Marriage Supper of the Lamb (1)

Most Christians assume that the marriage supper of the lamb is the rapture, when the church is united with Jesus in a great celebration of togetherness in the air. This is not true. The marriage supper is a description of the defeat of human governments and rulers. This is made clear in Revelation 19. This passage begins with a description of a rider on a white horse.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. (Rev 19:11-13).

The widespread view that this is a description of the second coming, comes from an over literal interpretation of what is clearly a figurative passage. Jesus will not be riding a white horse when he returns. If taken literally, the passage portrays Jesus as revelling in blood as he destroys people with a sword. This grotesque interpretation is contrary to the gospel. He refused the power of the sword and warned that those who did would fall by it.

In biblical times, a white horse was the preferred mode of transport for a victorious king or general. The white horse proves that victory has been achieved. A vision of Jesus on a white horse is reminder that Jesus has already won the battle. The blood on his robe explains how victory was achieved. This vision reminds us that the cross was a victory over the enemies of God.

Capitalism

Capital is unavoidable. It is the only way out of a life of subsistence. The key issues is ownership of capital. The choice is between public ownership and private ownership.

A key difference between privately and publicly owned capital is that private owners have a strong incentive to look after their capital and make sure it does not deteriorate or become obsolete. If private owners do not shepherd their capital they suffer.

With public ownership of capital no one has an incentive to care for it. Look at the way the military wastes and damages valuable capital equipment for evidence. Likewise in the Soviet Union capital was often wasted.

Capitalists are often accused of greed. The reality is that greed, avarice and pride come out of the human heart, so they can manifest in any area of life. The great irony is that in the free enterprise system, capitalists are forced to care and serve. To become wealthy, they have to provide a service or product that people want.

If you start a business in and free enterprise economy with the goal of becoming rich you will almost certainly fail. Capitalism actually forces people to serve other people. If you talk to any person running a modern business, you will find they are flat out trying to provide the service that their customers need. They know that if they do not care about their customers enough to find out what the need, they will lose them. The business that does not serve its customers will eventually fail.

On the other hand a public bureaucracy does not have the same incentive. Dealing with the bureaucracy is often compulsory, so they do not need to worry about serving customers. People get ahead in a bureaucracy by working the system, not by caring for customers or serving their needs. The party hacks in the Soviet Union got their dacha’s by being ruthless and greedy.

Cost Benefit Analysis (3)

The price/cost/benefit grid is useful in every area life, but it should never dictate all our decisions.

Prices bring together information about costs, usefulness and value to other people in an imperfect but informative way. Money is a scale that allows us make comparisons between vastly different objects. How do you compare the value of a rose with a computer? Having a common value scale that allows us to make and approximate comparison between disparate things in away that helps us to make decisions. This scale is never perfect, so it should never be the only factor that feeds into decisions.

This grid is useful in every sphere of life. If a friend who lives 20 miles away asks you for pastoral care, you will drive to see him, because you care. If he lives a hundred thousand miles away, you would first find out the cost of the airfare. You might decide that you could not help the person enough to justify spending the money it would cost. You might suggest he get help from someone who lived closer. On the other hand, if the person was really close to you and think you could really make a difference, you might go regardless of the cost. The money/price grid must not dictate your decision, but it should inform it.

The same is true in business. A person will not buy a new business just because the benefits outweigh the costs. They will need to have an affinity for it. It will need to fit in with what they think is an important. Very few people can devote their life energy to something they do not value. Many factors other than cost benefit will affect the decision. Other values will be important in most decisions that are made. Price/cost is just one factor to that will feed into a decision making process. A business person will often put some business the way of a friend who is struggling, because he cares, even if the cost/benefit does not add up.

Business people should not become cost benefit machines, and I doubt that there are many that are. Certainly, they are not portrayed that way in business biographies that I have read. The cost/benefit driven business person is mostly a straw man set up by envious Christians. People in business know that life is much more complicated than that.

The price/money grid is useful for all of life, but it is just a tool. It must not be our supreme guide. Only God can take that role, whether we are a pastor or a plumber.

None of our decisions should be made solely on the basis of the price/money grid. That would be foolish. On the other hand saying that there are areas of life where it is irrelevant is equally foolish.

Cost Benefit Analysis (2)

Cost benefit analysis must not dominate any area of life, including business. Economic considerations should never totally dictate decision-making even in business. Responsibility to God trumps cost/benefit in every area of life, including business.

A businessperson may not steal, even if the benefits outweigh the costs. They cannot use violence or threats against their staff, even if the benefits outweigh the costs. They cannot use sexual favours to get ahead. A manager is still required to care for his/her family.

Second, we cannot divide into life business where prices and free exchange prevail and other areas (health and education) where caring and giving prevail. Life is not that simple.

In every area of life, whether business, health or education, we are free to give away our services for free or sell them for a price. We must not force other people to provide services for nothing. A doctor (or pastor) will sometimes sell his services for a fee. At other times he may choose to give them for free. The choice is his. We must not force him to provide his services for free, and he must not charge exorbitant prices to people desperate for care. He is always accountable to God for how he uses his gifts and calling.

The same applies in families. Parents will do most of what they do for their families expecting nothing in return, but sometimes a father will say, I will take you to the game, if you wash the car. A parent must never treat their children as slaves. Parents are accountable to God as parents.

The businessperson has a duty to care for the poor, even if, like the good Samaritan, he uses his own money to pay someone else to provide care for the needy person. He must not take other people's money to care for the poor, because that would be stealing.

Cost Benefit Analysis (1)

Cost/benefit decisions permeate the whole of life. I go to a prayer meeting rather than stay in bed, because the benefits outweigh the cost. If the prayer meeting loses the plot, I will stop going.

Jesus said we should count the cost before we decide to follow him.

A doctor working in an emergency department will do triage, to ensure that he puts energy into those who will benefit from his care. A caring hospital will manage costs extra carefully, so it can help more people.

A good teacher will put efforts into activities that will benefit learning. He will have to decide how the costs/benefits of Shakespeare compare with those for trigonometry.

Parents have to make choices between working to provide for their family and spending time with their children.

Benefits and costs are inescapable because everything we do has benefits and costs.

Kings

The first kingdom to exist was the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is more real than earth, so God is the only true king.

When men seek to become kings and rulers, they are attempting to be like God. Even David could not be a true king. God let David take the role as a type of Jesus Kingdom, just as the tabernacle was a type of the heavenly sanctuary. However, a type is always a shadow of the reality it represents.

Every human king is a usurper of God’s true kingdom.

The Jubilee

I am not sure how the Jubilee can be applied in the modern world (Leviticus 9:8-13). Every time I ready the Jubilee passages, I get the sense that I am missing something really important. I plan to keep seeking till I find it, but here are a few preliminary thoughts.

The jubilee is a marvelous principle. It means that every second generation, got access to some capital to use for their economic development. They get another chance, no matter what their predecessors have done.

The jubilee tells us something about human nature. The assumption is that if the Father “loses the plot”, his son will think the same way. The land comes back to the third generation with the hope that foolish thinking has been broken by the season of poverty.

Another implication of the Jubilee is that when helping the poor, it is not enough to give aid. Poor people need to be given access to capital. This theme has be been developed by Herman De Soto.

Perhaps in countries with oil or mineral wealth, instead of this being owned by the government, every citizen could be given an equal share in the company owning the resources. People could use this equity as security to get started in business.

One of weakness of free-market capitalism is that the successful people accumulate capital, while the rest do not. The children of the successful get a head start over the children who have no capital. This inequality can often create envy. Even Christians look at this inequality of opportunity and say it is unfair (though it is hard to fault parents helping their children). The jubilee, if it could be made to work in some way, would roll back this inequality and give everyone and equal opportunity start.

I do not see the jubilee laws as justifying enforced redistribution by the state. Maybe we need to develop a voluntary process for making the jubilee process work. Maybe Christians who have been successful in business an accumulated a lot of capital could look for young people with potential and provide them with capital to get started in business. This might be a combination of gleaning and jubilee.

I am interested that as Bill Gates has reached his jubilee, he has lost interest in trying to get Windows to work, and is more interested in helping the poor. Maybe, when an entrepreneur gets to a certain stage in life, they become more interested in providing capital to third generation people who need a leg up.

Islam

When one group sees the world as Moslems at the gates if Vienna, while another group sees the world as Christians at the gates of Teheran, this leads to fear, hatred and misunderstanding on both sides. God sees the situation differently.

Prophets are Deviants

Every team needs a deviant, someone who can help the team by challenging the tendency to want too much homogeneity, which can stifle creativity and learning. Deviants are the ones who stand back and say, “Well, wait a minute, why are we even doing this at all? What if we looked at the thing backwards, or turned it inside out?” That's when people say, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s ridiculous “. And so the discussion about what’s ridiculous comes up… The deviant opens up more ideas, and that gets you a lot more originality.

In our research, we've looked carefully at both teams that produced something original and those that were merely average, when nothing really sparkled. It turned out that the teams with deviants outperformed teams without them. In many cases, deviant thinking is a source of great innovation.

I would add, though that often the deviant veers from the norm at great personal cost. Deviants are individuals who are willing to say the thing that nobody else is will to articulate. The deviant raises people's level of anxiety, which a brave thing to do. When the boat is floating with the current, it really is extraordinarily courageous for somebody to stand up and say, “We've got to pause and probably change direction,” Nobody on the team wants to hear that, which is precisely why many team leaders crack down on deviants and try to get them to stop asking difficult questions, maybe even knock them off the team. And yet it’s when you lose the deviant that the team can become mediocre.

Diane Coutu in a Harvard Business Review article called Why Teams Don’t Work based on a study of numerous teams in a variety of situations.

This is a good description of the role of the prophet.

The Holy Spirit and the Scriptures (4) - Tough Task

The Holy Spirit had a few problems getting the scriptures written. He could whisper thoughts in the author’s ears, but he could not force them to write exactly what he wanted. So he sometimes had to have a second go, just to get everything that he wanted in. That is why we have the book of Deuteronomy. Much of it already written in Exodus, but Moses missed a few important things. So the Holy Spirit got him to write down the law again many years later, after he put those missing ideas and concepts into Moses mind.

If the Holy Spirit had been able to control Mark, we would probably have just one gospel. But Mark missed out some important parts of Jesus teaching, so the Holy Spirit got Luke and Matthew and John to have a go. Between them they got down everything that the Holy Spirit wanted in the gospel.

The theology stuff was really hard to get right. Paul did really well with Romans and got a lost of stuff tied down. However, he had to write quite a few more letters before he had recorded all the technical stuff that the Holy Spirit wanted in the scriptures.

The Holy Spirit and the Scriptures (3) - Late Additons and Hard Passages

Some passages may have been added later by a different author. That does not matter, provided the Holy Spirit wanted them included. Mark 16:9-20 and John 8:1-11 are good examples. They are absent in the earliest manuscripts, which suggests that they were either added by a different author later or copied from a different piece of writing by the original author. Neither passages adds anything that is not stated elsewhere in the scriptures. They are inspiring passages, so I am certain that the Holy Spirit wanted them there.

When dealing with hard passages, I do not focus on the problems, but ask what the Holy Spirit is saying. I ponder his reasons for putting the passage in the scriptures. This has lead to many interesting insights.

When considering a controversial modern issue, my first thought is to ask, “What has the Holy Spirit put in the Bible to deal with this issue?” This usually leads to some interesting insights.

A good example is the modern dispute about genetic engineering. Most people would just assume that the Bible has nothing to say, because genetic engineering did not exist in the biblical world. I actually found some interesting teaching in the book of Leviticus. The author did not understand the full implications of what he was writing, but he was giving insights into how we should deal with this difficult issue.

The Holy Spirit and the Scriptures (2) - Differences

Some people worry about difference Jesus words being recorded differently in different gospels. We should remember that preached almost every day for three years. He would repeat the same message numerous times using slightly different wording each time. The different gospels just record the version spoken on different occasions. The Holy Spirit provided these different versions so that we can get a fullest possible understanding of Jesus message.

Translation was also an issue. Peter’s response to Jesus question about who he was is recorded differently in different gospels.

The Christ of God (Luke 9:20)
You are the Christ (Mark 8:29)
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16).

The most likely reason for these differences is that the gospels were written in Greek, whereas Jesus and Peter spoke in Aramaic. The Holy Spirit often needed slightly different Greek versions to get the full meaning of what was spoken in Aramaic. We should be glad for the fuller insight this provides.

The Holy Spirit and the Scriptures (1)

I take a fairly simplistic approach to the scriptures. I just assume that the Holy Spirit got everything that he wanted into the book.

He gave the authors lots of freedom. Their writing style reflected their personalities. They put in lots of personal stuff and bits of their family history that are not very important. However, the Holy Spirit ensured that they got the key stuff right.

The actual text was written by humans, so understanding the objectives and culture of the author may sometimes be helpful for translating and interpreting the Bible. For example, it is helpful to understand that Matthew used the expression Kingdom of Heaven because he was writing for Jewish readers.

My key question when interpreting the scriptures is “What is the Holy Spirit saying in this passage?” This question leads to real insights.

The Holy Spirit's meaning is not limited to the understanding of the author. The Holy Spirit sometimes put ideas in the author’s heads that they did not fully comprehend. They sometimes thought they understood what they were writing, but the Holy Spirit was using them unwittingly to communicate something they did not understand.

False Hope, True Hope

The people of Jesus time were praying that God would take his power and reign, that he would become king. They hoped that he would exercise his sovereignty and rescue them. “You are the King of the world. Why don’t you come and be king, so the world can be put right.”

They were totally disappointed with Jesus. He came as King and Messiah, but not as they expected. They rejected his deliverance, and eventually Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.

Most modern Christians have the similar hope. They want Jesus to return and put the world right. They will be disappointed, because Jesus has already done everything that he could do, when he died and rose again.

God is invading the world, not by Jesus returning, but through his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is capable of doing everything further that needs to be done to restore peace and blessing to the world. He just needs willing people to work through. He needs people to trust in him, rather than looking for a vague future hope.

True Justice

Mark Rushdoony talked recently about true justice.

The real objective is righteous (righteousness = justice in scripture). Justice is the righteousness of God. It cannot be defined in terms of right or left, or political definitions.

Grace, mercy, judgement and our responsibility, must be defined in terms of God’s word. If we fail to do this,
grace becomes entitlement

• mercy become welfare
• judgment become a political decision.

Our responsibility is now directed toward a vaguely defined good society, rather than to a godly society.

Beast Day?

People celebrating Independence today may actually be worshipping the terrible beast of Daniel's vision.

After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.

While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.

The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time (Dan 7:7,8,23-25).

This frightening kingdom devoured the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing everything that stood in its way. This is a description of a powerful military empire that will dominate most of the earth.

Not Europe
Most biblical commentators say that this prophecy will be fulfilled when the European Union transforms into a super-state, like a restored Roman empire. There are real problems with this view. Disagreement between the EU members means that they will be unlikely to hand over full sovereignty to the European parliament. Europe is economically weak and its population is declining. European military forces are very limited and the anti-war sentiments of the population would make a military build-up difficult. Therefore, if this prophecy is being fulfilled in our time we need to look outside Europe.

A Union of States
The most obvious interpretation of the beast with the ten horns is that a number of independent nation states hand over their sovereignty to become part of a single united nation. One third of these nations refused to hand over their sovereignty and are forced to join under threat of military force.

America is only once place where this has happened in recent history. The thirteen states that gained independence from Britain were each independently governed, autonomous nation states. They joined together to fight for their independence, but they remained politically independent. After the war of independence, these nation states came together and established the United States. They created a federal system in which they handed over very limited powers (mostly defence) to the federal government. All other powers were retained by the states.

We sometimes get confused by the use of the word state in this context. These states were not provinces of a greater state, but independent nations that gave some power to a federal government. Because they joined freely, many states considered that they could also withdraw from the Union. At the beginning of the civil war, the southern states attempted to withdraw from the Union and establish a separate confederacy.

The civil war was primarily fought over the right of these states to secede from the Union. The army of the twenty northern states (two thirds) destroyed the armies of the 11 southern states (one third). The victory of the union forces enabled them to maintain the union, eliminating the power of the states to secede. This opened the way for a gradual shift of power to from the states to the federal government.
During the following century, the United States became the most powerful nation in the entire world and the states are now just provinces of this greater entity.

Commentators are looking for a powerful confederacy of nations. They forget that a powerful union called the "united states" already exists. Daniel saw a group of nations (ten horns) joined together to become one nation (a single horn). At first the federal government had very limited power (a little horn). The federal government defeated a group of states that tried to withdraw from the union (three horns) and then the federal government became very powerful (little horn becomes large beast).

The numbers ten and three should not be taken literally. Ten symbolises completeness, indicating that all the states joined freely. The number three indicates that 3/10 of the states would be defeated in their attempt to secede. The number also symbolises God. At the time of the civil war, the southern states were the more godly, whereas the northern states were dominated by a heresy called Unitarianism.

Ten minus three is seven. Seven symbolises divinity. This indicates that the conquering states would take attempt to take on sovereignty that belongs only to God. The beast attempts to "try to change the set times and the laws". This is a reference to a rejection of God’s laws.

Since the civil war, the United States government has become increasingly secular and humanistic. The Supreme Court has forced through a separation between church and state that has shut the influence of Christianity out of the corridors of power. Whereas the thirteen original states had laws directly based on the bible, American law is now dominated by pragmatism and humanism.

More at Terrible Beast.

Rushdoony on the State

Thus the true church in every age has a mission to the state, to proclaim the fall of Babylon, to declare to the state that civil government can endure only under God and in obedience to His word, that every attempt of civil government to become as god, to be the purveyor of grace and of paradise, is damned and doomed. The cleansing of civil government and the indictment of it by the word must be the task of the church in every age.

Rousas Rushdoony in Thy Kingdom Come, p.178.

Rushdoony and Radical Libertarianism

Rousas Rushdoony wrote,

Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had (Roots of Reconstruction, p.63).

Chris Ortiz has explained that Rushdoony describes theocracy as a "radical libertarianism" because morality is lived out and scrutinized around a minimal state, or civil government. In this sense, Rushdoony is truly libertarian, as set over against those seeking only to get civil government out of the bedroom and their stash of pot:

The state in Scripture is a minimal institution, and so too is the church as an institution. The rule of God's law is essentially through the lives of men as they apply their faith, and as they create tithe agencies to govern various areas and needs. Where faith wanes, then theocracy wanes (Systematic Theology p.1141).

Foreshore and Seabed

The foreshore and seabed has become a political issue again in New Zealand. A ministerial panel declared that the existing legislation should be repealed.

My article called Ahab and the Foreshore is still relevant.

Rushdoony and Government

Rousas Rushdoony was very clear that we should not try to re-capture or take back existing institutions. We should create alternative institutions. He put most of his efforts into doing this for educations.

We must apply the same approach to politics. We should not try to take back the existing institutions, as the Christian Right have done. We should creat alternative institutions, that can eventually replace them.

Christians should start building an alternative justice system in their local communities. If their judges provide good justice, people will bring their cases to them. (In New Zealand, we can use the second clause of the Treaty of Waitangi as basis for an alternative justice system).

The biblical pattern is the law at the top, self disciplined men at the bottom and a system of appeal courts in between (Gary North - Unconditional Surrender, p 140).