{From a conversation on:

“Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Mt 15}

The Pharisees held many plants which needed to be rooted up, but Christ said they sat in Moses’ seat, which was certainly planted by the Father – and Paul, who gave up the heresies, remained a Pharisee, thus half or more of the Greek Scriptures were written by a Pharisee: another plant certainly planted by the Father.

In fact, Christ’s words were: “all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.” Mt 23 (Obviously not referring to the traditions of the elders which they taught, but whatever they said from the seat of Moses.)

So one could say from this that the main fault of the Pharisees was in not following the Phariseeism that they taught, but following other traditions instead of Pharisaical keeping of God’s Law, which they above all people should have followed.

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/29

“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law” Acts 21

It is stunning to me when again and again I see people who claim to honour and study Scripture, yet swallow hook-line-and-sinker the atheist fairytale that Christianity is a new religion which replaced Judaism.

“Judaism” as it is understood today is a thing of today. Christianity received its name after Christ’s incarnation, but it is the same religion practiced by Noah – which in Scripture is simply referred to as “righteousness”, and fearing God.

Being a Jew, in the sense of being circumcised, never was nor can be a religion (or a bloodline, I might add): it is a covenant. It was never replaced, those who entered it and who do enter it are (obviously) bound by their word to keep that covenant. The only change is that now none should enter into this covenant (for various reasons). Obviously new people come into it by it being passed on: if you do not circumcise your child, you have broken the covenant. But no one should now take circumcision onto himself.

“Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.” 1Cor 7

There was never a moral requirement to become circumcised: it was commanded to Abraham and his household as a sign of God’s covenant to specifically bless Abraham; any others who entered into that covenant did so completely voluntarily.

It was a heresy taught later, in the Pharisees day, that unless you were circumcised you were not one of the righteous and could not enter heaven. It is astonishing how many today teach that this heresy was only a heresy after Christ, despite having the Scriptures in front of them, which say not a word of how Christ changed it to not be so, but only of how it never was and never can be so: if someone doesn’t understand how such a heresy can never be true, it is hard to say they understand salvation at all.

Christ saves the righteous, the innocent (such as little children, the prime example he gave), not the circumcised, or the baptised.

“So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Gal 3

“Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Yahweh:
look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you” Is 51

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/22

Some would count it as humility to never say that you know something. But when the Father says to work in his vineyard, to say, “I don’t know what he means”, when you know full well what he means, is simply disobedience and rebellion, not humility in any way. It is not humble to doubt God. Humility does not equal doubt, least of all when God himself has made something clear.

This is true of everything fundamental to morality: “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” Ro 1. How much more when, in addition to this, God adds his perfect and preserved Word?

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/15

Another thought on Christ’s command to be armed: this command is one of multiple cases where Christ prophetically preempts great heresies that would be wickedly attached to his name.

Perhaps the foremost example was when he said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets”. No prophet that he had sent previously had to say, “I’m not replacing what was said before me”; yet one of the greatest heresies that would be later taught is that we can ignore, downplay, and disobey everything God said before he came to earth. It’s almost like Christ knew this beforehand. 🤔

Similarly, no prophet Christ had sent previously needed to teach people the importance of the duty of being armed and ready to fight (except perhaps in certain cases, such as “cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood” Jer 48). The sudden emphasis Christ places on this duty was no doubt prompted by the knowledge that in future one of the great heresies would be to blasphemously associate the name of Christ with pagan concepts of blanket non-violence.

Some such ideas of pacifism no doubt were wormed into the cultural view of Christianity via the Roman Catholics, who were simply dressed up pagans from the start. But wherever such ideas came from, they are obviously utterly incompatible with Christianity.

One dramatic example of this incompatibility is when some rationalise pacifism by saying that we should not protect ourselves (or even others!) because this is a lack of faith in God’s protection. This is all but straight from the mouth of Satan, who said to Christ, “Cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee”, and of course the same answer is given to the pacifists as Christ gave to Satan: “It is written, Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God.”

All Christians have the duty to be ready to fight as well as they can to defend others as they defend themselves (they should defend themselves), and to avenge others, as they would have others avenge them.

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/08

Since we’ve been away all day, this’ll be brief. 🙂

If the passions of humanity are a tree, the trunk is the passion they all should share: Morality, Reason, the Scriptures, and such; each branch has branchlets from it, but has a central trunk of its own: which the appropriate passion an individual person’s life, which all their other passions feed out of for them, as all of humanity’s individual passions feed out of the great trunk.

The central passion of my individual life is: the Strange.

From a conversation:

I gradually came to the full realisation that everything I was ever personally interested in came from a certain aspect of it: the Strangeness of it. Once I looked at my life and finally fully realised this and began exploring it, I have had an unquestionable vision of what my life will and is meant to be. 🧭

#SabbathPosts 2023/07/01