ALYHWA (usually translated ‘Elihu’) is VERY close to ALYHM, God’s name in the OT for the Almighty Maker of the Universe. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think it’s a reference to Jesus, God’s Son.
Chapter 32
And these three men rested from chastening Job for he was righteous in his own eyes. And the passion of ALYHWA Son of the Almighty Blessing, the Buzite of the family of Ram, mounted against Job. His passion mounted against him for the righteousness of his breath was for himself instead of ALHYM. And his passion mounted against his three friends from which no answer had appeared, yet they condemned Job.
And ALYHWA had waited for Job in the matter because they were older than him in days. ALYWHA saw that there was no answer from the mouth of the three men, and his passion mounted. ALYHWA Son of the Almighty Blessing, the Buzite spoke and said, “Young am I of days and you are elders above all, so I crawled to see what was before I declared knowledge to you. I said, ‘You command days and abundant years, you know wisdom. Surely the Spirit is in man and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding. Are not great those who are wise and elders who understand justice?’ Justly I say to you, ‘Listen to me. I truly will show knowledge. Lo, I waited for you all to speak and I weighed your words while you discussed the matter. You built your testimony and behold, not one of you refuted or heeded the words of Job. Lest you say, ‘We have obtained wisdom,’ not man but the Almighty will cast him off.'”
“And it has not been ordered against me from enduring your words which I do not perceive. They are crushed and do not respond as words have left them. And shall I wait for them because they do not speak and because they stand but do not respond? Surely I will answer and partake. Surely I will declare knowledge! For I have confined words in the spirit of my body. Behold, my breast is like wine in new wine skins: it bursts! I will speak and my spirit will go out, I will open my lips and I will answer. I will not show favor to man, and I will not flatter any man. For I do not know how to flatter, but after a little I will be at rest with my Maker.
The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. ~Psalm 34:7
There are four spirits of heaven, who go out from their station before the Lord of all the earth. ~Zechariah 6:5
Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. ~2 Kings 6:17
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An angel, especially according to Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, is a spiritual being superior to humans in power and intelligence.[1] Angels are typically described as benevolent, dreadful, and endowed with wisdom and knowledge of earthly events, but not infallible; for they strive with each other, and God has to make peace between them. Most of them serve either as intermediaries between Heaven and Earth, or as guardian spirits. They are studied in the theological doctrine of angelology.
Angels are referred to in connection with their spiritual missions; as for instance, the “angel which has redeemed”, “an interpreter”, “the angel that destroyed”, “the messenger of the covenant”, “angel of his presence”, and “a band of angels of evil“.
In fine art, angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty; they are often identified using the symbols of birdwings, halos, and light.
The word angel (pronounced /ˈeɪn.dʒəl/) in English is a blend of Old Englishengel (with a hard g) and Old Frenchangele. Both derive from Late Latinangelus “messenger”, which in turn was borrowed from Late Greek ἄνγελος ángelos. According to R. S. P. Beekes, ángelos itself may be “an Oriental loan, like ἄγγαρος [‘Persian mounted courier’].”The word’s earliest form is Mycenaeana-ke-ro attested in Linear B syllabic script.
The ángelos is the default Septuagint’s translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mal’ākh denoting simply “messenger” without specifying its nature. In the Latin Vulgate, however, the meaning becomes bifurcated: when mal’ākh or ángelos is supposed to denote a human messenger, words like nuntius or legatus are applied. If the word refers to some supernatural being, the word angelus appears. Such differentiation has been taken over by later vernacular translations of the Bible, early Christian and Jewish exegetes and eventually modern scholars.
The Torah uses the (Hebrew) terms מלאך אלהים (mal’āk̠ ‘ĕlōhîm; messenger of God), מלאך יהוה (mal’āk̠ YHWH; messenger of the Lord), בני אלהים (bənē ‘ĕlōhîm; sons of God) and הקודשים (haqqôd̠əšîm; the holy ones) to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as angels. Later texts use other terms, such as העליונים (hā’elyônîm; the upper ones).
The term מלאך (mal’āk̠) is also used in other books of the Tanakh. Depending on the context, the Hebrew word may refer to a human messenger or to a supernatural messenger. A human messenger might be a prophet or priest, such as Malachi, “my messenger”; the Greek superscription in the Septuagint translation states the Book of Malachi was written “by the hand of his messenger” ἀγγέλου angélu. Examples of a supernatural messenger are the “Malak YHWH,” who is either a messenger from God, an aspect of God (such as theLogos), or God himself as the messenger (the “theophanic angel.”)
Scholar Michael D. Coogan notes that it is only in the late books that the terms “come to mean the benevolent semi divine beings familiar from later mythology and art.” Daniel is the first biblical figure to refer to individual angels by name, mentioning Gabriel (God’s primary messenger) in Daniel 9:21 and Michael (the holy fighter) in Daniel 10:13. These angels are part of Daniel’s apocalyptic visions and are an important part of all apocalyptic literature. Coogan explains the development of this concept of angels: “In the postexilic period, with the development of explicit monotheism, these divine beings—the ‘sons of God’ who were members of the Divine Council—were in effect demoted to what are now known as ‘angels’, understood as beings created by God, but immortal and thus superior to humans.” This conception of angels is best understood in contrast to demons and is often thought to be “influenced by the ancient Persian religious tradition of Zoroastrianism, which viewed the world as a battleground between forces of good and forces of evil, between light and darkness.” One of these is hāšāṭān, a figure depicted in (among other places) the Book of Job.
Philo of Alexandria identifies the angel with the Logos inasmuch as the angel is the immaterial voice of God. The angel is something different from God himself, but is conceived as God’s instrument.
In post-Biblical Judaism, certain angels took on particular significance and developed unique personalities and roles. Although these archangels were believed to rank among theheavenly host, no systematic hierarchy ever developed. Metatron is considered one of the highest of the angels in Merkabah and Kabbalist mysticism and often serves as a scribe; he is briefly mentioned in the Talmud and figures prominently in Merkabah mystical texts. Michael, who serves as a warrior and advocate for Israel (Daniel 10:13), is looked upon particularly fondly. Gabriel is mentioned in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:15–17) and briefly in the Talmud, as well as in many Merkabah mystical texts. There is no evidence in Judaism for the worship of angels, but there is evidence for the invocation and sometimes even conjuration of angels.
According to Kabbalah, there are four worlds and our world is the last world: the world of action (Assiyah). Angels exist in the worlds above as a ‘task’ of God. They are an extension of God to produce effects in this world. After an angel has completed its task, it ceases to exist. The angel is in effect the task. This is derived from the book of Genesiswhen Abraham meets with three angels and Lot meets with two. The task of one of the angels was to inform Abraham of his coming child. The other two were to save Lot and to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
… This leads Aristotle in turn to the demonstrated fact that God, glory and majesty to Him, does not do things by direct contact. God burns things by means of fire; fire is moved by the motion of the sphere; the sphere is moved by means of a disembodied intellect, these intellects being the ‘angels which are near to Him’, through whose mediation the spheres [planets] move … thus totally disembodied minds exist which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies [objects] here in this world.— Guide for the Perplexed II:4, Maimonides
Maimonides had a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of the Bible. Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as “angels” are actually allusions to the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates.
For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman’s womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity, despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect; that here is the angel, the “vice-regent of the world” constantly mentioned by the sages, then he will recoil.– Guide for the Perplexed II:4
Later Christians inherited Jewish understandings of angels, which in turn may have been partly inherited from the Egyptians. In the early stage, the Christian concept of an angel characterized the angel as a messenger of God. Later came identification of individual angelic messengers: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel. Then, in the space of little more than two centuries (from the 3rd to the 5th) the image of angels took on definite characteristics both in theology and in art.
According to St Augustine, ” ‘Angel’ is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is ‘spirit’; if you seek the name of their office, it is ‘angel’: from what they are, ‘spirit’, from what they do, ‘angel’.” Basilian Father Thomas Rosica says, “Angels are very important, because they provide people with an articulation of the conviction that God is intimately involved in human life.”
By the late 4th century, the Church Fathers agreed that there were different categories of angels, with appropriate missions and activities assigned to them. There was, however, some disagreement regarding the nature of angels. Some argued that angels had physical bodies, while some maintained that they were entirely spiritual. Some theologians had proposed that angels were not divine but on the level of immaterial beings subordinate to the Trinity. The resolution of this Trinitarian dispute included the development of doctrine about angels.
The angels are represented throughout the Christian Bible as spiritual beings intermediate between God and men: “You have made him [man] a little less than the angels …” (Psalms 8:4-5). The Bible describes the function of angels as “messengers” but does not indicate when the creation of angels occurred. Christians believe that angels are created beings, based on (Psalms 148:2-5; Colossians 1:16): “praise ye Him, all His angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts … for He spoke and they were made. He commanded and they were created …”. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared that the angels were created beings. The Council’s decree Firmiter credimus (issued against theAlbigenses) declared both that angels were created and that men were created after them. The First Vatican Council (1869) repeated this declaration in Dei Filius, the “Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith”.
Thomas Aquinas (13th century) relates angels to Aristotle’s metaphysics in his Summa contra Gentiles, Summa Theologica, and in De substantiis separatis, a treatise on angelology. Although angels have greater knowledge than men, they are not omniscient, as Matthew 24:36 points out.
According to Matthew 4:11, after Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, “…the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.” In Luke 22:43 an angel comforts Jesus Christ during the Agony in the Garden. In Matthew 28:5 an angel speaks at the empty tomb, following the Resurrection of Jesus and the rolling back of the stone by angels.
Pope John Paul II emphasized the role of angels in Catholic teachings in his 1986 address titled “Angels Participate In History Of Salvation“, in which he suggested that modern mentality should come to see the importance of angels.
According to the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, “The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.” ~https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel
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For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. ~Psalm 91:11
But to which of the angels has He ever said: ‘Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool’? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? ~Hebrews 1:13-14
Bless the LORD, you His angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word. Bless the LORD, all you His hosts, you ministers of His, who do His pleasure. ~Psalm 103:20-21
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. ~Colossians 1:16-17
And Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry or are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. ~Luke 20:34-36
Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. ~Luke 15:10
…I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!’
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.’
Also I heart the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ ~Isaiah 6:1-4,6-8
To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven–things which angels desire to look into. ~1 Peter 1:12
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.” ~Luke 1:11-20
Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. ~Luke 22:43
And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ ~Matthew 25:40-43
You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You. ~Nehemiah 9:6
‘My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him….’ ~Daniel 6:22
So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. ~Luke 16:22
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. ~Matthew 4:11
‘Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.’ ~Matthew 18:10
‘But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.’ ~Matthew 24:36
I believe the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a representation of Jesus Christ and the Tree of Life is a representation of the Holy Spirit, or God’s wife. This is because Jesus is the gnosis, or ‘knowledge’, the embodiment of God’s perfect knowledge. And the the Spirit is what gives life: In Him was Life (the Holy Spirit). That is why they are both located in the middle of the Garden of Eden, Son and Mother nestled in the heart of God, Almight ALHYM. Remember that ALHYM is a plural sovereign name, which inherently denotes the Trinity, along with all of God’s other Sides perhaps.
In the Beginning, God’s spirit hovered over the waters and made YHWH and YHWY created all of creation, including Day and Night and Light and Dark which in the Hebrew language not only means literal lightness and darkness, but figurative light and dark, or…..good and evil. The beloved disciple, John, also tells us that Jesus was the Word and that the Word was in the Beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God. This means the Word embodied the Spirit of YHWH, therefore, Jesus and YHWH are one and the same. John also delivers to us a parting understanding of Jesus in the last book of the bible, his Revelation: He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. Yeshua/Jesus is to be understood as existing at both ends of ANY spectrum and encompassing ALL in-between. This is the same concept as illustrated by the concept of ‘good and evil’.
When Eve and Adam disobeyed God and allowed desire to gain a foothold in their lives–which was the first act of idolatry in the story of man–they put in place the necessity of a messiah in order that God would not lose His entire beloved creation of man, those He had created to love and be loved by Him. That is why He told Adam that to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would cause death. Adam and Eve activated the sacrificial process of death by holy blood in this seemingly simple act of eating a piece of fruit. For some reason, God waited 62 generations from Adam to bring the messiah Jesus Christ to earth in the form of Yeshua through the vessel of Mary. His time is not our time.
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” ~Genesis 3:22-25
“To keep the way of the tree of life” in this passage of scripture means that because of God’s swift action of banishing now-sinful man from the Garden of Eden, the Holy Spirit was not also defiled by Man. God is protecting His wife you see. This is what I believe Jesus understands when he says, to our consternation:
Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. ~Matthew 12:31-32
YHWH took death upon Himself in the form of Yeshua, Jesus as Christ, as commanded by ALHYM because the created beings of man thought they could supersede God and His law. But as Jesus came to save and be the bridge between man and God, He also warns us–as God warned Adam–that violating the sacred Holy Spirit will bring irreversible spiritual death, as violating the sacred Gnosis and Word in the Beginning brought physical death.
Holding the concept of God’s Holy Spirit sacred and being reverent to it is all that is necessary. God does not allow her to be visible, indeed most theologians misunderstand the Holy Spirt as not feminine, but masculine, which is just crazy to me. But God allows this to protect her. Only those who search hard–but not too hard–will understand this. To search too hard might mean you begin worshiping her as the Catholic faith does, or as ancient people did by erecting Asherah poles next to alters; as modern new-agers attempt to do with Gaia and goddess worship.
So just as Adam named Eve as the “mother of all life”, so was the Holy Spirit the Mother of all life, and still is through God’s protection because God intervened in the Garden before man could also destroy Life, represented by the Holy Spirit. Active Satan worshipers blaspheme the Spirit when they seek access to God’s realm through the denial of Jesus and practice evil deeds such as blood-letting, blood lust, murder, sexual immorality, and the most vile practices demons can conjure. This is mirrored in the Garden when Satan bypassed Adam and tempted Eve, because he was ultimately after the Tree of Life, God’s wife; and he understood that Eve was the weaker vessel.
As a final parting thought, consider that the Garden of Eden was a literal heaven on earth where men and women do not have sexual relations. As it is written, Adam only ‘knew’ Eve once they were banished from the Garden. This was to bring about the lineage that would bear the Savior. Imagine a heaven so good that sex isn’t even a part of it. Wow!
When Nebuchadnezzar erected a huge golden statue to himself for his people to bow down and worship, God befuddled his mind so much that this mighty king was consigned to wander about like an ox and eat grass for seven years: he lost his mind. The longer King Saul ruled, the more corrupt he became. His thinking was debased, and he was envious of the future King David day and night. He became paranoid and murderous, and turned from the ways of God: he lost his mind. Ironically, the only thing that gave him comfort was the music from David’s lyre.
When the great Apostle Paul was imprisoned, he wrote letters to his spiritual son Timothy on how to be a proper pastor of a new church. Paul admonishes him that in the times to come, people would leave the faith, clinging to teachings of demons, having become seared in their conscious minds. They would lose all ability to see truth and reason: i.e. they will lose their mind.
While ‘brain’ is not specifically mentioned in scripture, what ancient authors of the bible meant for brain is ‘mind’. In Hebrew mind is ‘leb’ meaning the heart, or inner person, which only God can see but out of which flows action and intent. In Greek mind is ‘nous’ which means mind or intellect, and which is the fount of our heart and intentions. In the examples above, we see a picture of important, lofty men losing their minds, or ‘going crazy’, as we say. Today we tend to think of this as a ‘mental health’ issue. As I have outlined in previous posts, modern man assigns mental illness to the domain of physical illness. But from ancient times until about the 1970’s, mental illness was always understood as spiritual illness, or sin.
As I have outlined in previous posts, modern man assigns mental illness to the domain of physical illness, or disease of the brain. But from ancient times until about the 1970’s, mental illness was always understood as spiritual illness, or sin.
But what if wrong thinking in the mind (mental illness) really does lead someone to ‘lose’ their mind? What if this happens not only in the abstract, but in the concrete? What if God actually causes physical changes to occur in the brain due to sinful thinking? That is my new theory and understanding. I hypothesize that despite millenia of false teaching by philosophers, we cannot separate the body from the mind. God intended them to work together. The body is rarely mentioned in scriptures except as flesh to be persecuted daily:
This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. ~Galatians 5:16-17
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. ~Romans 12:2
To try and clarify this idea, we need to just understand a human being as one unit in its entirety. We are so used to separating out the outer man from the inner man (physical from mental), but we are one being, not two in one. And this one human being is corruptible in one way only, by sin. Being corrupted by sin causes sickness in us. This sickness occurs outwardly and inwardly, in ways that are visible to the naked eye and ways that are invisible to the naked eye but sometimes visible with sorcery (x-rays, scans, imaging).
The devil has done his work through philosophy and empty deceit (as Paul warned us about) and duped man into thinking that man’s mind and body function independently of each other, and most importantly, independently of God, or the spiritual realm. He has tricked nearly everyone into thinking that what ails man is not spiritual sickness, or sin, but physical and mental illness. And because we don’t understand the true root of our problem, we accept the devil’s offer of his false god, a physician (or its duplicate), to heal us.
If we don’t understand that our human self is sick for one reason only, sin, we cannot seek the correct cure, which is only from God (or His duplicate)–JESUS CHRIST.
One man has one disease: Sin.
One man has One Cure: Jesus.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ~1 Timothy 4:1-3
Besides being an obvious denunciation of the Catholic doctrine of unmarried and celibate priests, the above passage gives us the intriguing concept that in our times, even the elect will not give heed to the Holy Spirit, but to false spirits/demons and believe in their lies. Their conscience will become seared. In the Greek, conscience is συνείδησις, suneidésis, Strong’s entry 4893. It basically means moral consciousness, having to do with the mind. As we have learned, the mind is the inner self, the intellect, the heart, our moral compass. It’s what makes us human and different from the animals. It’s our brain, plus a lot more.
Seared is Strong’s entry 2743: καυτηριάζω, or kautériazó: To cauterize. Which we can understand in our language: a burning or branding that kills the flesh and is irreversible. Paul is teaching Timothy that anyone–even those who should know better as instructed by the Holy Spirit–is vulnerable to false teachings which come by demons and which will cauterize our consciousness. This implies an irreversible state or condition.
The brains of patients with dementia and Alzheimers disease have been studied, and researchers have found varying degrees of corruption from microvascular changes to black necrotic regions which cause outright holes in the brain. Obviously where there is lack of blood flow, tissue dies because the bible tells us the life is in the blood. When tissue dies, it withers away. This sounds like the concept of cauterization. If we use our mind to focus on idols and false spirits, and not what we should be focused on, God and the Holy Spirit, our conscious minds will become seared; it will cauterize our brain. Alzheimer’s and dementia are not organic diseases caused by what we eat, they are death of our flesh caused by sinful thoughts stemming from a sinful heart.
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” ~Jesus
God is clearly telling us through His great Apostle Paul who speaks for Christ that if we do not use our life to serve the Spirit, but instead use our bodies and minds to serve satan and his demons, and believe in their false doctrines, He will allow us to fall into sickness, which is really unrepentant sin. Because we are one being, not two, this sickness will pervade our body, inside and out. On the contrary, the act of worshiping God and thinking night and day on His law and His ways, protects our minds from sin and keeps us healthy.
There are many ways to lose your mind and it manifests in many ways. At first you might appear to be depressed. Then paranoid. Avoidant. Envious. Angry. Murderous. Manic. Selfish to an extreme. If you live long enough, these all lead to one place: Loss of memory and executive function. Dementia. Or the dreaded worst dementia: Alzheimer’s disease.
Now Jesus made it clear that not all disease was due to sin. He said sometimes disease happens so that God’s glory made be made evident through it. But most sickness is due to sin, and sin leads to death. Men who use their minds not as they should, to think about lustful things, murderous things, all the things listed in the bible as sin will not escape with an intact mind. They will go crazy. And it won’t be due to what they eat or due to genetics, it will be due to their sinful heart. There is no place man can hide from God, not even in his mind.
I think I had a prophetic dream from God because there is no way I would have dreamed this on my own. I rarely remember my dreams but this one was vivid. And not anything like the dreams I usually have. I am not an AI artist, but I drew it the best I could. If you mash it up with the featured art of this post, you can get sorta close to what I dreamt, though not with so much color:
To begin, my perspective was looking up into this dome above me as if I were in the center, below it, and it was coming all the way down to the earth. Like I was on a cake plate and the huge domed top was covering me in black. God then made to appear a central area/circle of jumbled numerals with some runes. These appeared as light coming through the black. God could make all of this fade in and out immediately, so it seemed as if it is always there, but you can only see it if He reveals it to you. Although I did not visualize all the numerals, I knew there were around 12, plus about 5 or so runes. The dream then progressed to God revealing the next circle which were symbols which I understood to be astrological symbols. These were scattered about the ring.
Then he paused this revelation, and I noted that I was in a room with a tall square table. I was on one side of the table and there were figures around the table, again about a dozen or so, I am not sure exactly. But one main figure was at the adjacent side and she seemed to stand alone as the leader of this group. Although she led this group, I was the guest of honor here. And I was bereft. I was sobbing and overwhelmed with grief over the annihilation of life and the earth. Someone to my left was ministering to me, but everyone here was just waiting patiently for my human feelings to abate. I was grieving for the end of all things, mostly lost life.
Then I returned to the other perspective and God revealed the next concentric circle to me which were a lot of mathematical calculations. This ring was wider than the others and was full of separate groupings of calculations which I knew to be the secrets of the universe. Finally, the last ring was revealed, and it was geo-locations. I don’t know what units or symbols were here, only what it was. These seemed to be places on the earth where God would rescue His people.
He gave me understanding to know that the center circle was like a grab-bag where He would pull a number or rune and give it to an entity, and if you got the right number, you would be sent to the Light and if not, the Dark. I am assuming the runes were the wrong ‘numbers’. Anyway, He held the power, this is why I call this center circle ‘The Keys’ because that is essentially what they seem to be.
While I did not see Jesus, I assume He was above all of this. I had the sense throughout my dream I was only interacting with Almighty Alhym, Father God. Of interest, at some point I was made aware that a few others around me who were present (no idea who they were) could not see what I was seeing. Neither could the entities at the square table. That is why I was the guest of honor. God could make these illuminations appear from behind the black dome at His will; fade in and fade out. I asked Him why only I could see it, and He told me it wasn’t important, that I should not seek out why. He told me ‘the devil is in the details’ as if to pursue this knowledge, iniquity would follow.
When I was waking up, I lamented to God about my grief, wondering if my utter sadness meant some of my children had not been saved, and He said to me, “What about My children?” And I realized the truth of this: that there is very little time left to reach people with the gospel and save all those God wants to save, which is everyone. My children should be God’s children.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. ~2 Peter 3:9-10
When I awoke and was processing this prophetic dream, I was like, wow, I knew 12 was significant, and 4, but what about astrological symbols? I know the bible commands us not to dabble in astrology, yet I also know from early in Genesis that He gave us the luminaries and stars for signs to know when to congregate to worship Him. To further help me process this dream, I found this insightful post online:
I also see symbology in my dream related to the 4 rings, which reminds me of the 4 rivers pouring out from the Garden of Eden. The 4-sided table is reminiscent of the 4 faces of prophecy:
4 sides of the Tabernacle encampment, etc.
I know from physics studies that there are literal loopholes in spacetime that demons (and man) can traverse. But God is showing me here that He is still in charge of ALL of it. He can make it appear and disappear at His will. And while satan can calculate wormholes and stargates to other dimensions, time travel, and maybe even read our minds, only God holds the keys to our ultimate fate: Heaven or hell. At the very end, satan, the devil, and their demons are consigned to hell but they are going to work hard to see that as many of God’s people are destroyed with them. And they cannot help but sneak around hiding out in spacetime thinking they are hiding from God. They aren’t. God is outside time. God is the Creator of everything and commands it at His will. God sees everything and everyone. And those not in the Lamb’s Book of Life will perish.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ~Exodus 32:7-9
I have come to understand that we don’t get the message of idolatry that is clearly laid out in the bible, because we do not properly interpret what idolatry is to our modern time, and in our life. Of course most of us would never build a golden calf and bow down and worship it or think that it would be a god or be able to do anything for us. We would need to understand what that would have meant to man in ancient times (3-4,000+ years ago) and then find an appropriate example for our time to fully see what God has for us to see.
I am no historian, but I will apply common sense [hermeneutics] to it. Gold was the most precious material in those days in that part of the world (it might have been diamonds or opals in another place, but it was gold here) and a calf represented youth, vitality, vigor, meat, sustenance, longevity, prosperity, and other things I cannot fathom. Bowing down indicates submission to this creation, which means this creation–and all it represents–is above them and they were honoring it with everything they had. They were putting all their hope in it. And they were doing this in the context that God had literally just delivered them out of bondage as slaves. But because the freedom they were enjoying was difficult and not everything they thought it would be, they quickly turned away from God to what was before them, that they had created by their own hands.
Our gold today is our money, our wealth, our savings account, our assets. And what do we worship the most? Our life, our health, our longevity. We are told the best thing to attain is physical and mental health and even that this is a right of ours to have! With physical and mental health come longevity, quality of life, vigor, youthfulness, prosperity, and sustainability. In those days, medicine was not to the sophistication it is today, so people did not expect to live a long time. They just wanted to live without suffering. Most of us in modern times do not suffer day-to-day anymore, so our new goal is to live long and live well, not just merely survive. Therefore our calf became more abstract.
Assets = Gold, Health = Calf
How do we bow down to our health with our assets? You know how. We pay health care providers working in hospitals to do magic on us. We even make extra offerings to these false gods with our blood and body parts, as we prostrate ourselves to them. This is done every time they draw our blood for a lab test or cut us open. Sometimes we are even out of our mind (anesthesia) and allow them to things to our bodies without knowledge. We pay them to look inside us with their sorcery (which we call machines) and tell us their truth about what is wrong with us. And then we offer ourselves to them to operate on us on their alter (operating table) and are completely at their mercy.
I am so weary and tired of Christians not realizing that the bible does not tout medical care as okay or permitted by God. In all the bible, old and new testaments, we are told to seek after God and all we need will be given us. How does that translate into seeking medical providers? The only way that makes sense is that we are making medical providers into gods. False gods. They can never know the real truth as to what ails us, and they can certainly never cure us. All truth and cure come in one Word: Jesus.
All truth and cure come in one Word: Jesus.
Some bible verses for review are below. I am especially interested in what happens when we seek out things we should not seek out. We are commanded to ONLY seek out God. If we seek out medical providers we are not seeking out God, but false gods. If we seek out false gods, what happens to us?
Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. ~Matthew 6:31-34
For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile. ~Jeremiah 29:10-14
Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God. ~Leviticus 19:31
[Conclusion: familiar spirits are synonymous with spirit guides, although exactly what form they took (human spirits residing in Sheol, angelic/demonic beings, animal spirts etc.) is not specified. Speaking from the ground/dust refers to the tradition of bringing the spirit “up” from the Underworld.]
I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells. I will destroy your idols and your sacred stones from among you; you will no longer bow down to the work of your hands. ~Micah 5:12-13
It becomes clear to us that when we week out false gods and worship our expensive healthcare (golden calf), we will find demons. You will conjure demons. That is why one of my dear old friends saw demons crawling up the walls of her hospital room, because the devil prowls around seeking whom he may devour, and humans in that place are opening themselves up to the devil, satan, and demons.
My best friend has been opening herself up more and more and I have been watching it but not seeing it. But I am able to see it now as it now as He teaches me more and more. Now she is literally being invaded by a demon into her home (a new roommate). Oh, he is a member of the church and calls himself a Christian, but my eyes have been opened to the truth. Whether he is aware of it or not, he either is a demon or has demons. But when I look back at her life, even though she knows better, she keeps her hair short like a man’s, she gets tattoos, she places her dogs over people (I call it her armor of dog, versus armor of God), she is selfish, is stubborn in the face of truth, practices gluttony, and slothfulness to some degree. The latest thing is that she has obsessed over her back pain to the point of finding a god to tell her she needs surgery (the ultimate golden calf, i.e. most expensive healthcare) and I am so tired of it. To be fair, she has said no to surgery for now, but she still reveres doctors more than God, and looks to them for her answers, above everyone else, including God.
I have tried and tried to tell her this truth, but her generation is very stiff-necked. I can only tell God and write it here. Someday maybe I will be able to proclaim it more loudly. The older generations grew up thinking doctors were the shizzle (a lie of the enemy) and they are locked into that mindset. But God doesn’t allow excuses. He might forgive in His omnibenevolence, but He holds us accountable for our sinful choices. I can say no more to her about all this. She does listen to me, she just doesn’t see it the way I do. Now she has LITERALLY invited a demon to live in her basement! He is there in large part to monitor me when I am there and through her as she is my best friend. You see, satan hates me a lot, and wants to terrorize me through my weak-minded friend. But God has shown me his plans as if it was all happening in the light of day. I am on it. And I am not afraid.
Moral of this story: What you seek, you will find.
Astute counselors and bible scholars teach the very important doctrine that to maintain a happy marriage, women need love and men need respect. It is interesting that the bible does not teach that both just need love but goes a step further and differentiates the needs of a wife and husband. This comes from the bible passage in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word…husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. ~Ephesians 5:25-26, 28-30, 33
Of course, the Old Testament first commands man to love God and to love his neighbor, and Jesus clarifies this as the Two Great Commandments, so loving one another is not a new concept for marriage. But in marriage, wives are called to go one step further and to respect their husbands. We will discuss that in the next essay. For now, let’s explore what husbands loving wives should look like, biblically.
Paul explains in this same passage that loving each other should look like how Christ loves us. Christ left His divine home in heaven and came down to earth clothed in a human body, lived a perfect life, and died an unfair, cruel death on a Roman cross out of His love for us, to save our lives. So, husbands loving wives looks self-sacrificial. He counts her life more valuable than his own.
In our world, people define love as a feeling to be thrown around to mean everything from liking something to hating something but not wanting to tell the truth about it! Love in our world is rarely expressed how the bible intended love to be understood. In God’s economy love is an action. To love is to do something, not just feel something. Just as faith without works is dead, love without works is meaningless.
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ~Peter 2:15-16
If there is no love in a home, the fault lies with the husband because it is incumbent upon him to bring love to his wife. How does he do this? He spends time and effort listening to her, watching her, and caring for her to determine her needs and desires. Then he finds ways to bless her in those ways, because she is a unique person and needs his unique love for her. He cannot function on ‘autopilot’ and expect his wife to feel loved! A biblical love of a husband for his wife is thoughtful, kind, expressive, and mostly, unique.
The word for Jesus as the Son of God in the bible in Greek is ‘monogenes’. This basically means ‘unique’ Son. Jesus was God’s unique expression of love for us that could not be found in anyone else. For a husband to love his wife like God first loved us means that it will be a unique love made especially for her, and not anyone else.
The Talpiot Tomb, the family tomb where Jesus’ body might have been laid to rest, invites the brave to consider the heavy concept of physical versus spiritual resurrection. Since the time of Christ, many of the most important bible stories in the New Testament are confined to a literal interpretation by elite theologians and simple pastors alike. This leads the listener down an obligatory dead-end alley of literal interpretation, with no room for discerning another possibility. But I say this needn’t be the case. That in careful interpretation–and introspection–the bible can actually be more aptly interpreted in these stories in a spiritual, versus physical, way.
In order to not become distracted here, I will stick to one story on my mind: the story of Jesus’ resurrection. This is not an exhaustive exegesis of this concept, but merely an opening of the door into this miraculous event and my argument that a spiritual interpretation is the only explanation that makes any sense.
I appreciate that the bible is an ancient document. I mean it was orally transmitted millenia ago, and the latest biblical tales all occurred by the end of the first century AD. So we are talking ancient ancient history. It is pretty hard for most of us to ponder what it must have been like to live over 2,000 years ago! And even if that is our personal jam, we still probably wouldn’t come too close to an accurate understanding because it’s just so long ago. I mean, germ theory, physics, and astronomy have all become so much better understood than in those times. Also, we have collective generations of people behind us who have relied upon the bible to make meaning of their lives, which has shaped us and our culture whether we realize it or not. So the way we think about things is very different than how they thought about things.
Ancient man was necessarily much more literal-minded than we need to be today. We understand that there are tiny machinations of things at work that the naked eye cannot see, but which cause real material changes to occur. In those days, if you couldn’t see it, it was all ascribed to the gods, or God. As Christians we know everything was made by God, but God uses the natural processes He made to cause events and effect change. God does this in a supernatural way we cannot understand as His ways are not our ways, but it filters down to us in a natural way, if we have eyes to see this.
Because ancient people lived in a more concrete way, from day to day, they needed to be shown the gospel in a way that they could understand. God doesn’t always want everyone to understand everything as evidenced in Jesus’ parables. Remember how his own disciples struggled to make meaning of similes and metaphors? But the thrust of the gospel–Jesus being raised on the 3rd day–was the keystone upon which Christianity was founded, and it was imperative that chosen ones got it so that they could then pass it along. If this concept was not grasped, Christianity would have slowly died out. God knew this, so in His genius, He provided for different interpretations to be available in the one bible for all men, for all time.
Some men and women are literal-minded, they need to perceive a truth in order to believe it. Others are more abstract-minded, they are able to understand the immaterial without difficulty. Because God makes both kinds of people, He provided that the bible also accommodated this reality.
In several places in the bible, namely Acts and 1st Corinthians, Paul says that Christ died, was buried, and on the third day was raised according to the scriptures. He goes on to say Christ was seen by hundreds of the brethren and apostles, and lastly by him. In Acts, Paul literally says he ‘saw’ Christ when he was still Saul, yet we know that he only had a vision of Christ, so he ‘saw’ and heard Christ in his mind’s eye as it were in a bright flash of Light; none of his other traveling companions saw or heard Christ speak though they did witness the bright Light. So as we can see, he uses the word ‘saw’ literally and figuratively, regardless of the circumstance. This is hard for us to understand because we use language differently. Paul also does this with the word ‘sleep’ for death of the brethren. Because Paul understands–and preaches–so intimately that believers do not die but pass into eternal life, he does not use the word death at all regarding believers who pass away, but the term ‘sleep’. We think of sleep as one thing usually: nighttime slumber or napping. I am convinced that Paul, through God’s inspiration, was taking liberty with words that men used in their daily lives to mean something literal and assigning to them a more abstract meaning. So that those with eyes to see and ears to hear could understand on a deeper or more spiritual level, as needed.
Paul had the difficult task of spreading the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection to all men: those that needed to believe literally, and those that were able to understand deeper, less visible, truths while remaining true to the simple story of the gospel.
If you read the accounts Paul gives of Christ being resurrected from the dead, you can see that he never closes it off to having to be a physical, bodily resurrection! He always leaves an ‘out’ as it were for those who are able to understand that our bodies are spiritually resurrected into who we will be in heaven. Paul becomes ‘all things to all men’ when he teaches on this subject, which is the cornerstone of Christianity. Some men cannot believe unless they envision Jesus’ physical body floating into heaven in a supernatural event. But some (like me) cannot believe unless I imagine it as an invisible spiritual supernatural event. This is also the case for me regarding the ‘virgin’ birth where virgin had different meanings in those days. But I already posted about that.
I can imagine easily that Jesus’ spirit laid dormant 3 days then rose into Heaven to be with God, making a way for all of His chosen ones–those who believe in Him–to also make this journey in the blink of an eye when our bodies pass from life to death. Those 3 days must have been terrible! This would have been an invisible event to living creatures and seen only by heavenly beings. People who have had near-death experiences speak of signs of heaven and of hell. It baffles my mind that people, especially in our day, have a hard time believing something that they cannot see. For me, things unseen are truer than things seen!
So when preachers and teachers become dogmatic that the bible must be interpreted only literally or only figuratively, they are both wrong. God allows for those with eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of how He works. Some people, because of the way they are made, cannot believe something unless it is presented to them in a concrete way; others are able to believe in a more abstract way. The point is that Jesus rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of God, and will return ‘in the clouds with honor and great glory’ to rule again.
It tickles the imagination to think of His spiritual return, what this will look like. He will be in His spiritual body. We don’t know what his physical body looked like or what his spiritual body will look like when He returns. But everyone will KNOW it is Him in that time. I can’t personally believe that a physical Jesus-esque body will float down to us from the sky…
But maybe something like a reverse black hole happens: a WHITE expanding cloud from the heavens envelop us, while His brighter blinding Light and His consciousness pervades our every cell so that all living creatures KNOW He is Jesus returning to rule and reign.
This post was a long time in the making, like years. Because this topic is so controversial, I needed to wait and consult different theologians and thinkers and delve into the pages of scripture seeking its truth regarding this subject. I know it’s clear that the Apostle Paul told the pastor Timothy (and Titus) that he himself does not allow a woman to speak in church, but I needed more than Paul’s opinion and practice; I needed my Savior’s opinion. Interestingly, those who seek the answer to women pastors never seem to discuss what Jesus thought or did in the matter: it always seems to come down to Paul.
I understand that Paul was swimming upstream in a raging torrent of culture which had come out of Asherah pole worship in earlier times to goddess temple worship in their time. Priestesses were ensconced in temples and were worshiped as gods in lewd ways constrained only by men’s imaginations. Women also logistically were not given the same rank as men in society. Paul was not part of Jesus’ living ministry and therefore was not witness to Jesus’ tender moments with the Marys or others whom He traveled and preached alongside. Therefore, Paul only heard second-hand about these situations, and he graciously allowed women to be benefactors for the Way, but stopped it there.
To begin, I do have a bias in this and it might not be what you think. I do not think women should be preachers, pastors, or elders (basically all the same thing in the New Testament). It has never sat well with me to hear women preach in church, unless I was at a woman’s conference. Whenever I show up to church and the person on the stage is a female who is going to deliver the Sabbath message, my insides groan, and I have to fight the urge to flee. But I also don’t think women should be presidents of public institutions such as President of the United States. Private corporations I seem to be okay with. I mean, you can do what you like with your own money, but I don’t want a woman deciding the fate of my country, state, or local domains. I just don’t think women are blessed with the same ability to judge the affairs of men as men are. But to muddy my waters more, my selected denomination, Assemblies of God, does think women can be ordained ministers in order to preach to the assembly. So I really needed to get to the bottom of this dilemma.
With that being said, I do understand that women in the Old Testament were judges (Deborah) and prophets (Abigail), although it was rather rare. Just reading the bible shows us that the canonized prophets were all male, except for Esther. And Esther was the only scroll not secreted away by the Essenes, the male elite who sequestered themselves away waiting for the Teacher of Righteousness. These OT female roles appeared outside the temple or tabernacle in the fields and had a specific purpose. In no stretch of the imagination could we see in our mind’s eye a female standing in the sacred temple opening a scroll and reading from it as our Great Priest did with the Isaiah scroll. But that was OT days. After Jesus, maybe things were different. After all, Jesus seemed to treat women as equals and was very loving and understanding toward them.
The bible in the book of Luke tells us that Jesus spent all night in prayer asking the Father whom He should choose to be his first disciples. In the morning, He called 12 male disciples to Him, and they became the ones who would spread the good news that the Kingdom of God had come. Close to 30 years old at this time, Jesus certainly might have known of at least one woman (even if only his own mother) who could have had adequate knowledge of His mission and ministry to preach it well. Yet He chose men. He then sent them out 2×2, in pairs. Joan Taylor and Helen Bond are a pair of British theologians and professors who have written and instructed that Jesus had female disciples, and they try to make a weak case for those same disciples church-planting for Him. I refute their feminist message (respectfully). Disciple means a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher. That Jesus had female followers and supporters is not disputed by anyone. But what they propose is that these women traveled about like the men and would have preached the gospel; essentially opening the door to the likelihood that Jesus appointed women who would have become church leaders, or pastors.
One the main tenets of Joan’s argument for this lies in the interpretation of the 2×2 bit above. In New Testament Greek, the phrase duo duo is used for how Jesus sent His disciples out. Duo duo simply means ‘in pairs’. She tries to link this phrase with the story of Noah’s ark where Noah was supposed to gather the animals 2×2, in pairs. Except in that instance, pairs in the Hebrew language (the language of the old testament), meant obviously male and female with the purpose being for the animals to procreate once the flood waters subsided. The tenuous link she provides for saying that duo duo means male and female comes when she uses the Septuagint’s translation which translates the Hebrew OT into Greek. The Septuagint was written in the 3rd century BC. Guess what Greek words the Septuagint uses for this phrase from Genesis? Yep, duo duo. So Joan argues that because they chose the phrase duo duo for the pairs of animals that obviously meant male/female, that is how Jesus also sent out His disciples to preach the Good News, as male/female pairs. Preposterous!
As a bible student myself, I know that you cannot take one phrase–or even a set of verses–out of context and assign a heavy, or outlandish, meaning to them if they don’t agree with the other parts of scripture. The concept of systematic theology says that you must interpret events in the bible in light of what the whole book (God’s divine word and meaning) is saying. Other later scholars translated this Hebrew phrase differently, as brought to us in the Interlinear translation, for example. It was only in the Septuagint she was able to link the idea of duo duo to male/female and even then, duo duo can mean simply, ‘a pair’.
Let’s look at it. Would Mark, Luke, and the other gospel writers really witness, or know those who witnessed, the remarkable event that Jesus chose female disciples but not record it? Joan and Helen would have us believe that Jesus chose 12 male disciples, and that He then expected each of them to be paired with an unknown female disciple whom he might not be married to, to walk to distant places and stay in strangers’ homes, sleeping and bathing together? That was totally unheard of in the holy land, and most other places, in those times. No self-respecting Jewish household would permit entry of these disciples!
After Jesus called the twelve, He received many more followers, including women. He then sent out 70 (or 72) in pairs again. This same argument stands: Would Jesus have sent out male/female pairs? I have already shown this is impossible. Would He have sent out solely female pairs? Let’s think about that. Jesus, who loves women and understands their often abused and overlooked plight, is going to send 2 women out on the Roman roads and footpaths into the unknown without a weapon or money, and with minimal clothing? No way! They could be raped, killed, taken, enslaved, or sold. Plus, Jesus came to first share His gospel with the lost Jews. How would Jews He was trying to reach take the message which John had begun, and Jesus had continued, if this High Priest was sending out women alone and unprotected to preach to them when it was completely against their culture and everything they knew to be right?
Once I realized that Jesus did not send out women, based on these two episodes in the bible, I knew I had discovered the truth about female pastors: Jesus never intended women to preach His word. Women could be disciples (Joanna). Women could understand and learn from Him (Mary and Martha). Women could anoint and heal (Mary). Women can evangelize (share the gospel message, Priscilla). Women can prophecy, judge, and teach men outside the pulpit (OT). Women can be counselors to women, and through women, their men (NT). But women cannot be preachers, elders, priests, pastors, or be a shepherd of a congregation. Women can basically do everything else, but:
The role of church leader, teacher, and shepherd is made specifically for a male.
I was standing in a sort-of fantastical world in my dream, down below a platform where 3 others were standing, yet with direct line-of-sight to all of them. The first one I noticed was standing in the middle and He was a representation of God (represented by Bill Gates in my dream, weird I know). He has a steel rod in his hands that He would place in the fire in front of Him. When He did this, the rod would turn golden-red as with forging iron. He was very slow and careful in His movement, but very sure.
His son was to His right and He also had a similar rod. God was teaching His Son how to wield this rod of iron, but the boy was a bit more uncertain and unwieldy with it, to the point I was beginning to feel some mild trepidation because I was standing below them and knew that if the Son slipped, I would be torched. But He gained good control of His rod and they both stood regal near the fire holding their golden-red rods aloft in front of them, ready.
Then to God’s left a ways was my ex-husband. He was acting silly and did not seem to be aware of the scene or seriousness of the portent of God and His Son standing ready with torches of red-hot iron. He thought he could play with God’s fire, and he took his own little medium he used for tinder and while he was making mocking faces, he touched his own hair with his stick, and it caught on fire. Down below I was watching in disbelief, unable to understand why he would want to do that, but he obviously thought it was a game, and he could control God’s fire.
Before he knew it the fire was spreading in his hair and gaining strength and began going down his neck. He started trying to put it out but was not successful. He dove off the platform onto the ground and I saw flames licking his upper body and remember thinking if I got too close, I would also catch on fire, but nonetheless I ran toward him to help put out the fire. He began yelling and I saw in my mind’s eye his fear and his realization he was going to die a terrible death; that we was wrong and God was REAL. It was awful. I then turned to try and find a blanket or something to smother the flames because I was not able to stop the fire with my hands.
And then I woke up.
What does this mean? Does it mean my ex is going to burn in hell for his mockery of me, and God? I have asked he and his wife to church so many times, and they refuse. I have shared my newfound faith with him over the decades since our divorce and he has declined this knowledge. God showed me that people think idolatry is a joke, but it isn’t. They think hell isn’t real, but it is. They think they can play with fire, and nothing is reverent or sacred to them; everything is fodder for them to mock. But some things should not be mocked! Something obviously needs to be done to save his soul, but I am not sure how or what to do.
The interesting thing is that he did it to himself. God nor His Son ever laid the fatal flame of fire to him. In my dream, he thought he was invincible. And it had eternal consequences.
Psalm 2: The Messiah’s Triumph and Kingdom
Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure: “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”
“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
~Song of Mary~ 