INTRODUCTION
to: The full sermon is located at this Woodmont Hills link:
Paul's Retrospective on Exodus (1 Cor.
10:1-13)
We should never lose sight
of the fact that after we have trimmed to Bible to
fit us, it is still going to be there like it has always
been saying what the original writers meant for that time
and place. Therefore, a better approach might be to
determine what the Exodus meant to the Israelites and the entire lost history of
their nation.
Only then are we able to
see what it means to us. If an example of a people being
abandoned to the musical worship of Molech, Chiun, Saturn
or other labels for Satan can be reconstructed into a
pattern for the same worship offered acceptably to Yahweh
we have fractured the parable and made the Bible into
utter nonsense.
For now, we need to look
at several ways of understanding the Bible. John Locke noted
that Catholics who have "authority" to modify Biblical
teaching, and Protestants who use the Bible for faith and
practice are actually TWO DIFFERENT RELIGIONS.
Therefore, there are
"communities" and there are "churches" and there are simple
Christian "assemblies" which need no ritual. And there are
"gods many and lords many" and Christ's many and it is
simply not possible to keep up with and fellowship groups
who serve views of God and the Bible contradictory to the
"letter." Therefore, our goal is to lay out some facts so
that you can determine whether you want to move from
"assembly" to an all-encompassing "community" system modeled
after the Wilderness Wandering and being turned over to
worship Molech.
In writing His gospel
account, John was not bound to repeat the story in all of
its detail: as a divinely commissioned person in his own
right, he translated those prophecies and known facts about
God's promise into the Jesus Christ He had known. If we take
the same "liberties" we will come up with another "prophecy"
and therefore another "Jesus." John was an eyewitness and
inspired: we are not.
The historical events of
Israel revealed by inspiration has narrative value, in the
first instance, to the inspired writers. Once,
often-parabolic events had already been explained as fulfilled in
Christ and the
church, that authority to do our own "walk around" ceased or
inspiration means nothing.
Therefore, as an
inspired person John had rights to use the past to explain
the present and future that we do not have--unless we are
inspired.
We have the right to "get
into" the story to experience what others have experienced,
but once WE begin to retranslate or radically modify the
original story to fit OUR experience then we are more
important that the inspired writer.
Jesus identified the "from
the foundation of the world" story as a "parable" even as
Job does. However, "parable" doesn't mean that creation
didn't happen and therefore we have a right to make a
cottage industry out of the meaning of 'days'. God has
always "narrated" the creation story and applied its
principles to the flood, the Red Sea and the "recreation" of
Israel in Jeremiah 4. Therefore, once God has explained the
"spiritual" meaning of physical creation we have no
authority to "explain God's explanation" to mean something
beyond.
Parable to Job meant a
highly-enriched form of speech: the fact happened but the
meaning is within the text and should be left there. We,
then, need to look at the text for meaning and not into our
mirror. If we "rewrite" the story we are like one who gets
into the 'egg cell' and cuts and splices the DNA of a human
genome." The "creature" which is born will not look like the
Father.
"Liberal literary
criticism
allows each
community
the right to re-write
Scripture.
The canon (not necessarily of biblical texts, but at least
in the meanings of those texts) is not closed. [We believe that this is the
meaning of being Post-Modern or Post-Denominational]
"It is difficult to know
whether Fish intended this as a by-product, but the idea
of authority
resting in the interpretive community gave rise to narrative theology -- a theology which simply
affirms a given community's right to come up with its own interpretation, or to "write" its own new
biblical text. Narrative theology gave rise to various narrative communities--
hence, the arrival of liberation and feminist theologies.
"Narrative theology does not recognize any
absolute truth or meaning in a text. Because Buber is the
founder, most narrative theology, especially in Jewish
circles, is related to Auschwitz."
"And, what is the
purpose of reading texts, for narrative theologians? Why,
of course, to affirm the self.
Hazards
in the Mainline.
Liberation
Theology: A movement that attempts to unite theology
with social
and religious
concerns about
oppression.
It finds expressions among blacks, feminists, Asians, Hispanics, and Native
Americans, but it is most closely identified with the shift toward Marxism among Roman Catholic theologians and priests in Latin America.
Most traditional doctrines of Christianity are de-emphasized or
reinterpreted. Jesus and the Bible are defined and interpreted in light of a
class struggle,
with the gospel seen as
a radical
call to activism (or even revolution) promoting political and social answers usually in the form of classic Communism.
This is why to use the Biblical text (as
it has been delivered) to establish faith and practice is
the only way to arrive at the same bible, same God, same
Christ and therefore same church.
This is why it is important to understand
that people come at the Bible from different directions. For
instance, if Dr. Shelly sees the facts of the Exodus story
to make the Exodus a pattern for worship and community we
can say that this is not our view. Therefore, we are looking
at two different bibles and the quest for unity is
meaningless and furthermore should not be sought after.
Speaking of Justifying the Mennonite
tradition based on Narrative Theology:
"First, by posing the
realm of God against the kingdoms of the world through the
Christus Victor
atonement motif, Weaver establishes a hermeneutical grid for
reading the scriptures in general and the gospels in
particular
which turns the Bible into a critique of common sense and constitutes its readers
as agents of social and political struggle against the
status quo. (That means "Change Agents" and that means
"Jubilee")
"Rather than foster
cooperation with the institutions of civil governance (as
does popular Christianity) such an interpretation of the
Bible empowers
radical Christians to challenge the state by encouraging them to think
of themselves less as citizens and subjects of the present
world of nations and more as strangers and pilgrims from
the future world of God.
"...This story comes to those of us
whom it constitutes through layers of cultural and historical sediment, and that our reading of the story originates in our contemporary circumstances and formative traditions. Thus the "normative" story's origins are less in the past than in the present, and must be justified in terms of the present. Source
If Scripture cannot be
read without the layers of cultural and historical sediment,
then my story is as good as your story. Therefore, there is
no right or wrong story! We are then free to go our own way
and should not attempt to wreck those who hold to
"yesterday's" views of the Bible.
However, in the terms of
one speaker, this means that "God cannot communicate in
human languages." The clear implication is: "But I can." Or,
"you can." But, "for a price; always for a price."
If Scripture sees the
Exodus as the conditionally-terminal fall from Grace among
the Jews, and I can turn it into an approved example for community and worship
then our layers of culture forces us to contradict the
word "as it is written" prior to Narrative Theology.
Doesn't this make the Bible God now move in different ways
so that even the black words on white paper suddenly
transmute into different words?
This is why trying to
explain God and worship by using the Scriptures is
increasingly held to be "legalistic" or even proof of
being neurotic, psychotic or "demon possessed." The terms
"Pharisee, Legalistic, Sectarian" is just now popular in
my e-mail.
Is Christ as the Rock and
Water in the Exodus event just Jewish Legend? John York and Rubel Shelly
claim to have "taken liberties" with the Exodus event and
teach their "flock" to use this practice. I might come up
with a different story for me. I might choose to believe
that the Spirit of Christ is the same Spirit seen as Water,
Manna or Water.
York and Shelly will say
that John wrote a much more liberated gospel than Luke and
the implication is that John was free to interpret in His
own way. We believe that John would not agree:
Rubel Shelly: As I read John, he is far less concerned with
Luke's "orderly account" (1:3) or Matthew's prophecy-fulfillment
motif (1:22, et al.) than simply to reflect on the spiritual impact of God's presence in human
form on Planet Earth.
Aren't Paul's epistles
correctives after the church had misunderstood
Christian doctrine? Then wouldn't you say that issuing an
end of the period corrective is based on an eyewitness
account rather than interpreting the historical events as understood in John's
old age? Does John take liberties or does he give us additional
material presented by the "inbreathing" of the Spirit of
Christ (1 Peter 1:11)?
If John delivered his
account by taking liberties then how would the Holy Spirit
have written the Gospel Account of John? How do we know
that Jesus wasn't just constructing His story of the Dying
and resurrecting Dionysus (the Jews thought that He might
be) or taking on the Role of the Suffering Servant?
If we can take liberties with Exodus to see the "loss of covenant" motif and turn it into a pattern of worship and community and make Moses our spiritual father then we look forward to the
Narrative Theology treatment of John who presented the
"gospel" motif for believers as the spiritual antitype of the failure type of Mount
Sinai. John presents the "rejecting" reality as the
Israelites used this failed theology to claim that the golden calf was their god who brought them
out of Israel. Of course, new wine from new wineskins and
the musical idolatry brought from Egypt may have been their
"inspiration" when saying to God: "We don't want to hear
your voice."
The proof-text of
Matthew's hermeneutic is 1:22, etal:
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophet, saying, Matthew 1:22
Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they
shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted
is, God with us. Matthew 1:23
Did Matthew report on the fulfillment of prophecy or
did he pull a theological dodge of just elaborating the
prophecies (motif) for some personal goal? Did this common
man really believe that he was taking liberties to construct
a "prophecy-fulfillment
motif."
Did Matthew elaborate the prophecies to connect the events with what was prophesied, or
did the Spirit of Christ prophesy so that the real event would be a supernatural sign? Narrative theology would say
that the story was "enmeshed in history" (Shelly/Harris) or hopelessly
bogged down "in sediment." Therefore, did Matthew "take the
liberties" to make the Virgin Birth become a suitable
narrative for the Jewish population? Wouldn't that fit
nicely with the pagan "gods" circulating in Jerusalem?
You can hear the inspired
transaction but you, dear friend, cannot walk around in the
supernatural world of God.
Rubel Shelly: He (John) takes the sort
of liberty you and I have encouraged this church to take with the slavery, redemption, wilderness trek, and other aspects of
Exodus.
Does John really take liberties and preach Narrative Theology or does John begin long before
Matthew and Luke to reveal what He believed to be the actual--Non-Jewish Legend--facts that the Spirit of
Christ or the Word was and is God:
IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word
was God.
John 1:1
The same was in the
beginning with God. John 1:2
All things were made
by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:3
In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John
1:4
And the light shineth in
darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
John 1:5
Then was Jesus
hallucinating when He said that the "flesh" counted for
nothing but that His "Word was Spirit and Life" (John
6:63). If as God-Incarnate He cannot make a "once for all
statement of fact" then how can we put our faith in Him?
Is John taking liberties
by using the Greek Logos theology of Hermes (hermeneutics)
the inventor of musical instruments and
father of thieves liars? Does he just force-fit Jesus into the
spiritual Messiah to explain why Jesus wasn't the literal
David Messiah of literal warfare. And is it ok to lie "that
ye might believe?"
Jesus made His
believability hinge on His speaking exactly what He heard
from the Father; Jesus commanded the Apostles to do that;
Paul claimed that He knew only Christ as revealed to Him;
Paul commanded the church to speak the same things. That
does not mean "unity in diversity" but it means that if we
speak the Word as if we believe that it is the Mind or
Spirit of God then we won't get into the nonesense of doing
book reports about an uninformed Jew's version of the Exodus
event. Jews often tell me that I cannot even understand the
NT without Jewish blood!
The Post-Biblical Jews
clearly understood that this was a motif of madness and
blindness until Messiah would come (didn't think it was
Jesus). Then, they understood the failure at Mount Sinai and
the nature of the Law and their kings.
I have surveyed a few
books which fuels Narrative Theology
If we leave the inspired
Prophets to define the Exodus event we will see it as much
like the "empty and void" condition when God began to create
order, the Flood as destructive but purifying, the Red Sea
as survivors from the void and empty state, and Israel's
recreation from a vain and empty state (Jer. 4). We will see
a half dozen tellings by the prophets to prove that Israel's
"fall" was based on musical idolatry.
Midrash
minimizes
authority of the Biblical text--Restoring the Law
"As a methodology,
Midrash tends to minimize the authority of the wording of the text. It places the focus on the reader, and on the personal
struggle of the reader to reach an acceptable moral
application of the text. While it is always governed to
some degree
by the wording of the text, it allows the reader to project his or her inner struggle into the text. This
allows for some very powerful and moving interpretations
which, to the ordinary user of language, can seem to have
very little connection with the text. The great weakness
of this method is that it always threatens to replace the
text with an outpouring of personal reflection. At its
best it requires the presence of mystical insight not
given to all readers."
One important source
is:
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land
Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce S. Feiler
We might expect Feiler
to therefore give a non-rabbinic view of the Exodus. The
Web Rabbi understand this as a "pardigm of failure."
"Feiler, a fifth-generation American Jew from the South, had felt no particular attachment to the Holy Land.
Yet during his journey, Feiler's previously abstract faith
grew more grounded. ("I began to feel a certain pull from
the landscape.... It was a feeling of gravity. A feeling
that I wanted to take off all my clothes and lie facedown
in the soil.")
One profound
statement is: "Abraham was not originally the man he
became."
"I have to agree with
some of the other reviewers that Walking The Bible
is NOT great prose; for example, Feiler likes his junk-food metaphors such as when the
desert landscape is described as resembling "trail mix" one place and Cracker Jacks in another. And the story IS
too drawn out. And there isn't even all that much actual
walking; Feiler rides camels up Mt Sinai and Mt. Aaron
and drives to the top of Mt. Nebo.
"Another ... reviewer
wonders why famous
Israeli
archeologist Avner
Goren
would bother to spend so many months traveling with
Feiler. Without Goren's knowledge, field experience and
contacts Feiler wouldn't have had much of a story to tell. Well, as they say, "follow the money". According to an interview
with Feiler I saw in a newspaper in Virginia last week,
Feiler paid Goren to travel with him as his guide for most
of the trip.
"I thought about reading
this one until I caught part of an interview with the
author. He was talking about the origins of agriculture in the middle
east and his complete ignorance of the subject was
painfully obvious to anyone who has even dipped into the
topic. Ignorance did not stop him from spewing
misinformation with confidence and fluency. I'd be
surprised to learn that he knew any more about the other topics in this book than he does about how
farming began, and I certainly don't have the time to
waste finding out.
Me Neither!
Christology As Narrative Quest by Michael L. Cook asks:
"How central is narrative to human experience? to Christology? What is the significance of
Mark's turn to narrative in the development of the Christian Scriptures and of the return to narrative in
liberation theology as exemplified in the Mexican American experience.
Narrative is simply
telling the story as it happened. John did not "turn" from
some kind of outlined theology to Narrative in order to take liberties with the inspired record.
By analogy, a narrative
copy of the Bill of Rights would not make the numbered
rights an American
Legend so
that someone could take it and "loosely reinterpreted" it in Narrative form.
In the Mexican Jubilee one father got a supernatural
message that the Virgin of Guadalupe (Mary the Mother of God or ZOE) was supposed to come and kill all satanic pagans and Masons. You can read about her and
the Jubilee movement begun by Catholics for evangelism for converting North America
into a copy of
South and Central America with "church" as a commune (community) effort to "facilitate" the lives of people.
"Mark and Guadalupe, both communicating through
the power of narrative, frame the Creed, which is a symbolic evocation of John's narrative, and the Summa, which even
in its systematization assumes the foundational narratives. Thus, the Fathers of the
Church and Thomas Aquinas, no less than the Gospel authors
and Juan
Diego's heirs, are seen to be on a "narrative-quest."
Did Mark really have to stop in the
middle and turn to Narrative Theology in order to
communicate? Doesn't Jesus and Paul slip from story to
technical lists?
That is, Narrative
Theology which more and more teachers and writers use to
"interpret" the Gospel Account of John,
"Frames the creed" by a SYMBOLIC appeal to John's NARRATIVE.
There is a defacto
permission that in creating your own "walk in the
wilderness" you will see the musical idolatry as an approved example for
restoring Levitical
Musicians
and priests in the new Narrative
Theology Creed. If Exodus is a "pattern for community and
worship" I would feel that I had been punished by going
into captivity for 40 years.
In the claim that the
musical clergy can "lead you into the presence of God"
there is a clear confession to having restored the Priesthood. However, the factual
narrative says that Christ entered the holy place once for all for our sins. Neither you nor Sister
Singer can fit into the Most Holy place with the worshiper
and God: if you try God will surely trim you down to size
as He has to all who claim superiority and, like the king
of Babylon and his harp and harpist, end up on a bed of
maggots.
Now, we can come boldly
before the throne of Grace where only one "priest" and God
can come at one time.
If the Levitical
musicians dared to take their musical instruments and
"stand in the holy place" they would have been instlantly
slain.
Therefore, all of the
pieces are in place: the Exodus event as our Spiritual
Fathers and a pattern for worship and community (commune)
is the same Catholic presumptious sin of claiming to be
the "Christ" for our church. This is a use of narrative
theology (gleaned from books as sermon fodder rather than
the Bible) as a direct repudiation of Jesus Christ as the
"another prophet" who would be the spiritual antitype of
the carnal, faithless Moses who died for his own sins.
The Walk to Emmaus or the Cursillo Movement is
the Catholic - Anglican "evangelization movement" to convert
unsuspecting prospects to "walk around like Jesus." This involves the Sabbath Eucharistic movement and the Apostolate effort to create more "lay apostles." Of course, Catholics were
more Sabbath-Mass people than Sunday Lord's Memorial Supper
people.
The Catholic Jubilee movement was "for the atonement" of those who come to the
designated place to be "redeemed." Therefore, in Narrative
Theology or Liberation Theology:
"Presently a movement is
in progress to nominate Blessed Juan Diego as Patron of Lay Apostles." God's plan for salvation needs the cooperation of us all.
In the Guadalupe
event God
chose to give
the miraculous image of Holy Mary, his Mother, to a humble, lonely widower.
The Handmaid of the Lord, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, who first brought forth the Savior for us, will play her part in bringing his Good News to
all.
The handmaid of the Lord, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit who brought forth the Savior
(and minor Jehovah's) was Mary also know as Eve and as ZOE. Female musical performers. Sophia was the "serpent" and
Sophia-Zoe is defined like Lucifer and was called "the
beast." She led the "minor jehovahs" into forming musical
teams. All myth? Could be, but as one modern scholar noted
about instruments: "There is no other tradition." But then Joseph Campbell
noted that when modern religions begin to "crack away" they
often turn back to archaic forms where "new wineskins" was
always a potent affect image.
The musical worship
teams is a presumption. They claim the power to "lead the worshipers
into the presence of God." Some even claim, ala Tower of
Babel, that when they sing and dance God uses them as a platform upon which He
lands.
That was the fact in ancient paganism where the musical
performers were the harem of the gods.
Women's singing was a
vital part of all pagan worship. In very early times women became priestly singers
of the gods
in the temple.
"Women and girls
from the different ranks of society were proud to enter the service of
the gods as singers and musicians. The understanding of
this service was universal: these singers constituted
the 'harem
of the gods'." (End of Quasten)
The "authority" Paul
outlawed for the women in his epistles was "sexual authority" which is clearly intended
when the clergy uses beauty and talent to seduce the seekers.
The ecumenical movement needs new
apostles to aid God in the "now but not yet kingdom."
"Thy Kingdom come," the daily petition of the
Our Father, has always needed for its fulfillment the work and collaboration of
the laity.
To all Christians is given the commission to make Christ
and his teaching known, loved, and lived. "The Spirit breathes where he wills" (John 3:8),
and the people of God have always had the charisms to help spread God's kingdom
on earth.
The Vineyard or New
Wineskin heresy teaches that that designated change agents
have to facilitate
the coming
of the kingdom (when they can kill the enemies) by
providing a "new wineskin" which is like rubber and can
fit everyone's beliefs in an ecumenical "last days"
church.
In the present historical
revisionism of the story of the Exodus we believe to be
inspired, the idolaters who died for their sins in the
wilderness have now had their second incarnation as our
"spiritual fathers." Even bad stories can be "narrated" into
good stories. For instance,
"Karl Barth declares that communism is not "madness and crime" and that
the monstrous
deeds of
communism are to be judged more leniently than Nazism because the
communists are working constructively on the solution of "the social
problem".
For Feiler, a Jew, the Exodus walk can take a
spiritual turn but for Christians who get their story from
Exodus rather than a "get me naked" supernatural experieence
in the desert, the story is the story of an ongoing FALL
from which Israel, as a nation, will never get up.
"What Feiler wants you
to take with a straight face is: "Abraham was not originally
the man he became. He was not an Isaelite, he was not a Jew. He
was not even
a believer
in God--at least initially. He was a traveler, called by
some voice
not entirely clear that said: Go, head to this land, walk along this route, and trust what you will
find."
Just off the boat, some of
the people began to restore the idolatry which doomed the
earth before the flood. Some were still faithful and we have
no reason to believe that Abraham was ever involved with the
temple or "tower" worship with wine, women an song. A dead
king and his harpist and harp can still be seen where they
rotted on a bed of maggots. Abraham would have remained
faithful to the teachings of Noah and was not an ignorant
shepherd: indeed he seems to have been wealthy.
Perhaps this is why some
"narrators" can repudiate the Exodus event recorded as a destructive, terminal experience for a
people and give it a second life as a PATTERN for worship
and community even though they will discuss the failures
always covered by grace.
"Barth is not in this a
teacher of morality but of immorality. He is not a teacher of
wisdom but of folly. It amazes us that any man expects the good
to come from the evil as a natural fruit of the evil -- in this case,
"social
justice"
as the product
of violation of the law of God! This doctrine of Barth
appears to be a variation of the Marxian doctrine
"that when the communist (community)
society
is established brotherly love finally will exist everywhere and
the state
(coercion) will wither away; but in the meanwhile coercion (synonymous with complete
violation of the Second Table of the Law) will be the means by which the good end may be attained!
See the use by Dr. Shelly of
Machiavelli and the rest of the story.
We need to get value from
recorded events which did not include us. However, most
narrative theology assumes that the story is myth or legend
and therefore we have the liberty to actually make ourselves
a Moses or a Christ for our time (Henry Blackaby converting
the Southern Baptists). If the final scene turns into a
tragedy then as a "Virtual Video Game" we can rewrite it
according to our own "liberties.
This new but ancient
theology basically says that the narrative is an oral tradition or myths or legend collected by The Jews.
However, this record can BECOME INSPIRED only in the faith of the believer. If
Jesus the "water" supplying Israel in the Wilderness is
LEGEND then Jesus
as Word was
LEGEND in the creation event.
Another book is:
Telling God's Story : Bible, Church and Narrative Theology by Gerard Loughlin
"Acknowledging the indeterminacy of and textuality of human existence, "Telling God's Story" presents the Christian life
as as a truly
post modern venture: the groundless enactment of God's future now.
In this view, human
existence has no determining principle such as a real God
but a LEGEND god and the Bible is not a "determined" text for faith and practice
in the church. Therefore, Narrative Theology allows those who have been "baptized with the Holy Spirit" as claimed can read the
resources and build
their own foundation on a GROUNDLESS set of legends. When you die, if you can
resurrect yourself then you may have the authority to write
or rewrite the Bible in your own image.
Letters from Perverse University by L. James Harvey
"A biting, humorous,
satirical salvo in the contemporary Culture War.
"Does Satan exist? If so, how does he operate?
Are good and evil forces in a struggle for the soul of America?
Letters from Perverse University answers these questions!
Dr. James Harvey provides a satirical treatment of contemporary
American society that is humorous, and biting, yet
profound and informative. The author deals with issues
such as homosexuality, abortion, gambling, adultery,
criminal justice, evolution, national debt, and a host of
other topics. No one escapes the sharp pen of Dr. Harvey
including Bill Clinton, professional athletes, the
Kennedys, TV evangelists, K-Street bandits, the Supreme
Court, and the ACLU.
"Letters from Perverse University is composed of 68 letters
and six memos from a Professor of Deception and Senior Vice President of
Tempters at
Perverse University in Hell to some of his former
students who
have been sent to America to tempt America away from its basic Judeo/Christian values and to destroy it.
Jesus treated the agents
of Satan in an ongoing sense as an actual fact. That means
that "children of Satan their father" still prowl the world
looking for souls to devour. The best way to do that is to
make the Bible a resource from which we build our own story
and by having Sister Singers standing in the Holy Place as a
supernatural sign that he is firmly in control for a short time.
That will be the
supernatural sign to flee from Jerusalem which is identified
as Sodom.
We believe that these
events are actually inspired and true but in the Hebrew
sense of "parable" they are more than just historical. The
creation is a fact but told so that it imparts spiritual
meaning without us having to experience a holocaust or
slavery. When God flies on the wings of the wind we look for
deeper meaning. However, when we are told that Moses led the
Israelites out of Egypt and we know historically that they
were in Egypt the story has meaning as historical, objective
truth.
The Bible is God's story
which flows from Him to us. We cannot find our own "jack and
Jill" story in the Creation, in the flood, in the Exodus or
the Work of Christ. The reach is too far. And the danger is that going into an attempt to make ourselves
into a God or Moses or David or Christ we are warned by the book reviews
above that there is no objective foundational truth.
The confession to
"taking liberties" seems to confirm that in this sermon,
allusions to narrative seems to say that there is no
objective foundation which worries about being altered.
If Paul's commands are
intended to be the will of God then branding them as
"material" out of which we have the liberty to transplant
ourselves upon the cross is a very dangerous belief system.
Rubel
Shelly: One of the things I look
forward to in preaching the Gospel of John is getting to "walk around in" the life of Jesus --
much as Exodus has had us "walking around in" the shoes of our spiritual ancestors of 1500 years before
Jesus' time.
We would all like to walk
around in many shoes. However, I am not sure that we can be
"me" and try too hard to fit into the shoes of a Moses, John
or Jesus.
Would that someone would
tell Feiler that the Exodus event and especially the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai lost Israel the Covenant of
Grace and imposed the Book of The Law to legally govern a
lawless people. These laws "were not good" in the sense that
a speed law is not good: we are tempted to violate it
because we do not love other drivers. The Exodus story is told over
and over including that of Stephen's in Acts 7. The Jewish
clergy believed that they were the Exodus Spiritual
Fathers. When Stephen told them that this was a "pattern"
of evil, the clergy murdered him.
Scholarly Jews understand
the full implications of the Wildeerness experience but
looking backward through a telescope we tend to miss all of
the bumps and grinds of the event.
The sinners were all
allowed to die
in the wilderness and the Levites stood guard like Flaming
Cherubim to keep the people, now called strangers, away from the symbolic
presence of God at the Tabernacle. They could never in their
entire history "come boldly before the throne of Grace."
Perhaps this is why
dominion theology insists on performing preachers and Sister
Singers standing in the holy place which, in churches and
cathedrals, is the area for liturgy. Haven't the Sister
Singers already Stood in the holy place, ejecting the Lord's
Table from focus and many claim that: "we are priests
serving as mediators between man and God." Because Christ
has fulfilled the priestly duties, the singers and
theatrical performers literall claim: "We are God." When you
see this sign, flee for your life.
However, the Legalistic
period is an ideal pattern for "a king set over us" and for
warning the "laity" away from the holy place because, you
know, "the gods can be dangerous if you don't know how to
handle them."
Outside of Liberation
Theology (communism) or now Narrative Theology, the
inspired narrative is that Abraham and not Moses and the
Levitical clergy is our spiritual father.
Next, we will review
John York and Rubel Shelly's retrospective of the Exodus
Series.
Next Section
Rubel Shelly and John York's Exodus/Corinthians
Narrative Theology
Rising Up To Play
proves The Exodus to Be "Falling from Grace."
See Gramsci and the Post Modern View of
Narrative Theology
Rubel
Shelly Sermon Reviews
Home Page
Rubel Shelly:Genesis Book of Beginnings
9.08.08
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