New Covenant Patriarchy
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Man and Woman in Biblical Law
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The Institute for Christian Patriarchy is happy to announce the availability of:
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Book Information: |
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This book is a doctrinal manifesto. Its aim and purpose is to produce what many modern writers are fond of referring to as a paradigm shift. The goal is to lay the foundation for the establishment of a truly biblical social order, especially within the community of Bible-believing, Christ-honoring families. The subject matter is patriarchy and the biblical exposition contained herein is devoted to establishing the proposition that it is patriarchy which is and was mandated by God ever since the original creation of man and woman. This work is vulnerable to being misperceived as a work primarily about polygamy since the bulk of the exposition centers around that subject. But read carefully. Note the flow of the argumentation. The biblical exposition on polygamy here serves a supporting role to the fundamental proposition of God-ordained and mandated patriarchy. In terms of this thesis, it is a secondary and subsidiary point - which is not to say that it is not important as a subject in its own right. There are a multitude within the ranks of the Evangelical churches who are rightly and justifiably dismayed at the encroachment of feminist ideology as a subversive factor within Christendom and who are formally in favor of the biblical mandate of male headship within the Family and the Church. Sadly, almost all of the responses and reactions to this encroachment are fundamentally compromised with feminism in one way or another. This present work rejects all such compromise. A complete Scripture Index is included. |
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Download Book in PDF Format Now
Tom's book is now available free of charge here as a PDF file.
Click on this link -> Man_&_Woman_in_Biblical_Law_5.pdf
Form the front cover:
MAN AND WOMAN IN BIBLICAL LAW
A Patriarchal Manifesto
Resurrecting the Biblical Family
Part 1
by Tom Shipley
From the back cover:
“For by a secret law of nature, things that stand chief love to be singular; but things that are subject are set under, not only one under one, but, if the system of nature or society allow, even several under one, not without becoming beauty. For neither hath one slave so several masters, in the way that several slaves have one master. Thus we read not that any of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read that many females served one husband, when the social state of the nation allowed it, and the purpose of the time persuaded it: for neither is it contrary to the nature of marriage. For several females can conceive from one man: but one female cannot from several men (such is the power of things principal) as many souls are rightly made subject to one God.” —St. Augustine
“We should not assume that our ways are normal and that God’s ways are an abnormality which needs vindication.” —Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics
“The continued obligation of the Levitical law on this subject is also recognized in the New Testament. This recognition is involved in the constant reference to the law of Moses as the law of God. If in any of its parts or specifications it is no longer obligatory, that is to be proved...If God gives a law to men, those who deny its perpetual obligation are bound to prove it. The presumption is that it continues in force until the contrary is proved. It must be hard to prove that the laws founded on the permanent social relations of men were intended to be temporary.” —Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology
Friday, May 29, 2009
How to Spot a New Covenant Wife
For you New Covenant Patriarchs out there looking for a New Covenant Wife to help you in fulfilling the Dominion Mandate, there is a special test you can apply that will, in most cases, ensure you are not getting fooled into being yoked to a feminist.
Sadly, there are many well-meaning single young women who look, talk, and imagine themselves to be a suitable helpmeets to a New Covenant Patriarch, when in actuality they are feminists.When Eve, the original feminist, sinned, the temptation was to be as god:
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing (determining) good and evil.
And what is a god's first priorty? The first commandment of God is: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The feminist version of this is: Thou shalt have no other wives before me.
A feminist cannot tolerate her husband having any other wives besides herself. She must, as a god, lay claim to exclusivity in as jealous a way as God does in Scripture: "for I the LORD thy wife am a jealous wife."
Beyond this, if you can find a young woman who not only adheres to the original Ten Commandments but also these Ten Resolutions, then you have found a wife that is truly a precious and a good thing.
Find a godly woman who happily relinquishes the claim on exclusivity as a wife and you will be in line to be that man of whom our Lord in Isaiah 58:12 speaks of:
"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Unintentionally Single Girl and Biblical Law
Bad doctrine and the culture war have combined to frustrate many godly Christian women in their desire for a husband.
WORLD magazine's article Single and stuck? highlights the problem of those women who were raised as god-fearing Christians wanting marriage but stuck in singleness. They want to fulfill the normal desire of every young girl to have a husband and a family. But where are the faithful righteous men that are supposed to come calling asking father for their hand, competing to rescuing them from a life of barren singleness? Sadly, they cannot look to Scripture because, seemingly, the question is not addressed there.
Where in Scripture is the role model of the single woman who finds herself without a husband? You would think there would be at least one godly woman somewhere in Scripture who finds herself in an age of apostasy (of which there were plenty in the Israel of Bible times) with few prospects of ever finding a faithful, godly, single man? Even WORLD asks, "But what if there are more Christian women desiring to be married than there are men wanting to be married?"
It seems God has missed something here. Either that or we have.
Let's look at this logically for a moment: God commands us to be fruitful and multiply. God makes you a women in today's world. You want to obey God and reap the blessings of that obedience - a husband to obey, serve, and have as a covering protection, and children to raise for God's kingdom. But there are no godly single men to be had. We then must ask, "Is God providing, as a Provident God, a way to obey Him?"
Of course. God is a loving God who has provided a way, demonstrated in His Word, practiced by His saints, and provided for in every place and every time in history. What is unusual about our particular view of Scripture is that we have, theologically and culturally, decided that we know better than God how marriage should be defined, what constitutes right and wrong, and who our source of law should be, and what parts of His Word we will and will not take seriously. This all makes it hard for us to look to His Word when looking for answers because we have, a priori, discounted His providential order for marriage as irrelevant to us.
God is, in fact, very pro-marriage and has provided a godly husband for every godly women who wants one. Only the one He has provided for you might just not be single. The very best ones are not. They have proved themselves to be godly men by the fruit of their lives. They obey and teach others to obey God's law. They are faithful to their wives and give them loving leadership, expecting their wives to submit to them as they submit to God's LawWord. They are Christ like in their faithfulness to God and in their kindness to the needy and strangers, orphans and widows. If they know God's law and obey it they will also be willing to take more than one woman under their wing.
Yes, under God's law, any woman can have any man for a husband, so long as they are equally yoked. All men are available. All women under 60 years of age are expected to be married and serve God by serving a husband. All women who can have children are expected to be married and obey the command to be fruitful and multiply.
To the unintentionally single girls: Thus for you to find a good husband you must be able to discern which ones are obeying God law and which ones just talk a good line, telling you what you want to hear. To discern which is which you must become a student of God's LawWord. When you have spent a year or two reading and studying Biblical Law let your father know and tell him to contact the man you can then recognize as a godly man.
To the fathers of unintentionally single girls: You have a part to play in helping your daughters fulfill the command of God to be fruitful and multiply. A godly daughter will remain under your authority until you transfer that authority to a godly man. She should not have to do this alone. You are better equipped to tell a rotter from a godly man. Look around: has God provided a good man for your daughter? And do not rule out a man just because he is already married. And do not waste too much more time. And provide her with a dowry and ask for a bride price (roughly 10 ounces of gold or 600 ounces of silver). A good man will not balk at this.
To the would be suitors of unintentionally single girls: Its time to exercise your sanctification and get in good spiritual shape for the challenge of being a true believer of God in a apostate age. There is no culture of belief around you to teach you the ongoing validity of God's LawWord. But you have the Scriptures and there are able teachers available if you search for them.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Torahnomics
How to apply God’s LawWord to the economic crisis we face.
Christians are tempted to fall into depression and despair along with the world as we face hard economic times. But we live under a different set of rules than do those who reject the written or the walking Torah of YHWH. We live by these three rules of economics:1. Deut. 28:1-14 If we obey YHWH's directives, regulations, ordinances, rules, laws, statutes, and judgments, being thoroughly bridled to His way in every thought, word, and deed, then we will be blessed and prospered in every way imaginable. But we know we fall short, even as saved people, so what can we do? Look to Galatians 6:2. If we will bear one another's burdens, within the bounds of His LawWord, then we will have fulfilled the Law of Christ and thus become eligible for those promises. This is the law of substitution. See Charles Williams (of the Inklings) for more on this long unappreciated truth.
2. Malachi 3:10 We must tithe according to His LawWord. This includes the disposition of our tithe:
a) to the Levites (that is those who teach and labor in correct understanding of YHWH's LawWord),
b) to the poor, widows, orphans, sick, and strangers in our land and
c) for the celebration of YHWH's feast days which would require us to reform our calender (you will know you are on the right track when you have a new moon sabbath).
When we do this we are assured, as a matter of actually testing YHWH Himself (the only time we are allowed to so test him) that he will bless us, regardless of the current economic climate, to the point of heaped up, pressed down, and overflowing riches.
3. Matthew 6:33 If we will seek His Kingdom and the rule of His Law as our first priority, He will make it His concern to add to us all the good things that ungodly people normally seek as a priority.
Greater clarification on all these does entail a study of Biblical Law. The best teacher available to us for this purpose is R.J. Rushdoony. His books and audio lessons are widely available and easily accessible.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
The War on Godly Procreation
It is time to fight back.
- God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth."
- God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
- God also said to him (Jacob):
I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply.
A nation, indeed an assembly of nations,
will come from you,
and kings will descend from you.
It is time to identify our enemies and remove their propaganda from our thinking. Remember, Satan is just as happy about marriages of godly women to unbelievers, and godly women remaining single and never bearing (pre-aborting?) the children that creation groans to see, as he is about the babies aborted and sacrificed to idols. Disobedience to the Dominion Mandate begins in a corrupted/barren womb. To please God we must abort the little feminist within us before it gives birth to death and judgment. We must do this despite the corrupt doctrines we have inherited from our fathers.
We must obey for "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." Romans 8:19It is true: Feminism, monogamy, and witchcraft form an unholy trinity working the destruction of Christian civilization.
The slippery slope: anti-polygyny laws and mores, contraception, abortion, easy divorce, sodomy, judgement.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Religion of Humanism
The impotence of Christianity is due to its being infected with the rival religion of humanism. The pure Humanists, best represented by the ACLU in the United States, chase around Christians and whip them in every battle even though they are outnumbered by 10,000 to 1 (Deut. 32:30).
How can you fight a thing when it is part of who you are?
It is difficult to preach repentance to people who think they have arrived and are in full obedience to God.
Listen, how could you be whipped 10,000 at a time by two of your enemy "unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up"? And why has God given you up? Because you have forsaken His law; you have reduced His law to a small corrupt thing and exalted your own self-righteousness.
- Deut. 32:46
- And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.
This is the key to defeating the enemy without: get rid of the enemy within through obedience - enthusiastic, wholehearted, immediate obedience. Men want it from their wives, parents want it from their children, and God wants it from all of us - especially fathers.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
How to Spot a New Covenant Patriarch
When the father of a girl or a woman herself is looking for a godly man, a new covenant patriarch, how can they be sure they have found one? Now nothing is more desirable than a godly virgin woman. Men will do almost anything to win or seduce such a prize. So how does a godly woman tell the counterfeit godly man from the real thing?
David and the Girls
David, son of Jesse, was a godly woman’s dream.
Why? How was it that so many women wanted to marry this guy, even when he was a hunted man living in exile, even though he already had a wife and then even when he had multiple wives, they wanted him?
Some how they had decided that a piece of David was worth more than all of a lesser man, and certainly better than an ungodly man. In the case of Abigail, her ungodly husband became so distraught over his wife’s service of hospitality to David and her thinking so highly of him that he became stupified until God killed him. Then she jumped at the opportunity to be David’s wife.
Why?
Consider what should a godly woman want in a man if she could have the very best. Now if she wants what an ungodly woman would want, like riches and good looks and so on, that is nothing noteworthy. But what should she want in a man that would be different from what an ungodly woman would want?
A godly woman should want a godly man, a man after Yahweh's own heart, a man who says to Yahweh, "Thy will be done" and does it. A man who empties himself of his own will and submits himself in enthusiastic conformity to Yahweh's character as revealed in His Word. A man who loves Yahweh's LawWord and thinks, says, and does it and teaches others to do the same.
Why submit yourself to a man who is not himself submitted to Yahweh? Do you hope to change him? Only the Holy Spirit can change someone. We cannot force this. Scripture states very plainly that we are not to be unequally yoked. You must not lower your standards and hope for the best. Rather you are to be as true to Scripture as possible and throw yourself at a godly man, even if he is already married, and ask him if he will allow you to take his name for yourself and let you be his woman and the mother of your children (Isaiah 4:1) even if it means providing for yourself without the benefit of a dowry.
Be like the godly women of old (1st Peter 3:5,6) who called their husband lord. If you cannot imagine calling a certain man 'lord' or 'master' then don't marry him. Don't initiate a marriage in disobedience! What good can come of that?
Imagine contremplating moving to another country. If the laws of that country are so onerous and the government so tyrannical or there is just plain lawlessness and chaos or some hellish mixture of the two why would you want to move there? If you could move to a country where Yahweh's LawWord reigned supreme and the leader was a servant of God ruling in terms of Scripture would that not be the way to go? Read Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Good things come to those who obey Yahweh and no sorrow is added with it. Trust Yahweh and obey Him; do not trust those who forbid marriage (a doctrine of demons) in the Lord. Monogamania is, at its root, demonic. Do not trust those who try to get you to lower your standards and destroy your hope for a godly husband.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
New Covenant Patriarchy and 'Be Fruitful and Multiply'
Where are we in the storyline of history from the vantage point of Jehovah? While we cannot know the timing of things future, Scripture does give us the big picture.
When man sinned in the garden he did not escape what he was put on earth to do. He just has to do it with the burden of the curse on his back. So what are we, Abraham's seed by faith, here to do? We have to have dominion over the earth, and be fruitful and multiply. Not just anybody is so commanded, but the faithful, from Adam (Gen. 1:28) to Noah (Gen. 9:1) to Abraham (Gen. 17:5) to Jacob:
And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. 11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; Genesis 35:10
Now is the time of generation for the regenerated. We must be obedient to this mandate. This is why we are here.
And a word for the leaders of Russia, Italy, Japan, and other countries: If your country is under the curse of demographic disaster, conform your laws to Scripture and encourage godly patriarchy.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Wayne's Handy Dandy Heresy Hermeneutics
Now some of you are old hands at this but print this article out anyway and keep it handy in case you run into a new Christian or one that is getting all excited about the Bible. After all, we all know just how bothersome and tiresome God’s Law can be. I mean, hey, there are huge sections of Scripture that just don’t fit with our modern times and good solid evangelical culture.
So what we are going to do is find a New Testament verse and a way of interpreting it that will justify throwing out whole, huge sections of God’s Law, so as to really put the Old in “Old Testament” (and parts of the New). That way we can get on with our lives feeling quite good about doing what we want, with fitting in, and getting along, and not sticking out of the crowd.
Now the rules are that: a) you are not to question the interpretation of these handy-dandy verses, and b) don't take "Old Testament" verses too seriously - always remember that they are old and thus by definition irrelevant to us.
- Now take anything the Bible has to say about food anywhere and just wrap it all in a bundle and tie it up with that vision Peter had with the blanket full of animals and throw the whole thing overboard. (Don't keep reading on to the part where Peter gives the intepretation himself and it has nothing to do with food.)
Now do you see how this works? Lets try another. - There is a constant theme of patriarchy running through all of Scripture about how the man is the head of the woman, yada, yada, yada. Take that whole idea and then find that verse about how in Christ there is neither male nor female and flush that puppy down the tubes.
How handy is that huh!? - What about all the examples of patriarchs and godly men in Scripture as well as verses like Ex 21:10 that assume it is perfectly okay to have more than one wife? Just take the word 'mia' in the verses in Timothy about the qualifications for elders and deacons and translate it 'one' instead of 'first' and you can completely overturn God's definition of family and adultery and restructure society along completely Greek lines of thinking and really put the nail in the patriarchy coffin.
- To get rid of any consideration of God's Law at all there is always Matthew 19:8 where, if you squeeze your eyes together so everything gets blurry, you can imagine that Jesus is tossing out Moses on his ear and subsistuting a new and improved way of relating to our fellow man.
Dandy, dandy, dandy.
Some things don't need a verse, but just a plausible sounding idea. Fool youself and pretend others buy it, all at the same time! - Want to turn your kids over to God's enemies to indoctrinate them into humanism and the worship of the state, while saving yourself the bother of homeschooling? How about this line: "My kids are missionaries to the lost kids in the public schools."
This kind of thing is rampant throughout the church. In fact it would be shocking for the people in the pew to actually hear the straight forward word of God preached without any handy-dandy "now here is why this is irrelevant" papering over of whatever was just read. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the institutional church has become so corrupted that its main purpose is to make sure no one actually knows what God says or does it.
But, like all problems, no matter how vexing, all of this is a nit. Because we all have one problem and it is quite a manageable one. It is God's requirement that we obey His commandments, that we put them into action just like Jesus did and enabled us to do. All the other things that compete for our attention are God's problems (Deut. 28: 1-14).
Of course, if you do not like making obedience to God's LawWord your problem, He promises to give you other problems to worry about (Deut. 28:15-68).
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You put into words in a few paragraphs what I’ve been fumbling around for years to say. Brilliant and thank you.
In Christ,
Perry Pierce
Friday, January 25, 2008
New Covenant Patriarchy Discussion Group
In order to facilitate greater discssion amoung the readers of the book Man and Woman in Biblical Law, we have started a discussion group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newcovenantpatriarchy. If you have purchased and read the book we invite you to join the discussion.I would like to add to the declaration that biblical polygyny is biblical and holy in the sight of the Lord.
In reference to David, a man after God’s own heart was declared righteous before the Lord. If we believe that the Holy Scriptures are of God and pure (Psalms 12:6-7) then we must submit our thoughts to what the Lord declared concerning David when stating: 1 Kings 15:4-5
Nevertheless for David’s sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem.
Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from ANY thing that he commanded him ALL the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
Now we must ask ourselves is God ignorant of David’s sin of “polygamy” or was God fully aware of David’s 18+ wives even to the point HE gave them to David for a blessing? If God declared David followed ALL His commandments except with Bathsheba and Uriah then how could David be against God’s will in having multiple wives?
Brother Eric
Monday, December 24, 2007
Monogamania: Never has so much depended on so little
Some bad theology and a lot of rebellion are all that hold up the charade of secular humanism.
In the Bible the patriarchs - God fearing men - ruling responsibly over their families according to God's LawWord are the model that God holds up as our example of righteousness. The denial of Biblical patriarchy by the church has made secular humanism the power it is today.
There are five aspects to Biblical Patriarchy:
1. arranged marriages (the father is responsible for the disposition of his sons and daughters in marriage with the consent of all),
2. the Biblical dowry (three years living wages paid by the man for a virgin),
3. patriarchal authority ( the rule and responsibility of the father of the household under God's LawWord),
4. the one-flesh nature of marriage (the disestablishment of church and state from marriage), and
5. potential polygyny (one man husbanding one or more wives).
The denial of each of these aspects of Biblical patriarchy has given secular humanism the crucial cooperation from baptized humanism it needs in order to exercise the power it wields. To see this clearly we must imagine what things might be like if Biblical patriarchy was once again understood to be righteous by Christians.
Secular humanism is simply the larger mirror of the reality of our family lives. Secular humanism does not take God's LawWord into account and neither do humanist Christians.
I spoke to a mother of a 17 year old girl yesterday and mentioned the importance of her father being involved in making sure she married the right guy and the 3 years wages a potential husband needs to bring to the table.
"That sounds very Old Testament," she said.
"There is no such thing as the 'Old Testament'; that is just an evolutionary category imposed on Scripture," I informed her, "There are the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and Epistles: the dowry is part of God's Law order for the family."
"But we have done away with the sacrifices," she responded, shaking her head.
"Right, but the dowry has nothing to do with the sacrificial system or the priesthood. It is simply God's Law which Jesus came to reconcile us to. Like He said, 'If you love me obey my commandments'."
Frankly, the situation we find ourselves in is this: rather than look to God's LawWord for our definition of right and wrong we look to our own reasoning. This is what secular humanism does as well. The laws of our country are made up without any deference to God's Law. As we have denigrated the Law and the Prophets as being passé so has secular humanism denigrated the Constitution and our country's Christian heritage.
Christianity in the west is bound to be impotent as long as we view God's Law as impotent.
Monday, December 17, 2007
New Covenant Patriarchy War on Terror
There were once two cities that were terrorized by God. Not only did their two biggest buildings fall down but every building came down in a rain of fire and lava and ash. Everybody was wiped out. It did not have to happen. Just ten men could have stopped it - not just any men but a particular kind of men.
Here is the whole story:
Genesis 18:20-33
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there.
And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there.
And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there.
And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there.
And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.
Genesis 19:24-25 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
So there you have it: for the lack of 10 good men we have the complete destruction of two cities.
The moral of the story: Make sure you have at least 10 righteous (full of rightness) men in your city or county. It can make all the difference in the world.
But what kind of "rightness" are we talking about here? God defines that himself in His Law summarized by the Ten Commandments. And to make sure we understood what those meant he gave us hundreds of minimum case law applications of those 10 commands. Minimum case law applications means that if the law holds for this minimal case it certainly holds for even greater cases.
Here is an example: You shall not steal. A minimum case law would be: Do not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. We can safely say this applies to greater cases such as: do not neglect to pay the pastor of your church who ministers to you.
It takes a lot of understanding of God's word to know what rightness consists of and then you have to apply it in practice to actually be righteous. And if you can't do it you had better hope there are ten men in your area that do. Because those 10 men may be all that stand between you and divine judgment, a truly terrible thing.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
New Covenant Patriarchy and Relationships
Relationships with other people make us richer. Well, I should qualify that. Those relationships based on God’s Law make us richer. Those that are not make us poorer. All the relationships where all the parties to the relationship are in accord with God’s LawWord are win-win relationships. It is in this respect that I will use the terms lawful and lawless.
People become hermits and loners when they have been hurt too many times by lawless relationships. Healing is needed and is available through Christ who bore the consequences of our lawlessness on Himself so we could be restored into a meaningful relationship with God.
People who are lawless find themselves quite lonely when they engage in lawlessness and thus destroy any meaningful relationships they have. The items in a garbage can are likewise meaningless in their relationship to anything else. They no longer have a place or function in service to others. This is hell.
The way of life and health and peace is one of meaningful service to others as ordered and regulated by the Guide to Relationships we know as the Bible. This Guide will tell you how you are to relate to those who don't live by it as will as those who do. It will tell you how to handle any type of relationship by giving you core principles (the Ten Commandments) as well as examples of how to implement those core principles (the case laws).
To bring home to your life just how this works you need to continually review the Guide in the light of those relationships you are involved in with your family, fellow church members, friends, and co-workers. All of these reflect the most important relationship in your life, the one you have with God. You have to get your relationship with God straight before anything else is going to get straightened out.
There are a huge number of aspects to our relationship with God but some are so fundamental that they deserve special consideration here:
- Authority/Subject - I am the Lord your God Exodus 20:2a - Being under lawful authority (as opposed to being under a lawless tyrant) means being under God's authority. You may safely discount the authority of anyone whose authority is not based on submission to God's authority. A rapist may coerce his victim to do his bidding but that does not make him her husband. The state may make laws and regulations that fill many new volumes each year but that does not make it God. God is the author of creation and history. We are his subjects.
- Rescuer/Hostage - which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Exodus 20:2b - Our God is the one who rescues us from the criminal gangs who tyrannize us (coerce us lawlessly).
- One/Many - Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 - God insists that He is God alone, the ultimate and singular source of authority. Thus we live in a universe, not a multiverse. We are many but God is one.
- Jealous/Unconditionally Trusting - I the LORD thy God am a jealous God Exodus 20:5 - God names Himself Jealous, not that He is insecure, but that He will not share us with another. Will a husband share his wife with another? Neither will God tolerate any allegiance to competing authorities or competing loyalties.
- Judge/LawBreaker - visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; Exodus 20:5 - This means households where 3 and 4 generations are affected by the evil of the fathers who hate God.
- LawGiver Redeemer/Covenant Keeper - And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:6 - The order of God makes for a blessed realm where His citizens love and obey Him and thus enjoy peace with each other.
As our relationship with YHWH, our loving father, is healed and whole we spread healing to every relationship in our lives.