Tag Archives: markers

April 22, 2022 · 11:31 am

Paradigm change…..

Paradigm is a word that I always say is one of my favorite words to use, mainly because it is event changer! lol

I use this word for alot my illustrations in biblical senses and also in just real life occurrences. This blog I hope gets you thinking about the subject of “Paradigms”, in mainly the subject of what it actually is, and then also of if you see ‘it’ in the scriptures of the Bible.

I read alot. When I read a book that is telling a story of say a historical narrative, there are always ebbs and flows of that historical story, especially of a long one. Sometimes in the story there is a ‘Major’, or ‘surprising’, or ‘unsuspecting’ occurrence that you would of never seen coming. It is this ‘thing’ that We will be talking about.

Let’s start with what I consider the obvious one of ‘different’ boundaries in objectives that are set out for us. This one, I am talking about is the differences we see in the bible, in that, it is divided into two parts, The Old testament, and the New Testament, It is here that I believe that it is the source of misunderstanding of what it is all about. The old testament, is a story of a people under a covenant to God, The New Testament is a story about a new covenant to ‘all people’. (Note-using ‘testament’ and ‘covenant’, is key to ‘hearing’ the right story in the bible. These two words mean different things, they are not interchangeable. We must use ‘covenant’ to ‘see’ the story right.)

The old covenant had boundaries, They were for the people of Israel, they had laws to abide with, their identity was shown in their ‘eating preferences’ and of the males being circumcised, and They kept Saturday as their ‘Holy’ day of God. This covenant was the description, the identity, the sign that they were of God’s people. Upon seeing an Israelite in the market shopping for food, and their selections did not include pork and sea crustaceans, meant that they were of Jewish belief. If you did not any of your friends on friday eve, meant that they were celebrating their ‘sabbath’ in worship. It was these things that were identity markers of the Israelites in that day.

Let’s now identify the New Covenant’s identifiers. Now first I am going to show the ones that are being used in our christianity model that is prevalent today. I will then suggest something different, and righteous. Let me just start out by saying this is sorta foggy from an outside perspective looking in, but let’s give it a try. I would like to start from the street angle first. I am not sure we can ‘identify’ a ‘christian’ (as opposed to an Israelite of the old covenant) it seems that the ‘christian’ has blended in with the rest of the crowd to as they were led to believe that if I mingled with them, I would be able to ‘be’ at their level and to talk to them about ‘Jesus’ and lead them to salvation. This is a problem. But there are a few that you can tel with mannerisms or subtle talking that can deduce a ‘difference’ from the normal society. There are no markings on a ‘christian’ to distinguish that they are one. They have no selective eating habits so to speak, unless it is one of preferences. The one that is still used for identity, is the one that they ‘see’ as Holy is the ‘Day of Sunday’ as God’s Day for worship.

Standing at a street corner and looking to identifying a ‘christian’ now is very hard. Unless it is a Sunday and you are standing on the church corner.

God chose identity markers for the Israelites for a special reason. Because they stood out, they ‘were’ different to other people’s eyes and ears.

It is still relevant for the ‘New Covenant’. Our current model is not of God’s identity markers. It is of ours.

God chose one identity, It was the “Holy Spirit”, this then would be producing the Love of God, and Love to others.

Let’s look at this and why.

The Promise of the Spirit

           28      “It will come about after this
     That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
     And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
     Your old men will dream dreams,
     Your young men will see visions.
           29      “Even on the male and female servants
     I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

The Day of the LORD

           30      “I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth,
     Blood, fire and columns of smoke.
           31      “The sun will be turned into darkness
     And the moon into blood
     Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.
           32      “And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD
     Will be delivered;
     For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
     There will be those who escape,
     As the LORD has said,
     Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Joe 2:28–32.

Now, if we were walking down the street of downtown ______________, You would be astounded at these people who were filled with the Holy Spirit and their wonders and ‘Life’ that they had of their God. Their ‘identity markers’ were not of a physical or action of the flesh but one that was coming from inside their being showing what their God is!

Maybe we should rethink the Paradigm that we ‘think’ is supposed to identify us to the world, and just let the Holy Spirit of the Lord do the talking for Us!

So, What do you say? Ready for a Paradigm shift!!

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July 5, 2021 · 2:54 pm

Two shall become one

You probably have heard this phrase a million times over your life in various ways.

If you are married, you probably heard it in your ceremony of nuptials. This is the allegoric phrase that is used to say that two married will come together as one in union to live as one. It is, as always a phrase that is used to point out a union, a mixing of things to become one in whatever instance it is used.

This “Two shall become one” is again used in the story of God and His people. But two people would you be talking about? For those people that are familiar with the story of God and Gospel of the New Testament, their is a distinction of two people that defined as God’s people and ‘Gentiles'( those that weren’t God’s people), it was that simple. The story of ‘God’s people tho is a long and drug out story of the ups and downs of a people that were supposed to committed to a covenant with their God. It is this story that I would like to tell a side that has not been really told or understood in our storyline of the Gospel.

The storyline that has been really emphasized is the one of the gentiles and their struggle to leave their idols and gods behind them and to know the God of Abraham. This story has been told and retold and summarized, pulpit beating, Hell threatened, God is coming, Satan is after us to who all else knows! But I think that we may have missed something that might be key to our understanding to our side of the equation of the two becoming the one. It is what the other side is told to give up, for they were given a “new and better way of doing the thing of worship”.

I would like to point out here that this is probably true coming from the other side from the Jewish to the ‘gentile’ issues. But I think maybe on both sides we have a bigger issue that also needs to be addressed, and that is lack of digging deeper into what Paul was saying in the scriptures, about the reason that God sent his son and what that meant to ‘God’s people’ and also to the gentiles. But we will dig deep into just the one side of it. The Jewish side of it.

For the Israelite’s it was a stay the same for them scenario, Jesus’ arrival onto the scene, didn’t change anything for them(Religious authorities),they were looking for the proverbial ‘Knight on the white horse’ to save them from the bondage that they were facing in the Roman world. But whether they believed it or not, it was so. It was a different story with the ranks below them that some believed the God of Abraham had sent his Son to dwell with them to bring them out of slavery.

It was the ones that believed within the Israelite’s(also the gentiles,but just talking about the Israelite’s) that were told that their ‘ way’ of being marked as a God image was changed. It would not be the sacraments that they were used to. No longer would they be ‘officially’ God’s people by the circumcision of the men, the mandatory food laws to be strictly enforced, the Temple would not be the building that they where used to by their Kings of their forefathers, no, it was to be ‘Christ in Us’, and as a bonus togetherness, we would be ‘in Christ’! This would be so wonderful for God’s people(also for the Gentiles). But the problem for the people of God this was so irrational, and goes against what God has told them over and over again thru their forefathers. This was also a very humanistic solution for man’s problem. It was a solution for whole world, that would say that it would only take the right man to put in power to solve the problem.

God’s solution was better, It was Him.

Let’s go back to the solution for the Israelite’s and what the Gentiles and I mean mainly the christians that have heard the gospel, that it seems that we have took up the ways of old, and are working withing the system of the Israelite’s, we have gone back into slavery, which Paul was telling the believers of Jewish background that they kept going back into, but why?

It is this problematic scenario of the christian believers now that have fallen back into the ways of old, that we can’t go back into the old covenant. We are in the ‘New Covenant’! Jesus’ death and resurrection has brought us into the New Covenant!! It is New!

Let’s look at the three thing that I believe that ‘We’ as christians have been ‘working within the parameters of the old covenant and trying to work as tho we were in the New Covenant! You can’t. It’s stupid to think that we could. I believe we either didn’t realize we were doing this or we ‘really didn’t know we were doing it’.

Circumcision, let’s face it this is an outside ‘marker’ of God’s people, but it was ‘hidden’ within the world. This is in itself not a ‘saving gesture’ of God.

Food laws, is in reality a very life changing thing for anyone, let alone for the Jewish sect of God’s people. This commandment was a ‘gesture’ of putting them in the world as ‘different’, it was at first a good thing, to ‘see’ you God’s people were. But in itself was not going to be a ‘saving gesture’ of God’s plan. It was the plan of the Israelite’s eating with others, because now it would not be an issue of what was ‘clean’ of God. It was now considered ‘all clean’ for everyone.

Now we come to the issue that I think is our biggest stumbling block of all. It is the ‘Temple’. Do you ‘see’ from what I have very briefly said about what happened with Christ’s death and resurrection changed things for both sides. For which neither side has done a very good job of adhering too. But it is gentiles that we are working on now, that we need them to see that what the Israelite’s were giving up, they must also.(the physical temple of God, God changed this thru his Son) We are ‘in Christ, and ‘He is in Us’, this the same action as what the Temple and the High Priest were doing every time they went into the ‘Holy of Holies’ room.

This action is what is needed, along side the other two things that the Jewish people needed to believe that God was not only in them but in everyone in the world, after all everyone is God’s image and likeness!!

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