So in Genesis 34 do you think Jacob may have missed the opportunity God gave to Abraham, Genesis 22:18. That maybe Dinah was the catalyst for a try at a descendant blessing another nation? Anyone and everyone answers are most welcome.

There is a trend among Christian Men's Red Pill teaching to which I take exception, and I felt the need to explain myself, since I'm the odd one out. I'm referring to the strong note of repulsion for women during their monthly discomfort. Some go so far as to say, "Don't touch her!"

It does seem to be a major issue in the Old Testament, in particular. It's mentioned in the prophets and arises from two chapters of Leviticus, 15 and 18. If you take the time to read them carefully, you'll notice two distinctly different attitudes in each of those chapters. In 15, the whole thing is merely a matter of ritual purity. Sex with a woman in menses means you have to wait until tomorrow to go to worship in the Tabernacle. Yet, in 18 it suddenly takes on a much stronger tone. That's because the chapter itself stands in a different context referring to pagan worship practices.

It comes as a surprise to many Westerners that in the Ancient Near East, all kinds of normal human activity can take on a pagan taint. It's not just the worship of Baal and Astarte, but a whole range of weird pagan beliefs that we find hard to imagine. Yes, sex with your spouse during menses could be a pagan religious ritual. It could also just be ordinary love making. That's why those two chapters in Leviticus take on a different tone. The question becomes one of motives, not the act itself.

So, with all those comments from the prophets about this subject, I take them to be references to the pagan ritual sex, not the ordinary behavior of couples in private. I noted this when I wrote my study guide on the Law of Moses. Having a strong attitude of repulsion is one thing, but to misuse Scripture to justify it is wrong, and I see this common teaching as an abuse. Sure, avoid it for the 24 hours prior to formal worship with others, but I don't believe the act of sex with a woman in menses is some kind of primal sin in itself.

What are the terms of the covenant, in brief, since it is meta to denominations?
Thanks!

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.

Mark notes that upon leaving Magdala, Jesus and the Twelve headed up to Bethsaida. This town sat on the Upper Jordan, just a bit above where it fed into the Sea of Galilee. It's just possible that this portion of the river was navigable to smaller boats, at least to a place on the banks near where we believe Bethsaida stood in those days.

At Bethsaida Jesus healed a blind man and commanded him to keep it private. From there, they took the main road toward Caesarea Philippi, some 50 miles (80 km) to the north. We don't know if they actually went to Philip's capital on the site of the ancient shrine to Pan at the foot of Mount Hermon, but Jesus did visit some of the towns in that area. At some point along this journey, Luke tells us in the parallel passage that Jesus was praying when His disciples came to join Him.

Jesus queried them on what people were saying about Him. The list included a resurrected John the Baptist, or perhaps a manifestation of some of the ancient prophets -- Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. Pointedly He asked what they themselves thought. Peter wasted no time in taking the lead, answering that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.

Jesus responded that Peter was blessed to have learned this from the Father, since it clearly wasn't the consensus of mere men. This is where Jesus asserts that at some time in the future, this man they all had called Simon bar-Jonah up to this point would some day be called Peter (Petros, "a stone") who was part of something much bigger than himself (petra, "a rock formation"), a Covenant confession upon which Jesus would assemble His kingdom.

And because Peter took the lead in this confession, Jesus would have him hold the keys for when it was time to open up fresh areas of the Kingdom to redemption. This confession was to be the new identity of a kingdom that would draw in people from all over the world. Peter would be there to open new lands and peoples to the gospel.

We can be sure it confused them when Jesus commanded them not to tell others that He was the Messiah. He tried to explain once again why, and kept trying to explain it from that day forward. As they made their way around Herod Philip's tetrarchy, Jesus began explaining that the Messiah was not what they were taught to expect, and most certainly not what the Jewish leadership were expecting.

Indeed, at some point He would go to Jerusalem and confront the ruling elite. They would use the full weight of their authority to silence Him, even to the point of killing Him. Yet, on the third day after that, He would rise again in full glory. Peter took Him aside privately to warn how this kind of talk was scaring the disciples. Surely the Messiah came to rule over the nation! It appears that Peter misunderstood what it meant to hold the keys of the Kingdom.

This was yet another attempt by Satan to prevent Jesus going to the Cross, and Jesus said so. He rebuked Peter for working the opposition agenda. Jesus had no doubts about the Father's will, and politics was not a part of it.

Jesus turned and included the others in this conversation. He made it clear that He was going to carry a Roman cross and be executed. Joining Him for that kind of self-sacrifice was essential to being part of the Messianic Kingdom. If anyone clings to this life, it will be lost. But those who could give it away would save their souls. There's nothing else people could give in exchange for Eternity.

He warned them to keep their eyes on the eternal reward of obedience, the Day of Judgment when the Father will send His Son back to collect all those who served Him. In the meantime, there was a lot of serving ahead of them, as the Kingdom would keep them very busy. Jesus said cryptically that some of those standing there at that moment would be alive to see the birth of that Kingdom in which their service would begin.

I've closed my PayPal account. I learned that they have begun charging an inactivity fee and I haven't used it in a very long time. I can't foresee using it again, either.

Again, this is not a prophecy. It's just the inclinations of my heart.

So far as I know, we all tend to believe that the Lord will use the sun as a major element of His wrath on America (and naturally, the rest of the world, but that's outside the boundaries of my mission). And we've shared a bit about things we might do to prepare for such an event. In Iain's prophecy, some of that was tied to a reduction in the use of computer devices. I've been praying for clarification on that. In response, the Lord has moved me to make certain preparations, but has not given me any details about why.

So I'm just guessing here, doing my best to extrapolate backwards. I suspect the Net will become unusable, but not necessarily as a direct result of the sun's activity. Rather, that activity will become the excuse for human choices that, in the aggregate, will make the Net far less usable. While I can imagine all kinds of things along those lines simply because I've learned a lot about the technology and protocols of Internet traffic, I suspect there are some surprises being planned already, choices we would not expect. Certain actors in the government in concert with major corporate service providers will seek to shut down anything resembling free communications. We are already seeing plenty of this; it would be a matter of plugging the gaps that currently remain open.

So I just imagine a big flare/CME situation that wasn't quite enough to actually shut down the electrical grid would become the excuse to limit traffic to authorized uses, as it were. You can guess where that might lead. Of course, it could be any number of excuses TPTB might cook up, but that would be one easy to imagine. What I'm suggesting here is that things will go bad in stages, not all at once. I expect the tribulation to drag on for a long time. So at some point will come restrictions, then some more restrictions, and then maybe the hand of God will come and finish it all off in a big way later.

Meanwhile, we should see any number of other serious problems crop up with economic decline, political drama that goes off the scale, warfare without actually war declarations, and natural disasters that no one connects to the solar cycles. The conviction-led preparations seem to point to something far less than a full-on apocalypse all at once. It will take a long time to reach the crescendo, and preparations that are possible today will only take us just so far along that path. This thing has a very long tail. Some of what I feel moved to do right now makes no sense at all for what I can see coming in the near term. I'm gathering stuff for which I currently see no use at all. I can imagine some possible uses, but I know without a doubt that I'm only guessing.

That's what I see; I could be wrong, but it's what my convictions tell me.

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 feel led to shoot from the hip here.

I'm not leading anything; I'm just the guy who discovered something God was doing and I've invited anyone who wants a share of it to dig right in. I've indicated in the past that it's very hard for us to assess where God is going with this thing we all share. My vision doesn't include that. How about yours? All I can say is that I'm pulling out answers I could never find before, and it seems the rest of you have been looking for something like this. But whether it's a concerted search for that one precious pearl, like with me, or just stumbling across that treasure while pursuing something else, it's worth our whole lives when we find it.

For quite some time I've insisted that this should not be a denomination. It was intended to be a meta-religion: A faith-based search for the underlying structure of religion. Of course, I fully expect someone in the future will try to turn it into a denomination. That's how Western folks are programmed. There's nothing I can do to prevent that, but I'm trying to make it a doctrine that we don't do that.

Somewhere down the road in front of me, the Lord indicates I'll be leading a local group of some kind. I'll do my best to distinguish between that local body and the teaching behind how I do religion. I keep trying to do that with my writing, leaving the door open for someone to find their own way to manifest something deeper that will bind us all together. While I'd rather not put a label on it, I know it's not how people will do things. That's why I came up with the Radix Fidem name; I wanted something nebulous for what will surely become the denominational label.

I'd like to think this thing we are doing would be really good for a massive number of people, but I have no idea if that's where it's headed. The Lord hasn't shown me anything about that. While it's remained tiny so far, I'm deeply convicted that tribulation will change that. For now, all I can say is that using the Net has a very limited future as a means of spreading this idea. And I have no idea how we would spread it offline, because there's too many variables right now. We can't do what mainstream churches have done up to now, so it has to be something different.

Barring any clearer sense of mission, I've been trying to make sure I enunciate a clear image of Bible teaching and some structural ideas of how to proceed. That's as much as I can offer right now. God is our Publicist, so it really depends on how He wants to do it, when the time comes.

The crowds were growing again. Jesus left His home area and headed far outside the country, into the area of Tyre and Sidon. He was trying to take a break, but even this far away, people had heard of Him and He was constantly besieged by crowds in need of healing and deliverance. He was trying to restrict His miracles to His own nation, but the sagacious words of a local woman moved Him to compassion and He delivered her daughter from a demon. The crowds exploded and there was no rest.

Jesus took a roundabout route through the Tetrarchy of Philip and around the east side of the Sea of Galilee in the highlands. Eventually, He came to the coast through Decapolis, putting Him on the southeastern shore, far away from any towns. As usual, He was spotted and crowds of people came for the miracles. He healed a deaf man. No matter how He tried to keep things quiet, it just kept getting worse, with people herding toward Him like iron filings to a strong magnet.

After three days of this, the huge crowd was getting a little restless from hunger. He announced to the Twelve that He intended to send them away, but wanted to feed them, since so many of them had came a great distance. Despite all the miracles they had seen in the past few weeks, the disciples still saw no way to do this. They managed to produce seven flat cakes of pita between them.

Once again, Jesus had the people organized in groups sitting on the ground. Then, as before some ten miles to the north on the same shore, He performed the ritual of thanksgiving, and began tearing the cakes, passing them to the Twelve to distribute, and never running out of bread. Someone kicked in a few small fish, and these were handled the same way. Everyone in the crowd ate their fill, and the disciples managed to collect back enough to fill seven baskets -- from seven cakes to seven picnic baskets full.

It had been roughly four thousand, and Jesus sent them away full.

If you visit the Sea of Galilee today, on the far westernmost point of the shore, you'll encounter a small town sporting archaeological digs identifying this as the site of Magdala. It was also called at times Dalmanutha and by the Roman name Tarichaea. Just to the south rises Mount Arbel, and the site of Magdala sits in a fairly large flat plain. Jesus loaded His crew into a boat and directed they sail to this place.

As usual, this small village was overwhelmed by the crowds that soon gathered. There was at least one decent sized city nearby, Arbel, and Tiberias was just down south along the shore. From the synagogues of these bigger cities came yet another delegation of Pharisees. They regarded healing and demon deliverance as rather mundane, perhaps easily faked. They demanded that He perform a sign that was clearly from God, something that couldn't be faked.

In exasperation with their intransigence, Jesus refused. For one, there had already been several such miracles, and they had refused to take note. It was never good enough for them. Wasn't it odd that the crowds of peasants had heard plenty about the miracles, and came running by the hundreds, but the Pharisees acted like it was nothing? Jesus' choice of words at this point indicated His condemnation for those who ruled His nation. This "generation" had become so hardened against divine truth that there was no hope for them. Even if Jehovah spoke for them in His own thundering voice, they would not listen.

When Jesus decided it was time to go, they embarked in their boat and headed across the sea toward the far shore. As they sailed along, He dropped another one line parable on the disciples: Take head of the leaven of Pharisees, and of the royal court. Each had their own kind, obviously. But the Twelve were obtuse as usual, wondering if He was onto them about having forgotten to pack some food.

How could they possibly have made that leap of logic? What does the impurity of the ruling class have to do with packing a lunch? In the Law of Moses, it was clearly a symbolism to yearly toss out all the sourdough they had kept working through the year, and start from scratch to grow a fresh batch. This was part of the Passover, celebrating how they didn't have time to let their bread rise that night, but must be ready to travel into the wilderness. So they had to make it a concerted effort to remove all leaven from the household and eat unleavened bread for the next seven days. It came to symbolize removing corruption, as if it were baggage that would slow them down. (It wasn't hard to restart a fresh batch of sourdough leaven, but it was inconvenient, taking several days.)

Just about everything the Pharisees did was rooted in materialism. Their whole approach was that material prosperity was the birthright of their particular brand of shallow ritual "holiness". But it was obvious that everything they did was calculated to keep power and wealth in their few hands. The royal dynasty was no different; they simply had their own methods. But it was a synergistic atmosphere. The Pharisees and Herodians were simply competitors for the same wealth at the expense of keeping the whole nation in grinding poverty. Somehow it was a "blessing" to the people that they be starved to keep the ruling class fat. They were agents of Satan, always abusing the sheep to deny them the blessings of the Covenant. So, even the feeding miracles were simply a restoration of Covenant shalom.

Jesus rebuked His disciples. How many of their picnic baskets were filled from the five thousand they fed a while back? And how many baskets were filled just recently from the four thousand? Each time, they were fed from almost nothing, and there was always plenty left over. Even those who were deeply pickled in the false Messianic Expectations would have understood that these miracles of abundance signified the riches of God's provision. Jesus could have called down bread from Heaven, and fish from the sea would jump into their boat, if food was critical to their mission.

Restoring the Covenant is everything. Nothing else warrants much attention. But if you suffer need to the point it hinders the mission, trust the Lord to provide. He never fails.