal right to act that precedes the event of acting, and Paul’s usage here of ἐξουσία throughout Romans 13 refers to the legitimacy to issue decisions. It is the common word for “authority”, meaning the word “authority” is the most common way to translate that word.

And all authority is derived or given. Given by G-d the Father through Jesus Christ to us, and we are responsible to steward that authority well. As are those in government. And those of us who are in leadership. In this nation, We The People were vested with strong authority, and we are designed to walk in that authority well, whether or not we actually act on that design.

If a governing authority uses the authority given to them for wicked purposes, for curtailing people’s capacity to speak up or advocate for those things they believe, then their authority may legitimately be called into question, and should be disagreed with, and resisted.

Either that person is G-d’s servant to you FOR GOOD, in which case he or she should be listened to and hearkened unto, or he IS NOT that sort of godly servant and should be corrected, called to account, or ignored.

We have too many people that read Romans 13:1-2 and ignore the limiting factor of verses 3 and 4. Conditionally, authorities set in place by G-d are set up precisely in order to terrorize bad conduct, not good conduct. They are not designed to control the law-abiding. Rather, they are designed to liberate the law-abiding.

FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT RIGHTS VERSUS RESPONSIBILITIES

Now, before someone starts talking about rights vs. responsibilities, which is a legitimate concern, we need to ask the question, “did they impose legitimate responsiblities with care WHILE ALSO respecting our rights?”

Did they honor the dynamic tension between rights and responsibilities? Are the rights and responsibilities both present and in right proportion according to the L-rd’s design?

Had our rights been curtailed for the sake of imposing legitimate responsibilities, then that would be one thing. In the case of our current institutions, I would contend that they have not legitimately curtailed a number of our rights (see, for example, the debacle surrounding the curtailing of civil liberties and the forced injection of untested foreign substances during the proliferation of the Wuhan Coronavirus), and they have imposed responsibilities that are also illegitimate (masks and injections don’t work, and things that do work, when we used those, we were gaslit repeatedly to a place of fear and intimidation).

They (after the fashion of Bushelbritches, the Honorable Sheriff of Nottingham from Disney’s Robin Hood, taxed the heart and soul out of the citizenry, regardless of social or economic status, while crowing about “fair share”, and have further used the revenues from taxation fraudulently, earning the reaping of certain curses, of whose current status we might be unaware.

Repeatedly, they have shown themselves other than properly aligned for our good, and rather against us.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is G-d’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of G-d, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. -Romans 13:3-4 ESV-

If you do wrong, be afraid…..What are these elected officials afraid of? If they are currently not experiencing the consequences of the L-rd’s judgment, then something in the system of justice is broken, and I suggest that perhaps someone is engaging in the violations that would lead to at least two particular curses, which I will discuss at a later point: the Aramean Curse and the Canaanite Curse.

If you insist on lying and refusing to walk in the execution of the truth, then be afraid of those who have authority over you.

For they will become increasingly less charitable and merciful and will seek to execute justice and judgment. They will decide concerning you, and not necessarily in a merciful fashion.

For the kings of the nation do not bear the sword in vain. The sword could be construed as a literal sword or weapon, as in modern-day case, a firearm, or it could be symbolic of some type of authority that stops tyranny, spiritual or otherwise, by which those who are ruled are corrected.

In our nation, given the 1st and the 2nd Amendment, and given we are a constitutional republic, and given I think the L-rd respects unique forms of government, I am of the interpretation that that is a reference to us. We do not carry the authority we have been given through natural law in vain. And given we have been given the right to speak up when abuse is happening, we also have the responsibility to correct it in a multitude of ways.

Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Assemble, Freedom to Petition for Redress, and if need be, the Right to vote them out, among other things.

Ultimately, what this boils down to is we are responsible in this nation to see to it that the government is so managable, and power is kept in such check and these elected officials are held in such accountability through the execution of the natural law, that they should be afraid of the consequences of attempting to violate that law and abusing us.

And submission to someone who is committed to your best and highest level of liberty, and committed to your good no matter what should be no difficult thing.

The problem is, we have never truly seen what “the good” and “the King’s best” truly look like.

Just some thoughts.

40 Years a Son, Living With the Word

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Biblical Studies/Exegesis

I was reading something in the biblical text this evening and I had a bit of something like a revelation.

Sometimes the one thing the King wants to emphasize, is the one thing we as translators and the writers of the original canon treated as an afterthought. We treat things as an afterthought because of the way they are phrased. And simply because of the smallness of the word, maybe the original writers did, too, if we take the words in the text at face value.

Allow me to explain.

It was Genesis 1, and always with the Fourth Day, there is something with the Fourth Day the King likes to highlight for me, and it is a kiss from him. It is a small phrase, only three words, and I have never heard the phrase emphasized, thus it seems to me most people do not treat it with emphasis when the read it, because it takes up such a small percentage of the text.

Maybe the original writer of the Creation Narrative, whether you call him Moses, or JEDP (ahem), or anyone else, just wrote this one phrase and gave it no further thought, but I would like to think it meant something, especially since these entities feature prominently elsewhere in the Tanakh, and in the Revelation and the First chapter of James.

So, here is the text for the Fourth Day of Creation:

And G-d said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And G-d made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And G-d set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And G-d saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Genesis 1:14–19 ESV

Did you see it?

And the Stars

I wonder, gang. I wonder if we know of this in this way. For He is the G-d of the Seven Stars, Who Walks Among Them, and knows the starways, and walks among the starlight.

And it is the stars as the Sons of G-d that shout for joy in the book of Job, and the Father of Heavenly Lights that gives every good and perfect gift from above as He walks among the stars, which are themselves heavenly lights.

With rain, with sun
With much, with less
With joy, with pain
With life, with death

The only things that satisfy come from You
They come from You

Everything that’s beautiful
Everything that’s wonderful
Every perfect gift comes from You

Your grace, Your heart
Your voice, Your touch
Your word, Your peace
Your hope, Your love

A thousand words could not explain
A thousand worlds could not contain
Every perfect gift comes from You

It comes from the Father of Lights
It comes from the Giver of Life
It comes from the Heavens above
It’s coming straight from Your heart
To the people You love

“Everything” by Chris Tomlin

When I was 18, the very first time I got to see the starways and the pitchblack of the heavens, I was in ROTC in college, and we were in Camp Blanding in Northeast Florida. My batallion was on a night march, and that was the very first time I was able to identify more than 12 constellations just based on patterns I had seen in books as a kid. And it was radiant, though not radiant like the sun. Sparkly.

And on the Fourth Day, as with other things pertaining to the Redemptive Gift of Exhorter, G-d usually highlights things in patterns of threes.

The nature of G-d

The Three major Exhorters of Scripture: Moses, Solomon, Paul.

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

For me this highlights something that I wish to give to you as a gift in the arena of how I do hermeneutics, and precisely why the tagline of TPH is “Into all truth by the Spirit of G-d”.

It’s not the whole of scripture, written with a 1-to-1 mindset, with each word having and sharing equal weight with all the others. Sometimes, the Holy Spirit is going to highlight or lowlight certain words of phrases, depending on what is going on with you, and where He wants to point you in a given matter.

Sometimes, a phrase waits 10-30 years to emerge and glow off the page.

And this phrase “and the stars” just hits me in all the right places, moreso now I have seen stars and auroras and other entities with proper telescopes.

I put to you, as me reader, that, when you are reading, that you allow Holy Spirit the lattitude to highlight or emphasize something differently than you have allowed Him previously. If you allow Him to guide you along the river, you have no idea where He will pull the canoe up so He can take you exploring. Reading the text, as with other parts of our life, should be an adventure that is completely life-giving.

He may emphasize a piece of the text you never thought He would.

For example, when was the last time you heard there were three “veyahavtas” (the Hebrew Phrase translated as “You shall love”) in the text of the Torah.

And for you who are Torah haters, how many know the heart of the bible is the law, and the heart of the law is Deuteronomy, and for those who want to get intimate with how blessings and curses operate, you have to be intimate with how Deuteronomy operates?

I know we are not under the law and G-d abolished the law completely without exception, but maybe there is something of value in reading the law.

Just some thoughts. And yes, some of what I wrote above is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But seriously, maybe it would behoove us to see, instead of a bipolar book, where the G-d on the Right Hand Side of the Book apologizes for the acts of the G-d on the Left Hand Side of the Book, perhaps we are dealing with the outworking of a very complex WHOLE COVENANT.

Perhaps there is life and fathering that will break the bastard curse off of us, if we will begin to obsessively hunt for the Father in the Tanakh, and in the Torah.

It’s not a list of rules and regs, gang, appended by Talmuds and Mishnahs and Gemaras. It is a arkload of principles and relationships available to anyone with the cojones to hunt for Dad’s mind AND heart within its pages.

For example, the first time “Father” is specifically implied in the pages of the Biblical Text is Exodus 4:22.

“Thus says the L-RD, ‘Israel is my firstborn son’.”

From Exodus 4:22 ESV

I wonder if one problem with too many of us that want to run from the Torah and the Tanakh and Whole Covenant into Better Covenant/Worser Covenant is that our relationships with our own earthly dads were so messed-up that we cannot bear the thought of beginning a relationship with G-d the Father in His fullness without a social worker present. And truly, if we were abused by our fathers, we might need someone who will take that role in the spirit for a season.

But, really, the gems are in the Torah for us to find if we are willing. The fat of the land, all of the fat of the land, is present for those of us who look to be transformed from disobedient to obedient, with hearts that are FILLED with the earnest of the Kingdom.

His heart is for us to know all of Him, and not just the parts with which we are comfortable.

The starsong….proclaiming the justice of G-d….

“And the stars”

May the King give light in strange and unexpected places for His kids to walk.

Just some thoughts.

Victim Spirit, Part 2: Genesis 11:31-32, 12:1, Matthew 23’s Fractal of Seven, and Not Far Enough (Settling)

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Biblical Studies/Exegesis, Matthew, Victim Spirit

Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Now the L-RD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

Genesis 11:31–12:1 ESV

Victim Spirits Make You Settle

Gang, when we are begin setting ourselves to engage with the L-rd in a particular way He has given us, and then we choose to settle….bad things happen. Truly, it is the Victim Spirit that causes us to begin to settle.

Settling means we have reached a place of believing the prevailing attitude of contentment with the provision of the natural or soul-based realities of life are enough, so much so that settling results in us not moving forward to possess the fullness of what the L-rd has for us. We allow ourselves to walk in so much Deyanu (the Hebrew phrase from the Seder of Pesach that, roughly translated, means “it would have been enough”) that we allow ourselves not move forward to possess the whole of what Father intended for you.

Is there a place for Deyanu and having peace with current circumstances? Yes, provided we are not settling and refusing to go after all the King has for us? If there is something more for us, then Deyanu can be deadly. If He has called us to rest for a season, Deyanu can be good for a season. And we need to discern what is needed in the current season, versus transition to new season.

It means, in the sevenfold parlance of Matthew 23, that we ultimately and progressively preach and do not practice….

The Victim Spirit will tell us to preach/confess things, while simultaneously laying a sort of suffocating cloak or mantle around us that will begin to progressively mess with us, choke the life from us, strangle us, push our spirits in such a way that they move away from us because we no longer have sufficient life to support their presence, and eventually become the burial shroud or grave clothes around us.

This is why the Prophets and Exhorters and Mercies and Givers among us are so critical. They will realize that something is going on and will sound the alarms that not all is well, in order to provoke us to fight for the whole picture, each in their own various ways. They are the Four-Alarm Fire Alarms to the rest of the body.

So, in Matthew 23, here is that settling of the Victim Spirit that wages against godly desire (For those who have not heard me teach through Matthew yet, I call that gospel the Gospel of the Tenth Commandment or the Gospel of Desire. It is godly desire with which the King infuses us, that causes one to wage war against settling.

On the other hand, the Victim Spirit tells us the following:

  1. Do not enter into the responsibility of the Kingdom to Build according to Design (23:13), and you keep others from so doing (becoming factories, which empowers the Third Head of Leviathan, which I will deal with in a future post).
  2. Make proselytes of your incomplete settling and do not engage in the full execution of your G-d-given Authority. Teach those proselytes it is okay to not follow through to press toward and move after their own fullness and fulfillment (23:15). As long as they attempt to do so. Give up at the first sign of any resistance. Contentment with the resources we already have on the natural or soul leel will cause us to stop moving toward birthright, which requires we embrace a certain level of pain which have been filtered and allowed by Father to refine and prove us, testing our mettle and our endurance. Feeling fulfilled and content and BEING fulfilled by possessing all He has for us are not the same thing.
  3. Make oaths and do not engage with the fullness of the Responsibility for walking out the fullness of that oath, and you set up altars and spiritual structures for connecting with G-d via the fence laws and rules but there is not real and complete and riddle-solving encounter, but you end up blinding others in the process to all else except the rules and as a result, the Religious Spirit comes in and makes them do everything except the one thing they were supposed to do (23:16-22) And as a result, you are now a blind guide and a blinding guide.
  4. Tithe all the right money but give no thought to your current Reality and teaching others according to justice (decision-making process: an aspect of love), mercy (staying your hand from vengeance or revenge or vindictive retribution: an aspect of love: Luke 17:1-5, See The Bait of Satan by John Bevere for more material on the execution of this topic), and faithfulness (constant AND consistent treatment of your fellow: an aspect of love) (23:23). This is not managing the reality of your time in the right way, because you are settling for the partial managing of your reality (I am a good boy or girl because I gave my ten percent to the church and can ditch the rest or my Responsibility to engage with Reality as not a priority, which can lead to a nasty devouring of time as you seek for time that feels like it is getting extracted from you as the taxes set in.
  5. Make your Stewardship to look right but still be partial in it because you are full of avarice and self-indulgence (23:25). Settilng for the appearance of looking like a faithful steward while harboring an altar of avarice, which is something the dirt poor can do as effectively as, if not moreso than, the wealthy.
  6. Erecting edifices and systems that look living on the outside (looking at you, Jeff Bezos), but internally are full of grinding death, destruction, exploitation, and break Freedom, instead of the more painful work of moving toward the heart of the Father, Adonai Tsidkenu, Who Makes us Righteous and Who Is Our Justice and who is Eternally the Father Who Teaches Us How To Build and How To Fight.
  7. And finally, treating the exhortations of the past as if you heard them, while embracing a heart that would see the exhortations of today killed off, and settling for a lesser form of fulfillment that ultimately leads to futility (23:2932). This fills up the measure the fathers who were muderers, and that word there for “fill” is the Greek word πληρώσατε from πληρoώ, pronounced like “play-rah-oh”, meaning “I fill” or “I fulfill”. These settlers are fulfilling not the life of men, but the mission of those who in previous generations brought death.

And truly, the Victim Spirit does not want us to engage with our inherent authority and power as G-d’s vice-regents. He does not want us to own our own portion of responsibility for our current problems. So, whatever the Victim Spirit can do to cause you to come up short, change directions, or oscillate, or vascillate, or to go partway, he will bring his friends, the Spirit of Heaviness and the Spirit of Slack (which will masquerade as the Spirit of Peace), and we can, from time to time, mistake vigilance and readiness and pressing through for not having peace.

There is more than you have been taught there is, gang. Desire and do more. The DESIRES OF YOUR HEART are so important to the King, because they given you motive to push through and to fight.

Do so.

The Wife of Noble Character: A Chunk of My Thoughts on the Topic

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Principles Of Relationships

40 years…..

I know the arguments….

The discussion….

The debates…..

And the back-and-forth….

And enough experience on receiving end of what it should not look like in several dozen facets.

First marriage destroyed through adultery.

Second marriage lost due to interference from control, jealousy, and witchcraft because I work with survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

January 14, 2005 to April 15, 2013: 3013 days.

April 19, 2014 to July 19, 2022: 3013 days.

And both marriages had many lessons to impart to me, and these treasures were not easily excavated. It was a crucible for the silver, and a furnace for the gold…

And I would like to offer the following bits, so thank you to those friends who enabled me to see some facets of a number of right ways of looking at this topic, and I would like to share things that maybe do not get enough daylight.

For those who ask if I am going to touch the egalitarian-complimentarian-headship debate, well, we will see.

But allow me to lead it with a couple of lines of thought….

Three Threads

Thread 0 offered, then set off to the side: Regardless of how I interpret Ephesians 5:21 followed by verses 22ff (I am very much of the view that in the context of the submission that all believers offer one to another, a wife still has a further place to submit in some way to a husband to loves her as Messiah loves His body), we are missing some critical ideas in this topic, because we look at roles, without looking at birthrights.

And design….

Women are not merely to play like they have hammers and swords….

Rather, they are to use them.

Thread 1:

A woman and her sword, once separated, leave her vulnerable in ways she should not be made so.

 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the L-RD G-d had made. He said to the woman, “Did G-d actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but G-d said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For G-d knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like G-d, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 

Genesis 3:1-6 ESV

The chief clown, Lucifer (I call demons “clowns”) came to the woman with her man and spoke to the woman.

For those who say “the man should have spoken up”, I am going to stop you right there.

The attack of the clowns frequently shows us an indicator of design. Husbands and wives are made as foxhole partners. Period. Get that one into your spirit. I implore you. Wrestle with the junk that fights against both of you, and woman of G-d, pick up your sword.

Or your tent peg.

Healed Exhorter/Servant combos in action…

The Other Two Points:

At this point, the issue is not one of submission, but of dominion, and refusing the victim spirit. Also, it is not about blame-shifting, but about fighting together against the real enemy. The real question is not are you loving and submitted to one another. The real questions (and from this, submission and love will flow, as well as a whole host of other dynamics) are these:

“Are you together learning from Father how to build; and how to fight?”

“Not only that, but are you aware of the raw materials you have together with which to build in a creative fashion?”

Point 2: Building

I pose these questions to y’all, gang, because there are times when the Father is not going to give you directions to obey, but is rather going to turn the two of you warriors loose in order to make choices together about what to build creatively.

First, in the early days of your relationship, you are going to struggle because you are going to feel like there is no user manual for building. So you are might desperately struggle with working together as you slap something together because you feel like you have been thrown together with little training. And then, as you grow together, working with one another, synching with one another, you are going to get more intentional about what you are doing, and as you grow more intentional, you can begin to incorporate strategy, and timing, and understanding, and pacing, and wisdom, and you will get able to fold together intimacy with one another together with skill in building.

Slaves obey. Sons create.

Create and build together. There is something there that can be done. He wants to partner with you to enable and endue and empower you two to build.

Point 3: Fighting

Second, to fight together.

Are you also aware of the real enemy that you should both be protecting and covering one another from? Do you have your lover’s six? Can they count on you to protect them and to give the enemy an earful of the Word of G-d Himself, and a faceful of His shekinah on their behalf?

“Having done all, to stand….”
As Anne Hamilton has said, have you allowed the Bridegroom Warrior to kiss you into your armor? And that is something husband and wife were made to do in tandem with He who is Adonai T’Sevaot.

Again, as with the building part, you might find yourself clumsy as you work to direct your assaults away from your mate, whom the enemy will tempt you to attack as the source of all your problems, and against the real enemy. This is why you should exercise plenty of descretion when choosing a mate. And if you already have one, then work the best with what you have. This is not a decision to rush into, but rather to wait until the markers and evidence that this will be a redemptive relationship, one in which you can accomplish more redemptively together than apart. When you have the markers there, then a lot of the marriage prophecies and dependence on other people saying “thus saith the L-rd” can fall by the wayside.

Are you a safe place for your mate, and a terror to the enemy that assaults them?

Are you a confidant?

Do you hold secrets back one from another?

Can you share the little things together?

Do you have the common interests on some level?

Is there a cause?

The biblical text that gets overlooked, and I think the King Jimmy puts this best.
Matthew 19:5

For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

It’s not about the love and submission (shorthand for the Ephesians 5 text) at this point….

Go beyond the elementary principles to the roots of those things which give life to a marriage.

And at the root of every marriage, let me CAPS out three words in Matthew 19:5.

FOR THIS CAUSE….a man will leave his parents and be joined to his wife….

You have to have a cause….there has to be a reason….a purpose….for the connection….

What’s your cause…..

What’s your reason for wanting to wake up with this man, this woman…

As David said before he fought Goliath….”Is there not a cause?”

Do you have a reason? Is there something you do incredibly well redemptively with this woman that you do not do with another? Or this man?

The cause will show you what to build and what your fight is.

And are there connection points between you and she….or you and he…..?

And is there enough diversity and difference between the two of you to make things interesting.

And is there enough of a draw beyond the superficial that you will last?

I cannot believe I am sharing this cut…..

Oy,

Thanks Tiffany….

Before You “I Do”

Though, a man should be confident enough in his own identity and authority on some level BEFORE HE STEPS INTO A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE IT TURNS INTO MARRIAGE that he will not have married a harpy or yielded his authority and is asking a woman to lead him or make decisions for him OR TO OTHERWISE GIVE HIM HIS LEGITIMACY…

Conversely, a woman should be confident enough in her own identity and authority on some level BEFORE RELATIONSHIPS AND MARRIAGE HAPPEN that she does not marry either an abusive or controlling jerk or a passive, milquetoast man, or an immature manchild who will not listen to her voice when she speaks to him in fullness, honesty, and rawness.

There has to be not merely the biblical text triteism of mutual submission, but also some level of mutual vulnerability, and both parties walking in partnership with Messiah, and willing to work through the tough issues, especially of growth, healing, deliverance, and love with one another.

And G-d did not say we had to be completely healed before we step into relationships or marriage. Nobody in Scripture, including Messiah who was fully human was fully whole without emotional issues as a human before stepping into relationship.

What G-d looks for is willingness and vulnerability, not absence of wounds or scars. The three together of y’all, working through things and journeying on this adventure…G-d looks for people who will just walk with Him and put Him at the center and forefront of their lives.

And couples who will walk together with Him, protecting one another.

It really means something when we war together against the enemy of our souls. And instead of the usual dynamics, we look at life between two battle buddies, two partners in crime, two companions in this eternal adventure.

And we engage with one another without passive/agression.

Some couples choose the way of sarcasm, and that works for them.

The real clincher here though is, are you together on close to a similar page about the L-rd, and the enemy?

And the next question that I would ask is, is there a spirit-to-spirit connection between you and your beloved, because so much happens in that space, when the portions of your spirit, and the portions of your beloved’s spirit actually interact and mingle.

It’s not just about being one flesh. It’s about the joining of spirits and the connection of journeys so that things flow in alignment.

More about that in another post…..

June 2023 WOR Blessing #2: Without Form And Void

by theparacleteshammer, posted in June WOR Blessings: Reconciliation to Land

Beloved,

I invite your spirit to be present, in the name of Yeshua.

Spirit, listen ot the word of El Shaddai for today:

The Earth was without form and void…

From Genesis 1:2

Spirit, you are going to come across patches of land that feel tohu ve bohu. Chaotic, waste, empty, messed-up, befouled, vexed, defiled, broken, ruined, and otherwise in not good states. This text says before the L-rd began to refill the land, it was completely wasted and destroyed. The land was in dire need and in outer darkness from a cataclysm of some sort.

Spirit, in this season, I would ask you to be open to the possibility that the L-rd has you in the land and it may be because you and soul were made to bring something to the land it would not otherwise have.

I encourage you to consider deeply whether you have a role to play in the healing of the land.

And I will note, it is not your job to do the heavy lifting, spirit. That is the job of the King. He will work at it. But He does look for human partnerships to bring transformation to creation. This is why, later, it was said, “the L-RD G-d planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed”.

Spirit, you were chosen and placed on a particular piece of land to bring the life of the King to that chunk of land.

So, I bless you to see the vision the L-rd has for that patch of land, and to partner with Him according to that vision.

I bless you to work with the land that is torn-up and chaotic.

I bless you to work even when situations are not ideal. I do bless you to see what you can contribute as you partner with the L-rd to bring the life of G-d in a spiritual wasteland, and maybe even a physical wasteland.

I bless you to see the best when you see the worst.

I bless you with a revelation of the L-rd G-d that is equal to the task at hand.

I bless you in the name of Yeshua to find the life and flow of G-d and to incorporate that life flow into your working with the land.

Be at peace and wholeness, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.

Amein.

How G-d Wounds and Then Heals a Mercy, Part 2

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Design, Fathering, Inner Healing, Redemptive Gifts

I was going to go with a post on the Teacher, but then something struck me from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I had to run with it. So, here goes…

A Bit More On the Mercy From the MCU, and Then, I Promise We Will Get To the Teacher

Of course, I had to go here for a bit, because there is more than I wanted to say about the Mercy, given the material on the gift keeps bubbling up. So, because I analyze the RG’s in pop culture, there is a significant buildup of material that naturally flows. So, here goes…

Yes….the kid is a Mercy….and had the Exhorter for a surrogate/adoptive father…..

And his wound? It’s being presented with the question, “are you enough without the crutches, and the people, and the relationships, and the tricks, and the gifts, and the resources, and everything that is not the L-rd Himself who must alone stand guard over your heart without any additions?”

Because if you aren’t enough without the suit, then you’ll never be enough with the suit.”

When we first meet Peter in the MCU (Captain America: Civil War), we see as a boy with serious confidence deficit. He hides himself from those who love him and blames himself for the bad things that happen around him. In Homecoming and then Far From Home, we come to an individual with not just problems with self-confidence, but also serious legitimacy issues. From Civil War to Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, there was a deep internal struggle with both his identity, place, and purpose. He did not see himself for what Tony saw in him, even though it took Tony some time to come around to embracing Peter’s inherent value and design, and to father him effectively.

But eventually confidence bloomed and grew in Peter. This deep well took a hit when Tony died. With his father figure gone, he had to develop a different source, and dig a different well.

Unfortunately, this very negative belief about himself that he wasn’t good enough or strong enough to fill Tony’s shoes, led him to give up the resources that Tony gave to him to someone he thought could be trusted. Following that, Beck toyed with him and, because of Beck’s possession of Stark Tech, he was able to fool Peter into questioning the fabric of reality.

Though it was never about filling Tony’s shoes, but filling and walking in his own shoes, and flowing in his design.

Mercies, when their confidence is deeply tested, usually in the area of relationships, may question reality in the worst way. And this will bring them to a crossroads.

They ultimately must come to a place where they rest in the One Thing that will never abandon them, even when everything crumbles around them: the anchoring point of the nature of G-d, Who Is fiercely loving, completely consistent, will not forsake them, and commited to His covenant.

The wounding comes when they are stripped of those things that once brought them confidence, and the healing comes when their internal structure is so aligned with The One Who Is Perfect Reality that the external world deteriorating impacts them in a decreasing fashion. Dependence on the Bridegroom and no one else, not even family, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, spouses, close friends, is what stabilizes the Mercy as they grow through the season that threatens to wound them.

As a result of that, the L-rd pushes the Mercy to adopt a capacity to fix their problems piece-by-piece, without crutches, and as a result, they grow to respond to the following challenge.

As a result, they can either grow into what they were made to do, or shrink back, and their legacy be forgotten or picked up by someone else.

Mercies are going to either bloom or crack under pressure, and as a result of staying the course under pressure, something else comes of them. Something really good.

So, if they bloom in adversity, and they respond to the pressure by leaning hard into the L-rd (Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 54:1-16) instead of relationships governing them, they govern their relationships. And to those relationships they add boundaries, which breaks the spirit of codependency.

Biblically speaking, I think about the confidence John got as a Mercy through living on the Island of Patmos, where he wrote the Revelation and then penned his gospel.

Just some thoughts here…..

Now, onto the Teacher….or not really…but that should be the following post…if I can get off my soapbox long enough to execute…

Following a Season of Healing When You Have Been Traumatized By the Word of G-d

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Principles

Props to Heidi Michelle, who asked for an epilogue to two posts ago. For those who would like to know to which post I am referring, go here.

When you have been traumatized from the misuse of the biblical text, and you need to detoxify through other streams the King provides, including looking for His Works (the Works of the King have equal weight as testimony to the Words of the King: John 5:36), when you are ready to renege get with the written text of Scripture, how should you go about that task?

Zeroth on the list, wait until you want to try out reading the text. Then if you need a friend on hand while you cross the threshold of reintegrating yourself with the text, pick someone you trust who loves you and let them sit with you in silence if need me while you pick it up and read. It may take some time.

First and foremost, do not ditch the context where you received healing, unless the King says to do so. It’s not like you are using the items you learned about in the season of healing as a stopgap measure until you can go back to the authoritative rule for faith and practice, as if you were settling form one aspect of the King’s reality instead of another.

Second, carry the affection of the King into the reading of the text, and take off a tiny chunk of biblical text and chew through it. Ask Him to be present with you while you read. He is the point, not the text.

I will say that again. He is the point of this whole thing, not the text. And yes, I am strong in teaching, and my teacher is exceptionally strong, who knows the value of the text, but He is the point of working with the text or any aspect of reality.

Third, read only what you can manage. You just got done rehabbing a broken wrist. You cannot put 85 pounds on it.

Your job is to rehab muscle groups, not shoulder an over heavy responsibility and do 3000 pushups out of the gate.

Fourth, be damn patient with yourself. Maybe a phrase or two.

Fifth, do not overload yourself with disciplines and listening to eight thousand hours of another man’s opinion on the topic.

Sixth, stop when He tells you to stop, and stop before you find yourself pushing yourself.

Seventh. Just rest with Him in the text. Most of y’all that I know are experts at keeping the day of Shabbat, but suck at keeping the mindset of Shabbat. There is a mentality perfected by the Desert Fathers of resting in the midst of work, and having a chilled and rested mindset and heart set while they worked.

And some of y’all are fine with the dynamic of observing G-D’S holy day, but bomb on having G-d’s wholly holy heartset, especially when the Shabbat was made for man and not man for the Shabbat.

And you need an actual day of rest AND. a mindset of rest through your week. And to make Him and His gooshy and squishy Mercy affectionate reality and embrace your Shabbat rest.

Anyway, those are just some quick and practical thoughts here.

And yes, I did meddle with some of my friends who ain’t doing the rest thing right.

Giggle….

Love my προφῆται clan.

When The Rug Is Pulled….

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Principles, Relating to G-d

What do you do?

There have been a few times where I told the story of my divorce. And while I mentioned the adultery and the emotional abuse and the other dynamics, I will note that the divorce in the spirit did not coincide with the divorce in the legal sense.

Sure, my legal divorce was filed Pearl Harbor Day 2012 and finalized the day of the Boston Bombing, but the actively divorce took place a couple of years earlier, in March 2010.

At that point, my then-wife gave me an ultimatum. Move with her or she was leaving with the kids.

At which point I felt the breaking of the covenant.

The rug had been pulled.

I was 30 at the time. And I knew the marriage was over and that she had chosen her mother over me.

This is a situation that caused me to turn internally and the only person I had to turn to and lean on was the King.

When you have no one, as I did, you still have the King.

And when you are alone, He will build things into you, and a depth of intimacy that can survive even death.

‘Cuz, you know, “love is as strong a death.”

Now, in order for love to be made as strong as death, it must endure against the spirit of death. You are meant to be tested in your kettle against certain things in the spirit.

Kind of like Isaiah 54:17, if you want no weapon formed against you to prosper, then you have to be willing to sing in your barrenness and embrace the first 16 verses and the process of Isaiah 54.

Cause and effect.

If you sow against testing and refinement, you will be stronger against the fight.

Ask me how I am so effective against some things.

It’s because I have been in the fight for years.

If you want the walk someone else has, you also are asking for the grace to endure what that other person has endured.

Friend, your responsibility is to dig deep wells with the King and lean HARD on him.

I am proof in the Kingdom that this can be done, and it will knit your hearts more deeply and more intimately with his and it will pour into you a well and a storehouse of resources that others will find life-giving after you pass through the season of hell.

Lean, lean, lean….

Do not lean on your own understanding….

In all your ways KNOW Him (that same word for “know” in Proverbs 3:6, is the same word for Adam “knew” his wife Eve).

There is an intimacy that only comes when you have suffered deep emotional loss.

And that will bless your heart and spirit with a spring of life you never had.

Be at peace, son and daughter of Tsion.

Responding to Murray Rothbard: Free Will Vs. Control

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Five Levels of Holienss, Principles, Time

Jotting some thoughts down here…

Tom Woods, arch-libertarian and Teacher, is refreshing me on sabbatical:

He writes:

Murray Rothbard described the free market as simply “the social array of voluntary exchanges of goods and services.’ In titling one of his books Power and Market (originally intended to be the closing section of Man, Economy and State) Rothbard was positioning “power” and “market” as antinomies. The market consists of voluntary transactions between willing parties; the state, or “power,” introduces compulsion into human relations, bringing about coerced outcomes that people would not voluntarily have chosen.

Noting Rothbard’s idea, I looked back at the idea of market as akin to free will, a gift we are unilaterally and without condition given, even if we mess things up.

I look at coercion by the government as akin to the overworn concept of control.

And the conscious or unconscious desire for control leads inevitable to structures and polity that lead to destruction of what would otherwise be a genuinely, disproportionately life-giving exchange (means of exchange for goods, or good for good).

In the case of our King, He exchanges our debt for His life and adoration.

I wonder if we are missing, in our desire to crown popes, presidents, and apostles (all usual forms of control) the legitimate and requisite aspect of the divine nature of which we were each made to partake, of releasing.

Father designated seasons of release, whether sabbaths, seasons, holidays, years, or other χρόνος or καιρός moments (and yes, Greek is good and both of those concepts are good) for us, as He designed both unique and non-unique timestreams in accordance with our divers designs, for us to unpack time-relative treasures for us.

And we need to hunt for those.

Another dynamic I have considered deeply is the concept of the “starways”.

Though I cannot find another reference to the concept of the “starways” outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and specifically, Guardians of the Galaxy (leave it to the Ruler Thanos to make us aware of such a reality), I know that they exist and are time-connected.

Someone, or several someones, will have to begin the process of unpacking the lightyears worth of pathways traced by the stars in the κόσμος. So that we can begin to embrace how we were MADE to be released, and not merely to control or limit or make small all sorts of things.

What is our place in being released and in giving release to others?

And what is our place in being aware of the connections between His light, His lights, the path that light and those lights travel, and the journeys which we were meant to take.

Just some thoughts here.

Blessing 16: WOR Blessing: Distinguishing Your Provision From Anothers

by theparacleteshammer, posted in Blessings, Principles, September Window of Reconcilaiton Blessings: Reconciliation to G-d

Beloved, I invite your spirit to treat with me in the name of Yeshua.

Spirit, listen to the word of G-d for you for today.

Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. You shall purchase food from them with money, that you may eat, and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink.

Deuteronomy 2:5-6 ESV

Spirit, not all of the resources you see are yours.

Some resources and wealth G-d has provided to others.

And as difficult as that may be, it is a lesson in discernment and Stewardship.

G-d places certain bits of land in our midst because He is giving that land to us in order to manage.

And sometimes He places certain peoples in our midst in order to provide food or sustenance to us.

Spirit, you will meet people that have a bit of land and resources and you will have to learn the lesson of discerning when the land is your portion and when other aspects are your portion.

G-d gives us certain provisions, He writes us specific checks from specific checkbooks.

And not everything we see is automatically going to get credited to our accounts.

And One of the sharpest most perceptive lessons we can learn is the lesson of discernment between our resources and the resources of another. And we also must learn how to protect not only our resources but also the resources of another. Because when we protect the resources of another, we are shown to be trustworthy and faithful stewards which means we can be trusted with other things as well.

So, spirit, I bless you to lead in the discernment arena.

I bless you to have a strong and clear voice in the area of what belongs to your host versus what does not.

I bless you to be content with your portion.

I bless you to see the resources being provided you, and O bless you to coach the soul in the appropriate direction in which to set his or her desires.

I bless you to cultivate and lead the soul and body with a strong awareness of the Tenth Commandment, and to coach them in parsing between what G-d has given Soul and Body versus what G-d has given another.

I bless you, spirit to say “no” when “no” is right and good.

And I bless you to say “yes” when “yes” is right and good.

I bless you with revelation of reality pertaining to your resources. And I bless you with skill to utilize the resources that are you.

Be at peace with that revelation, spirit, in the name of Yeshua.

Amein.