Joshua and the Family Stones

Photo from Ben P L

Tonight I was reading about Joshua and the parting of the Jordan River when I was struck by the similarity between the twelve men carrying the river stones on their shoulders and the High Priest carrying the two stones on the shoulders of his uniform and the twelve stones on his breastplate. In both cases the stones represent tribes. The Priest's shoulder stones have the names of six tribes inscribed on each of them. (See Exodus 28) Each of the stones on the breastplate represent an individual tribe as do the stones carried out of the Jordan. It occurred to me that stones might represent tribes or nations in other contexts as well. Take a look at these possibilities:

Gen 28:11-15 Jacob gathers up some stones to use as a pillow. Who uses stones for a pillow? He lays his head on the stones, and in his dream God tells him that his descendants will be as the dust of the earth and will be scattered throughout the world. God also tells him that he will be returned to this land someday. The first part of that prophecy was fulfilled when the two kingdoms were scattered by Assyria, Babylon, and Rome. They have been living among the nations of the world, for the most part as if asleep (the stones for pillows!) and unaware of who they are. The second part of the prophecy was fulfilled in one sense when Jacob personally returned to Canaan. It will be fulfilled much more dramatically when all of Israel is called out of the nations and returned to the Promised Land someday.

Gen 31:51-53 As Jacob left Laban to return to Canaan, Laban chased him across the dessert. When he caught him, they set up a pillar and a pile of stones, proclaiming them to be witnesses to a peace treaty setting a border between their lands. Later, after Israel escaped Pharaoh, the River of Egypt was set as the boundary between their lands, and the events were witnessed by God's pillar and by the nations of the world.

Lev 14:33-53 There is way too much to talk about in this passage, but here is one very interesting bit: The priest orders the house to be emptied and locked. On the seventh day he returns to judge the stones of the house. Those that are infected are cast into “an unclean place” while fresh stones are brought in to replace them. Sounds like something someone once wrote about olive branches, doesn't it?

It seems obvious to me that stones, especially in the Torah, represent people groups, whether nations, tribes, cities, or families. Gold is divinity and purity. Silver is blood and atonement. Bronze is judgement. Iron is destruction. Wood is humanity or flesh. Coverings are spiritual authorities. Blue is divine, red is flesh, and purple is God made flesh.

I love this stuff. I could be wrong...but I don't think so.

Fraud at the Polls? Never!

Study: E-voting Machines Are Easily Hackable
Todd R. Weiss, Computerworld
Oct 28, 2008 3:45 pm

With eight days to go before the presidential election, a report has been released by Princeton University and other groups that sharply criticizes the e-voting machines used in New Jersey and elsewhere as unreliable and potentially prone to hacking.

Yet another expensive project to point out the obvious. If anyone tells you they know something about computers and that electronic voting is secure, they are lying to you about one or the other of their claims.

Noach - A Man Worth Following

Genesis 6:18

…thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. Genesis does not describe Noah's family as especially righteous, although it is reasonable to believe that they were. (With the possible exception of Ham, of course. See Genesis 9:22-27.) The families of righteous men tend to be more righteous than the families of unrighteous men. The most convincing evidence of the character of Noah's family, however, is that they went along with his plan to build a giant boat contrary to common sense. They trusted Noah's judgment enough to stick by his side through one hundred years of ridicule and alienation. Most women today would leave their husband if he so much as quit his job to start a prison ministry or a homeless shelter. It would be almost unthinkable to stay with him while he gave up everything to pursue an unprecedented project with no conceivable benefit. How many women would even believe their husbands had heard from God, let alone support him in carrying out God's instructions? I do not mean to blame women. How many men could inspire their wives and children to such devotion? What kind of man must Noah have been to inspire such loyalty in his wife and to have brought up such children?

I should also mention that Noah is the second verifiably monogamous man mentioned in Scripture. The first monogamist introduced death into the world, while the second presided over death's ultimate implementation. Both men were righteous overall, but their monogamy seems to be more of a practical consideration than anything else. Adam could not have two wives because polygamy was not to be the standard pattern for all families. Noah could not have two wives for two reasons: there were too few good women in the world, and he only took with him on the ark what was necessary for regeneration.

Loyalty

The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.
-Rensis Likert

The loyalty well held to fools does make our faith mere folly. [And lest you wonder, I mightn't desire such place in the tale.]
-William shakespeare [And me]

Prophetic Permutations of the Patriarchs

"What happens to the fathers, happens to the sons." Much of prophecy consists of a retelling of history with an added twist, sometimes with the names and locations changed. Consider the repeating elements in the stories of the patriarchs:

• Name change
• Moving away from home
• Flight from famine or persecution
• Exile by force
• Trouble with wives and daughters ending in wealth
• Return from exile

We can count on this pattern continuing. What happened to God's people in the 21st century B.C. also happened to them in the 8th century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. and will happen to them again. The details change, but much stays the same, especially God's promises.

Israel and the Church

My opinions on Israel and the Church will seem contradictory to many main-stream Christians and Jews, so let me kill your preconceptions now:

1. I do not believe the Old Covenant was done away with. God said "forever" too many times.
2. I do not believe the New Covenant replaces the old. It adds to it (the covenant, not God's Law), it enhances it, and it is superior to it in the same way that a state law is superior to city ordinance.
3. I do not believe God has rejected the Jews, the physical descendants of Judah. He sent them into exile and promised to bring them back again. He will never reject them.
4. I do not believe that there is one way of salvation for Jews and another for Christians. All people in all times are saved from their sins in the same way: by God's mercy acting through the blood of Yeshua. That goes for Adam, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, Thomas Aquinas, and George Washington. No one is saved by their adherence to a set of dos and don'ts.

My opinion is that God only has one people. Two brides, but one people. Judah and Ephraim (sometimes referred to as Israel or the Northern Kingdom) are two halves of one nation. Ephraim was sent into exile first and completely forgot her identity. God promised that he would not lose track of them, and that he would bring them back one day along with their sister. Judah appears to be returning from exile. Ephraim is sure to follow. Those who are physical descendants of tribes as well as those gentiles who attach themselves to Israel are all citizens of the same congregation. They do not replace Judah but are united under the Messiah.

Monte Judah's September newsletter has a great article on this subject. It's a little long and rambling, but I think he hit a home run: The Brotherhood of Judah and Ephraim.

They Who Dig a Pit Will Fall into It

 I heard a story at church this morning. A few years ago there was a woman in our congregation whose mother was grossly obese to the point where she could no longer walk or even get out of bed. One day she had to get her mother to the hospital, so five men from the congregation went to her house to help load her mother into the car. It was a long and difficult process full of humiliation and severe pain for the woman. She hadn’t done anything spectacularly wrong to deserve this. She wasn’t a wicked person. Over the years she had made lots of small, bad decisions: a choice on Tuesday to buy this instead of that, on Wednesday to eat an extra helping at lunch and another at dinner. Although none of those choices in themselves could be blamed for her current condition, the cumulative effect was devastating.

We are 300 million. Most of us are decent people. We aren’t evil. Yet we find ourselves in a very bad place right now, and it will be difficult and painful to get out of it. We borrowed for this and that, tried to save some people over there, minded our own business on that issue…and now we’re so overextended, so financially and politically bankrupted that nothing we could possibly do will fix it. There is no single person, no single wrong decision that brought us here. Rather there are millions of people, making millions of fatefully unwise decisions. Each one was just a shovelful or maybe a trowel or a spoonful of dirt. The pit is deep. We dug it, we’re in it, and there’s no ladder. In the long run, the only thing that will get us out again is a long series of morally and financially sound decisions.

Days of Seeking

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of ten days of reflection and repentance culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is also a day of resolution, much as New Year's Day is on the Gregorian calendar. The similarities end there, however. New Year's is festive. Yom Kippur is somber. There are no real consequences to New Year's resolutions. If we fail, then we are disappointed with ourselves, but little else happens. Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is about getting your life aligned with God's plan. Someday the Messiah will return on Rosh Hashanah and will take his throne in judgment on the following Yom Kippur. In that year, the days between will take on a much more sober tone as we contemplate answering for our lives to the True King. Each year that he delays is an opportunity to set things right, to make up for past wrongs, and to grow another step closer to perfection.

In my own life, this past year has been marked by some dramatic upswings, but then some harsh downturns as well. Right now, I'm backed into several corners at once, and I have no idea what the future holds or what I'm supposed to do next.  This has all come to a head in just the last few days. I have an unprecedented opportunity that isn't likely to come my way again, but it consistently remains just beyond my reach. I keep saying to myself, "Do what's right; let God worry about the consequences. Do what's right; let God worry about the consequences." But it's little help. How can I do what's right when I don't know what that is? I have no wisdom or divine revelation. It seems that God has conspired with the heavens to place the Ten Days exactly where I needed them this year. I have just over a week to spend in prayer and fasting until Yom Kippur. I hope I'll have some answers by then.

I wish I didn't have to be so cryptic, but I'm asking for your prayers anyway.