Dale offers “country landscapes” as the theme for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I picked three rural scenes. The first was on the way to Cripple Creek, Colorado. The second was along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. The third was a harvested corn field seen from a country road in northwestern Indiana.
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25 King James Version
In the comments to my post last week on demons, Oneta Hayes reminded me that I missed a whole class of demonic activity. The demons I missed were those that appeared “beautiful and compelling”. I pointed out the obviously ugly ones, but I missed the attractively strong delusions of unbelief that could be described as humanistic righteousness.
That is sometimes called self-righteousness, because one’s righteousness is based on following what is good in one’s own eyes. Self-righteousness justifies the ethics of humanism because humanism acknowledges no other ground than man: our reasonings, our wants, what we experience with our senses or our emotions. It is what grounds the ethics of ideas like effective altruism where one optimizes the amount of “good” one can do on a monetary basis. See Peter Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically.
No matter how good this appears to be if it is not what Yeshua (Jesus) wants us to do, it is not good. It can’t be, because there is nothing good outside of His will.
O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalm 107:1 King James Version
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Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Bamidbar, 5 Sivan, 5782 – June 4, 2022
Torah: Numbers 1:1 – 4:20
Haftarah: Hosea 2:1 – 2:23
Brit Chadashah: Romans 9:22-33; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
No one tended the vegetable stand hidden in the hills. There was an open box where one could put coins and bills to pay for the vegetables all marked with prices. Customers made their own change from what was in the box.
Some took vegetables without paying. Some took some (and sometimes all) of the money in the box. Others put more money in the box than they were asked to. Others in repentance returned money or something as exchange for what they shouldn’t have taken.
At the end of the season enough remained to make the next year possible.
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Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below as the prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers.
The heretic hunters smirked as the paralyzed man was slowly lowered through the roof to the Master’s feet. Their ever simmering fluid of righteousness popped its cork when they heard the Master declare, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Some thought, “Just who does he think he is?” They argued that only the demon possessed would say stuff like that.
The Master waited for the heretic hunters to catch their breaths. The paralyzed man waited also since he couldn’t do much of anything until he first heard words, spoken with the proper authority, like, “Arise, pick up your bed, and walk.”
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Denise offers the word “fluid” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
For what really happened see Luke 5:17-24.
Dale offers the prompt “my indoor space” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I took two photos of the desk that I currently use. I forgot to tidy things up before taking the photos.
To paraphrase Andrew Wommack: If our lives aren’t supernatural, they’re superficial.
Through much of my life I didn’t believe that demons really existed. They made interesting characters in spooky stories, but from a superficial perspective psychology seemed to explain them away as personality disorders. That unbelief in them undermined, but it did not crash, my belief in the rest of the supernatural.
To counter that unbelief in demons and reaffirm a belief in the supernatural I remember reading M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie on evil and Raymond Moody’s Life After Life on near death experiences. However, my grounding view of demons came more from movies like The Exorcist than the Gospels.
Sentimental New Age influences also crept in. The movie Labyrinth offered a view of the demonic that seemed simpler to cast out if only I could remember the magic spell. I began to realize it was easier to tell a demon he had no power over me than to actually stay free from demonic addiction. However much New Age spirituality invitingly plays with the demonic, it brings no authority with it to boss demons around.
Too often I forgot that it is only through exercising the authority of Yeshua (Jesus) that I had any hope of being victorious when facing a demon. Eventually I saw them manifest through their effects like addiction, anger, illness or sin on my life and the life of those around me.
As disciples of Yeshua we are sent to heal the sick and cast out demons among other things (Matthew 10:8). If we don’t know how to go about that, we could prayerfully start with ourselves. If Peter’s shadow is any indication of what is possible (Acts 5:15-16) we may not have to say a word before the demons scatter.
Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Bechukotai, 27 Iyar, 5782 – May 28, 2022
Torah: Leviticus 26:3-27:34
Haftarah: Jeremiah 16:19-17:14
Brit Chadashah: Matthew 21:33-46; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
That detour Brian didn’t have to take took decades. When troubles knocked some sense into him, he lacked the sense to ride those blessings home. Sliding on curses he went where no one needed to go.
When Brian found his way home he told us, “If I knew how easy it would be to jump off that merry-go-round I’d have done it long ago.” Regretting the waste of life, he added, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
We were so glad to see him none of us saw any need to remind him just how often we had told him.
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Denise offers the word “detour” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Proverbs 15:32 – “He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.” (KJV)
Dale offers the prompt “my outside space” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I took these photos a short walk from where we now live.
The leaves below are either from a sweetgum tree or a sycamore or something else entirely. The sunset in the bottom photo was taken from the other side of the pond shown in the top photo.
33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
Matthew 5:33-35 King James Version
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Matthew 5:33-35 is the kind of passage that I’d likely skip over, because I didn’t understand it. Is Yeshua replacing the law of not swearing falsely in YeHoVaH’s name with not swearing at all?
Nehemia Gordon translated the problematic portion of verse 34, rendered by the KJV as “Swear not at all”, from the Hebrew manuscripts in The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus, page 65, as “you must not swear by anything falsely”. George Howard translated this portion of the manuscript as “But I say to you not to swear in vain in any matter” (page 21).
The difference is between not swearing at all and not swearing falsely (or in vain) by anything, let alone by YeHoVaH’s name. The Hebrew text does not prohibit swearing, but swearing falsely. Now that I understand. It makes sense.
According to Gordon, Yeshua countered a Pharisaic teaching that permitted one to swear falsely as long as it was not in the name of YeHoVaH. Gordon writes, “This strange doctrine was based on an over-literalization of Leviticus 19:12, “you shall not swear falsely by My name.”” (page 65-66). According to Howard, this raised a striking contrast between the Greek and Hebrew texts: “In the Greek, Jesus appears to revoke the law; In the Hebrew, he internalizes and radicalizes the law, but does not revoke it.” (Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, page 213)
What this tells me is that we need these Hebrew manuscripts to better approximate what the original autographs actually said. It also increases my suspicions that the Greek manuscripts were translations from a Hebrew source since this Hebrew manuscript still makes sense.
Weekly Parashah Readings
Parashah: Behar, 20 Iyar, 5782 – May 21, 2022
Torah: Leviticus 25:1-26:2
Haftarah: Jeremiah 32:6-44
Brit Chadashah: Luke 4:16-21
Resources: Chabad, Hebrew4Christians, Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
The puzzle looked like confused confetti so I jumped right in to set things straight. No piece was totally benighted because each had a right side though some of them displayed their wrong sides up. I was grateful for those few that had edges.
With all pieces properly placed (except for those the dog ate) the puzzle displayed an image of white puzzle pieces scattered on a dark table waiting for someone to jump in and straighten them out.
And that’s all there is to this confused tale. I’m still wondering why I jumped into that mess of confetti.
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Denise offers the word “confetti” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 