09-29-2023, 06:57 AM
Substack is not allowing logins this morning; apparently the server that is supposed to provide some of the scripting support is not responding. For the time being, I am forwarding today's post here.
Peace Not Possible
If you can grasp the big picture, then you stand in the place to understand some of the variables we face in our context.
On the one hand, world peace is not going to happen. We know that; it’s stated in Scripture too often. On the other hand, a mitigation of sorrow is certainly possible. I’ve stated this before on this blog (in its pervious incarnation) that human violence is a necessity. The Books of Enoch got this very wrong, in portraying violence as the nasty thing the elohim sneaked around to teach humans. War among fallen humans is a direct result of the Fall, but not in the sense most people assume. Violence is an integral part of mortality. It is not a corruption of anything; it is built in. The mitigation is not stopping violence, but insuring that violence serves God’s justice.
The doctrine of non-violence is a human lie, a blasphemous insult to God. It’s more than just acts of war between nations. He decreed in Genesis 9 that there must be a human authority to bear the sword on His behalf. The problem we have is the dispute with God over who is supposed to wield that sword. The narratives regarding Noah assume that the one who wields the sword will be a close relative of the one who is executed. The family head of household is the first line of authority that bears the duty to execute their own kin who commit murder.
There is something peculiar to our western heritage that is a blasphemous insult to God: the Germanic Tribes and their abuse of feudalism. Their idea of feudalism was all about property, not people. What they believed, due to their pagan religious background, is that they can gain the right to disrupt the feudalism God commanded through Noah. If a Germanic lord conquers the land, he gains feudal rights to the people on the land. He has no familial obligation to them, but he owns them. That is not how the Bible says we should do things.
Over the time and distance from those days of ancient Germanic tribal idolaters, we end up with a civil government that insists it has economic property rights in the individual that happens to reside within the jurisdictional boundaries. In the Bible, such a claim was strictly limited, but in our American government, the claim is absolute. Our American legal system says the government has zero duty to care, but the individual has unlimited duty to obey and contribute. When government decides to offer some kind of support, it is a privilege, not a right. Thus, your government has no obligation to care for you at all, but has every right to extract from you all your economic value.
According to God’s Word, no one has permit from God to rule your life unless they are related to you by blood or covenant. That’s part of the Covenant of Noah. It’s also part of the Covenant of Moses.
Jesus spoke often about saving life and caring for your “neighbor”, but that word “neighbor” meant covenant family. The assumption behind the Law of Moses was that you bore a familial obligation to everyone under the same covenant. So, Jesus would heal His own fellow Israelis, but He was quite reluctant to heal the Syro-Phonecian girl. Only when the girl’s mother declared herself under the feudal authority of Israel did Jesus relent and deliver the girl from demonic power.
The same thing happened with the healing of Naaman, the Syrian warlord. He had to present himself to the prophet as submitting to the feudal covering of Moses via the Code of Noah (which covenant Naaman already understood, apparently).
You have no duty to strangers other than the very limited care commanded by Moses and demonstrated by Jesus. Those strangers could not be hostile, but knew they were obliged to be submissive to the terms of Noah. I’ve emphasized this several times: You cannot bless anyone who does not submit to your personal dominion in terms of the covenant law code. You can also merge dominion between members of the same faith family. No longer having a national covenant identity has changed things a bit. If you have a covenant community of faith, it expands the authority you hold from God. Without such a community, the scale and depth of authority is limited. However, the business of feudal submission remains.
You should learn to reject all the manipulative pleas for charity that do not assume a priori your feudal authority in the Lord. The sense of false guilt is a lie from Hell. Random Americans have no claim on you, much less foreigners. The only question is what response will most clearly glorify the Lord, given that they have no clue about covenants. The point is that you should learn to discount any false sense of moral obligation. There is none outside the Covenant.
You cannot extend your covenant covering over anyone outside your tribe who does not at least temporarily submit to your authority from God. That the vast majority of the world rejects this is the primary reason there can be no peace.
There’s more.
Peace Not Possible
If you can grasp the big picture, then you stand in the place to understand some of the variables we face in our context.
On the one hand, world peace is not going to happen. We know that; it’s stated in Scripture too often. On the other hand, a mitigation of sorrow is certainly possible. I’ve stated this before on this blog (in its pervious incarnation) that human violence is a necessity. The Books of Enoch got this very wrong, in portraying violence as the nasty thing the elohim sneaked around to teach humans. War among fallen humans is a direct result of the Fall, but not in the sense most people assume. Violence is an integral part of mortality. It is not a corruption of anything; it is built in. The mitigation is not stopping violence, but insuring that violence serves God’s justice.
The doctrine of non-violence is a human lie, a blasphemous insult to God. It’s more than just acts of war between nations. He decreed in Genesis 9 that there must be a human authority to bear the sword on His behalf. The problem we have is the dispute with God over who is supposed to wield that sword. The narratives regarding Noah assume that the one who wields the sword will be a close relative of the one who is executed. The family head of household is the first line of authority that bears the duty to execute their own kin who commit murder.
There is something peculiar to our western heritage that is a blasphemous insult to God: the Germanic Tribes and their abuse of feudalism. Their idea of feudalism was all about property, not people. What they believed, due to their pagan religious background, is that they can gain the right to disrupt the feudalism God commanded through Noah. If a Germanic lord conquers the land, he gains feudal rights to the people on the land. He has no familial obligation to them, but he owns them. That is not how the Bible says we should do things.
Over the time and distance from those days of ancient Germanic tribal idolaters, we end up with a civil government that insists it has economic property rights in the individual that happens to reside within the jurisdictional boundaries. In the Bible, such a claim was strictly limited, but in our American government, the claim is absolute. Our American legal system says the government has zero duty to care, but the individual has unlimited duty to obey and contribute. When government decides to offer some kind of support, it is a privilege, not a right. Thus, your government has no obligation to care for you at all, but has every right to extract from you all your economic value.
According to God’s Word, no one has permit from God to rule your life unless they are related to you by blood or covenant. That’s part of the Covenant of Noah. It’s also part of the Covenant of Moses.
Jesus spoke often about saving life and caring for your “neighbor”, but that word “neighbor” meant covenant family. The assumption behind the Law of Moses was that you bore a familial obligation to everyone under the same covenant. So, Jesus would heal His own fellow Israelis, but He was quite reluctant to heal the Syro-Phonecian girl. Only when the girl’s mother declared herself under the feudal authority of Israel did Jesus relent and deliver the girl from demonic power.
The same thing happened with the healing of Naaman, the Syrian warlord. He had to present himself to the prophet as submitting to the feudal covering of Moses via the Code of Noah (which covenant Naaman already understood, apparently).
You have no duty to strangers other than the very limited care commanded by Moses and demonstrated by Jesus. Those strangers could not be hostile, but knew they were obliged to be submissive to the terms of Noah. I’ve emphasized this several times: You cannot bless anyone who does not submit to your personal dominion in terms of the covenant law code. You can also merge dominion between members of the same faith family. No longer having a national covenant identity has changed things a bit. If you have a covenant community of faith, it expands the authority you hold from God. Without such a community, the scale and depth of authority is limited. However, the business of feudal submission remains.
You should learn to reject all the manipulative pleas for charity that do not assume a priori your feudal authority in the Lord. The sense of false guilt is a lie from Hell. Random Americans have no claim on you, much less foreigners. The only question is what response will most clearly glorify the Lord, given that they have no clue about covenants. The point is that you should learn to discount any false sense of moral obligation. There is none outside the Covenant.
You cannot extend your covenant covering over anyone outside your tribe who does not at least temporarily submit to your authority from God. That the vast majority of the world rejects this is the primary reason there can be no peace.
There’s more.