Election Day 2016

I'm not thrilled with the candidacy of Donald Trump. If I remember correctly, he got a D on my conservative score card. Better than Romney, Christie, or Bush, but still not good. On the other hand, I understand his emotional--and even intellectual--appeal to patriotic voters. Despite some serious problems with his character and politics, at least he has made some noises about protecting America from our most serious threats. If he wins the election today, I'll be nervous about America's future. There are a lot of potential problems.

On the gripping hand, I have no reservations whatsoever about condemning Hillary Clinton and everyone around her. She is evil, wicked, foul, disgusting...Whatever pejorative you care to toss her way, it will stick.

Gary Johnson... Please. What a joke.

If Trump wins, I'll be nervous. If Clinton wins, I'll be ashamed and sickened by what has become of America.

The Briefest Introduction to Chiasms

The Bible is full of chiasms (kai'-a-zumz), literary structures used to provide a framework to a story--what a novelist might call a story arc--or to convey additional meaning to what is contained by the bare text. The singular is technically chiasmus and the plural is chiasmi, since the word is derived from Greek and Latin. Since I speak English, I prefer chiasm/chiasms. In a chiasm, a series of phrases or concepts in the first half of the narrative are mirrored in the second half, usually--but not always--with one, unmirrored statement at the center.

Chiasms were used extensively by writers in many ancient cultures, and sometimes they are still used today, especially in poetry and song. Along with parallelisms, thematic allusions, Hebrew word play, and a number of other literary devices, chiasms can give fascinating insight on the meaning that the original Biblical writers intended to convey. They can be as short as a single verse or span multiple books. Most commonly they span a few verses or a chapter.

A typical chiasm might look something like this:

A - God speaks to prophet
  B - Prophet speaks to people
    C - People respond to man
      D - God acts
    C - People respond to God
  B - People speak to prophet
A - Prophet speaks to God

Sometimes they are very easy to see, but often they are obscured by translation from Hebrew or by artificial chapter and verse divisions. Being able to read the Hebrew (which I cannot), definitely makes them easier to find. Tony Robinson has a lot of great teaching on chiasms and thematic connections in Scripture. You can check them out here: Restoration of Torah Ministries.

And I have a growing list of them here: Index of Biblical Chiasmi and Parallelisms.

If you want to learn how to find and understand Biblical chiasms for yourself, check out The Chiasm Course!

Thematic Connections between the Flood and Sodom

Tony Robinson has a number of great teachings based on thematic connections between different stories in the Bible. In this video, he illustrates a parallelism between Genesis 6:9-9:23 on one side and Genesis 18:23-19:37 on the other. Be sure to give him a thumbs up and share the video.

Video from Tony Robinson:

What Was Ham's Sin and Why Was Canaan Cursed

Here is the same parallelism graphically illustrated:

...and again in text for the search engines:

A: 6:9 - Noah was the only righteous man in a wicked generation.
    B: 6:13-22 - God will destroy the earth because of its violence
        C: 7:3-16 - Noah and family enter the ark to save their lives
            D: 7:17-24 - All life destroyed in the flood and rain
                E: 8:1 - People and animals saved because God remembered Noah
                    F: 8:4 - Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat
                        G: 9:20-23 - Ham committed a sexual sin while Noah was drunk
A: 18:23-24 - Abraham asks, Would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?
    B: 19:13 - God will destroy Sodom because of the outcry against it
        C: 19:14-22 - Lot and family leaves the city to save their lives
            D: 19:23-28 - All people of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by sulfur rain
                E: 19:29 - Lot and family are saved because God remembered Abraham
                    F: 19:30 - Lot and daughters settled on the mountain above Zohar
                        G: 19:31-37 - Lot's daughters had sex with him while he was drunk

This parallelism shows that Ham's sin was almost certainly sexual in nature, but why would Noah curse Ham's son instead of Ham himself? I think the two most likely explanations are that 1) Ham permanently broke the relationship of Noah with one of his sons, so Noah's curse against Canaan broke the relationship between Ham and one of his sons or that 2) Ham's sin was actually against his own mother, and Canaan was the offspring of that sin, much as Lot's daughters gave birth to Moab and Ammon through their sin.

A Chiasm in Genesis 9 around Eating Blood

A chiasm in Genesis 9 surrounds death and the abuse of life with promises of life and blessing. Perhaps the purpose of this arrangement is to say that, if you want to live a long, productive life with lots of children and joy in the the things that God has given you, start by respecting those gifts as well as the people around you.

• V1 – Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth
• V2 – All moving things delivered into the hand of man
• V3 – All living things given to man
• V4 – Don’t eat blood
• V5 – God requires a reckoning for the life of man
• V6 – Man delivered into the hands of man
• V7 – Be fruitful and multiply, increase in the earth

Or to put it in more narrative terms...

"Go fill the world so you can manage it. To help you, I've given you these resources, but if anyone takes a life that I have not put under your authority, you are to take his life. Did you hear me? I'm giving you authority over all of these lives, but if any of you go beyond that, I will revoke your authority even over your own life. Don't bring blood guilt on yourselves, whether by murder of another human or by eating the blood of an animal." -God

For more on chiasms--including how to identify, map, and interpret them--check out The Chiasm Course!

A Double Chiasm in Exodus 13:2-18

Remember to Whom you belong. Remember Who has redeemed you from bondage. He doesn't need you. You need Him.

• v2 – First to open the womb is mine.
• V3 – Moses said, Remember how YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand
• Don't eat leavened bread
• V4 – This is the month of Aviv
• V5 – The land YHWH swore to give you
• Keep it in this month
• V6-7 – Eat unleavened bread
• V8-10 – Tell your son, Remember how YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand
• V12 – Set apart the first to open the womb.
• V13 – Redeem the firstborn
• V14 – When your son asks, tell him “YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.”
• V15 – Pharaoh was stubborn & disobeyed
• YHWH killed their firstborn.
• I sacrifice firstborn to YHWH & obey
• V16 – Redeeming the firstborn prompts us to remember that YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.
• V17-18 – God redeemed Israel from the land of Egypt

For more on chiasms--including how to identify, map, and interpret them--check out The Chiasm Course!

Eliminate ALL Healthcare Regulations ASAP

When Obamacare first passed, I said it would be a disaster (no brainer, that), but that the disaster was a feature, not a bug. It was sabotaged or allowed to fail on every level so that the American people would beg for a total government takeover of the healthcare industry. Now even the Republicans want to "fix" Obamacare or replace it rather than the more sensible alternative of a total repeal.

The ONLY way to fix the American healthcare system is to get the government completely out of it. Remove all regulation while holding everyone accountable for their actions. No more protections for pharmaceutical companies, no more government mandated insurance scams, no more fake "privacy" rules, no more denying care to people who want it, no more forcing people into "care" that they don't want... Just get government out of it and keep it out.

If you want to see an allopath, an osteopath, naturopath, or a witch doctor, then do it. If you want to help people, then help people. If you want help, then ask for it. If you want certain standards in the handling of your own medical info, then demand it and hold your providers accountable. Just quit meddling in everyone else's business.

One day Is as a Thousand Years

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8 ESV)

Peter originally wrote this in reference to this prayer written by Moses:

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4 ESV)

In context, neither of these writers meant that a thousand of our years is actually just one day to God. Both writers were trying to describe God's ageless perspective. If "a thousand years is as one day" is to be taken literally, then what do we do with the first half of Peter's statement, "one day is as a thousand years?" They can't both be literally true. The only reasonable conclusion is that he meant it as a rhetorical device to illustrate how God is never impatient or in a hurry. Like Gandalf, He arrives precisely when He means to.

In Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that he would die in the day that he ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, yet Adam didn't drop dead on the day he ate. In fact, he lived for another 930 years. Some explain this discrepancy by pointing to Psalm 90 or 2 Peter 3. Yet using 2 Peter 3, one could also say that Adam lived for 339,450,000 years because one day is as a thousand years.

When God told Abraham that Sarah would have a son in one year, did He mean one of Abraham's years or one of God's years? If He meant God's years, did He mean the short one or the long one? As you can see, taking a metaphorical passage literally leads to absurd conclusions.

There are clearly prophetic implications to God's inhuman perspective of time, but I very much doubt that they are mathematically dependent on the 1:1000 ratio. It's a theological principle, not an algebraic one.