From today's ride, a couple of things caught my eye:

   

This is the Okana Resort from the backside, along the river bank. Lotsa glass infrastructure.

   

A shot of the OKC skyline from across Eagle Lake -- sitting in a cool shady spot, of course.

Apparently Mr. Zuckerberg doesn't want me back. I'm banned from FB for "suspicious activity" on my non-existent account. Okay, so it's now Farcebook. Anyway, I'll have to work around this, because a lot of campsites have no online presence other than FB.

I was exposed to strong sunlight on my ride back Tuesday. While I did use zinc oxide paste on most exposed flesh, I missed a couple of places. Turns out the vents in my bike helmet left me with stripes on my scalp. I need a good sun hat for future rides, something that will shade me down to the shoulders with a brim that won't fold up in the wind.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

I previously referenced the idea that there were two kinds of sin in the Old Testament, particularly if you are looking in the Book of Leviticus.

Unintentional or inadvertent sins were not precisely what those words imply in English. The meaning of the Hebrew terminology has more to do with what it is not: a defiant sin. In other words, the sins covered by the ritual offerings and sacrifices were more than simply accidents. It could cover a host of things that were simply natural events, but which caused you to be ritually unclean.

The concept for several types of rituals were bound up in something that would never occur to modern western minds. There was a broadly defined sense of ritual impurity attached to things naturally exuded from a living organism. It could be blood and semen, of course, but it could be applied to honey from bees. Thus, for a grain offering, honey was not a permitted ingredient. On the other hand, it didn't include something that sweat that was of no consequence in terms of what you lost or what it could do, such as blood or semen, which had the force of life in them.

Another distinction not obvious to us is the difference between offering and sacrifice. The latter term applies only to an animal that is slaughtered as part of a participatory meal set before God, whereas offering is anything you bring to God as a gift. Not every English translation will render these words faithfully, but in the Hebrew mind, there was a difference.

Another issue is the inclusion of salt in the grain offerings. It was flatly commanded in Leviticus 2:13. In that same passage, you will discover that God refers to the "salt of the Covenant". It shows up again in Numbers 8:19 and 2 Chronicles 13:5, referring to a "covenant of salt". It is a figure of speech referring to a covenant that has grave consequences.

You may be familiar with how the covenant God made with Abraham included animals cut in half and bled into a trough -- a blood covenant. Among humans, such a ritual would see the two parties to the covenant/treaty wading through the blood to symbolize their recognition that if either of them violates the covenant, they deserve the same fate as the animals sacrificed in that way. In the case of a salt covenant, the reference is to having your cities destroyed and the land sowed with salt so nothing would grow there again. In human experience, you won't live long enough to see the salt leeched down deep enough for the soil to become fertile again, so it might as well be forever.

Adding salt to offerings is a reminder that you have voluntarily signed onto this. It also gives new meaning to Jesus' admonition that His followers should have salt in themselves (Mark 9:50) -- be at peace with one another.

The English term "peace offering" in Leviticus would be better translated as "offering of well-being" for reasons we already understand. Peace with God -- shalom -- refers to stability, prosperity and safety. This offering is not to cover any kind of sin, but to give thanks for God keeping His promises. Notice that God gets the fatty portions of animals for those offerings. This is also the only offering we've encountered so far that includes the person making the offering sharing in the meal. It's a fellowship meal; you already have peace with God.

Finally, let us note that there was never any hope of reconciliation for intentional sins under Moses and you would have to pay the consequences, but in Christ there is a sacrifice for all sins. This is why the Book of Hebrews lavishes so much attention on the superiority of the Covenant of Christ. There is always a way back to the Father through the Son.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Pam is currently in Spain on a European trip with her sister and sister's friends, and there's a huge blackout in Spain and some areas outside the country. They are supposed to fly to Amsterdam tomorrow.

Spain Hit By "Massive, Really, Massive" Power Blackout

She's in downtown Grenada now, trying to get back to her hotel. So far she seems to be safe.

Quote:Then I saw another beast coming up from the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but was speaking like a dragon. He exercised all the ruling authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and those who inhabit it worship the first beast, the one whose lethal wound had been healed. He performed momentous signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people and, by the signs he was permitted to perform on behalf of the beast, he deceived those who live on the earth. He told those who live on the earth to make an image to the beast who had been wounded by the sword, but still lived. The second beast was empowered to give life to the image of the first beast so that it could speak, and could cause all those who did not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He also caused everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. Thus no one was allowed to buy or sell things unless he bore the mark of the beast — that is, his name or his number. This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, and his number is 666. (Revelation 13:11-18 NET)

Quote:Gematria is a numerological system by which Hebrew letters correspond to numbers. This system, developed by practitioners of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), derived from Greek influence and became a tool for interpreting biblical texts.

Just sharing my progress...

I'm still planning on staying with the folding bike. Having tested how my camping gear will fit, I'm going to need a bike trailer. About the only one versatile enough to work with mine is a bit pricy at around $300 -- Burley Travoy. My rear axle can't accommodate the ones that attach there. This is about the only way I'll be able to make this happen. I'm not doing a fundraiser (edit: not on the forum), but you can help if you like. (Yes, I know that, if I had a full-sized bicycle, I wouldn't need to go this route. One worth having would cost over $1K these days.)

I'll keep using my phone for pictures until I can save up for a better camera.

It looks like my first trip will be to Chandler, OK -- Bell Cow Lake has camping spaces on the south shore. When I'm about ready to roll, I'll double check with the city parks people about using a hammock. That will save a lot of weight. The more research I do, it seems the biggest challenge will be finding places I can camp here in Oklahoma. There are tons of RV sites, but precious few actual camping sites near reasonable stopping points on any route. Most RV places don't allow tent camping. The various mapping services are notorious for not listing more than maybe half the places that do exist. One of things I plan to do is develop a registry of places I can camp legally, and maybe stealth camping sites, as well. Oklahoma isn't very friendly about this right now.

There are a great many small towns where I may be able to camp in the local city park, if I can find a phone number to call. I'm really surprised at how many towns have no website at all. There is a site that attempts to keep track from a state level, but the information can be sorely out of date very quickly. If I start running into trouble, I may try to use the old church networking system, since churches tend to be very hungry for publicity and even small ones have some kind of contact information posted somewhere. Another trick is contacting the county sheriff's offices.

Whatever ends up working for me, I'll make sure that gets into the narratives I post. I'm still planning on using Substack simply because of the wider exposure. I'm also considering putting up another Facebook account for it, as that's still a thing in Oklahoma. Indeed, more public agencies have a FB account than have regular webpages. It may also be a way to discover camping sites on my routes. FYI, all of this will be resting on my OG ("original gangster") account on Google: jehurst@gmail.com. It's 20+ years old.