Beloved, I invite your spirit forward, in Jesus’ name.
Spirit, listen to the Word of G-d for you today
“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,”
Hebrews 6:19 ESV
Spirit, our hope does not twist or turn like a wish as does the worldly forms of hope, as in, “I hope or desire or which this would happen.”.
Spirit that is not the way of G-d or His variety of hope.
I have taught this before, but hope is the root and fuel of everything to do with prophecy and prophets and prophetic gifting or unctions.
Spirit, on of the names of our King, and one of the most ancient of church symbols, is Anchor.
A place that holds fast and grips when thrown into something where it sticks.
Spirit, our hope and our anchor holds within and behind the veil within the spiritual fabric of the Mercy Seat.
We depend upon, and seek, and favor His Mercy Seat
For there you cover
Ev’ry lie I spoke
And ev’ry promise that I’ve broke
And ev’ry dreamer than I’ve woke
The Waiting “The Mercy Seat”
That Mercy Seat full of his Mercies and Mercy is a sure place that will never break apart and will be a deep ocean into which we can drop our anchors.
And He is the anchor, the securing point when everything is awash in turgid maelstrom.
Spirit, I bless you to HOLD FAST.
I bless you to lash your rope to the anchor, when you are roughed-up.
I bless you to find and deeply test the strength of that Anchor.
He wrote his covenant with you because many times He knew there would be entities that would seek to destabilize your ability to trust him.
I bless you to ask the questions and see hard answers to hard questions and to hear His heart honestly.
💜
I bless you to anchor deep and be found in a place of stabilizing force when all other powers and authorities would seek to force you to move in different ways.
Spirit, be at deep and abiding peace. And rest securely in that anchor that holds behind the veil.
I bless your boat and ship to survive and harness the storms for which it was designed.
“I find this freedom in this little ship.” -Kevin Max Smith-
I bless you to find freedom as you chart your course knowing the Anchor, He is every present.
Be blessed, spirit, and reconciled to the Son in this fashion.
Someone missed the transition from communicating about church to communicating about G-d
The above image was seen on my personal wall and so I am re-posting it here with my thoughts:
As a pastor, I would like to address a notoriously faulty paradigm here.
How does “don’t make church a high priority” translate into “no concept of G-d”?
If we communicate truth, and we move from one concept to a different concept, without language for a smooth transition that connects the two realities, then the flow will be choppy.
We live in a church age where where church members and preachers have equivocated “G-d” and “church”, and subsequently used the two interchangeably.
Or G-d and Christianity, and then utter retardations such as “Christianity is the only valid religion” or “Christianity is the only way to G-d”.
And as we all know, Jesus said:
“The Church is the Way, the Truth, and the Life”.
And we have made the church responsible for spiritual growth. And we have abdicated our responsibility, to, flowing from our personal relationships with the Trinity, raise our kids up in the nurture and the admonition of the Church.
Are you getting it yet? Too many of my cynical Generation X are done with the “Church is G-d” Bolshevik.
The issue is not church, but growing up without parents who impart through the spirit to them, not the reality of church, but the reality of G-d.
If I impart knowledge of an institution and then farm my kids out to someone else in order for them to be instructed in Scripture without doing that heavy lifting myself first, then I don’t know how much good the church will do or be.
I will also say this.
Most of my wounds spiritually came from believers in institutional churches who refused to make discernment a priority or listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit also a priority, while judging me by my exterior, repeatedly and brazenly, which in turn led to slander and false accusations.
I’ve been a believer for 37 years, and have been raising my kids without an institutional church’s backing for the last several years, and it’s not because I have a theology degree, but because I listen to and hear Him.
It is amazing to me that, in the first 3 steps of this sequence, G-d HIMSELF, the Word of G-d, Jesus is not mentioned. Just a damn institution which may or may not get my kids closer to the L-rd if it does not know how to equip and release according to design.
So, if the sequence is to truly be logical, I would replace “church” in each step with “G-d”.
Over and over, I have seen all kinds of memes and posts that refer to institutions and seem to imply the institution is the same thing as the Man, and that simply is not the case.
A church is only as healthy as the strength of the personal relationships its members have with the Holy Trinity apart from the power and authority structures they attempt to place on one another.
Beloved, I invite your spirit forward to connect for a few minutes.
Spirit, listen tot he word of G-d for you for today.
The L-RD said to Cain…
From Genesis 4:6, 9 ESV
Spirit, this text clearly says that, when Cain sinned in unrighteous anger and in the execution of murder both times, it never says he went to G-d. Rather, the text seems, at least to me, to indicate G-d came to him.
Let me say that again a little louder for those in the back.
Spirit, after Cain messed up twice, G-d didn’t consign him immediately to hell or Sheol or banish Cain. G-d came to Cain to help coach him to fix the problem.
Cain chose to leave G-d’s presence, not the way we typically hear this preached.
Nor was Cain this “ooooohhhhh wicked rebellious sinner beyond redemption.”
And this whole overgrown “a holy G-d cannot look on sin” nonsense that we have constructed off on own or two proof texts.
Plainly, after Cain sinned and before any sort of repentance take place, G-d approached him when there was still blood on his hands and offered to help him out of it.
Spirit, after our mess-ups and before the repentance bears forth, there is a moment in which G-d comes to visit us with His kindness and which His offer to help us to a better place.
So, Spirit, I bless you to speak up when we each screw up and to say “HEY! THIS IS THE WAY BACK HOME!!!!!”
I bless your voice to be among the oldest in our ear and presenting the kindness of the King as the way back home, even if the way back home may be difficult.
I bless you to latch onto and to display the reconciling desire of the Father’s heart when we are missing it.
I bless you to remind the person in whom you dwell that the way back home is already ready already (pardon that odd syntax), and the door is already flung wide for you to come back home, and the Father waits to kill the fatted calf in celebration of your return.
I bless you to be full of the purposes of the L-rd as you come back home and as you respond to the voice of the L-rd who is ever near the screwed-up.
I bless you to light on the path and the place where we ought to go.
If we are exhorted, spirit, to come boldly before the throne of grace, what’s to stop the Father from boldly coming to us with kindness to make…
all things new….
Be reconciled, you who have messed up, to a Father that wants you home.
Some weapons that are forged with the enemy’s intent to harm us actually do harm us.
“But wait, David. You are teaching heresy. The Word of G-d says, ‘no weapon formed against you shall prosper’. What are you talking about? I am so confused.”
Confusion comes when we refuse to read all of what is tied to a particular passage.
There can be a number of reasons why weapon prosper, but I want to focus on one dynamic of Isaiah 54:17 in particular: its immediate context.
So, the text for verse 17 reads:
no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.
Isaiah 54:17 ESV
Many sectors of the Charismatic Movement get so stuck on declaration and decrees, that they do not account for the context that builds into us that sinewy, tough, muscle in the spirit that comes through the process that enables Isaiah 54:17 to become a reality.
They miss that Isaiah 54:17 is contingent on walking well through the sequence of Isaiah 54.
The context for that passage is the set of keys to verse 17.
It reads:
“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the L-RD.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
“For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.
“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
“For your Maker is your husband, the L-RD of Hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the G-d of the whole earth he is called.
“For the L-RD has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off”, says your G-d.
“For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
“In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the L-RD, your Redeemer.
This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you.
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the L-RD, who has compassion on you.
“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.
“I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones.
“All your children shall be taught by the L-RD, and great shall be the peace of your children.
“In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
“If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you.
“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;”
Isaiah 54:1–16 ESV
I am of the viewpoint that Isaiah 54:17 is meant to be loaded, and, behind verse 17, is supposed to be the following disciplines:
1) Sing in your barrenness while you are giving birth.
2) Enlarge your place unto the boundaries for which the L-RD has designed you.
3) Resist fear. This leads to the removal of shame, but shame is rooted in something deeper: the absence of dignity.
4) Receive dignity first BEFORE YOU RECEIVE HONOR. Honor is for what you do. Dignity is for who you are. This might mean you need your receiver fixed, if it is broken.
5) Receive the honor of what you do.
6) Stand in your office of wife, both men and women. Just like there are no daughters in the kingdom, there are not bridegrooms of Christ. Congratulations, life is uncomfortable for everyone.
7) Recognize the seeming or believed or possibly real desertion and the real gathering of the L-RD. Meaning, recognize and walk through the seasons He gives you.
8) Recognize and be able to discern when we are being afflicted and when we are being borne up and be able to celebrate the King’s majesty in the midst of this.
9) Become life-giving in a deep and principle-woven manner. We have too much shallow life-giving abounding in too many of our churches. Too many preachers with their inch-thick understanding and wisdom, and not enough miles-deep and stone-heavy principles-woven-together Teachers who will enable us to deeply mine more from the Acripture than merely to “stay in love with Jesus: it’s that simple.” It’s not that simple.
Simple solutions do not touch complex problems that have not been understood, nor in woven to discover the principles and the opposite spirit.
10) Allow Him to set your foundations and forge you. No flames of forge and no Paraclete’s hammer, zero success against the weapons forged against you. If you are not tempered, you will break and shatter against those weapons (now you know part of where our blog name comes from).
Thanks to Isaiah the Teacher for helping contribute to this.
After this sequence, much of which will be extremely painful, then the weapons will not prosper against you. You who have been tested.
Be at peace, gang, and ask yourself, “do I want that +80 authority that can only be earned?”
Slaves obey…..and they have zero creative will or desire or tools….and they have access only to what their master gives them…..
Sons create…..
I have a few questions for you. And I have hammered and pounded and beaten this drum forever.
Why the impotent focus on what Bezos and Gates do with their money?
Shouldn’t the focus be on unpacking your own stuff?
Is our job to handle other people’s stuff and see to it other people pay “their fair share”, when fairness is not in the Bible anywhere?
Is our job not to unpack the massive amount of treasures G-d has given us?
Or is it to wonder why someone else had any fulfilling OUR vision and OUR plan for their lives?
Your problem is not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.
Your problem (or problems) are issues that you personally deal with….
Your problem is between your ears…
Your refusal to see what G-d has given you….
Whether or not we realize it, these issues we have been dealing with for YEARS….they already have a slew of answers to them.
I will again mention two things.
We froth at Amazon, Disney, or other company C, and we miss the issues in government, or we froth at government and miss the evil companies.
But it seems we never put the two together.
And deal with the cohesive whole.
Our excuse? We like either the red or the blue solution. One of two Republicrat solutions.
And we ignore the reality that “what you pay taxes on, you own.”
Meaning, we have paid massive amounts of money into services and companies that have done evil things, and I rarely hear believers attempting to leverage the financial investments in these companies to ask the King to steer these companies in a direction that better aligns with His will.
Further question.
Can we leverage our investment to intercede for that alignment of those companies without coaching G-d as to what his purpose and direction for these companies is?
And we rarely ask Father to shine His light whereever He damn well wants to shine it.
And we rarely down a corporate womb of agreement long enough to ask Father to steer companies or governments because we’d rather talk about the injustice as if a yutz of a businessman can or has gassed Jews.
Or we Yell about the penis-shaped ship long enough to say, “he could end world hunger with those billions.
Forgetting world hunger IS….
Because of mindsets…..
The problem of world hunger and creating the foolish solution of confiscating wealth to end it won’t end it.
You will end world hunger when you end personal hunger.
And you end personal hunger when you stop saying “the answers to my problems belong to someone else”.
And when you stop trying to force people to care for the poor or hungry.
That damn spirit of jealousy that has caused fascists to loot and pillage and burn whole cities is a real problem.
And jailing or interning or concentrating or exterminating a race because you think another race is superior.
Calling for reparations when you fail to heal your own wounds is precisely what gets us to ripping all kinds of things apart.
Failing to understand your Southern brethren because you think you can talk down to him or her and they are backwards…
And using the fire of the world to confront what is ultimately a spiritual problem is how you ensure fractured relationships will continue.
The problem is not billionaires or millionaires.
The problem is misfocussed attention on the gifts and resources of others and a failure to unpack, steward, or use your own.
I just recently pulled out a major cork to some large-scale problem I have been dealing with for 3.5 decades.
And you know what?
I am going to keep on pursuing solutions to problems that have not yet been answered.
Gang, this peanuts of the Billionaires is going to get us nowhere.
The problem is the spirit that wants to keep us blind to our own resources (spirit of Jealousy)
The problem is the spirit that says we have no resources (the spirit of slavery)
The problem is the spirit that says other people are responsible for fixing our own problems (the welfare spirit)
You are not a slave, unless you stop creating and start pointing the finger and expecting that your solution is what Jeff or Bill have.
And world Hunter proceeds from a mindset that I cannot do anything to change my station.
And when Scripture shouts:
HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING THAT IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE
And yet we continue to act as if some people were given the goods and others simply were not….
We can quit making excuses that the solution is someone else’s responsibility….
That is a damn carnal Teacher with selective responsibility or a half-blind, non-principle-weaving and severely-wounded Prophet speaking.
And I simply will not make excuses for the juxtaposition of anyone’s radically-gifted-for-life life and “my problems are solved with their crap”.
This is not how any of this works.
And you won’t work if you think your problems are supposed to be owned by someone else.
“However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find fiath on the earth?
From Luke 18:8
Sometimes you build the platform and then the L-rd repsonds, and sometimes the L-rd just shows up and you respond.
There are two dynamics that run very close, inverse of one another, and yet, we must dance between them on a constant basis as belivers.
We are told, by the one group of believers, that if we attempt to do anything for the kingdom, that “all our righteousness is as filthy rags” (even though He has transformed us (2 Cor. 5:17). What, so Jesus saved us and transformed us from one form of filthy rags into another form of filthy rags?
And we are also told by the other group of beliveers, that if we just wait for the L-rd to act, that we are lazy and not bearing the fruit that is the testimony that we are His followers.
Both camps may not understand one another, but they both adject one another in the kingdom.
See, we were made to engage with both, and not to view one or the other as better or worse than the other.
Some days you are going to feel a GRACE to do something, to build, to get a wild hair and construct something.
And some days you are going to feel a GRACE to sit still and allow Him to be with you.
A grace to work, a grace for kingdom-laden effort where you work with dilligence.
Which has the same source as the grace to not act and to see Him act.
There are going to be days and seasons when you are supposed to construct a platform for the King, to marshall resources, to bolt boards and beams and set foundations and pour concrete and run wire and follow a set of prints.
The grace to manage. And even in the midst of revivals and moves of G-d, people still need to skillfully manage resources and supplies. Just because G-d shows up with miracles and wondrous things does not mean that we can stop all management.
We need to arrive on the other end of a move of G-d having passed the test of successfully handling what was put into our hands to use. And to not be swayed by every single need that tugs on us.
There are days when the revival gives us power and authority.
And some days, the power and authority are to say “NO” to the many needs, so we can say “YES” to the specific needs WE are called to handle. Just because resources fall into your lap does not mean you fritter those resources away on the first begging hand that comes to your door.
Are you capable of blessing those G-d tells you to bless, and also of listening to the King when He says “do not bless that person”?
Are you able to pray when the L-rd says to pray (and when He tells you to pray, He will supply the grace necessary to pray) and refrain when He says to refrain, even from praying?
He has designed you to accomplish a limited number of assignments on this earth and in this season.
So, there is truly a male form of faith, in which we build something and the L-rd responds to us.
And there is a female form of faith, in which we wait for the L-rd’s initiation, and He does something that we receive, and then we respond to Him.
Which season is it for you?
Male faith or female faith?
My challenge to you is this: Don’t merely act with one aspect of faith, assuming your form will be always blessed.
Sometimes you will need to execute what seems to you a foreign form of faith in order to move forward in a seaason.
And I bless you to hear when the music changes, so that your dance step changes.
Some days, we work faith in building a platform.
And other days, we lay in our beds and allow Him the prerogative to initiate.
I realize I am in the process of a number of other things, but, Teachers, again, your unusual and unexpected capacity to:
1) Preserve life when it isn’t looked for, when you are rightly aligned and strong with the Principle of Responsibility,
2) Defend and preserve rightly-aligned sexuality,
3) Occupy your very pertinent position in the sequence of seven Redemptive Gifts, between two other notes life-givers, the Servant on the one hand, which protects new life and the thing G-d has conceived from premature (hear this pronounced the British way with the short “e” sound) extinguishing, and the Giver on the other hand, which births new blood life.
The following is a long sentence, so in the spirit of the length of the Declaration of Independence’s single-sentenced preamble, stay with me as I weave together the following thought.
There are going to be times when the other gifts are preoccupied in such ways…
that their focus will not be on the protectionary measures you easily derive from remembering the past…
and even though you might appear as though you are stuck to the other gifts, while being married to the apparently (“apparently” is the adverbial form of “appear, so by their estimation the appearance, which may not be the same as reality) valueless past, and while you may seem slow to others who don’t see the five-dimensional frame of the big picture, there is a stranger and much-less pronounced form of special discernment that the Teacher provides to make truly safe the rest of the community.
This form of discernment has brandished itself in film in the last 10 years, and it is on full display as M, who is RG Teacher here, tells the Ministry of Intelligence in the film “Skyfall” a good deal that is necessary.
Gang, are you capable of seeing the beauty of this aspect of the Teacher presented here.
Teachers, do not ever beat yourself up, and do not dare let some impulsive gift beat you up for owning and enjoying your connections to the past that give you a form of discernment that none of the other gifts can have.
And again yes, I know, seven portions, one dominant portion.
But this sort of dynamic is precisely why I argue we each have only one Redemptive Gift. And one-seventh of our tribe has the critical role of being Teacher.
So, I would encourage those of y’all who think you are three gifts because a test told you so, to stop letting the tests tell you what you are, and do find out what your gift is. As a card-carrying Mercy who has six other active portions, some of which are quite active.
And if we spread our foci too thin, we become anything and everything and therefore nothing.
And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judas, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Revelation 5:5
Spirit, there is a line of thinking that came into being with the writings of Jack Lewis that the L-rd is not safe. Indeed, in the Chronicles of Narnia, Mr. Beaver said he was not safe.
And truly, when someone is wounded or bruised or smoldering, a bruised reed Messiah will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish.
But, when the time comes for us to grow into kingdom sons, He is not going to lead us merely or only into the safe place of home, but into the risk-laden context of the wilderness. Spirit, Father did not bring us home to leave us home, but to have a safe harbor from which to do exploits on behalf of the King. And when we travel, Father goes with us, and He allows good things to come into our lives as well as testing and difficult things.
The issue is not whether or not Jesus is safe in that we can control Him, but whether or not He is good, meaning “consistent and trustworthy, free from corruption, and incorruptible”.
In the first blessing, I reminded you of the anchor that was the most trustworthy. Our best anchor is in G-d’s nature. And because everything He created was good, it follows that He who is the Source of all is also good.
Goodness is so lacking in our culture. Alienation in many places prevails.
And the masculine, fathering antidote for the brokenness is not the mothering attribute of safety, but rather goodness.
Goodness is brought about by execution, by a G-d who executes. By a good Father of Lights Who gives us every good and perfect gift. Goodness is seen EVERYWHERE, including in what He has put into you.
Father is going to challenge you, spirit. Father will spend some time working to heal you, but after a season of healing, He will take you out on an adventure with him. You might have to climb mountains, or swim oceans, or work with people who are occasionally ungrateful. You might have to run a marathon, or embrace some pain.
But, spirit, I bless you to rest in your Father’s goodness. I bless you with not just an anchoring place in home, but also a place of rest in Father’s affection as He is doing the grueling work of training you and refining you and giving you sometimes more than you can handle.
I bless you not to rely on Father’s safety when you are questing about, but on His goodness, which is central to His nature.
And that you can praise Him even when He sends you an unlikely messenger to correct you. I bless you spirit to hear Father speak in the Prophet language of Greek and in the Giver language of Hebrew.
Both Prophets and Givers are CRITICAL to your life, spirit, and I bless you to hear what Father is doing as He does it. I bless you to see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and experience the full range of Father’s good pleasure and His good gifts, even if they come in the form of fiery trials.
I bless you, in those season when you are laying on the pavement with a bleeding artery to savor the flavor of grace Father brings to you, whether it is repairing a transected artery, or eating a bowl of your favorite ice cream.
I bless you to lean hard into Him and the strength of His goodness when everything is going up in flames.
I bless you with hyperendurant resolve.
I bless you, spirit, to be galvanized against all the plans of the evil one and the clowns.
I bless you radiantly, affectionately, and zealously, in the name of Yeshua.
I bless you to find the silver lining when the clouds have gathered. I bless you with chops and strength and massive resolve and life and peace and understanding and PLENTY OF FIGHT.
I would like to note that I struggled with where to categorize this post, but then I realized I have been on a track of dealing with aspects that blind us, which is a device of the Mesmerizing Spirit.
Also, while it’s true that Revelation and Denial affect the Exhorter more, all of us, regardless of gifts, may struggle with it. For example, Mercies like myself have some issues with this because we tend to be so ethereal, heavenly-minded, head-in-the-clouds.
“Earth to David. Are you checking in with the mother ship?”
The Problem
The root of Denial gives rise to the stronghold of non-Reality that pollutes the strong suit of the Exhorter: Revelation.
Just as English Ivy and Wisteria run amok can bring down a mighty oak or a landslide can choke the flow of a strong river, so also denial initiates a sequence of events that can choke the life flow of a robust existence.
Treating a partial perspective as the whole perspective will kill our ability to hear the voice of G-d. It can also affect our ability to hear our own spirit, which may be shouting warnings to us.
This is true no matter the arena.
The Change of Direction
If we want the light and the river of insight to flow over our lives in force…
If we want to new ideas to alight on us with fluency…
Then it remains incumbent upon us to demand to know the ways in which the partial perspective we each have fits into the whole.
Many who hear the voice of G-d never make the leap from their dream or vision to how it fits as part of a larger picture that they never considered.
The Assignment
Here we follow the G-d of the Hunt. Our mission is to look for missing pieces that will help fill out our perspective. In so doing, we must be willing willing to receive both the comfort/encouragement/consolation and the exhortation/reproof/correction. This may require us to work with others.
Helping Others Speak Even When You Have An Answer
Something that may help us to work at stewarding our words better is this: Put on humility and connect with others to find out what they are hearing from the L-rd as well.
Be willing to admit that, friend, that even though the L-rd has shown you something, someone alongside of you who is less experienced with the things of G-d might need you to listen rather than speak, so you can help them along in their journey to maturity.
The immature may tell you something you have heard one million times before. However, they might also need a more mature man or woman of G-d to encourage them as they journey. Plus, with fresh eyes, they might surprise you with something you have not considered.
To be sure, It is possible to wear humility as a garment and keep an open mind that you do not have the whole perspective.
You are part of a body with many members. This means that you will need to seek out those who have the other pieces of the puzzle. That means you will need to form relationships with other people, like it or not.
This is some of the most solid work on the topic of angels. Dr. Heiser’s book on angels adds a welcome weight of obsession with the canon of biblical text that counterpoints our touchy-feels, charismatic foolishness.
Indeed, what is needed is more of an understanding of the fullness of what Scripture is saying, not less, and not necessarily more merely of what the traditions of Christianity and Judaism are saying apart from the informing plumb line of the canon.
Mike Heiser is precisely the exegetical breath of fresh air on a number of topics that we need.
