New Testament Interpretive Keys

Index:

Content: [Why Study? How Study?] [Volitional Keys] [Analytical Keys] [Big-picture Keys] [Conceptual Linkage Keys] [Syntactical Flags] [Syntactical Fonts] [The "More" Notes for this page]

This webpage is a sketched, categorical overview. In other webpages, there are many examples of the ideas listed here, in both the usage of a verse and in the correction of a verse's translation; so you can see how to USE the Keys in a verse. In the other webpages, many more keys are dynamically provided than the categorical listing, here. Ideally, you are TAUGHT these things by your own right pastor. That's how I learned what you'll read, below...

Warning: Study of Scripture is the most enjoyable, refreshing, fulfilling and upsetting thing you will ever 'do'. God isn't kidding when He calls Scripture a 'knife' (Roman shortsword, the machaira) in Heb4:12. You're embarking on Divine Dining And Surgery, pure and simple. And all your study is bupkis if you're not in "God's System" when you do it. "God's System" link is at pagetop. We need the food, as well as the surgery, badly; that's why you need to live in God's System (which is nondenominational and private, costs no money). Christians are not designed to function on their own, once they believe in Christ. Due to our congenital Blaming Blindness in Adam, which remains (salvation doesn't destroy your body, see), we are rendered quite wacko by being saved. So first maybe you should click on the "God's System" link and make sure you're in it, before wasting your time and reading this webpage. Seriously: test those Five Elements in God's System yourself, watch how you become smarter, the more often and longer you live in it: for in God's System, you get the HOLY SPIRIT'S BRAINS. Without His Brains, you can't read Scripture, nor can anyone else, 1Cor2 says so. Absent His Brains, you can only fool yourself that you understand what Infinite God wrote, period.

Intro: You'll go crazy over Scripture, one way or another...

Christian and crazy begin with a "c" for a reason. Look how wacko Adam went in Genesis 3. So imagine how much more wacko he became when he got saved? You never hear from him again, after Genesis 3. Look how wacko Abram was, pretending his wife was his sister. Look how wacko Gideon was, making God do circus tricks with the fleece. Look how wacko Peter was, drawing lots for the next apostle? When he knew that only God appointed the apostles? Look how wacko the last-appointed apostle was (Paul: see 1Cor15:1-10); his knowingly-obsolete Nazirite vow, in Acts 18 and 21ff — and this was the guy God 'employed' to write most of the New Testament! So we are wacko, too, spinning Bible with the most goofy interpretations no unbeliever would even imagine, and totally ignoring the Truth.

Witness, look and load: The Dome of the Rock houses the Holy of Holies, the Rock on which the Ark sat. Everyone knows that, no one disputes it. That was the Rock on which Abraham sacrificed Isaac — almost. Islam claims it because their Koran says it was Ishmael, not Isaac. Ok, then — could you have a better consensus that Abraham existed and almost sacrificed a son there? Moreover, if you take a peek at Daniel 9:26, you'll notice The Wrong Guys Have The Holy Of Holies. Well? Don't "the wrong guys" have it now? Doesn't that verse say that the wrong guys will always have it until "the very end", which the Lord Himself also said, in Matt24? Hmmm. Seems like Someone is demonstrating a fulfilled prophecy in stages, to a world constantly clamoring for proof of Him, yet claiming to see 'none'...

Seeing, we don't see. Hearing, we don't hear. So we can't see the obvious which stares us in the face. Because, it drives us CRAZY to realize we are no good. So we can't see that the secular life parallels in every respect, the truth which is in Scripture — not just that God was kind enough to leave two Witnesses of His Son's Departure, but that He is Infinitely kind enough to ordain an entire universe of hupostases, reflected everywhere in every scientific discipline, from math to physics to economics to all the natural sciences — all alike depicting THE HUPOSTASIS, the God-man. Which, the Latter, created — which, thus Reflect His Own Two-Sided Nature, HaYaH+HaWaH=YHWH — the One Who Always IS, Becomes! Just as Paul says, in Romans 1:17ff. Due diligence disclosure is FULL. Never, abstruse. [There's a whole lot said about the meaning and pronounciation of YHWH, and certainly there is NOT merely ONE meaning — it's got to be a deliberate play on words, like in Exo3:14's style of humor. Frankly, given how God likes to play with etymological data in Scripture, and how He concatenates, and how He IS two-sided — the combo of haYAH and haWAH is.. well, like Him. You put in two or three vowels you think appropriate, end the last "h" with a "y" (to fit Moses' day), or 'whatever', based on which etymological search of pre-Mosaic or post-Davidic or whatever seems most accurate to you. Frankly, I think He means ALL permutations of spelling and pronounciation (and the many meaning layers which accompany each such permutation) — in any epoch, signifying Timelessness Of His Fabulously Infinite GORGEOUS Character! :)]

Witness, Look and Load: Not too long ago, doctors couldn't get to be doctors, unless they BLED people. That was considered the expert advice of the day. The reason such a practice was considered valid, was that diseases were known to be in the blood, so if you bled the person, the disease would bleed out, too. Of course, what happened was that a lot of folks DIED or got sicker, because the loss of blood meant their tissues (etc) couldn't get fed (among its other functions, blood carries food your stomach processes, to your cells, so the volume of blood loss meant starvation). Today, of course, we realize how silly and harmful it was, to bleed people to rid them of their illnesses. What we don't realize, is that we still misconnect the 'dots' of data in just as silly a way, yet in different 'formats', so we still make the same mistake as the 'wisdom' of the day when bleeding someone was considered good medicine.

Witness, Look and Load: To review a case study showing Flawed Dating of the Exodus by reputable scholars, CLICK HERE for Exodate.htm. Upshot of that page: the 1440BC date is clearly delineated in Scripture, since God's Accounting System for Time is disclosed in Bible, and you can track all the way back to Adam if you follow it, with Real Dates. Then, you can look up in some encyclopedia of heft — like Encyclopedia Britannica (denoted "EB" hereafter), which I used to vet Bible's Exodus dating — and bingo! it matches! Same, for Joseph — for there is a 490-year Accounting System (i.e., in Daniel 9:25), and whaddya know — the "vizier" EB talks about is demonstrably Joseph! And, 490 years after JOSEPH was enslaved, the Exodus occurs! Right on time. For the 490 is matched to a person, a strongly-believing-in-God hero — the whole WORLD gets 490 years due to that ONE person. And you can track it. Moreover, "Moses" is the Royal Egyptian Name of only a few Pharaohs, none of whom were Ramses, k? So you know WHEN to look for Moses' origin: by Bible, he had to be born 1520BC, so that helps you even more (he was 80 when the Exodus occurred, and was the Hero of that 490 which began in 1440BC). So why do scholars misdate Exodus, whether pro- or con-Bible? Because they FLUNK in their research. No excuse, frankly. But a dingbat with Bible and calculator and an encyclopedia can see the fit of the data — if filled with the Spirit, and given time to vet. Well, in deference: it took me a solid year, maybe 30+ hours a week, to do Mirroring and Exodate.htms.

See what a difference in Perception Of The Obvious the Holy Spirit makes? See how blind we all are? If something so obvious as a Dome, A Wailing Wall, blood which we forever have known carried nutrients, or a name (Moses) — right there! to put a scholar on the right historical track? [Nerd note: ancients were just as trained in practical biology as we are, if not more trained. They couldn't have been butchers, priests, surgeons (yes, they used surgery on battlefields, else no one would have survived), otherwise. Medicine, like all science, is politically sensitive, so it waxes and wanes in its competence, historically. So, they knew food was carried by the blood. That's why Scripture has sooo many analogies to blood being life, Doctrine being the lifeblood of thinking, food, etc.]

So God the Holy Spirit must literally rehabilitate our souls, even as He restored the earth, in Gen1:2ff. But the universe, is inanimate matter. We, however, have volition. So He won't rehabilitate us to the extent we won't accept it. First acceptance, Merely Believe In Christ. That makes you born-again, John 3, Titus3:5, etc. Subsequent acceptances, Believing In The Word. Discrete, repetitive, constant exposure, learning Word and learning to Live On It. Every day. That's how Christ prepared for the Cross, so that's how we prepare for eternity. No other way.[Gen1:2 is an abrupt departure from Gen1:1, in the original-language texts: there is an unknown gap in time between the instantaneous creation of the entire universe, and the six-day rehab'ing of Earth during one of the interglacial periods. In Gen 1:2, Hebrew waw has a disjunctive usage, is not necessarily consecutive. See BDAG lexicon or any other of similar detail. Moreover, v.2's verb tense displays a subsequent-to-initial-creation wasted condition. More can be said, but not in this introductory Caveat. Exo20:11 uses "asah" in Hebrew, which means to MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF SOMETHING, which is not the same verb as in Gen1:1, so that's yet another of many verses confirming that the Earth was REMADE in the Gen1:2ff account. It's a real-time account; but also, everything in Scripture is hypostatic, so double-entendre. The second "entendre" is paradigmal: how you are remade post-salvation, inter alia. Many layers of meaning in every passage of Scripture, every word in the Word. Never stand pat on an interpretation, for there are always more 'floors' of meaning, more connections. Flawless, Infinite. Just like the Author, heh.]

"Born again" means we lose our blind brains, so to Get His Brains, and we GET His Brains by breathing in the Spirit, 1Jn1:9. Heh: God always did like the garbage for sacrifice — offal, entrails, burned. So We Church are to be living sacrifices in these humiliating (to us) bodies. So to get THE HEAD: "Christ in you, the confident expectation of glory" in Col1:27. That verse's highlighted meaning, is His Indwelling; but Scripture verses are skyscraper-stacks of layered meanings. So the verse also means we get His Thinking poured into us VIA that Same Holy Spirit, which results in that Glory. (See also Rom5:5, Eph3:15-21, 2Pet3:18, Phili2:5. 1Cor is a dissertation on us getting His Brains, which has as its climax, 1Cor13, in the Greek. In "Parallelisms" below, much is said about that chapter.)

For due to the Session, 1Jn1:9 in habitual and sustained use fills the believer with the never-before granted (Jn7:39, Eph1) Unlimited, Unfelt-But-Real Divine Power needed to see BIBLE, and thus rehabilitate the soul. Else, Bible's but a jumble of words, eye has no brain to tell it what it sees; so any ol' hallucination, will do; Satan or anyone can say anything about it, and we'd grasp no better than an animal, what's in there. Kinda like 1Jn4 says, a child filled with the Spirit will see more than a respectable degreed person who hasn't been filled. That's a sad waste of education. So, imagine what a degreed person will be told by the Spirit when he is filled!

So use 1Jn1:9 every time you feel a reaction (good or bad), just in case your emotions pushed you over the sin line. [Until you understand well how multifaceted sin is, you might just use strong feelings as a barometer. Often self-righteousness feels 'good', and guilt, etc. feels 'bad', but both are sins. Contrary to what popular psychology promotes, you don't have to spend time in self-absorbed diagnosis — though if you are under a doctor's medication, stay on it. Meanwhile, just 'name' what you think might be a sin and move on quickly. The Holy Spirit knows how to fix what ails ya.] Else, find another way to spend your time, so you don't waste your time.

Why Study? How Study?

Let's start with WHY we should study Scripture. The decision every human faces is this: how much do you want to know, and have a relationship with, GOD? If you want to know God and you want to have a relationship with God, then you need information you can ABSORB. Ergo, a BOOK. So if a book claims to be from God, the way to handle such a book is to evaluate the CONTENT, to see if it IS from God, rather than from some other source. That is, assuming you actually want to know GOD for Himself. Every Bible verse echoes Matt7:1-2 in one or more layers/storeys of meaning; which verses, in the broadest sense, mean that whatever you 'vote' about God is what you will GET. So consider your daily, volitional voting carefully...

Of course, upon that awareness-of-God, you will have all kinds of internal conflict: it's your body's genetic 'memory' of Adam's rejection of God, playing against you. So learning the Book is no picnic. ("In the beginning..Man" section of LordvSatan2.htm explains this problem in some detail.) You will find every psychological defense mechanism urging a hypocritical interpretation of that interest: see Gen3, Rom7. So if a person can't handle the conflict (which is typical), he'll pretend love/interest, even to himself. So, the book will not matter; so any ol' book will do; just slap God's name on a book, begin 'worshipping' it, and presto! one is holy! So, lip service is even given to God's Book, but the Book itself is not learned (2Tim2:26-3:7). Used, abused, kissed in Shabat worship (well, only the fingers are kissed), made a status symbol, even; but never learned.

So, not only must we decide if and how much we want to know God, and thus Learn His Book, we also must decide on what PRICE OF PEACE with others we are willing to incur. Upfront, you must decide how much flak you are willing to take, to learn Him: "counting the cost", as the Lord puts it (Luke14:28, ties to a slew of verses, like Prov20:25). For, any god concepts are always politicized by mankind. Because, the idea of God is universal, there is usually at least some desire to know Him, so people try to use that desire to gain power over other people. So you can never trust what people tell you about "God", however He is defined. You always have to sift through what you hear, and then talk to God about how much is true: like Elihu said to Job, "the ear tests truth". God Alone Is Always Right. We humans, even when we don't mean to, have hidden agendas. So use 1Jn1:9 like breathing, and try to think toward God as much as possible, 24/7. You will grow light-years faster if you do this: test it yourself, and see for yourself.

For More on the War You Face when Studying Scripture, CLICK HERE.

If you are willing to live with the flak, then you agree that if God Wrote a Book for us, He means for us to Learn it. IT, not religion. IT, not works or rituals. After all, you don't need a Book, for the latter two 'magic'-based ideas. And if you have a Book From God, you don't need hearsay. It's important you know your own motives and their import, so that when hassle comes, you can remember why you are doing what you are doing. Your choice, see. Not some sense of duty, not some pressure from outsiders, not some appeasement attempt. Want God or don't, learn Scripture or don't, But Know Why, in any case. Without honesty, you may as well be dead. If you are not yourself knowingly motivated, but instead your motivation is puppeted by other people, you will inevitably fall apart.

Next, let's talk about WHAT VERSION of Scripture to study. God inspired only certain men to write Scripture. The men He chose, He Chose Personally. Those men were conversant in certain languages: only THOSE languages would be inspired, for they are 'original' to the writer. So, we'd have to study what THEY wrote, not a translation. One of the reasons why each OT and NT took so long to be reduced to writing was that God only wanted to use certain authors to write it. The criterion for use was how well they understood HIM. See, God's Infinity is a shock to the human soul, and only learning Him can strengthen and grow the soul. However, once strengthened and grown, such a soul can absorb more contact and information about Him. Thus, souls which got to the level of growth such that they could Write Infallible Scripture were the ones used.

Now, let's look at HOW to study this Scripture. What God's Inspired writers wrote, they wrote in Deliberate Styles. So, the original languages of Scripture tell you how to read them by means of the particulars of the words and how they are used. The objective is to understand what the writer MEANS, for God chose to express God's Meaning THROUGH that writer. Not, through what someone else thinks the writer means, nor what we think the writer means; not, through someone else's opinion on the same topic; not through some other language. This is GOD TALKING, not people. So we need to know what GOD means.

Whatever the STYLE of the writer, God always has him think and write thesauretically. Similar words, like concepts, antonymal words and concepts, plus nuances of difference between words and concepts, all link together to give you scads of Bible-Defined Information which (sadly) is otherwise glossed over.. and thus misinterpreted. (Search on "Thesauretical Writing" below to get a fuller idea of how Bible does this linking.)

So THE most important "how" of studying Scripture, besides 1Jn1:9 in constant use (so you're online with the Spirit), is to think thesauretically. This, you can learn to do by grabbing a thesaurus in your native (or most fluent) language, and studying it. Note how words connect yet differ. You will thus be better able to spot the same linkages in Scripture. Frankly, any good literature, law, computer science, forensics, medicine, math — all depend on what amounts to thesauretical thinking, aka "connecting the dots". Wordplay is rife in Bible, and so precise you can't easily misinterpret meaning, if you keep on pushing to "get" the wordplay. Frankly, people get Scripture wrong mainly because they are too shallow in how they study and use it.

So, maybe the first thing you really need to do is learn the features of your own language. What's a noun, a verb, a direct object; how do tenses and moods of verbs affect the meaning in a sentence; if your native tongue is not English, it probably changes word-endings: learn those thoroughly. Also: what kinds of clauses are used in long sentences, and how do they differ? Also, how to DIAGRAM a sentence (taught in the US in the 1950's, but not afterwards, quite a pity). What combinations of words literally mean one thing, but in 'idiom' mean something else. What combinations of words make for sarcasm, for nastiness, for kindness, for love. Your own language is rich in these features: so, learn them.

Therefore, the WAY to study Scripture is via 1Jn1:9 usage like breathing, under your right pastor, and in the original languages. Furthermore, the WAY to study these original languages, is to learn the features of these languages, so you can see WHAT God is saying.

Above all, keep using 1Jn1:9 and asking what is the COMMON SENSE interpretation. For, above all, God makes sense. So an errant interpretation will not make sense. But you won't know what doesn't make sense, if your spiritual brain is out! Why else do you think so many goofy translations and goofy ideas of God exist? Because people have no spiritual brains! Why, we are ALL born brained-out, with reference to God; when born in Christ (John 3), we are STILL brained-out, unless online with the Spirit!

Now let's look at how NOT to study Scripture. We are all vulnerable to the following, um, traps:

Only being online with the Spirit makes for spiritual brains, and the only PROFITABLE way to study Scripture is In The Original Languages, And Under Your Right Pastor. So, breathe 1Jn1:9, study, and Live On What You Learn!

Volitional Keys

Your volitional attitude toward a thing determines what that thing means to you, whether you see the thing properly or not. This, because you are Free To Choose. So, the person who ardently believes that any killing is murder will MISinterpret OT verses commanding execution, as God being nasty. Or, conversely, will try to blame the Jews, and treat such passages as adulterated, altered; or not God's Will. So, the person who doesn't have that prejudice, will tend to get the actual meaning God put there. So, we all gotta check our prejudices 'at the door', before studying Scripture. This is supremely hard to do. That's another reason to use the original-language texts and not a translation: the difficulty of reading Bible in original languages blocks out prejudices. For, our brains are only so large: extra concentration on WHAT Bible says, doesn't leave much room for reaction. It's time-consuming, so that by the time you see the answer, you can see why people are 'all over the map' on the issue: so aren't inclined to judge, anymore.

Detection of prejudice is important, and if you are honest about them, you can profit even more by study. So privately and honestly list all the topics you have strong feelings about, as bullet points. Keep each one short, and make it really say what your strong feeling is. You know, "i hate intellectuals because they are snotty", or ..whatever. If you aren't sure what to list, think about what makes you react with hostility, tears, etc..which you'd tend to dwell on. List them: they are likely mirroring some 'flaw' you have or think you have, yourself. (That's an old psychology trick, btw.)

Then, when studying bible under the Spirit (1Jn1:9 used routinely), if you see yourself react, see if the reaction 'matches' one of those bullets. Pay close attention to WHY you get a certain interpretation from a verse in such reactive situations. Chances are, you will still get the interpretation right, but for the wrong reason. Only a right reason rightly interprets a right interpretation (right reason determines context of the right interp). So, see if you can find a right reason.

Oddly enough, there's one kind of 'prejudice' you should have, to ensure objectivity: first assume Scripture CORRECT (or your pastor's interp, if testing that); then, DEDUCE how and why it would be RIGHT. That 'prejudice' saves a BUNCH of time in tracking 'contradictions', 'interpretations', better-understandings: it narrows sleuthing to criteria/facts/ evidence which are most RELEVANT, kinda like crime detecting. Then, do your searches for proof or reconciliation, etc. using those more-relevant items. This method was often used by Greek philosophers/ rhetoricians, and is also known as the "1st-class condition in Greek debater's technique". That is, ASSUME TRUE then work downward from there to derive conclusions, corollaries, etc.

This assuming-God-is-right is not somehow less 'objective', but rather, more so. First, the assumption gives you DIRECTION — which, ASSUMING God lives, HE will guide you. So, objective for that reason. Secondly, since you have an 'answer', you can now OBJECTIVELY work backwards to see how &why the answer is right. So, thirdly: since you are working backwards and you don't know how it will go, you can't influence the path, because the path will have to fit the answer, no matter what you want it to do: it will or it won't work, no matter what you want it to be. Fourth, the DIRECTION you follow to find that accounting-back to prove the answer will be more RELEVANT to the answer, and hence you won't get led down false paths (bane of the induction method).

For More on How HOSTILITY is incorrectly deemed 'Scientific', CLICK HERE.

So let's get efficient, and maximize this Victory-in-Christ: why not first assume God's Word True, and save time, since the thing assumed true will have characteristics you can trace backwards to find whatever empirical data you require? Then find that data. Don't you think the data will really exist? Don't you think you'll be able to prove it's the right answer? Granted, the way to prove something God gives you will be a big surprise, to others. Then again, if it actually always works — the true test of a theory is its predictability — won't you have proof ABSENT tautology?

If I have a formula to solve, and I know the answer but not all the values of all the other variables — don't I BACK INTO those values? Not a mathematician in the world would fault me for using that method for math, and in fact would say it's the ONLY OBJECTIVE way to do it. So, then: why not take the math approach, with respect to Scripture, since the INFALLIBLE Bible is THE answer? Take what IT says is the answer, then trace backwards to find the necessary variable-values? Then, look for EVIDENCE of those values actually having-been or being extant? Oh, no! It's only OBJECTIVE to presume Bible wrong?! LOL: Have to presume the Bible fallible to prove it infallible? That's Like Presuming Guilt Before Proving Innocence — Why Eschew That For People, But Not God? Put your Brain On! Look: if the Bible is truly wrong, presuming it right and tracking the answer backwards will still prove it wrong. That is, if IT IT IT is truly wrong (a wrong formula will not track backwards, either). For, a thing is true, or not.

See, DEDUCTION is always the superior objectivity, because you have an answer and now you're accounting for it. You Can't Thus Influence An Outcome, because the outcome is where you BEGIN. Thus, you have what clinicians always long for: true double-blind 'controls'. You are the one who's 'blind', because you DON'T know what the accounting will reveal. You are also 'blind', because you don't know HOW the path goes. You learn it AS you go. So, you CAN'T be influencing the answer, and thus the path and results will prove the answer right or wrong.

So, then: treat the answer in (or claimed to be in) Scripture as RIGHT, then BACK INTO the how-is-it-right. Saves a great deal of time. Oh: save even more time, by using 1Jn1:9 and asking Father in Son's Name to show you how&why it's true. Then, like James says in James 1, start deducing, not doubting you will be shown/guided as you go. God loves showing off the Truth, so He'll bring up data against the Truth so you can have even more proof of it despite opposition. In short, He does superior 'due diligence' because He loves the Truth ("The Lord loves Justice" and similar verses). Not even the Bible debunker, however brilliant, can think up 'objections' and 'contradictions' so well as God! It's a lot of fun, and a bizillion times more efficient. So provable, even to those hostile plodders...

So, then: when you hear even (and deservedly) 'respectable' people say Gospels disagree or Bible contradicts, you'll smile, knowing the disagreement isn't the fault of the 'computer'.. but of the 'user'. Which, in good time, God will address to the user's great enjoyment! For, God is out to bless His Word, and we got paid by Him. So, He's ALSO saving us time from 'defending' Scripture, the meanwhile. 'Saving us embarrassment when we ourselves misuse the 'computer', too...

THREE CARDINAL ANALYTICAL KEYS

With analyst errors so common, how ELSE to maximally assure objectivity, so you yourself don't improperly value/interpret? Well, besides breathing 1Jn1:9 and consistent study under your right pastor,

THE CARDINAL FIRST principle of interpretation is this: whatever is most obvious we LEAST see. It's the HIGHEST TRUTH (ayathos, in Gk of Rom12:2 [wow, heard again just today, L1547!]) which is the most obvious; because, it's Highest. So, all other truth will be underneath the Highest, and corollary: but you USE the Highest Truth as the real standard, thus all the lower truths will fall in line.

Gotta keep looking for the HIGHEST meaning, therefore, IN the Truth, which is, the Bible: for, Ps138:2b! He has magnified the Truth above His Own Person! Need the Holy Spirit's Brains, then, because we are all born, brain-out, and remain that way, on our own: as testified by Romans 5:12-8:17. Every misinterpretation of Scripture happens if the Highest Truth is NOT first apprehended. Every misapplication of Scripture happens if the Highest Truth is not the criterion for deriving corollaries related to the application sought. So, always FIRST look for the Highest Truth, and stick to it in deriving any interpretations or corollaries. Whether of Scripture, or of God's Will for your life (again, Rom12:2). I first learned this back in June '99, and have never seen it fail to work.

Because this tendency to overlook is so endemic, here's a 'FLIP' shortcut you can try to reduce the time it takes to RECOGNIZE the highest truth. First, look for the 'loud' answer. Then, flip it over, so to speak: REVERSE it. Or, substitute "God" for the primary 'character' in the loud answer. For, the loud answer is the satanic answer, and God is always substituted OUT. Just as Adam chose the woman over God in the Garden; just as Adam made figleaves to 'atone', mis-substituting his BODY for his SOUL in his calculation of what he'd done wrong; so also we humans Loudly Substitute What's The Reverse Of The Truth, for the Truth: which is, God Himself. Which anti-God substitutes we reverently make In His Name, of course. Greatest evil, loudest evil, LOOKS 'white', dazzling the eyes. Angel-of-light, in fact. Phoebus Apollo, one of many nicknames for Satan ('actually, a translation of his pre-Fall Hebrew name). [Although I don't think the demon who played Phoebus Apollo was actually Satan, but rather used Satan's name to show what 'team' he was really on, the name in Hebrew (Isaiah14:13, I believe) is "Haylel-ben-Shachar", "MorningStar", "Son-of-DawnLight" or similar meanings. Encyclopedia Britannica has a good entry on the ancient significance attached to Phoebus Apollo. Whether the early (i.e., Mycenaen) Greeks knew their 'god's' name was a translation of Satan's name, I don't know, but clearly the name was known long before Isaiah was given to pen it. By the way, this substituting-out tactic of Satan is covered at great length in SatStrat.htm, which is the "Appendix" for the "Thinking Out Loud" web megaseries (link at pagetop).]

In short, Read With Your Spiritual Brain On: use 1Jn1:9 like breathing. We all know we are supposed to LEARN something God is telling us. For thousands of years, we all have also known we are to EXTRAPOLATE lessons from what we are told: every religion uses parables and stories for the purpose of teaching PRINCIPLES one extrapolates with his own brain, from the facts; above all, Judaism is famous for this.

Question is, what do we extrapolate? Do we spend oodles of Mishnaic hours deciding how to distinguish between blue and white thread, or gently picking gnats out of our sandwiches? Do we look for secret numerical codes which tell us who will be assassinated? Do we look for proof of evolution, or reincarnation? Do we take a practice in the Bible and make it a condition for holiness? Do we recognize at all how such 'research', paints God as some genie doing tricks; that such 'proof' of Scriptural Divinity maligns HIM? Oh, yeah: what brain is on, when seeking such nonsense! Did Christ pay for us with that kind of thinking? Of course not. So, yes, become like a CIA intelligence expert and read between the lines — but don't become a goofball: keep on clinging to that Highest Truth as your criterion for reading, decisions: His Essence, His Word!

THE CARDINAL SECOND principle of interpretation is this: GOD WANTS US TO THINK THINK THINK. Think when you read a verse or passage about what it might mean. Think 'outside the box' of religious conformity. Think That God Is Real, So He Really Thinks. Him, Person. Him, Your Creator, Who Loves You. So forget all the barnacles that religion uses (well, Satan uses religion) to shackle your brain and manipulate your emotions. ASK QUESTIONS to Father (use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's name), and expect an answer. 'Not necessarily all-at-once, for if your question is differential calculus, and you only know basic math, He'll first have to train you in math, lol.

It's so strange to hear everyone clamor for 'proof' of God, when the biggest proof sits in every American hotel room, for crying out loud. The Proof Is In Writing, Now: Scripture. It's a Contract from God, primarily: that's why it's called the Old TESTAMENT and the New TESTAMENT. A "TESTAMENT" is a WILL, a legal document explaining what the Owner of Assets Wants To Do With Them, And Who Are The Beneficiaries. Like, YOU. Like, me. Like, the whole human race, if it would agree to the TESTATOR's terms.

So now let's try to answer some of those questions no one asks. First, about why Believe or Burn is a Fair Gospel. Think: if God Himself were to ever sin, what would happen to HIM? Duh. [It's so dippy when people say God can't sin. Of COURSE He can: He wouldn't be Omnipotent if He didn't have the Power to Sin. He WON'T sin, but He can.]

THE CARDINAL THIRD principle of interpretation is this: FIND PATTERNS. Look around you: everything has a SHAPE. The independence of a thing is partly due to the fact that there is a CONTAINER, and that container has a certain SHAPE. Your body contains your soul, and your body is a certain shape. So is your soul: the pattern of what you think habitually is the 'shape' of the real you (body is just a bundle of DNA +lifestyle habits).

So, too, any thinking has a 'shape', a pattern, and within it is a wholeness. So, to know what GOD thinks, we get the BIBLE, so that we won't die from contact with His Thinking, but can Learn His Thinking in a manner compatible with our weakness. That's why constant use of 1Jn1:9 is so critical (true in the OT also, but expressed differently, viz, Ps32:5 and Ps66:18). For CHURCH (us believers), usage of 1Jn1:9 makes us be Filled with the Spirit (can't feel this). Later on in this webpage is a homework exercise to help you prove Bible teaches the foregoing sentence. For now, just use it: kinda like 'doing' a lab experiment, then learning the underlying pattern of principles, later.

So, God's TRUTH is likewise a pattern: everything is connected, and there is a wholeness, a 'shape' to it. So, every verse in the Bible is teaching something: what it says, what it omits, the WAY it says what it says — all these are important keys to interpretation. So, in a narrative, you look for the message by looking at Patterns. Same, with any other Biblical text. The pattern depicts the lessons, and there will be Many Lessons From Any One Pattern. Non-narrative text conveys patterns by Repeated Words Or Repeated Analogies (most common analogy is to Cross), with the corollaries from those patterns radiating out like the spokes on a bicycle tire.

So every book of Scripture is deliberately woven from a particular Theme Pattern kinda like "jacquard" weaving, which is a pattern woven in the very threads, not stamped on: for, the Bible Intends you to notice a Temple Veil analogy. (The temple veil was extremely thick, incapable of being torn: see Josephus' description.) The purpose of picking a theme pattern is to Show Connections In The Data. Bible Focuses On Relationship, not merely listing facts. So, a theme pattern enables better memorable analysis of the relationships among the data.

Data for data's sake teaches nothing. So relevant data is linked to relevant data so you can learn something. Thus, certain data which is not relevant to the theme is excluded from mention, or is mentioned differently (i.e., only to show the Relationship angle). Don't make the childish mistake so-called "scholars" continually make, i.e., that because Luke doesn't describe an event the same way as Matthew, there must be a contradiction in the testimony, lol. Only babies think like that. God is no baby, baby: He doesn't need to repeat a thing in the same words to prove Himself to you. Rather, He caused this Book so you can learn from it. Hence, the patterns of exposition, not a mere see-I'm-really-God-you-can-believe-Me train of facts.

To get you started on what patterns do for comprehension of Scripture, pick one of the Gospels, and see if you can validate (or improve!) the Gospel-theme comments, above. Or, pick one of the bullets below and play with it. If you're using a translation, stick to same translation as you do this, for a given 'version' will tend to translate the same original-language words the same way, within the same book. (But not across books. Dunno why.) Ideally, have both an interlinear and an unabridged lexicon; but also, download some online Bible of the same translation version, and print out the book you'll be tracking, so you can highlight the keywords. (It's really hard to do this tracking with a bound book or even software: book pages are too small, and software restricts panoramic view.) It's supremely important to do this. Christians routinely study Bible in snippets, not panoramically — they stay stunted in spiritual growth, if they keep their learning, fragmented. (For what it's worth, my whole spiritual life shifted into high gear when I finally "got" the pattern of Romans. My pastor always teaches panoramically, but I guess I wasn't listening well; for, I didn't see the patterning in Scripture itself on a broad scale until I studied Romans under him: 768 hours of lessons.)

In sum, the three principles: Keep Seeking The Uppermost Truth; think think think; seek author/story PATTERNS. If you keep on trying to 'do' these three thinkings, it will be very difficult for volitional prejudice to cloud you. Keep using 1Jn1:9 also, lest you lose your spiritual brains, the Holy Spirit! and become a brainout.

Big-picture Keys to Interpretation

Moreover, when person "A" writes to person "B", BOTH KNOW EACH OTHER. So a lot goes unsaid. If you listen to any conversation, you'll notice its staccato quality. Partial sentences. Keywords known only to those in the conversation. Even most meetings, business conversations, chats about family have a lot omitted. And why? BECAUSE BOTH PARTIES ALREADY KNOW THE CONTEXT. So someone else reading or hearing the conversation years later, will find the letter or convo, hard to understand. Thus you must read Bible.

See, every Bible book is deliberately written at the END of the writer's ministry on earth. The audience has long heard the content, but now the writer is about to die or retire.. or, a new generation who won't have the writer among them for THEIR lifetimes, needs it written down. Or, the audience is so wide now (as it was for the Pentateuch), the material MUST be written down, since the audience is too big for the writer to traverse, face-to-face. So when you read Bible, you need to know that the initial audience hearing those words, were already long familiar with the content. Wordplay alerts you to that fact, in the original languages: you can't make wordplay if the underlying concepts for the 'play', aren't already understood. It's like telling a joke: if you don't understand the concepts beneath the joke, then you don't get it.

Concepts are eternal. They have relevance in every generation. But if you don't know the concepts, you won't get the meaning of the words. Even if you knew the words. You're always walking in the middle of a conversation, when you read Bible. So you must continually know the context.

One big context everyone misses which just baffles me, is how God accounts time in 1050-year increments, with two 490-year promise-time units inside (490+70+490=1000+50). These are VOTING units, and time only continues because some believer VOTED ENOUGH for God to JUSTIFY time's continuance. I had to spend most of Part IV explaining this fact (starting with LvS4a.htm), as though the concept were new. It's not new. It's a time-accounting underpinning throughout Bible, and all the Bible writers and their immediate audiences, knew it well. Else you couldn't have the succinct presentations given in Daniel 9:24-27, 1Kings 6:1, Acts 13:20, Luke 3 and Matt1 which all rely on that accounting system.

Some people gloss over the OT and even the NT because it all happened so long ago, it can't be 'relevant' now. Brains out! What, is an old movie irrelevant because it is old? Doesn't any story have some paradigm underneath, from which one can learn? For crying out loud! So, not only do you have to be an Aussie to get Aussie, but you have to Look Beneath The Surface To See The Pattern.

So also, for concepts. If you and I are both clued into who "He" is, I can just say "He" and don't need any further identifiers. So, if the recipients of a Pauline epistle already well know how the Filling of the Spirit makes one spiritual, but sin makes one carnal and hence the need for the activity enumerated in 1Jn1:9, Paul doesn't have to explain the mechanics, the reason, or the purpose: he can just REMIND them, "Keep on being filled with the Spirit" (Eph5:18). So when you read Scripture, look for what's taken for granted in the writeup. That tells you what EVERYONE knew already. Because, duh! you don't write to someone about what they already know, but about what they don't know, or need to know better.

Important Example: since the audience is the Jews in the Gospels, and they WELL KNEW Trinity (see Lvs4a.htm; also notice how the Pharisees never ASK who is Father, Son or Spirit), Jesus' Divinity is phrased using Greek OT (LXX) keywords: i.e., John1's Greek, the Lord's quote "Before Abraham was, I AM" (deliberate play on the Sacred Tetragrammaton, INCLUDING its Hebrew SOUND). Every Gospel is chock-full of these specialized terms. By contrast, the epistles TIE His God-Man nature using Greek-god concepts as well as the Hebraic ones — since the audience included NON-Jews. For, Gentiles Don't Know The Law, and needed the help. See for yourself.

Another example: Scholar bloopers are commonly displayed in the History Channel's many documentaries about the Bible. I've yet to see even one of them which is more than 5% Biblically-accurate (they don't get even Roman Emperor history right, though Suetonious is plain enough). [It's downright scary that since Suetonious bluntly tells you Nero was a pustular blonde tending toward the effeminate, a 'pretty boy', History Channel portrays him with darker hair and robust. So if they get the obvious you can easily read wrong.. how much can you trust what you hear?] Take, for example, the bloopers displayed in their various episodes on the alleged 'Christian' invention of hell. Bible in the OT is so rife with Hell concepts that all the Lord has to do in the NT, is use "Gehenna" as a metaphor of the place, and everyone who heard Him, 'got it' about the meaning. Were that not true, the Lord couldn't even make that metaphor, use the term (it was a noxious trash dump outside Jerusalem proper). Gehenna is an Aramaic word, not a Greek one. Hades is a place analogous to Sheol, where there were separate compartments for the good and bad "shades" (dead people, temporary abode for their souls pending His Resurrection, as explained in Eph4:8-9). But Gehenna well depicted the ETERNAL outcome, not the temporary one. The Lord couldn't have spoken about it in passing if the concept of eternal hell weren't already KNOWN. Instead, the Gospel would show a long explanation of what "hell" was, if it was new. But did any of the so-called History Channel scholars mention that? Hell no. If something is new, you must first explain it, before you can craft metaphors. But only metaphors are used throughout both OT and NT (see Psalm 37 on David's analogy of how hell awaits the wicked, so don't envy them down here on earth).

Ergo common-sense, basic questions are not asked in the process of researching Biblical 'conundrums'. And why? AGAIN — neither Word Written nor Word Person, is abstruse; but rather, WE are blind. Our best scholars are blind, because they are born in Adam. We are blind, because we are, too! The Jews were blinded by anger over the Real Messiah showing them how blind they are — not because they didn't know Trinity, but because HE CLAIMED to be the Son — LvS4a.htm explains ("mystery math" table and the paragraphs just before it).

No wonder the Lord is so frequently abrasive in the OT and Gospels. What else will get through to such blindness?

Ok, but we aren't Aussies either, but Frenchmen. We weren't alive when Scripture was written, so how can we be SURE what it means? Ahhhh. God the Holy Spirit knows. And, John 4:24, "They that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in doctrine." Ahhh. So, use 1Jn1:9, and keep plugging under your right pastor! Ask Father in Son's name for ANYTHING (remember that verse, you can ask for ANYTHING in Son's name) — for anything you don't understand. He'll answer, boy oh boy: how do you think I got the ability to write out all these webpages? It took time to learn the underlying spiritual math, but now — whoa, I can reason out and see the Living Person all this beautimous doctrine portrays! So, then: what He has done for me — Isn't He Saying He Wants To Do That For You, Since You Are Reading This? Isn't He Always Saying He Wants To Do This For You, Me, Everyone — For The Sake Of His Son? Shall The Son Have Automatons Or Spiritual Babies For Companionship? me genoito, Hell, no! So, Then: The Holy Spirit Wrote Scripture, So He Can Teach You Aussie. Heh.

So, then: because there is an audience, a most important interpretative tool to use with Scripture is isagogics. Isagogics tells you about the audience at the time of writing. Their culture, their habits, their lifestyle, etc. Exegesis needs isagogics too, because the way the word is used at a particular time in history, changes. For example, "charity" in olde English used to be the very strongest word for love. It didn't have the help-the-poor connotation, nor did it have the institutional connotation we know today. (Actually, the term as we use it today was born from the olde English idea of unconditional love which "charity" then connoted.) So now, when you read that 1Cor13 verse in the KJV with "charity" in it, you won't mistake it for some command to give all your money away.

Isagogics also means a lot of words or ideas not now current then abounded, and to know of them really unlocks interpretative conundrums. For example, a place in Israel (or anywhere else) undergoes name changes as time passes. So if a chapter in the Bible calls the same place by one name, then by another (example, the rock on which Isaac was to be sacrificed in Mt. Moriah later becomes the site for the Holy of Holies) — Each Name Is The Name By Which The Readers At That Time Best Knew It. So also, for different names by which people were known; for the use of the term "camel" versus "donkey"; for analogies (Heb4:12 is one, likening Scripture to the famous Roman machaira, a short two-edged sword which killed or maimed much more efficiently and quickly than other types of close-combat weaponry then made). In short, never read Scripture by today's definitions or concepts; but rather, by THAT day's definitions and concepts. The biggest failures in interpretation stem from two sources: misdefining God (hence imputing to Scripture the misdefinitions as one reads); and Reading Scripture From Other Than Its Own Perspective.

So, then: "rightly dividing the Word of Truth" (KJV, in Timothy) means, in part, learning how to think like the reader of that time would think, so to see what the writer was saying, in that thought-milieu. Granted, the Bible is for US as an audience, too. That's why Scripture is PRESERVED in the original languages, and why we CAN go back in time, so to speak, to see how it was INTENDED back at the time of the original writing. HS enables all this: that's why a truly-qualified pastor is only one trained to study and teach Scripture in the original languages. Or, dependent on someone else who does this. Anyone else is just blowing hot air. Or, guessing. However well intentioned the teacher, unless he knows the Bible's original languages, or knows someone who well knows them — the teacher really DOESN'T know how to interpret Scripture. Nor, of course, do we. We, as students, need to also study, so we can understand our teachers better. The teachers are appointed by God, thus kitted out with special spiritual gifts to enable them to reach back into the past and "apprehend the exact thought of the writer", as my pastor puts it. We don't have that gift (well, some of you males might have it), but we do have subordinate gifts — especially, connected to learning Him. The HS runs all those gifts. Woe to us if we don't use them; Great Wealth of Doctrine to us, if we do!

It's positively incredible how many misdefinitions of God are STUPIDLY made because God uses some kind of metaphor to teach us the way a parent must teach a child. So we childishly view those verses and think God has emotion, or that the Father has a body; or, what we think of our works is how God thinks of them, or that we can contribute to or lose our salvation..etc., ad nauseam. All these are the Energizer Bunny's banging (my term for our sin nature in Adam, because the sin nature is genetic, mindless, and we are attracted to it constantly). Moreover, it's positively incredible how we all gravitate to the negative side of a verse's meaning, rather than discern the many positive meanings there. Like, Christ paying for sins. God Says This Means Sin Is Not An Issue: barriers removed! So, believe! That's why Christ paid, and He's the One Who Told Us Sin is Not An Issue, but rather, Believing in Him: John 16:9. But we say, 'oooohhh, i'm bad!' and so SET UP a barrier, MAKE sin an issue (illustrated by all the self-righteousness one constantly sees on IRC and in real life). Hell is packed with moral people: notice how good deeds are piled up for burning in Rev20:11-15. Sins aren't mentioned, capisce? And why is that? DUMMY — SINS WERE PAID FOR ON THE CROSS, SO THEY AREN'T RELEVANT ANYMORE. If my pastor yelled that once, he yelled it a bizillion times over the 53 or so years he taught. You can prove this in Bible. Only lust for self-righteousness, denies it. Original sin was religious, see Gen3: making oneself as good as God. So self-righteousness is the hardest sin to get out of, and no one gets out of any sin absent living on Bible in God's System.

So, then: as you read Scripture, practice getting into this habit, as much as 1Jn1:9 usage, like breathing: ask what is the POSITIVE meaning of a verse. Sometimes you won't see one. Keep on asking, because each request (with 1Jn1:9 used) batters down the blindness a little bit. Then a little more. Then, a little more. In military parlance, this is called a "salami tactic": the barrier to seeing got there that way, and gets removed by the Holy Spirit that way, too. Heh. So USE it. Each usage is worth a bizillion dollars, and when you've used it habitually, you'll be able to look back and see how blind you were, but now..you see!

God speaks to us in language we understand, so we should never mistake His Tone for His real Essence. Instead, we should recognize that His Real Language, is LOVE. Else, Phili2:5-10 would not be in the Bible. Only Love 'goes low' (real meaning of tapeinow, usu. mistranslated 'humbled' in that verse). Because to Love, going DOWN to the level of the object is not demeaning. So, Love speaks the 'language' of the object. Like, a child's. However, if you are older, you can study the same words and see an older meaning. In fact, the older in Christ you grow to become, the more meaning in the same words you will see. Endless layers of meaning, in fact.

See, in the ancient world this Scripture was a big deal. Books were extremely rare, expensive, and especially, the Word itself. Moreover, words were a big deal, period: for, life was drudgery, and words enlivened life. Especially, the Bible's Words, which are amazingly honest, open, politically-incorrect, witty, enjoyable, refreshing — better than the best movie or best book you've ever viewed. Seriously: it's really hard to tear yourself away from Bible in the original languages, once you can read it. I don't care what pleasure you want to name, licit or illicit; even in its idealized form, honey — it can't even begin to compare to Scripture, The Superior Enjoyment! The last 150 years of this earth's history are truly unprecedented: everything about how man lives, changed. Of course, until 1850 or so, the availability of Scripture itself, though meant always for the common man, was difficult for the common man to acquire; almost impossible, until the Reformation. Translations we have even the so-called 'new' ones today, bulpucky — they are just rehashed, modernized COPIES of the legalistic translations made during that self-righteous-sickness period we know as "the Reformation." Incredible, how the Original Writ was covered over, reversed in translation, to suit various political agendas (i.e., the KJV was developed as a political compromise between Protestants and Catholics, so that James 1 could govern).

So, throughout most of man's history, people learned Scripture by HEARING, and they memorized it; not so much because they couldn't read and write, but because they couldn't get the Book! For centuries, people were extremely protective of the few Bible books they could get: a psalter or two, maybe a torn portion of a Gospel. (This situation remains true, even today, in Africa. Go to www.bf.org if you're interested in helping out.) Thus, even until about 80 years ago, people actually learned to read and write by using the Bible (and the Sears catalog, for folks in the rural west and midwest of US during the Depression). If they had to memorize it, they learned to read and write with what they memorized. If they actually could USE a Bible, or — rarer still — even OWN one, they used it to learn to read and write.

So, for its own audience, kinda like but more than any other 'holy book', the Bible has always been popular, and POPULARLY UNDERSTOOD. It became the foundation of the culture which learned it, and has changed cultures everywhere it has been embraced. Popularly. Commonly. Bible terms, phrases, expressions were often used, in daily life. Bible's way of 'thinking' was a common frame of reference for people in the Biblical lands.

These isagogics are critical to Biblical interpretation. So, that's one reason why so much of the Bible is written axiomatically: everyone KNEW what the terms meant. So, if Amos calls people "cows of Bashan", THEY knew what he meant. So, when the Lord said, "Before Abraham was, I AM" they knew immediately He's making the bald statement (even using the meaning of the Sacred Tetragrammaton, a BIBLE term) — that HE IS GOD. So, for us who are many-centuries-removed from that time, we ourselves must learn the Bible's own terms and meanings for those terms, to understand the flow of the writing, and thus, the FULL interpretation. Else, we'll misunderstand what Scripture means by what it says.

In short, the style of writing in Scripture was FAMILIAR to people, and it was commonly and popularly used. Such usage didn't mean folks were great believers: it was just soooo cool to use God's Word, see. Such usage, however, does mean that the teaching in the NT is couched in terms of OT concepts, plus a wholly-updated vocabulary to explain the implementation of the new covenant that Christ received as Seed when Seated. The preparation phase of which, is now (NT keyterm for Church Age, among others). So, get prepared: learn how all the rich metaphors and nuances of the original languages work, so you yourself can, under your right pastor (or AS one?) "delight thyself in fatness" (OT snippet in Isaiah).

Marriage is fundamentally a contract between two people; it is 'signed' by a mutual vow, in the presence of witnesses, that they will be faithful and care for each other for the rest of their lives, "for better or for worse". Yet, we all have nice, warm fuzzies when we talk about marriage. So, then: the "promise" doesn't bore us to talk about. Why, then, do we get bored about all the other types of agreements, which are far less intimately obligatory? Why, then, since the Bible is first and foremost a copy of a MARRIAGE contract between God and the human race, don't we get warm fuzzies about looking for its LEGAL meanings, too? Or, conversely, why do we get all riled up about its laws, tyrannically beating up our fellow humans over their (to us, perceived) disobediences? See how all we humans are cannonfodder for Satan&Co.? Can we be dumber?

If you really really really love someone or something, you are EAGER to OBLIGATE yourself. That's why a Legal Agreement is so meaningful. Not dry, not boring, but..the highest form of love. As noted above, God uses terms like "commandments" to help we childish humans to understand He loves us. We don't have the ability to know what good and bad are, but we can relate to "obey". So, the good and bad are made "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not" so we can learn. But what happens, is this: we never grow up, so distort the Love Message in those commandments into "I AM GOOD" if we "obey", or "I AM BAD" if I don't. We never grow up, so don't see the Grace within the Law. Or, we don't see the legal aspect at all, and focus only on the feel-goods.

How to get past our childish-preoccupations, when we study Scripture, then? How do we neither to the right or left, discern the legal terminology? Well, use 1Jn1:9 and plug on. Awareness is the key to using 1Jn1:9, and wanting GOD is the key to awareness. The Holy Spirit will do the rest, alerting you when you learn under your pastor or read a passage, to whatever of the legal meaning is relevant to you at that moment.

In case it's useful, here's a quick set of hints I can list about legal stuff to look for in the Bible. The listing is paradigmal, so you can also use it to evaluate any legal document in life. If you can get your hands on a pension (or 401(k) plan document (usually there are two of these which fit together, an "Adoption Agreement" and some kind of "Plan Document"), a will, a mortgage, etc. you will benefit more from what follows. Find what is in the bullets below in that document, so you get a better idea of what I'm talking about. There's usually a particular OUTLINE for a contract, and I've maybe not listed these outline categories in their usual order (trying to type as fast as I can).

The Bible isn't only a Contract, but the CONTRACTURAL nature of ASSOCIATION underlies all law, so all of Bible is thus structured. So, Bible's got a whole slew of legal forms in it, and the specialized terms to go with them. Since our proximate raison d'etre as human beings is due to the larger Angelic Trial in which we are witnesses, you'll see a whole lot of

There are many other legal forms, but these categories should be enough to give you a big-picture sense of how the Bible organizes itself legally.

Then there are certain legal conventions which underlie all concepts of law, which of course the Bible itself employs. In pretty much every language on the planet, incorporation by reference is a legal way of including a whole body of information, text, law which is SOMEWHERE ELSE — but gets grafted into the current document, so to speak, by REFERENCE to either the name of the document, or some key aspect of it; or, the FIRST or FIRST-AND-LAST, or FIRST THREE of its items/provisions. Like we say, "I know my ABC's!" — to mean the WHOLE alphabet. Like the Lord mentions the first and last book of the Hebrew canon (in the Hebrew order of books, not the order we know) to show He's incorporating by reference in his speech, the entire OT. Like "Book of Jasher" is mentioned in Scripture, to validate the item being quoted as being accurate in that book (whether the current contender for the Book of Jasher is really THE book, is not certain). So, when you see the Bible reference "all the commandments", it's talking about not just the commandments (Decalogue), but the Ordinances/Testimony, and the Judgements. (These are the three divisions of the Mosaic Law.) So, when you see Paul just mention one (or sometimes a few) items which headed a list, he means the whole list. Writer of Hebrews does the same thing in Hebrews 6.

Then there's the underlying rule of all law or legal concepts: a proper legal interpretation should MAKE SENSE. Allied to this is the legal concept of 'common interpretation' (of which "common law" is a part), meaning what a sensible person would think a thing means. That is, when there is a dispute over whether your green telephone can be covered under warranty, since the warranty doesn't say what COLOR the telephone is, common SENSE says that the color doesn't matter; the judge would rule for the plaintiff. Bad and conniving lawyers pore over wording to try and finagle obedience, disobedience, or whatever other point they want folks to believe, by playing games with wording, with circumstances, etc. If you read Lizzie Borden Sourcebook you can get a real good idea of lawyering games (played against her, imo, whether one thinks she was guilty or not). Another good example of lawyering games is the "fine print" of all those welfare programs — the fine print having like a bizillion conditions or procedures — so it becomes so difficult to actually get anything from the program, folks don't use it (true for senior property-tax abatement rules in Illinois, for example).

People have been playing lawyering games with the Bible from the beginning. That's what Satan does, nonstop. (SatStrat.htm covers a summary of his strategy and tactics.) That's what humans of course do also. Look at how Adam manipulates the evidence in Genesis 3, when the Lord questions him. Look how people use the Bible to justify some pet taboo, or to browbeat someone else into a behavior or attitude. So, we know we do this manipulation in our own souls, as well: 1Jn1:6-10 is a good example of it. Our sin natures in Adam just have an urge to spin anything related to God in a wacky manner. So, then: when reading any legal provision for Scripture, ask: what is the common-sense idea, here? Bad translations get flushed out that way, for added benefit. More importantly, especially in God's OT rules, or stories which seem to have no discernible point, you begin to see that wow, Scripture makes sense after all!

Let's take a quick quiz on what we've learned in this point about Scripture being a sheaf of differing types of legal documents. Here's the test question: how can one know the WILL of God? (Hint: answer is near the top of this topic.) Flunk yourself in reading if you don't get this answer right, and learn to read better by practicing. (I used to flunk, too, lol.)

Talk to a lawyer or get a basic book on drafting legal agreements from a law college, to learn more about legal structures and conventions, because I can only spend enough webspace to give you the idea. It's worth your time...

So use 1Jn1:9 and pay close attention to PATTERN when reading narratives: what is God's OPINION of these things? What's HIS REASON for telling the story you're reading? For example, just because people liked to fast when they prayed; just because they liked to dine together, and they wanted to share their goods in common — don't assume GOD ORDERED it. Look for His Opinion. If you find 'no comment', ask yourself what point God is making, then. Remember, in the OT He always expressed His Opinion; and where silent, after you look at the situation, you realize He's silent because the action in question is NOT His Will. Sometimes, you find this out in a different book: for example, in Zech 7 God chastises the Jews for their fasting, because they were priding themselves on it — so, He asks: are you doing this fasting for ME? And of course, there is no law in the Law to fast. By contrast, if you fast, does God CONDEMN it? No: there is no law in the Law to forbid fasting, either. In short, just because believers, even those who are sincere 'do' a thing, doesn't mean GOD agrees. Doesn't mean GOD disagrees. Gotta go by context.

So too, for the NT. Paul was wacko and let his hair grow: what irony, considering he wrote Corinthians! James was wacko and decided Gentiles only have to keep certain portions of the Law. Peter, of course, as was his habit, had gone wacko, deciding to ELECT an apostle by lot (a forbidden practice, in the OT)! So: is that what God WANTS, or is Peter himself being goofy? Well, what does Scripture reveal? God always appoints His Prophets DIRECTLY. So, don't assume that election by men is the way to know God's WILL, just because you see it in the Bible, heh. Context, context, context: note that God Himself chose Paul. So, as always, any decisions should be sought from God, not from men. Granted, in corporate situations, people have to agree to a selection, and in that case 'election' is their agreement — but not the method for knowing God's WILL. (Check it yourself: do you ever hear of Matthias again, after Peter&Co. voted him apostle? Or, do you instead see, 1Cor15:1-10, where Paul lists the apostolic-call criterion, seeing the Lord in His Resurrection Body? So, then: where do idiots call themselves today, apostles? Did the Lord really appear to them, too?)

Here, too, being able to "get" the original languages of Scripture is critical. God communicates His Opinion using outright bald sarcasm, and by finesse. The original languages of Scripture really are good at precise meaning, including these. So, you know not only what God's Opinion is, but how and why it is, and what the boundary lines are. Fabulous stuff.

One big tipoff to knowing God's Opinion in stories like these is the way He talks to the believers in question. You know, like the Law was worded like a paint-by-numbers system for spiritual babies; its gorgeous true doctrines were 'underneath' the simple words. So, too: you know Gideon is wacko (though he believes too — the wackiness is side-by-side), given the way God treats him: ok, little boy, now I'll make ONLY the ground AROUND the fleece wet. So also, in the NT narratives: often the content is very kindergarten-y, like Peter's vision of unclean food, or the order to a different Ananias to go heal Saul. The tenderness and intimacy are just as awesome in the NT as He demonstrated with Abram in that initial ceremony (where Abram fell asleep), or with Gideon. What astonishing Love and Patience for us babies!

Here's a gem, Luke 16:9. The commentaries on it are really funny. So look at the context both before AND AFTER the verse (even in English), to get the entire story the Lord is telling, then ask yourself this question about v.9: who does the welcoming? Who is NOT doing the welcoming? And, what "eternal dwellings" are they? ABOVE the earth, or BELOW? I find it interesting that "welcome" is dechomai, which means "to receive with love" (has a big-celebration connotation), and is also used in the believer-discipline passage of Heb12:5ff. Also, used as apodechomai in Acts 21:17 — again, by Luke, and the verse there is so laconic, given the context, it's downright sarcastic. So YOU decide what Luke 16:9 means...

Another big tipoff: check if the author of an epistle is commenting ON the action/doctrine in question, or whether he's merely reporting it. For example, if men say or do a thing — like the jailer being baptised — that's MEN talking or doing, not God. But what's God's opinion on the thing said or the act? Well, notice later on in the same passage (Acts 16) how the author of Acts notes the fact that the jailer and his household were saved by BELIEVING — which, of course, was also the REAL method of being born again in John 3 and Acts 16:31. Notice also how wacko the jailer was! See, God, being Love, is very gracious in pointing out errors. Or, tough — depends on what's the best TONE of teaching.

The wheat-and-tares theme also shows up a lot in these stories, which is refreshing to all of us, for we all act like TARES, though wheat! It is positively amazing that the Paul who let his hair hang out was the same guy as the one who wrote Canon; that he no sooner pens Romans than he goes completely against everything he'd written, and God has to put him in chains to wake him up! This is extremely encouraging: for, just because one is wacky, doesn't mean he's not mature. As always, there's ONLY one issue: how well have you metabolized all those Doctrinal Deposits? Action is last to get healed. Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine QUALIFIES you to GET action. No fruit absent Food. Doctrine first. Alpha and Omega. Then, harvest time. So obviously one will see the tares get 'harvested', too!

It's refreshing to see that all the wackiness in Christianity has ALWAYS been around. Whether it's Abram pretending his wife is his sister, or Paul making vows, even AFTER having been resuscitated.. even the greats started out wacko. So none of us need be intimidated, but rather we should be encouraged, that yes, this Pleroma Plan of God really really really really works!

For more on How God orchestrated Cohesive Scripture from so many disparate writers, CLICK HERE.)

CONCEPTUAL LINKAGE KEYS

There are basically two types of logical seekings: a) FINDING DATA, and b) CONNECTING DATA. Since VOLITION is the issue, not sin, the degree to which man WANTS TO KNOW GOD will be reflected in how much, how often, and how deeply he seeks God. (It's not a works question, at all. This, of course, is the reason why Christendom, like Judaism before it, has traditionally messed up and touted works. Satan's not stupid.) Bible is thus written in a manner that a person who's spiritually 'five years old', can get a five-year-old's grasp of both data and connections. For someone spiritually older — and the ONLY way to get spiritually older is by Learning Bible Via 1Jn1:9 and right pastor — for someone spiritually older, the same verses will yield a more-mature understanding of both data and connections. All this, to get to the Individual Goal of Eph3:15-21, and hence the Macro Goal of Eph4:11-16 (in Greek: translations are awful). Of course, the entire book of Ephesians is on this very topic: what is the purpose, what is the data, how does it connect to Knit Together The Body Of Christ. 1Cor6-13 is on the same macro topic, as is Col1, Hebrews (whole book), etc.

In order to learn WHAT is the RELEVANT data, what are the CONNECTIONS in that data ACCORDING TO INFINITE OMNISCIENCE, you have to be able to spot the WRITING STYLES God has the inspired authors of Scripture 'breathe' (theopneustos, 2Tim3:16-17). Some of the more important of these styles are noted in this section.

Classic case is 1Jn5:18; without knowing the fit of the passage (which the rest of 1Jn5 and 1Jn3 tells everyone, but who cares to investigate, lol), one mistakes the entire import of the verse (which is about irrevocability of salvation due to positional sanctification).

A really great help for my own keyword tracking has been BibleWorks, for if I remember a keyword in one language, I can then find out its original; or, remembering the original, I can find out how it is usually translated. That's why in my sites you'll see me CLASSIFY rather than name, verses, i.e., "save" verses, etc. Because, those are KEYWORDS. By viewing them all you get a real good grasp of how to CONNECT the dots. Kinda like chess, you can play forever, but you know where you are going. Led By Bible. I first remember hearing about this keyword tracking when my pastor spent time on "hope" verses when he exegeted Romans 5:5 in his tape series on Romans (verse-by-verse exegesis). My spiritual life skyrocketed, as a result: that's the day when I saw for myself how Bible is Infallible. (Before that day, I believed it, but didn't see. Frankly, my pastor has always taught by cross-referencing keywords when he traces a doctrine pan-Bible, so I must have been brained-out for a long time, to not notice this is THE way to really get a grip on Scripture.)

You need the Original Languages to do a competent job of tracking them. See, when translating, sometimes you leave alone the word because it's a keyword, and sometimes you translate it because it's a PLAY on a keyword or is not being used in that sense. Really, we need a fresh translation of Bible which doesn't translate the keywords, but just leaves the Original Words alone so you can track them. But then, most of the Bible wouldn't be translated, so thickly woven are these keywords. Heh. Good thing the Spirit teaches us!

God bless the translators, they have the worst job on earth. Divided over this problem they all know — when to translate a word so it shows as a keyword, and when not — translations don't routinely render the Bible keyword the same way, so you don't know from translation, how to track the keywords. Or, if the keywords are rendered consistently (i.e., KJV tends to do that), the choice of what English word is made, confuses. Like, translating "sozo" to SAVE all the time, makes the UNacquainted reader think he has to work for his salvation, or he can lose it, etc. ("Save" in English has more than one meaning; same, for Greek, and the first meaning in Greek is RESCUE.)

The Bible is, even if demoted to the mere status of "literature", the most deftly packed piece of writing in history. Whole DOCTRINES are communicated by the deft placement of a keyword, the type of tense, even an article. Parallelism (q.v.) is thus accomplished, and much is learned.

In short, because Scripture is written to an audience who already KNOWS the keywords, because written by someone who already knows doctrine so well that he can just pen perfectly what God the Holy Spirit taught him — only small references are needed to convey whole doctrines. So, you can track them throughout Scripture, and get both the parameters and flow of the doctrine, in a dynamic, easy-to-remember context, rather than via some rote process or dry tome! So, if you know "water" is a keyword for Word, when you see "pour" in Romans 5:5 you know it's Word being poured into our hearts — which then is called "Love", explaining the result of that Word's Pouring. So matches Gal5's theme, which is exactly the same; so now 2Cor5's Process of Learning to have "Love of/for God" (a circle demonstrated by the genitive case, which has either an objective and subjective focus, or both, as in Rom5:5). So then 1Cor13 is about the HEAD, the WORD, not about some emotion of love. See how much Scripture is suddenly clear because you know "water" and "pour"? See how you can screw up interpretation, if you don't know the keywords? Of course, 1Cor cuts God's Head off everywhere in the translation of the Book (same cutting-off occurs in Ephesians and James), so you can't get the right interpretation.

For example, John 1 loves to make wordplays on the "Word of the Lord" passages in OT, plus fact that the Son was the Shekinah Glory (though passages like Isa63 show Spirit was also, denoting Co-Equal Godness); and that the Son is the One Who met Moses. You can't see this in English, because John uses the LXX keywords for both Shekinah and Exo3:14's I AM WHO I AM. It's impossible to mistake it: skenoo and ho own! Especially since ho own is such a paronomasia in OT! The words even sound like the Hebrew! ("LXX" means "Septuagint", Greek OT; Jews in Jesus' day used the LXX, and many NT verses quote from it.) So you know right away that John is not using the Greek idea of Logos (an incredibly stupid claim made in our day), but rather, tweaking the gnostics (Logos and "light" were two of their keywords); rather again, that John is screaming Deut 6:4 — Adonai Elohenu Adonai ECHAD is UNIQUE because He "became flesh and TABERNACLED/TENTED (skenoo) among us." Very funny. Very profound. All this, accomplished with just three words: logos, skenoo, and ho own. Amazing!

Another example: The Bible is adamantly 'dispensational', far more than I knew before learning the Daniel timeline. Bible lays a LOT of stress on APPOINTED TIMES, and they all relate to TEMPLE — the spiritual life, the contract with God. So, since our bodies are Temple since Church is now to be made of LIVING STONES, all those OT metaphors' precedence, help us to interpret our own covenant, our own "time".

A more controversial example has to do with the Bible's teaching that human life begins at birth. My pastor has taught this since the late 1960's, and although I'm adopted, I always recognized it was insane to claim that one is human until born. That the Bible is so strident about the fact that life begins at birth, which I guess accounts for my pastor being like-strident, caused me to do some investigating. Caveat #4 on the Home Page has a longer explanation, so what follows is just for purposes of discussing keywords.

Scripture writers, of course, are much more sophisticated in their concatenations, since every verse in the Bible demonstrates God's Infinity Attribute. So, the concatenations' math goes in infinite directions, connecting every concept in every verse (of which there are dozens, if not thousands) — to every other verse. So, when they concatenate, literally hundreds of verses get added together: vertically, horizontally, diagonally. I first noticed this math function when under my pastor's exegesis of Romans 5. (He wasn't talking about it exactly, just tracing the meaning of "hope" in Romans 5:5. HS used that to awaken me to this function of Scripture, and for the last 8 years or more, I've seen it play everywhere in Bible.) To do this, they string together keywords and/or metaphors. When you recognize that any word meaning "know" stands for all Bible words of similar meaning (thesauretical), you can begin to understand that the linkages are..endless. Check it out yourself. Pick a verse, play with its synonyms and use a concordance or software program.. see how the linkages work! (Even the begats are like this, but knowing what to search on, takes a lot of preplanning.)

Concatenation was a lot easier for people in the OT and the Lord's Day, because — think — they had far less 'entertainment' available to them. Moreover, their lives were more repetitive, so more of the mind was free to ponder, concentrate while engaged in some task. People would talk about Scripture and its concepts while they sewed or baked bread; while they travelled to the next stop; while they ate or washed. So, by the time a kid was 12, he would be so reared in the terminology and wordplay, it would be natural for him. Even today, orthodox Judaism has this practice, since Deut6:4ff enjoins it: "when you get up..when you lie down", you're supposed to be thinking and living on HaTorah. So, concatenation was a daily, common, occurrence. The Quality and number of Levels of Wordplay was considered a sign of education. Other cultures prized it too, within their own milieu: the Greeks, for example, did a lot of concatenation wordplay regarding their 'gods'. You can't understand a classical Greek play if you don't know it.

So, OT concatenation tends to take the 'concrete' form, so is more metaphorical, the metaphors being common things. NT concatenation upgrades the OT form, and goes off into the stratosphere with ABSTRACTS. Today's far-duller populus go blank, when confronted with abstract concepts: use 1Jn1:9 like breathing, if you catch yourself getting frustrated. For, mankind has declined from his former aggregate smarts. But the Holy Spirit can redress any shortfall: just be willing to learn and do the legwork (the latter is evidence of positive volition). [The decline is very dramatic since I was born. My vocabulary is considered by many today, to be way too high: yet, it was merely 'average', when I was growing up in the 1950's!]

The Lord was best at Scriptual math and concatenation — you'd have to pour over the parables and things He says very carefully, to catch on. I started to plot the Scripture He was concatenating when He stated Matt16:18 (each word in that verse represents dozens+ keywords in OT); but after I realized He made an Exactly-Fitting Confluence Of All The OT prophecy, Fitting Together The Prophecy Of The Gentiles, I gave up, exhausted! LvS4a.htm is on this topic (part of the larger picture of why Church is not Israel, why Rapture is Pre-Trib, kicks off Trib).

Concatenation is one of the most sophisticated and important communication devices in Scripture, almost as important as "parallelisms" (covered below). Folks who don't spend time learning how it works will misinterpret Bible's meaning, and never catch on, mistaking the concatenation+math for Biblical error, etc. Frankly, many who have reputations as good Biblical scholars don't recognize concatenation and mistake it for Biblical error. So sad and common is this scholarly ineptitude, you'll find modern Bibles preface its books with claims that so-and-so (author) had to get the information from some other mere human. Why? Because, to these scholars, they see 'mistakes'. So they might still 'buy' the basics in Scripture, but don't buy that it's infallible and inerrant. What, is the Holy Spirit chopped liver? He 'can't' transmit whatever the so-called scholars find impossible to believe, to the Scripture writer? Yeah, well — if you learn how concatenation and Scriptural math 'play' in the Bible, you'll never have even a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Spirit Himself, inspired every jot and tittle!

All believers actually use some form of concatenation in daily spiritual life. How often do you remember snippets of verses from widely-disparate portions of Bible? And immediately, you know something of how they 'connect'? That's the Holy Spirit, mentoring you. Keep on studying, and you'll 'hear' it happen, even while waiting for a bus, or even in your sleep; people will mistake you as 'brilliant', but you will know it's the Lord. Seeing Him, anyway, is what you will care about. And, oh boy! You will: you don't have to die to see Him, and no dream or vision is even remotely as clear, as Scriptural concatenation, in live display! Doctrine works! His His His Thinking!

Usually, the parallelisms, like concatenation, are funny (haha, or smile-ironic). Wording is almost always very witty. Romans 4:5 is a great example, but only in Greek: the more you work for salvation (or 'for God'), thinking you're EARNING WAGES, the more you make yourself go in debt! The two parallelisms are wages and debt (or, working vs. crediting, if parallelling the four participial verbs — verb VOICE parallels are critical to the humor and the interpretation).

Probably the most sophisticated parallelism I've seen in Scripture so far is in 1Cor12-13. All of 1Cor is awesome, not at all the shallow how-to-behave, ohh-ahh-spiritual-gifts interpretation generally sold. It's All About Head, And How Head Will Attach To Your Body, because You are part of the Body of Christ. Metaphors have a LOT to do with sex in marriage and body parts, so of course your average teacher would be somewhat constrained to tone down how bald Paul is — Paul, the only virgin apostle! Look: it's really stupid that the immoral get to so color the word "sex" that we can't even talk about it the way GOD means it, as a holy and wonderful thing between two married people, representing (as my pastor likes to remind us) COALESCENCE OF SOULS. Not the cheap nonsense pandered everywhere by everyone who thinks like an animal, flashing their mere skin as if that wasn't gross. So don't think what follows is meant in that tawdry vein...

Parallelisms don't only occur for problems/solutions. Lots of other pairings occur: cause/effect, obverse/reverse, male/female. Concept of pairing/opposites of many kinds probably give rise to this use of parallelisms, in Scripture. God Loves Turning Things On Their Heads, And His Ironic Humor Matches His Ironic Nature. Pay special attention to any ironic parallelisms, and think them over very carefully. These are stated both baldly and conceptually. The latter is only found when you evaluate the meaning of the narrative, parable, or explanation. Examples are: dead but alive again, not-my-people become my people (Hosea), lost but found (Gospels), valley exalted (Isa), can't live until it dies (Paul's body analogy in last half 1Cor15), "unpresentable parts" (lit., private parts) being the more honored (1Cor12:20ff), term "Immanuel" (God with us), poor-rejoice-in-wealth (Jas 1, but also common in OT), sterile-bearing (Isa54:1), and many others. Looking at irony in the Bible will unveil a whole lot of what Christendom has missed seeing from its founding. The writers of Scripture were keenly aware of parallel irony. We should be, too. The original-language texts have a great deal more parallel irony than the English renders; but there's so much, you could learn even in translation.

All prophecy in the Bible is double-entendre (dual-application, a type of parallelism). People who don't know the parallel will misinterpret prophecy, and thus potentially wreck their spiritual lives. Isa7's prediction of the Messiah being born of a virgin (not merely a young woman — poor scholarship always 'forgets' to compare Scripture with Scripture) is FIRST routed in the time it was stated; the 2nd meaning is for a later generation, the one in which the 1st Advent occurs. So also, the Isa28:7-12 prophecy of tongues is to first warn Samaria, but also to warn of the TEMPORARY end of the age of Israel (the end of Samaria being the model for the end of the whole), and the insertion of the age of the Gentiles (a really big prophecy in the OT, has a lot of keywords to denote it). This, of course, happened on Pentecost (see Acts 2, where Peter explains it).

So, there are TWO Advents, not one; so, every prophecy, even though only belonging to Israel (hence, not to Church), is DUAL in meaning: near-fulfillment (to the generation first getting the prophecy), and far-fulfillment (to a parallel generation in some not-date-predicted future). What we call the Rapture (which is an Anglicized term taken from Latin Vulgate in 1Thess4) is an ENDING of Church, and a BEGINNING of the last 7 years of the Age of Israel. (LordvSatan4.htm's associated subpages provide a lot more detail on this and other prophecy issues.) See the pairing?

One of the biggest classes of major misinterpretations in Scripture is the misapprehension of parallelisms, particularly in the OT. So many mission-critical Bible Doctrines are screwed up or missed, like the RESTORATION of the Earth, the SPIRITUAL DEATH which occurred when Adam ate the fruit, the fact that no life is in the womb, Hypostatic Union, etc.

There are literally thousands of doublings, especially in the OT. NT's doublings aren't so easy to spot, but they exist: Paul likes doublings; 1Jn uses them also. Translations, as just noted, REVERSE the doublings to singles, so you almost never see the doublings (just as you don't see the soundplay, especially in the Hebrew). Anything the Lord says in the OT demonstrates wordplay/soundplay doublings: quite distinctive speaking style. Psalms uses couplets, and so do many other passages in Scripture (without the poetic tone of Psalms) to SEPARATE related ideas; to show causality; to show What Is Not The Same in clause/verb 1 and its 'double'. Again, in Gen2:17, you have a doubling of "muth", to show how Spiritual Death Causes Physical Death. You realize this is the setup from the doubling of "eat" and "tree" in the previous verses: "eating" is a metaphor for believing throughout Bible; "tree" is a result of what's produced by eating (for the seed of belief produces a spiritual crop, get it). So to REVERSE the coupled comparison by translating the doubling, "you shall surely die" is just plain dumb. It hurts to say "dumb", but it hurts worse to Miss This Doctrine. Now I understand why my pastor spent so much time explaining the meaning of the doubling in Gen2:17.

Same, for treating Gen1:2 as a furtherance of Gen1:1, rather than an abrupt change. Which, even the text should tell you. However, the fake rule has been long taught in seminary, so no one bothers to check Scripture against the fake rule for what nonsense the fake rule makes out of the translations. That's why, for example, "Elohim", a PLURAL (really very funny, too, considering the phallic cult at the time), and verses like "Let us make man in Our Image" is NOT the 'plural of majesty' (another flavor in the fake rule family) but The Trinity Being Depicted. That's why you have to use a 'first name', like the Sacred Tetragrammaton, to distinguish Who in Trinity is In View. But, if you use the fake rule, then you can't 'see' Trinity in the OT very well.

Every Scripture author loves play like this. An easy way to see how tweaking is used is in Matt4: note the Lord's choice of words. Then, having seen the pattern, look for it everywhere else. The bigger uses of tweaking go undetected if you don't study in the original languages, because the tweaking is done by using keywords and syntax which in a translation are largely fuzzed over. So don't miss this rhetorical style, which itself is a form akin to parallelism. (Frankly, "tweaking" should be a separate webpage of great length!)

There's a certain pattern to Biblical tweaks:

A Great Deal Of Misinterpretation Of Scripture Occurs Due To Folks Not Recognizing This Tweaking Style. For example, there's the "gain..gain" verse pair in Timothy, where Paul talks about folks trying to get monetary gain from being considered holy, compared to the true profit of the spiritual life; the wonderful tweaking "work out your salvation" in Phili2:12-13 (or thereabouts), where Paul shows that it's GOD Who gives your salvation a 'workout' so you can be filled up to Pleroma. ['Ties to Eph2:10, 4:11-16, major theme of that Book; ties to Romans 8's imputed Righteousness (Romans 6, 2Cor5) at salvation getting filled up with Righteous Thinking of Christ (1Cor2)]. James uses tweaking in Jas 1:1-Jas2:26, the tweak itself being set up in a series of rolling crescendoes, one 'peak' of which is Jas2:18; which of course no one notices, lol. Faith without works is indeed dead, because the Word of God ("Faith" means Believed Doctrine, in most Scripture verses) never returns void: so believe it, for crying out loud, James says. Thus "Scripture is fulfilled" (verse 24 or thereabouts) when you become a "Doer of the Word" on the same level or better than Abraham. But of course, "better things have come" (2Cor5:17), and these "better things" (a favorite tweaking catchphrase in Hebrews) completely tweak all prior covenants, all prior ideas of good, happiness, rapport with God — because the Cross is FINISHED, the major theme of Hebrews. So, see? There are lots of really critical interpretations which the tweaking style reveals. In a very humorous, memorable, relaxing manner!

Here's why: because God is infinite, Everything Is Connected; so God communicates not only the fact He's The Author Of Scripture, but also How He Unites Everything, by means of this phenomenal writing style. So a word like "gain" is synonymally connected to "riches"; thus tweaking TRUE gain and TRUE riches compared to inferior ones, is a frequent wordplay in Bible. So use a thesaurus, learn how words are conceptually connected, especially if working with a translation; better still, use it in your head while studying in the original languages. Take care to study classical Greek culture, since so many of the Bible's words tweak that culture, thesauretically play off it.

One of the most important thesauretical trackings you can do to see how the BIBLE defines a thing is by matching metaphors. For example, "water" is the most common metaphor for Scripture in Scripture. So when you see Gen1:2ff., God is telling you a lot more than the mere summary of how the Holy Spirit restored (yes, restored, not created) the earth. So, you aren't too surprised to discover that every time the Spirit is mentioned in Scripture, He has a "restoration" role, except on that unique occasion where He bings in the remaining 23 chromosomes to the virgin Mary (thereby resulting in the Virgin Pregnancy) — though, even that activity is done to provide for the RESTORATION of mankind to God via the Uniquely-Born Human (monogeneis, in Greek; usu. mistranslated "only-begotten", translator should be spanked with a wet noodle). Learning the Truth, of course, is the followup Ministry to saving man, so when David says "He restores my soul", you not only see the Savior, but the One Who Empowered Him (cf John 1), and you know it's the Word David also has in mind.

Syntactical 'flags'

The purpose of a flag is to call attention to something. Like, to the signature line in a document you give someone to sign. There are an amazing number of ways to flag things in Greek. What follows are only a few of them, typed as fast as I could think of them:

"Cadence" examples: rat-a-tat-tat makes you think of drums or gunfire; bilauw bilauw bilauw (Isaiah) makes one think of slumber or drunken/drugged speech; and Here! and Here! and Here! in threes, is sort of majestic, measured, military. Teet-teet-teet-teet makes one think of nagging, an insect, or Morse Code; awwwwww or ahhhh sounds give a sense of empathy. Of course, each language has its own versions of these sounds. The discipline of philology pays a lot of attention to the meaning of sound. Mario Pei wrote a lot of books on the topic (there are others, but I can't get any philologist I have contacted to recommend anything).

So, then, look for repeated meters, sound patterns, clauses which 'match' or seem as though they are being set in some kind of relationship to each other. Translations often screw these up, so for THIS type of usage you'd need something like two translations to work with: one which tends to screw up by being too literal, and one which tends to screw up by missing cadence, but getting the meaning fairly accurately. For example, the KJV is pretty literal, and suffers mostly from being based on Textus Receptus and the Vulgate. Young's Literal Translation is downright funny, but when it comes to looking for PATTERNS, his translation is pretty useful. NIV manages, more than the other English translations, to convey flavor in the underlying original-language texts (but occasionally mangles a verse more than other translations do — this flaw is really no less than other translations, though). NASB tends to be too gray-meaning, but tries to be literally-based.

Good sample passage for seeing the role of Cadence is 1Jn1:6-10. John adores Greek drama. In Greek, the first four verses are (for us) like a curtain going up: verse 5 is the proverbial 'theme' of the play. Verses 6-10 have a three-claused cadence, which fortunately in English is preserved. [A "clause" consists of a subject and a verb, maybe with an object — communicates a point or idea of its own. Note how the clauses link VERTICALLY as well as horizontally: first clause in 6 allies with the first clause in each of the other verses; so also, the second, etc. That tells you a lot about the mechanics of the spiritual life, which is of course appropriate to say there, given the 'theme' of verse 5. Check it out. (Actually, he does clause-matching in his entire epistle. In English, one will fall asleep reading, since the same WORDS are repeated so often in seemingly-simple mathlike equations; so drink coffee or guarana or something to stay alert. 1Jn1:9, better still!) John is soo cool. He always uses OT concepts and OT vocabulary, but PICKS among that vocabulary what has resonance according to GREEK ideas. Thus he tweaks the gnostics, using some of their buzzwords, but with the OT meaning, to show — hey, you guys are off-base. Word and Light, for example, are two gnostic buzzwords, but WAY before them, they were God's buzzwords. "From the beginning"! It's clear in 1John what "fellowship" is; it's clear in 1Jn how works DON'T do anything, if one is walking in "darkness"; it's clear that one must "abide" in the Spirit, to even be living the spiritual life. How simple, how clear, how is it then that Christianity doesn't "get" 1Jn? Of course, like everyone else I had looked at it for years, too, and only in the last 7 "got it", what he meant in the text. OOOPS! Oh well...]

It seems as though the usage of double accusatives in a verse is a type of finesse, though perhaps another descriptive term would be better. It is CERTAIN, however, that in almost every verse where there is more than one accusative 'object', it is mistranslated, or misunderstood. (Note: the accusative is the object case, often, and is often three words which go together, not just one: usu. an article +adjective +noun/pronoun constitute one accusative 'object'.) Good examples of these are James 4:5 and Romans 8:28. Also two other verses, Eph1:7 and Col1:14 (in "Rare Constructions", above). With those two, the confusion seems to be classifying WHAT Greek a double accusative is: a real tragedy, for if one stops using 1Jn1:9 due to misinterpretation of those two verses, the spiritual life freezes. Yet another kind of example pertains to more than one accusative CLAUSE. Eph2:10, and especially, Eph4:11-16 are really screwed up in the English. Instead of the Greek meaning of GOD DOES THE WORK and PASTOR VIA SPIRIT does the work, the English makes it sound like believers do the work. Really bizarre. (LvS4b.htm, "Father's Criteria" table, too! briefly covers these two passages. Better still, get a program like BibleWorks and parse/diagram the passages yourself. The mistranslation will be obvious, as it is the word ORDER in the English which makes the English translation, mislead.)

Of course, as mentioned at length earlier, houtos in Matt16:18, coupled with Petra, leaves NO doubt that the Lord is pointing to Himself. The demonstrative is often used to POINT as with a finger. English doesn't often render houtos as "this one" but "him", etc., translating it idiomatically, so you MISS the keyword. LOL, no matter how translated, something is missed.. nothing's infallible, but God, thus God's Inspired Texts...

Another big point my pastor constantly stresses: participles either PRECEDE the main verb, or are co-terminus with it. Causal linkage or precedence-in-time is indicated by the action of the participle. Again, misinterpretations abound if you don't understand the timing of the verb(s), and translations botch that clarification. Absolutely incredible examples of such ineptitude (sorry, there's no nicer 'name') are: Colossians 1:9 and 10. Unbelievable: 'translated backwards, in v.9 instead of following the Greek word order; but BACKWARDS again in v.10, instead of following v.10's participles' preceding timing, but only following the Greek word order! So the resulting English looks like "fruit" is works, instead of learning; exactly the opposite of the screaming point Paul makes! [They reversed v.9 to 'match' the word order in v.10, looks like: for, v.10 follows the usual Greek rule of listing FOUNDATIONAL or most important things last in a sentence. Modern Russian also has this feature. Yet Bible REVERSES that rule to stress a thing still further. (But I wonder if it's ATTIC rule to reverse, kinda like the use of accusative where a case should be nominative, in which case Paul is stating the SAME thing TWO ways: v.9, the Attic way; v.10, the koine way. I'd have to study more, to know.)]

By contrast, when you have SEPARATE ARTICLES, monadically used with their nouns, linked with eimi, then you have an equality. even more so when the verb EIMI is understood, and is in ELLIPSIS. This is classic Hebrew way of stating TIMELESSNESS, and thus 2Cor13:14 shows THREE CO-EQUAL UNCREATED INFINTE SAME-ESSENCE/NATURE, INDEPENDENT! GODS (not hydra-headed Westminster Confession, for crying out loud). It's NOT polytheism to say "GODS". ELOHIM IS PLURAL, His Last Name: His, Father; His, Son; His, Spirit — EACH UNIQUE. Nice that Bible doesn't tie itself up in knots over what "one" means. UNITED. CORPORATE NOUN. CORPORATION. But not, doggone it, hydra-headed. NOT DIMINISHED because INFINITE. So number doesn't diminish Godness — it can't. Else, you and I couldn't be here, either...

Sometimes prepositions aren't separately used in Greek, but rather by case endings. English has no case endings; So Prepositions Would Be Needed In English To Get The Critical Point Of The Verse: Examples are Eph1:8 and Col 1:9's usage of pasei sophiai: by means of GETTING "all spiritual wisdom" do you get the riches (Eph), and know His Will (Col). For, God's WILL is "IN" them. So if you get the understanding and spiritual wisdom, you then get His Will, because it was His Will for you to first get the understanding (etc); so you get them, you get His Riches.

Syntactical 'fonts'

[This section needs a lot of rewriting, even more than the others. It's confusing, and not all what's listed as fonts belong here.]

Syntactical fonts are used to call attention to key concepts which massively affect how you read the verse's import. Unlike flags, syntactical fonts are never subtle. Some fonts stress the smallness; others, bigness; some, separateness (very common). In short, the purpose of such fonts is to help you see the BIG picture, to show where a thing 'fits' in it: what's in foreground, what's in background, what's the relative proportion of thing "A" in God's Eyes to thing "B". Or, more often, to correct some errant thinking, by stressing the CORRECT place or the INCORRECT place one imagines a thing to fit. In fact, syntactical fonts can be quite offensive, like grabbing you by the nap of the neck, like a drill sargeant might do to a misbehaving recruit! So, English translations tone these down, lol. You know: Bible must be sweetness-and-light, must hide what the Holy Spirit really says!

[FYI: Those of us who grew up on Latin still prefer the more-descriptive eight (Latin) case divisions for the (fewer number of) Greek cases, so you might hear talk about "locatives" and "ablatives", etc. which in Biblical Greek are usually taught today under "genitive" or "dative", since the endings are the same. (Greek case names: nominative, vocative, genitive, dative, accusative.)]

A whole lot of misinterpretations of Scripture come from not recognizing these absolutes (which are Atticisms, even if koine greek words are used). "Absolutes" are clauses GRAMMATICALLY UNRELATED to the rest of the sentence (hence the name "absolute"), BUT RELATED CONCEPTUALLY; and have the force of "hey, LOOK!", split-screen drama (viewing actions of two or more groups alongside each other), etc. These special clauses are formed by a substantive +participle (with or without an object), both of which are in the same case, i.e., accusative. Each case has a different function, so choice of case tells you HOW to interpret the clause in the sentence, in the passage, in the topics covered.

"I come suddenly/soon" is an example of another anacoluthen: an interjectory clause (said by the Lord, in Gospels and Rev) — it's interruptive. Ancient Greek drama used these a lot, e.g., in Aristophanes' plays the actor would suddenly spout something As An Actor, To The Audience, rather than speaking his expected lines. Yet, that interjection tells you something critical about how the topic applies. For example, it's so important you catch on to the Application To Your Life, that the topic-at-hand is interrupted by the interjectory clause. Or, the clause is stressing no relationship (which is the point of interrupting). Really neat way to grab one's attention! [TACHU is "suddenly", "by surprise", connotation of a thief suddenly breaking in on you. English nearly always MIStranslates this word as "soon", giving idiots who think they found a contradiction in Scripture a lot of embarrassment, if a knowledgeable Christian is in the chatroom...]

I get the impression that some exegetes really hate anacoluthens. They call such usages poor Greek, and a bunch of other not-so-nice names. Sad: as if God is only allowed to use 'the King's English'! NB: Like the other absolutes, genitive absolutes are Atticisms. The biggest scholarship failure in Christendom, second only to the insane must-use-one-English-word-to-translate-one-Greek-word, is the lack of recognition of Hebraisms, Atticisms, etc. (Most Greek scholars miss these because the "ism" uses koine words?)

GENITIVE ABSOLUTES spotlight, as well as stick out the way other types of absolutes do. So the substantive is in the GENitive case, and the participle, also in that case. In Acts, Luke uses about two dozen of these to spotlight Paul's fall and recovery, contrasted with the role/function of other 'actors' in the unfolding drama, beginning in Acts 21:14. In that verse, you see so much due to the genitive absolute: Paul, highlighted; the others, in the background. Paul, self-dramatic, putting even God in the background by the very "willing to Die!" attitude he exudes; but the others, quietly thinking via the "still, small voice" of the Spirit (not saying, English gets that wrong) "Let the Will of the Lord come to pass", in the imperative of toleration. Reflecting the Lord's Own Permissive Will that Paul be allowed to make his own mistakes. Even though the entire ministry is at risk. So, Real easy to see Paul's out of fellowship, there. Real easy to see it's the Lord's Will to NOT be activistic, NOT rebuke, NOT interfere with a stubborn carnality. Only in the Greek, of course.



NT Interpretive Keys, the "More" notes

Any topics here are also vetted in much more detail in my other webpages. Focus here is on the ESSENTIALS of the answer, not the backup validating it.

More on the War You face, when Studying Scripture Seriously

First, the GOOD NEWS! Due to the Successful Outcome of the Cross, GOD GAVE SCRIPTURE TO EVERYONE, and everyone between Pentecost and Rapture, is a Royal Priest. (Hebrews 1, 1Pet2:5,9; Rev1:6, 5:10; Eph2, whole chapter. LordvSatan3.htm explains w/a LOT more detail.) For, GOD WANTS INTIMACY, not distance. Even what theology calls "verbal plenary inspiration", is really the heart and soul of the spiritual life: COMPATIBLE INTIMACY with INFINITE GOD. For, Intimacy without compatibility, is hell! But, Infinity by NATURE is INTIMATE, pervading EVERYTHING! Even the dumbest person can understand that compatibility makes for enjoyment. So even the dumbest person SHOULD understand that Infinitely-Righteous God wants COMPATIBILITY with who He creates. So, Bible is EVIDENCE of HOW God the Holy Spirit CREATES that compatibility: He 'writes' into a human soul, the Lord's (Humanity's, in NT) own THINKING. Then, the human receiving that thinking 'exhales' it, so to speak: in writing, the Canon.

Now, the bad news. If God is DESIRABLE to know, irrespective of any other advantage, YOU ARE AT WAR with your periphery. Automatically. Unavoidably. See, Adam sinned because he bought the lie that GOD WAS BAD; else, he'd not have eaten that fruit God forbade (a simple test of positive volition, lol — there were TONS of other trees). So to turn around AFTERWARDS and say God is DESIRABLE, goes against EVERY CELL in the body. DNA has this built-in FEAR FAULT-FINDING FANTASY urge AGAINST GOD. So you become a threat to all around you, if they KNOW you are just plain interested in God. Your own body will rebel against it. Toughest thing to do, is to go against your DNA. So if you ARE interested in God, it is truly a remarkable thing, and everything around you will be antsy because of it. This problem will last as long as you are alive, so decide NOW how much you want to live with it.

Satan will make that war take on every form in every way and blatantly, too. All religion is sponsored by Satan: see Gen3, analyze the ploy there. (LordvSatan2.htm has a thought-provoking analysis, if you like.) So the person who just plain wants to know God will be TEMPTED to react back: to defend God, and himself. Don't bother. God doesn't need defending, and neither do you. You don't have to (and really shouldn't) spend time 'converting' people, or 'explaining' yourself. Just be quiet about your interest, so you don't EXACERBATE the prejudice against God we all genetically inherit from Adam's fall, which ONLY God can reduce.

So, with Gramma Satan's 'help', folks' NATURAL sin-nature-run SOULS focus on Bible like BODIES do: discerning anything BUT content; preferring, FORM (bodies are all about FORM, never substance); so, in essence, people WAR against Scripture itself, thinking they DEFEND it. Ignorantly. So, people make really silly errors and ruin their own lives; they imagine some doctrine is Biblical, never really STUDYING the Bible to see it (viz., the insanity that you must make Christ Lord, or have a heart belief rather than a head belief; or, that you lose salvation in some way, i.e., if you commit suicide or some sexual sin, and all the tabooism). People claim to believe in Christ, yet don't LIVE ON HIS BOOK, which is HIS THINKING? Instead, they come up with any manner of rituals, magic/miracle ideas. "An evil generation seeks a sign" (Matt12:39, Luke11:29), "to be seen of men" (Matt6:1,5,23:5). Yep: see anything but the REAL GOD. For Himself. How arrogant can we humans BE? We show even more interest in a dog, than in God!

So Satan, knowing the Power of God to overcome human perceptual handicaps, sought to motivate CHRISTIANS to WANT spiritual retardation, even as he did to the Jews, prior. The Mosaic Law was anything BUT legalistic. Everything in it metaphorically depicted some MEANING which was HUMOROUS, GRACE, PROMISE. The very DEFINITIONS of words in the ancient Hebrew language SHOWS how these associations, worked. But, RETARDED, the meaning is stripped out, and suddenly you're squinting at blue and white thread to get the EXACT MOMENT when you should light the Shabbas candles..thereby entirely making a WORK out of the Day of Rest! So too, Christianity morphed from a GRACE CELEBRATION, into all these teeny RITUALS (which were initially designed · la the Law's, to be commemmorative enjoyments) — so now if you don't say five hail Mary's, or go to Church on Sunday — oh! You are BAD! Notice how RETARDED an idea that is? Notice how God is converted into an OGRE?

Witness, then, Satan's success. For, as demonstrated by the history of both Judaism and Christianity, the true people of the True Book (ANYONE, John3:16!), we betray ourselves to be just as slipshod and uncaring of the Relationship WITH God as all the pseudo-faiths. Every day in every way Scripture is misused, misquoted, mistranslated, and blatantly, too. Oh, how the holy intonings sway; oh, how one incurs political or familial rancor if he speaks AGAINST such abuse. Indeed, when the Lord said He came to bring not peace but a sword, He WAS punning, but He WASN'T kidding. [See Judges 3:16, Prov5:4, 12:18, Ezek5, and ESPECIALLY Isa49:2, which AS A PROPHECY is maybe invoked in the quote of Matt10:34; pun is on what would become Heb4:12, same Greek 'sword'=Word.] The sword of the Word (Heb4:12) lays bare our hypocrisy. The WORD divides us.

So notice that the key to spiritual retardation, is PROMOTION OF RELIGION. Religion, "the devil's ace trump" as my pastor puts it, ALWAYS lies, and to SPREAD its lies best, ALWAYS INSTITUTIONALIZES. REV17 harlot, religion. There's a BIG difference between a megachurch and a local church. A local church, is one pastor with one congregation, and while his congregation might not be PHYSICALLY going to that church (i.e., I live 1000 miles away from mine), the person is still LOCAL to that church. Kinda like a family: some family members might be abroad. But it's a BIG change to make a family, a nation. A local church, a denomination. Then you RUIN the privacy of it, the personalness of the relationship with God, and instead introduce, MAN'S RULES. Because, an INSTITUTION, needs rules. A family needs fewer rules, and the connections within the family, are PERSONAL. So always the impersonal rules have a PERSONAL base. So too, in our relationship with God: FATHER SON SPIRIT, see the PERSONALNESS of the Titles?

Witness: US. Aside from a few perceptive historians like Thomas A. Bailey, people don't generally understand that "America" is an IDEA which became a polity due to FAITH IN GOD. Not saying it was an accurate faith, but at foundation, it was a PERSONAL one. Many different sects came here, from Deists to Reformed. They all had ONE thing in common: they wanted FREEDOM FROM STATE CHURCH definitions of faith. Understand, this was a NEW thing in history, a polity without state religion. So, being already mostly outcasts in their own home countries, people seeking this freedom, came here. THIS is what made America, unique: a personal faith idea of free-before-the-Lord, is the ONLY REASON God blesses America, because it is a version of ELECTING GOD as King of the heart. The thing Israel STOPPED doing, back around 1080BC or so. Hence to the the extent America foregoes or abandons or suborns this FREE PERSONAL FAITH idea, it is traitor to itself, and will incur Divine Discipline. Just as Israel did, Lev26, Deut28.

So this 'business' of studying Scripture is no light thing, and is the most PATRIOTIC activity you can undertake on behalf of your own nation, your own people. None of us have all the facts about how our leaders, rule. They can't be wholly right, but! like Paul says in Rom13 and 1Tim2, THEY ARE APPOINTED BY GOD for a reason. Looking back on Winston Churchill's time, one can be rather critical of him. Yet we'd all be doing the goosestep today, if it weren't for his tireless condemnation of Hitler. Each leader, however wrong in some areas, is JUST WHAT GOD WANTS to preserve a nation. So this webpage isn't going to recommend how you should vote, but rather, LEARN SCRIPTURE; don't be either iconoclastic or fawning, with respect to authority, because GOD is the King of your heart. God is the God of authority, and Your Heart has been written in passages like 1Tim2, Rom13. God will deliver your nation, if you follow Your Heart's Thinking. "Thinking" series explains how blessing-by-association due to your studying, makes you a HERO for your nation....

So study is no light thing, because interest in God must be opposed, both by your own inherited sin nature, and by others'. So perhaps ignore, disregard (write in sand) or be 'low-key' in your response to all opposers within and without, to spare the opposers greater embarrassment at the Bema. Understand that Scripture's every jot and tittle has been fought over, maligned, chopped off, hidden (if possible) since Adam's fall. And of course, still is: both the "Bible Bumpkins" and "Thinking Out Loud" links on the Home page seek to explain how this raging battle plays in history; especially, NOW. (The discovery shocked me; so much so, I've had to keep writing, to myself recognize how universal the war has always been, though for decades my pastor taught us this fact. Guess I was hiding my own brainout head in the sand for all those decades under him, lol!) So if you are interested in God, you are at war. God fights the battles, you stand firm in the Word (cf Eph6), and just keep studying and learning how to use His Thinking in your every minute's breath. Oh, but this IS the hardest thing to 'do'! Conclusion: how do you reply to your 'enemies' who don't usually MEAN to BE, enemies? To those who scoff at Scripture study-in-depth? Or, to one's sin-nature arguments that deep Bible study is elitist or easy, or some "Western"/"white" heresy which threatens one's ancestral culture (as if God even had a body or gender)? Here's a great reply: isn't God the MOST IMPORTANT PERSON TO KNOW? How can you execute the First Commandment, if you don't KNOW the One who Bids it? After all, He DID write a BOOK: Heb4:12, 2Tim2:15,KJV; 2Tim3:16,NIV!

And to the argument that, well.. someone is too low in IQ, too handicapped, or too remote, or doesn't have the study tools needed: hello, isn't EVERYONE brained-out, when it comes to knowing God? Hello: is God Omnipotent, or what? If someone WANTS and BELIEVES Him, God provides! After all, HE ALONE PERSONALLY MADE EACH of US at Birth, so He knows how to TRANSCEND any handicap! [See NoWombLife.htm and the "near-and-far keywords" sections of NTKeys.htm. Lots of other Bible proof on this topic is scattered throughout these sites, because it is soo useful a topic to illustrate how Satan blinds us all.] No one, but No one is more interested in giving Bible, than its AUTHOR! And just imagine the contrast: for as I type, there are places in the world SO VERY HUNGRY for even a torn portion of the Bible! Reminds you of the Ps119 people... (www.bf.org helps get the Word to remote locations, which is how I learned this.) Someone told me of a tribesman in Africa who had to hike 30 miles just to get a lesson from his pastor. Where do you find positive volition like that in the US?

Meanwhile, expect the war to go on and on and on with every variety of spiritual cockroaches. Grow, Christian! so God thus can justify RESCUING our fellow cockroaches, among whom we all once were, from...


The Cockroach Creed: if it's HOSTILE, it's 'godly'

    While
  • Moses,
  • Isaiah, Hosea,
  • Jeremiah,
  • Amos, Malachi
  • the Lord's Humanity, John, Paul, and Peter,

were ALIVE down HERE, they weren't exactly welcome. For, they taught the superceding importance of RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, ergo the need for spiritual brains. Jeremiah was thrown in the sewer by his hearers ("cistern" in prudish English); the others fared no better. THEY STILL AREN'T WELCOME, though now that they're safely DEAD, people routinely praise them to get brownie points from others. So, although it should be no surprise, it's truly appalling how disinterested Christendom has always been, in God. NO WONDER SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN KEPT UNDER LOCK AND KEY FOR THE BETTER PART OF TWO MILLENIA: FEW CARED TO LEARN IT.

So too, even today, even though SCRIPTURE IN THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES HAS BEEN MADE MORE FREELY AVAILABLE THAN ANYTIME SINCE 90'S AD, there is almost ZERO interest in it. So there is ZERO EXCUSE to misinterpret it, in aggregate. Granted, it takes time to learn, but we HAD ARMIES of etymologists, lexicographers, collectors — a real PRIZE of people, in the 1800's. Only to IGNORE the results of all that hard work, since the 1930's? (Well, the decline began about then, and then accelerated markedly in the 1950's.)

    At least in America, we should have learned by now what is the real Gospel and the Real Spiritual life — instead of DISPUTING, both. Try this: ask anyone today, even most pastors, what is the Christian way of life, and you'll usually get a piously fuzzy answer that has something to do with people, for crying out loud! Theonomists, who claim Scriptural scholarship with loud trains of initials after their names, yet obviously ignorant of Heb7:18's import, seek to make the OT a nation's juridical standard, to control people (dominant trend in US politics, today)! {Heb7:18 is THE theme of Hebrews, from Chap1 onward; each Chapter is a before-and-after comparison based on Heb7:18, which is based on, the Session (Chap1). Kindred passages are Rom5-11, 1Cor2, 2Cor5 (see v.17), Col1 and ALL of Eph, the de novo reviews by the Lord in Gospels, like with the adulteress and Sermon on the Mount}

    Ask almost any Christian, "how do you get saved?" Then watch the silly answers. Out of 1000 people asked, it's practically a MIRACLE if anyone correctly STATES John 3:16, or UNDERSTANDS what those words MEAN. Never seen anyone get it right yet, on Christian cable stations. Only saw a FEW get it right, in daily (and prolonged) chat- channel visits over two+ years. Makes you wonder how many CHRISTIANS really exist...

What a mess we are: at heart, we're TRYING to have fellowship with God, but we've NO clue how, and the Book God gave us so we could LEARN how, we won't STUDY! Instead, we only PRETEND to honor His Book: we COVER it with nice material or (in the past) jewels as if we couldn't bear it naked or IT needed atoning. [Hebrew "atone" means literally, to 'cover over'.] We kiss it; we make songs out of its words, never actually UNDERSTANDING the words we sing or chant. We memorize verses and then use them like Mommy's red lipstick; we preen over our ABC-level knowledge, getting a "D-" in GOD101.

So, UNKNOWINGLY imitating EVERY type of believer-nutcase IN the Book, we emote; or, opposite pole, become humorless. So AntidoteGod, judas-BELIEVERS profusely bloom in every variety, and Satan seeds them all. By piously CLAIMING CHRIST DISTANT, they can preen about their slavish works and experiences, gloat over who has the highest degrees, keep away the WORD from hearts! Why else do you think the Jews and Judas are so evilly excoriated by CHRISTIANS, in every generation since the Cross? The mirror (Jas1:22-24) hurts our me-be-god-instead-of-god desires, so we thirst after OTHERs' past flaws. So, other flowering legalists fruitup god-dolls by means of taboos and appearances, since 'god' is a mere puppet; their marionette cousins, the feeling-god Christians, not to be outdone, roll in aisles, spout some 'prophecy', sing rousing songs, and thus primitively DEFINE 'relationship with God' as an oooh-ahh, no different from movies like "Cocoon", or "Close Encounter of the Third Kind".

People, people, people, feel feel feel!! I ask you: who's the god, then? Paul replies, "their emotion" (see Phili 3:18-19). Paul ought to know: during his emotional zigzag over being denied voice to evangelize his fellow Jews, he caved into his friend James' political compromise (1Cor1:15:1-10, Gal2:15ff, Romans 15:24ff, Acts 19-26). Note God's reply: Paul STILL went to Rome, as God had initially ordered; Paul, the NT Jonah, went there in chains, not a whale. While everyone else — depicted by Luke's nominatives (as distinct from genitive absolutes used to spotlight Paul, the good guy) — patted their own backs from the sidelines. And JUST WHO did the HS use to write Canon? The pious ones, or that lover-of-coarse language from Tarsus? Philippians 3:8!

And rightly so: see the oozing hypocrisy of religion? See how even in the 21st century, we retain the same witch-hunt mentality, slapping God's name on our lusts? No wonder the atheists can justify their irrational unbelief (see Rom2). Every religious sect on the planet imposes do's and don'ts, rather than learn's and know's, lacing the do's with lots of feel-good doggy treats for those who comport: reminds one of Fredrik Pohl's "Redemption in the Quantum Realm", only not that honest. Jingle jingle jingle people people people do do do — that's the only "trinity" Christendom now and historically, respects. For, man should be god, see — the real God is just a genie, a figurehead. Satan's fantasy! (See Isa14:13-14.)

Which, of course, is easy to make man want.

    • So, of course, man thinks that asceticism is really something praiseworthy;
    • that FEELING is 'relationship';
    • that BLAMING is 'righteous';
    • that trash like the Christian Apocryphal descriptions of Christ's miracles during his childhood are 'true' (though Matt4 proves what LIBEL those 'miracles' are);
    • that incense and movement and chanting and set prayers and giving money and taboos and appearances and bopping on the head are all so 'holy'!
    Yeah, what MAN does. Not God. See the how man pats himself on the back?

But as God retorted through Isaiah's pen, "My ways are not your ways, nor MY THOUGHTS YOUR THOUGHTS." So our multi-faceted STUPID religiosities in effect reply to God, What God wants IS stupid: after all, God is not like man, so anything connected to God, SHOULDN'T MAKE SENSE! See why the demons fall over laughing? So of course, anyone who wants to actually UNDERSTAND the Book God the Holy Spirit wrote, isn't holding up his end of the societal compact of doo-doo's. Read John 6 onward sometime, to get His view. And, throughout the Gospels, what did the Lord reply? "Verily, they have their reward", and "let the dead bury their own dead."

    Yet, using even their OWN childish reasoning, shouldn't they have concluded what was the REAL first 'obligation' to the REAL FIRST Father, Son, Spirit: the First Commandment? Since they don't understand the consummate joy and privilege OF LEARNING HIM, bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph1), why don't they understand the First Commandment, which requires one BATHE IN THE WORD to become competent. Gotta get clean of all those "dead works", first (Heb5:11-6:6, 9:14), right? Alas, children have a child's view of things. Retarding, they harden in that puerility, content only with the splashy shallows of works, fearing the deep water of growing up and swimming in the Word. And, it shows...


More on Why NOT to use Relics to Prove Scripture

Ironically, Relic hunters tied up my Home page in April 2004, with the result that the server BLOCKED my page for an hour (a geocities policy when too many try to access a page). I had words in the page then which (unbeknownst to me) echoed the name of some expedition seeking to find Noah's ARK. So many people SEARCHED to find data about that expedition, the server overloaded. So now, think: what good would it do to find Noah's Ark? Like James' bones, who can ever be SURE it's the Ark? So what if it was? Wouldn't Noah have been a FOOL to leave all that great wood jammed on some hilltop? Wouldn't he have been PRUDENT to BREAK UP the wood and cart it downhill via all those many animals? Wouldn't it be more MEANINGFUL to then build a HOUSE out of the wood, once settled? As a memorial to GRACE? I mean, it's NORMAL to be a relic-hunter, because we all like touching the past.

    So, think: wouldn't NOAH have wanted to keep this ARK as a relic, himself — so made OTHER THINGS out of the wood? See how the relic-hunters are wacko? Surely any sane person would NOT have left the wood there. Surely the relic-hunters, which include the dingdongs who are FUNDING this stupid expedition as well as those tying up webpages to search on the expedition — surely the relic-hunters, don't have working brains, because COMMON SENSE would recognize the foregoing sentences just MUST be true. That's us, all the time! We are brainouts! By Divine Design! Live on 1Jn1:9 AND STUDY under your right pastor!

    A friend of mine once went on and on about how a BBC search for relics of the Exodus in the Sinai turned up nothing — thereby proving the Exodus didn't happen! "Oh?" I said calmly, "After 3000+ years they actually EXPECTED to find something?" So Christians aren't the only ones drawing insane conclusions from relics (or lack thereof)...

Relic-hunters all have so little faith, they want something tangible to point at and say, "oh, this piece of fluff PROVES (against, for) Bible!" LIE. It proves nothing. You can't even be sure of the conclusiveness of empirical data in a recent crime: court can't accept "circumstantial evidence" as conclusive. So how much more is it NOT relevant, any pieces from thousands of years ago?

    This hunger for relics is the same as the hunger for dreams and visions, and other titillating stuff. So, Gramma Satan&Co. are always happy to oblige our demonstrable lack of faith. So they will kindly fool folks with PLEASANT 'visitation' of one kind or another. Hallmark characteristic of their 'visitation'? THE FEELING IS COMPELLING. Like a drug.

    God never compels. What, do you think GOD motivated all those dippy people to search for Noah's Ark expedition? When He took the time to PERSONALLY FEED SCRIPTURE to over 40 people over 1500 years? Which RELIC do you think GOD 'backs': some gopher wood which might be stuck in a mountain — or the MOUNTAIN OF SCRIPTURE WHICH IS THE ROCK'S THINKING? Sheesh. Just like the Dome of the Rock, something greater than Noah's Ark is here, the REAL ARK's Thinking — and well, we're not interested....

    God never resorts to salesmanship, nor does He ever ask you to do it, either, i.e., make a sacrifice — BECAUSE HIS SON ALREADY PAID, remember? So you don't need dog-and-pony shows from God, and He doesn't need them from YOU, either. Look more CLOSELY at all works and sacrifices in the Bible — notice how they all BENEFIT the recipient, so can't properly be CALLED works or sacrifice. Bible's use of these terms should have been rendered in English with single quotes, to show how God tweaks works (i.e., Phili3 and all Gospel statements by the Lord). Man is the one who, due to SIN, wants works; so God, ever the Patient Teacher, FRAMES HIS TEACHING using the good-and-evil vocabulary fallen man can understand. So to have the WORD, the CONTENT of the WORD, is at once the ultimate SECURITY and the ultimate protection from the FLASHY Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, who ALWAYS wants your money, honey: Eph6, Rev17.

The Divinity of Scripture is proven by the Message of Scripture. For, a Book will reflect the CHARACTER of its author. For thousands of years, devout believers have YEARNED to get what we have in every hotel room. Let's USE BIBLE, then. And stop chasing after visions, dreams, relic-y windmills. Let's instead use whatever tangible stuff from Biblical times to help us better understand isagogics (histo-cultural context of Bible's day) so to better understand the MEANING of Scripture's verses related to those items. Else, let's just LEARN Christ.

Old Testament people couldn't get a full Bible, but only PARTS of it, because until Christ invented the ROYAL ADULT spiritual life, the relationship to God was EXTREMELY limited (John 7:39, 14-17, all of Hebrews, 1&2Cor, Ephesians have this topic as a major subtheme). So, the OT folks HAD to rely on ritual, dreams, visions, relics — and had all kinds of UPSET as a result. Remember Gideon? He didn't trust the miracles he got. Remember Jacob? He wouldn't let the Lord go (theophany), in that mock wrestling match; then, lame, he was STILL in shock. Remember Moses? Wow, he went through event after event before he was willing to go BACK to Egypt — and then, only if he had a mouthpiece (Moses was ELOQUENT, not a stammerer). All these problems, for good reason: direct contact with God or a miracle from God is shocking, not pleasant. Kinda hard to learn principles when you have only pictures (i.e., miracle/dream) to go by. So much easier to get a written explanation YOU CAN'T LATER CALL A HALLUCINATION.

Parting shot: just as NTKeys.htm began, if we're looking for PHYSICAL EVIDENCE the Bible is right.. just click your mouse on the link which takes you to the camera facing the Wailing Wall. [Link is in the "Multi-Religion Index" webpage accessible from my Home Page. I think it's in the "Non-Christian" subpage of links.] Or, just go to the library, and find a book on the Dome of the Rock. Daniel 9:26-27, right there. Matt24, right there. Every OT prophecy showing it's ON TIME in the Daniel timeline of fulfillment, right there. WHAT OTHER FAITH has THAT MUCH PROOF? Can the Koran prove itself, even though "proofs" are one of its catch phrases? NO! Can the Vedas, or the Bhagavad-Gita prove their divine origin? NO! You believe it or not.. but with BIBLE, here you have LIVING proof in the Dome and the Wailing wall, demonstrating MESSIAH IS CHRIST! For over 500 years, Israel knew the EXACT YEAR of His Birth, and since the Temple Destruction, has INCONTROVERTIBLE proof, that He left exactly AS PROMISED SINCE DANIEL AND THE OTHER PROPHETS. Again, what other faith, has so much UNDISPUTED RELIC proof?! We can't call the Dome and Wailing Wall, hallucination. No one disputes their existence. No one disputes their MEANING as STRUCTURES. But no one LOOKS AT HOW BIBLE PREDICTED THEM. ["Abomination" is anyone but Israel, making a shrine out of the Rock. That there will be a real talking statue there in the Tribulation, is just another kind of abomination, that's all.] I rest my case, and weep for Israel...

More on Why You should Study under a (Male-only) Pastor

Many otherwise-positive believers are stuck here, thinking that oh, since the Holy Spirit is Our Teacher, then I don't NEED a pastor! They even get into Bible-related projects with robots and such, so think themselves qualified to study on their own. Oh yeah? Then why are 1Tim and 2 Tim and Eph2-4 and 1Cor12-13 in the Bible? Get real! There are, on the internet, pastors who teach in some depth in the original languages; many more have local churches in various spots around the world (with or without an internet address). Some of the ones I saw on the internet (my pastor is but one), had tape ministries, so you could order tapes from them. So you have NO excuse not to be under a right pastor. And you wouldn't WANT any, for once you see the DIFFERENCE it makes in the quality of your spiritual and secular life, you'll kick yourself for not getting under, earlier!

At least, start SOMEWHERE. Look: I was just as goofy at the beginning of my Christian life as any other Christian born. God introduced me to my right pastor as soon as I was a legal adult (see how God, the GREATEST AUTHORITY, Himself respects authority). Did I just jump in, studying? NO! I ALSO dallied around with other teachers, who I knew were NOT my own right pastor. It took about 10 years (oh, this is embarrassing to admit) before I 'graduated' from those (for me) diluted teachers, to ONLY the RIGHT one for me, and you don't even WANT to know how much Divine Discipline I got during those 10 years. In my case, when I finally woke up and smelled the coffee in 1981, my RIGHT teacher kept growing at a very rapid pace, so I didn't have to 'graduate' to someone else. (Some others graduate from one pastor to another, kinda like graduating from school: depends on how the pastor is growing, compared to how you are growing, under him. If you are growing so fast you need someone more advanced, God will show that person to you. Don't disregard His Voice.)

So if you are queasy about someone who teaches in the original languages, start with someone on a Christian channel or at a church who AT LEAST spends time in EXPOSITIONAL TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE rather than focusing on doo-goods or entertainment. I happened to chance upon at least five guys on Trinity Broadcasting Network who DO teach Scripture FOR ITSELF. So if over a few days I could find even five who TEACH at all on "TBN", the MALE teacher for YOU is 'out there' at a level which you find comfortable.

Conversely, a lot of Christians go overboard on the fact we each need a teacher and misinterpret Heb10:25 as a mandate to physical gathering in a church; and brand those who do NOT do this, as heretical. Well, then all those New Testament epistles were heretical, since they weren't 'face-to-face'? People gathered to HEAR THE LETTERS READ: they didn't have the internet, you know. They didn't gather to socialize, either: socializing was incidental to LEARNING CHRIST, for crying out loud. Greek word "didaskalos" means TEACHER TEACHES A GROUP. In the days while the New Testament was being codified, there were teachers armed by the Holy Spirit with pre-knowledge of what would BECOME Canon (1Cor13 is on this topic), and people assembled to LEARN. Just as the Jews did, in synagogue. It's not a social order to 'assemble', but an order to LEARN. Under a TEACHER. Whoever the teacher is, for YOU. HOWEVER you get that teaching, is "forsaking not". Socialization is optional, but getting the teaching, is REQUIRED.

    SPIRITUAL GROWTH KEY ==> Being under a TEACHER OF SCRIPTURE is critical. It doesn't matter if you physically go to some building called a 'church' to GET that teacher's teaching. It also doesn't matter if he's not very advanced, and it doesn't matter if he's correct on all doctrines. We all needed secular teachers, to grow up; but LIFELONG, we all need spiritual teachers, to grow up in Christ. For, the Holy Spirit APPOINTS the (male, never female) teachers, so teaches them, and thus us: this is what Eph4:11-16 STRESSES in the Greek ('mistranslated). SO WHAT DOES MATTER IS TO KNOW WHO the Holy Spirit wants you to be under. Don't disregard His Voice. Frankly, though, you should aim at the 'uncomfortable' level as soon as possible: many a Christian who should 'graduate' to a more-deep teacher refuses to budge. That's the same as disregarding His Voice. What would have happened if you refused to go to high school, because you wanted to stay under your junior-high history teacher?

Warning to the terminal feminist: we females have a wide number of witness offices, but NEVER are AUTHORITIES, like pastors, evangelists, deacons, etc. The Greek of Timothy and Eph4:11-16 is GENDER-SPECIFIC, males only. You can't tell that fact from a translation. Also, the other seemingly-teaching roles in Scripture you see assigned to women are NOT the same roles. Again, this fact is masked in translation. Satan's always stirring up war between the sexes, just like he did in the Garden. So, he promotes a female pastoral role in order to promote his modern-day version of the phallic cult. Don't give into his venom. Remember, even Deborah was only a judge in Israel because it was so apostate, there was no man of sufficient faith; even then, what's recorded about her was her ENCOURAGEMENT of Berak. God is consistent.

    Differentiate between equal spiritual position, compared to UNequal spiritual authority on the 'team', the Body. Understand, that it doesn't matter which gender door you enter the spiritual life: see Galatians. Females get to learn how to HANDLE BEING IN AUTHORITY mostly through the 'door' of being UNDER authority; males get to learn how to handle being in authority through the 'door' of having authority. Granted, the Bible's idea of viable female authority encompasses things like running business, so is broader than most would understand. But there is a clear demarcation between SPIRITUAL authority and gender, which isn't necessarily true in the secular realm.

    And — get this — the spiritual demarcation of AUTHORITY is there, BECAUSE both male and female are EQUAL in Christ. It's just HOW we learn to become KINGS. Yep, KINGS. There is NO gender differentiation, post-death. So to have the differentiation now and OBEY it where appropriate, BETTER TRAINS YOU. As Galatians and Corinthians and all those kingship verses repeatedly stress, ANYONE OF ANY GENDER can get to Pleroma (Eph3:19-21), the threshold of spiritual development which VESTS your Kingship promise, for any Church believer COMPLETING that phase. So gender is only a part of the overall CIRCUMSTANTIAL FORMAT in which you learn Christ, and is never a limitation; just as, no physical or social handicap hinders anyone from growing up to Pleroma, either. So don't EVER regard not being eligible for pastoral/evangelist roles due to feminine gender, demeaning. Unless, of course, you love being spanked by God, lol.

    Just because we are equal in Christ, we are NOT equal in spiritual authority. A woman might have more doctrine than a male pastor, but that fact COUNTS FOR NOTHING, in the BODY's hierarchical structure. Eph4:11-16 is the succinct depiction of how the pastoral structure, WORKS. Look: just because Deborah was a judge in Israel; just because some women can teach other women ADJUNCTIVELY; just because some women in PRE-CANON times were given 'prophetess' roles, does NOT mean that PASTORAL WORD TEACHING was given to women. Believe me, if I could prove otherwise, I'd say so, because a whole lot of folks over the years have bugged me to teach, and I lost a good friend by REFUSING! A female with doctrine has a LOT of important roles which DON'T WORK unless ABSENT authority: this, because sometimes the WORD is easier to ACCEPT or understand if the speaker has NO authority. So the woman can encourage, pass on data, witness, report, and most important of all, THINK TOWARD FATHER; she can maybe even assist a pastor's research (I'm not sure how much), but she is NEVER an authority.

    Wives, obey your husbands it says in Peter and Ephesians. Why? Because CHRIST IS OUR HUSBAND, and look what HE did?! He obeyed all the way THROUGH the Cross (Phili2:5-10). So, the man, he gets to learn the whole realm of Christ's Thinking in a 'fatherly' kind of way, being in charge. The woman, gets to learn the whole realm of Christ's Thinking in a 'motherly' kind of way, looking UP. Both, really, end up REFLECTING CHRIST ON THE CROSS, by life's end, if they grew to Pleroma. It's a very meaningful life. We shouldn't let cockroach-y ideas about authority, infect it...

The hard thing about having authority, being male, being wealthy, being a parent, and especially being a pastor, is command pressure. A normal human being will soon realize he CAN'T get it right, and will make some kind of mistake with his superior position. It's a STABBING, to know this. Think about some mistake you made and how devastated you were by it, and you'll get a glimmer of what it's like to have a CONTINUAL JOB of NOT making mistakes, yet knowing you can't ever avoid them!

Worse, those UNDER him EXPECT him to be a kind of 'god', just as children are so traumatized if their parents make (what the kids think is, or truly is) a mistake. This expectation INTENSIFIES the stabbing nature of command pressure. So, mistakes intensify, too. The biggest category of mistakes in this category is to DEMAND OBEDIENCE. It's RIGHT to demand it, but NOT right to squelch the learning, by squelching VOLITION. Thus you understand how Christianity's tyrannically-abusive "don't question!" standard got innocently developed: like parents to kids, "just DO it!"

    What distinguishes authority and makes it BETTER, even if the individual in it might be less-qualified, is the WILLINGNESS TO MAKE THE TOUGH CALLS. Other qualifications help aid the COMPETENCE in making those calls — but an authority can have ADVISORS, to get that information. The advisors, being advisors, are NOT equipped to make the tough call — they are equipped to weigh pro's and con's, analyse the best answers — but NOT, to RULE on them. It matters, this WILLINGNESS and STRENGTH to RULE ON. All by itself. Some men are better able than some other men, to do this; in the spiritual realm, ONLY men are kitted out by God, to have this RULE-ON ability. It matters, and whatever else may be 'wrong' with the person, is COMPENSATED in other ways. God knows what He is doing.

    What God is doing, is SANCTIFYING. Matt23 statements about what is ON the altar, IN the Temple, being SANCTIFIED by it. Hebrews 10, Sanctified for all time. Eph5, Husband SANCTIFYING the wife. God SANCTIFYING us. Idea of the AUTHORITY SANCTIFYING what is the decision — making it have a HIGHER meaning than if apart from that AUTHORITY. Surely anyone understands that AUTHORITY SANCTIONS a thing, so SANCTIFIES it, makes it ACCEPTABLE. Someone must be in charge. So, GOD is in charge. How, though, to represent that idea, to humanity? Well, in a marriage, in a corporate structure, in a SPIRITUAL structure, there must be a HEAD to make HOLY, what is BODY. So, that's called "male". So, the male is GIFTED to be a HEAD: in marriage, in spiritual matters. Not every male is for every female. Not every male is equal to every other male. But for AUTHORITY communication, the pastor must be MALE. Not, because he is anything, but because the AUTHORITY GIVEN HIM, is from God. Simple and beautiful, as that.

      Dunno about you, but if I have to do something only for myself, it has FAR less meaning, than when doing it for someone else. So if I have to work, and it's for someone ELSE, I get far more satisfaction from it. So if I have to clean, and it's only for me, well.. not too interesting. But if for GOD, well — even though HE doesn't need it, but my THINKING during it can be MADE valuable — Doctrine — then it's worth cleaning, or .. doing anything. So it's BEAUTIFUL that Someone Else Sanctifies the thing done, by some standard of AUTHORITY which makes the thing of MORE VALUE than it, itself. Or, than it, for merely "me".

    When you make a DECISION, you SANCTIFY the choice. Hagiazw, lit., meaning to set apart. You SEPARATE the decision from all its alternatives. You MARRY the decision. The next moment in time, can't reverse the decision. You can only later DIVORCE the decision — which is why, frankly, you can't become UNSAVED once saved — you can't TURN BACK, time. God doesn't divorce you, if you divorce Him, 2Tim2:13. So, AUTHORITY makes that decision of SETTING apart. Your volition, is an authority. However, since TEACHING requires an authority to represent GOD's, it must be a male who has it. Again, this is more for our sake in JUSTIFYING acceptance, than because God needs it to be "male" or "female" (God is neither). WE NEED it. So, that's how it is. Females are associated with NURTURING, not 'the last word'. People need BOTH types of authority — one which LAYS THE LAW, sanctifying — and the other, which WORSHIPS the law — being sanctified. Christ and Church. Male and female. Filling all in all, Eph1:15-end Chapter.

The hard thing about being UNDER authority, being female, being poor, being a child, and especially being under a pastor, is respect and obedience. One tends to go overboard one way or the other: to OVERTHROW authority, or SLAVISHLY OBEY it. Neither reaction benefits the authority, or the one under it. (Just review the history of Russia sometime.) For, true respect means you will OBEY, but you will also RECOGNIZE that what you are told isn't necessarily correct, since those OVER you are human as well. So what do you do? Well, like Paul counseled women to do, 'be silent in church', and 'go home and ask your husband' if you have a problem. Our Husband, is Christ, and the Holy Spirit is (really, chooses to play) His Voice; and we are BODY, WIFE (Eph5, 1Cor6&12), thus to be trained to be LIKE Christ FOR FATHER. So we use 1Jn1:9, and talk with FATHER of Our Husband about whatever problems we have. Then, learn FROM the Spirit what Husband wants us to do, be, know. Of course, ideally, those OVER us are doing the same thing: for we are ALL under Him. [Nerd note: we don't pray to Christ and we don't hear directly from Christ because we have His Word in WRITING. John 14-17 will help you orient to this topic, as will the Book of Hebrews and Ephesians. Read them over a couple-of-dozen times, if using a translation.]

So, this is how to be under your right pastor. A pastor you're under may not always be the right one for you: times change, and people change. If this condition becomes true in your case, you will be caused to a) become aware of it, and b) know under which succeeding pastor you should 'sit'. At which time, you quietly depart: for those remaining under the pastor you're leaving, how do YOU know if he's not the right pastor, for THEM? For, we aren't perfect: only GOD is Perfect. So we don't have perfect authorities, parents, rich people, etc: but GOD gives them whatever offices they have (1Tim2, Romans 13). So it's up to GOD to run the show with respect to them, and it's up to us to OBEY HIM. Which we do, by aiming continually at TRUE RESPECT, "neither to the right (slavish obedience), nor to the left (overthrow)."

More on How Hostility is incorrectly deemed 'scientific'

Sorry for the satire, here.. breaks my heart that academes who WORK SO HARD are sooo deluded. We're all human! Pray for these people, ok? We need authority. We also need to discern between the 'spirit' of error and the Spirit of Truth, as 1Jn4 puts it, for the Highest Authority (Who by the way can FIX those spirits of error, so we needn't try) — is GOD. Having determined which is which, we don't CRUSADE against the spirits of error, we just LEARN what the Spirit of Truth, teaches by such exposure...


The Cockroach Creed of 'Science': if it's HOSTILE, it's 'objective'

It makes immediate sense that if a topic is politically-sensitive, be it in any discipline of science or medicine, charity or especially religion, what passes for objectivity should be suspect. After all, the researchers need money to carry on their research; outcomes of the research will engender dispute and even outright political conflict, whether the outcomes are correctly-concluded, or not.

In ancient Greek times, "rhetoric" was used to reason out truth DEDUCTIVELY. The discipline of rhetoric was used in debate, and a person adopted one of five "classes" of premise conditions: true, false, maybe-true, wish-it-were-true, and (I forget the fifth one, will stick it in here later). Greek logicians (i.e., Chrysippus or Socrates or Aristotle) would then debate or otherwise reason out from a particular "class" of condition regarding a topic through to the conclusion. So, it was ACKNOWLEDGED that a premise of some sort would take a 'side': then, going by evidence and logic, a conclusion would be reached. If from premise through conclusion there was SENSE, and the all the available data FIT, the conclusion was regarded as correct.. until disproven, of course.

    For example, pretend I start with a premise that God is made of green cheese. No matter HOW I work through to a conclusion, either green cheese must be something OTHER than itself, or GOD must be something OTHER THAN itself. So, the FALSE premise proves correctly false by the end. Assuming, of course, that I stuck with logic in 'the middle'. OBJECTIVITY ALWAYS REVEALS ITSELF. So does falsehood.

So, it DIDN'T MATTER whether you started with a 'slanted' premise: a true premise would prove true by the end, a false one prove false, etc. Meanwhile, the premise SHAPED THE DIRECTION OF THE SEARCH, in which case, one speeded up the detection of RELEVANT versus irrelevant data. This is the essence of deductive reasoning, the fastest way to establish the truth of a thing. The trick in science is to pick the right PREMISE. That will sort out the RELEVANT from the irrelevant data. It's a trial-and-error process, which the ancient Greeks recognized; thus, the use of the five DIFFERENT 'class conditions', so one could find WHICH premise MOST accounted for the FIT of the most data.

Aristotle, though trained in deductive reasoning, seems to be one of the founders of the INDUCTIVE method; which, instead of starting with any premise at all, one just looks at facts (he started with biology and astronomy), and then one concludes the next level 'up', building from there. Modern methods of determining truth unfortunately are inductive, on the grounds that any deductive method starts with a slant, so can't result in an objective conclusion. So, all the inductive research lacks shape. Therefore, much of what passes for research is a meandering, with the result that true answers are rarely found. Of course, such fuzziness is more politically-acceptable, and research grants are thus easier to get.

Sadly, most Biblical scholarship caves into the inductive approach; worse, the scholarship starts from the wrong rhetorical direction, 3rd class condition, maybe-true, maybe-not; which SOUNDS more 'objective', but isn't: the analysis paths one follows if Divine Authorship is NOT presumed true are so different, one never SEES the relevant data. In short, it's a fallacious method, roughly analogous to those who demand scientific instruments 'detect' God — since the former can only measure the material, but the Latter is IMMATERIAL, obviously 'God' will never be detected by the former. At least, not recognizably.

As a result, what the BIBLE SAYS is barely glanced at; scholarship re what the TEXT SAYS is so shoddy, one's embarrassed for the 'scholars'. Worse, relics and other (never-conclusive) physical stuff are 'researched' as if THAT stuff were more important, than the Word itself. Oh, because the presumption is, by AVOIDING THE CONTENT of Scripture one is more 'objective!' No wonder, then, that even sympathetic scholarship goes awry, resulting only in tidbits of undoubted importance, but nowhere near "Complete". Surely then the UNsympathetic scholarship will fare worse. No wonder, then, that so much of what passes for scholarship in any endeavor lacks competence. We are embroiled in politics, pressed for time, short on funds, and everyone can call an incompetence a 'difference of opinion', if the one making that opinion has the right number of letters after his name. Truth, of course, gets sacrificed in the process.

An example here is necessary. The Discovery Channel and the Christian channels periodically replay a video called "Jesus: the Complete Story". It is, on the whole, an attempt to sympathetically verify through science the plausibility of items like the Star of Bethelehem, whether the Lord's Crucifixion was through the hand or the wrist, could He have survived the Cross (did He really die, was He really Resurrected), etc. While the term "Complete" is not accurate, many interesting angles of answer are mentioned, and the viewer is not forced to agree.

    NOTICE RIGHT AWAY, the WRONG FOCUS. Emphasis is on whether something we can SENSE agrees with what Bible says. As if such agreement, made Bible right. Rather than, PRESUMING Bible right, and then learning HOW it is right. When you have the wrong premise, or the wrong FOCUS in the premise, you ASK THE WRONG QUESTIONS, so get the wrong answers. This has always been the bane of science, of logic-seeking, of law, of everything that makes life MISERABLE.

    So, because the focus is wrong, the conclusions are at times, wacko and hostile — no one meaning to be wacko OR hostile, of course. In the process of the analysis, you hear some strange comments, like the claim that since Matthew didn't record the going-to-register-in-Bethelehem, somehow Luke's Gospel 'contradicts'. LOL, so if one writer doesn't use a fact because it's irrelevant to the overall framework of writing but another of a different framework includes the fact, they contradict? That's a classic case of not reading Scripture, for each writer has a particular FRAMEWORK for what he writes, and if you don't know the framework, you don't understand the writing. Luke's framework in both his Gospel and Acts, is historical and causational, so he'd include events and details within them the other Gospel writers would not. Cardinal reading principle, one we are all taught in school: first recognize what the WRITER MEANS TO WRITE ABOUT AND WHY. Only then can you understand WHY certain points are included or excluded.

    The video had lots of little crazinesses like this, but so did Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Here's another video gem of insanity: the PRESUMPTION that the Lord didn't know WHY He was here, and had to figure it out (lol). So I guess the video makers just IGNORED all of John 1-5; as well as, all the Scripture the Lord quoted to POINT TO HIMSELF; as well as, all the Levitical Sacrifices POINTING TO HIM, which HE ALSO KEPT QUOTING; as well as, Gabriel's announcement to HIS MOTHER, Mary; as well as the Baby being wrapped in DEATH BANDAGES ("swaddling" was swaddling for death) — was all that never told to Him? LOL!

    Or, this gem: the quest to find out if virgin births are possible biologically — what, the fact that Scripture says THE HOLY SPIRIT DID IT (Luke 1:35), so DOESN'T claim a natural process, however aberrantly corroborated IN nature — that Bible statement doesn't matter? Or, the verse that the Lord sweated "like great drops of blood" — LIKE, ok? But oh, someone researched that there's a process in humans under extreme pressure in which they ACTUALLY sweat blood. Ok, that's fine, but it's NOT what Scripture ACTUALLY SAYS (Luke22:44), so it's IRRELEVANT to validate. Drops of blood are usually big and heavy, and sweat can also be big and heavy, for crying out loud. But my all-time-favorite was the guy who, looking at the Greek meaning of paradidomi, concluded that Christ FIXED HIS OWN CONDEMNATION WITH JUDAS. Oh, so then why did Judas have a GUILT ATTACK and thus hang himself (Matt27:5)? It's disgusting when someone makes a technical point — yet doesn't do his homework! Oh well, we all belong to the same ol' politically-sensitive human race...

    See how it matters to compare BIBLE? See how the CONTENT OF SCRIPTURE gets short shrift in the very name of validating it?

Nor is that a lone example. It's a sad day when I read in even the Encyclopedia Britannica's "Biblical Literature" section (Volume II, 1985), a heading which says "Theological presuppositions which helped to shape the Gospels". WHAT??? Isn't it the HOLY SPIRIT who 'shaped' the Gospels? See — even redoubtable EB makes the 'presupposition' that the Gospels are NOT inspired. No wonder they can't figure out the dating of the Lord's lifetime, Paul's ministry, etc. ad nauseam. If EB would have read Daniel 9:26's MATH, and worked it out, they'd have gotten His Correct Birthdate, 3BC. Takes 90 seconds to calculate. Daniel knew it circa 560BC...

And, not to be outdone, even the venerable Zondervan, that foremost publisher of Bibles, dares to say in its introductions to the Gospels of Updated New American Standard Bible, Reference Edition, Library of Congress Card Number 98-61548, egregious statements like (preface to John's Gospel), "The Gospel of John was INFLUENCED (!) by the Old Testament... obviously based on the recollections of an eyewitness." LOL! Do you know, there are a good DOZEN verses in that Gospel where John testifies he himself is an eyewitness, INFLUENCED by the Holy Spirit? What, did the editor of this particular Bible forget how to READ? Or, the Zondervan comment at the beginning of Mark's Gospel, on how the Church Fathers "agreed" Mark reproduces Peter's teaching????? Excuse me, but isn't this about CHRIST, and who gives a flip what the Church Fathers 'agree' — what GOD SAYS is rather more important, right? And didn't GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT give Mark to write the Gospel, rather than Mark using Gospel as a showcase for Peter, for crying out loud! See how dippy even we respectable Christians ARE?

    NOTA BENE: THESE RESPECTABLE FOLKS PRESUME NO "HELPER" (Holy Spirit). So, they get no 'help' in their research, and instead tilt after fake windmills. So they go running off on false-analysis paths, i.e., presuming that Gospel writers used OTHER WITNESSES for their writings, LOL! Or, (EB), because two datings of same event don't SEEM to accord (based on the empirical data they have), the BIBLE must be in error. Oh, it's just not possible that they have errors in their data, or lack data! Every day in every way the Lord's First Advent is replayed live, before our eyes, since Scripture is His Thinking: oh, watch how TODAY'S 'Pharisees' piously ATTACK! One despairs: will the Bible, like the Lord's Humanity during Passover week, NEVER get a fair 'trial'?

    Of course it never will: you best DEFAME if you ASK AND ANSWER THE WRONG QUESTIONS, PRETENDING THEY ARE THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. Every politician knows that if he makes a big stink out of his opponent's problemmatic FAMILY life, the RELEVANT question of the opponent's COMPETENCE FOR THE JOB will no longer matter. Every trial lawyer knows by discrediting the witness on something IRRELEVANT, the RELEVANT parts of the witness' testimony will be likewise discredited.

So too, with the Bible's countless 'documentaries', even though surely most engaged in them, as well as the above-mentioned folks, have no INTENT to defame. But defame they do; worse, they end up defaming themselves, considering how easy it is to prove their alleged 'scholarship', bogus. For, even if the scholarship which is NOT on Scripture itself is okay, the Scriptural scholarship is appallingly bad: if I hear one more documentary screw up the interpretation of Matt16:18, when "Petra" is the CLEAR AND UNMISTAKABLE NAME FOR JESUS HIMSELF in the LXX, I'll vomit.

    Back in the days when the Catholic Church had Scripture under lock-and-key, there was some excuse for folks not knowing this verse's egregious misuse. But not today. Understand, this horrible misuse of Scripture is tantamount to saying 1+1=5 in base 10. You have to be LYING or STUPID to interpret that verse as designating Peter as the foundation for the Church, because the Greek is sooooo clear in both OT and NT.

    Check out this claim for yourself. It's easily seen in some Bible software like BibleWorks, and it's not rocket science to find it: just search the Greek texts for all "Petra" references, and read those verses. So documentaries using that 'Peter-is-the-Rock' interpretation betray themselves as being of bogus scholarship, whether they seem to be pro-Bible, or not. View them with caution.

So a big tipoff to bogus scholarship is WHAT is chosen to 'research' or comment upon: STUPID STUFF. We IGNORE that "Genesis" in Greek means "The Begetting of Man", and instead debate it ENDLESSLY, on how God made the Universe. Well, that's not even what Genesis 1 says it IS! If anyone BOTHERED to really read the Hebrew and LXX, it's about how God RESTORED the universe, not made it, in Gen1:2ff. Simple use of the verbs and tohu wa bohu tip you off, not to mention dozens of OTHER Bible verses which EXPLAIN Gen1:2ff. So the unbeliever uses Genesis the wrong way, and the Christians are cretins about its use, as well.

Oh, and it never ends, the stupid-question quest: "Jesus: the Complete Story" was fixated on proving HOW LONG His Hair was. To prove why those pictures painted of Him BY MEN were wrong, as if it even MATTERED that they were wrong. What, were the paintings painted by God, that this question is important? What did GOD SAY ABOUT THE LENGTH OF HIS HAIR? NOTHING. 'Classic instance of people drawing WRONG CONCLUSIONS based on WRONG PREMISES. Here, paintings, for crying out loud.

    First of all, the item itself is always so small and inconclusive, how can it be BLOWN UP to (in)validate Scripture's Divinity?

    Secondly, is the INTERPRETATION people MAKE of the item, accurate? Often, "no"!

    Thirdly, does this thing shed any light on BIBLE DOCTRINE? Generally, no; sometimes, yes. If "yes", the item is MAYBE helpful. Else, it's a waste of time. Come on: does it REALLY MATTER what the Lord looked like?

    So yes, people mispainted Him having long hair, whooppee. THE BIBLE doesn't say how long His Hair was, what He looked like, etc. FOR A REASON, lol: those aren't RELEVANT questions. Notice how, by discrediting the paintings which are held in esteem and SANCTIONED by 'the Church', 'the Church' is itself discredited, and thus the BIBLE 'the Church' also praises is discredited. Satan is not stupid. [Isagogics and other items establish things like what clothes and hair were common at the time. Some verses help, but if God doesn't make a stink about a thing, then LOGIC would conclude we shouldn't, either.]

See? Whether anti-Bible or pro-, instead of studying His Word's CONTENT, we ever skirt outside to the physicalities, and betray our sin-in-Adam proclivities to DENY THE WORD itself. We do all this stuff, in the name of proving Scripture Divine, to WARRANT study — but manage, thank you, to spend all our lives on these very 'proofs', so never GET AROUND to studying His Thinking.

  • Witness, the incredible amount of attention paid to the media on which Scripture is written, the shapes of the letters, etc., for purposes of dating the manuscripts — INSTEAD OF, attention to THE CONTENT itself.
  • Scripture's validation has always rested on the MESSAGE, not the 'carrier' (human being or media). The age of the LANGUAGE is conclusive evidence, NOT the media the language is written on.
  • But oh! let's claim Scripture is newer than some older religion due to media age!

    It's really hard to imagine that normal- and rational-looking human beings can ROUTINELY make such insane claims in most documentaries, and in the mouths of degreed professors! How did they get those degrees — by mail? Yeah, so 1000 years from now, someone will look at my copy of Von Clausewitz purchased from Amazon and say the guy lived in 2003, so couldn't have massively influenced ol' royalty-led Europe's military doctrines!

See? Typical 'scholarly' premises CAN'T sort or determine RELEVANT data well; so they are FAR less efficient and WAY more prone to error. By contrast, the more efficient and conclusive manner to prove what and if God, is by STUDYING HIS WORD. God proves Himself the Author by SCRIPTURE'S CONTENT, the Genius of the communication itself, along with the 100% sense it makes, though it takes some years to reach the 100%. So, the point is to get whatever doctrine He wants me to learn NOW, not waste precious time VALIDATING things one can only GUESS at, like the Star of Bethelehem, etc.

    Isagogics are relevant to INTERPRETATION, not to validation. So, though I'm certain whatever God says is fact really is, I don't need proof; nor would any alleged proof ever matter, whether pro- or con. Because, NO material items can be sufficient proof, either way, whether collectively or individually. Such data is always too far back in time, too fraught with judgement calls as to significance and identity. This isn't to say such 'proof' should not be sought. This isn't to say it shouldn't be studied. It IS realistically admitting that any such 'data', CANNOT 'prove'. Whether Bible debunker or Bible thumper, one should recognize that all such 'data' will never obviate the (I guess painful) confrontation you must PERSONALLY face regarding Scripture: is it from God, or not?

    Funny how in all these documentaries, pro- or con-, no one asks the MOST IMPORTANT question: if there is a God, HOW DOES HE GET PAID? And then, find what books ANSWER that question. Bible is the only one. Surely if God exists, and most of us are not SO insane, we'd deny that fact — surely since God exists, HE SHOULD BE PAID. We can't be enjoyable, to look at. Justice has to be served, no matter that God doesn't NEED to be paid. It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing. If He's not just to Himself, how is He just, anywhere else? See, again: asking the wrong questions, getting the wrong answers, is just so much SUBLIMINATION — a defense mechanism, a PREJUDICE; not at all, 'scientific'.

In sum, a whole lot of so-called Biblical scholarship gets wasted due to scholars feeling they aren't 'objective' unless they first use INDUCTIVE (i.e., empirical-first) methods. Further, that they aren't 'objective' unless they assume a HOSTILE stance when examining some conundrum. Can this be more DISingenuous? LOL, if I have to assume a HOSTILE stance in the name of objectivity; and, if I come up with ambiguous data, I'll have to INTERPRET it in a hostile fashion — again, in the name of objectivity; so if I derive a HOSTILE conclusion, oh — that's objectivity! Cute tautology, right?

    So: watch VERY carefully all those so-called 'objective' documentaries, and notice how they PRETEND objectivity, but instead SLANT toward hostility. It's fine that they follow a slant; it's NOT fine that they pretend to have no slant BECAUSE they are hostile. So they, too presume no HELPER, so get no help. So, make some incredibly stupid mistakes; so, can't resolve whatever 'contradiction' or 'problem passage' they see; so, get frustrated/lose faith/debunk Bible — all for nought!

    In this, the so-called scholars engage in the same sort of irrationality as plagues every ATHEIST: set up a standard of 'proof' which CAN'T be conclusive or CAN'T but prove false, so one can pretend to self that he's been objective, so can JUSTIFY not believing. [Example: the DEMAND that God can't do a Flood, based on false empirical data, like how much water is in the atmosphere now, when Bible ITSELF tells you most of the water came from the oceans and freshwater ON GROUND; meaning, among other phenomena HE MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT have used, EARTHQUAKES etc. RELEASED the water and levelled the land.] So, then: how can they see the relevant data, how can they even LOOK for the relevant data, when they have tautological and irrelevant PREMISES, to start with?

    Not long ago, a guy who's apparently famous for leaving the Catholic Church, had a book signing near where I live. It was advertised on a radio station I hear upon waking in the morning, that because this guy left the Church he is more objective in evaluating the Church — so you should come by, get his autograph, and buy the book. SNAKE OIL! Can you imagine, WRITING and then ADVERTISING a book on why he left 'the Church'? Would you in good conscience be able to spend the money you made, on such a topic? Same kind of WRONG PREMISE — here, that whatever was wrong with 'the Church' is likewise wrong with BIBLE — cute tautology. And then to make money on it — how SINCERE is that book's message, then? Puleese.

NOTA BENE, REPEAT: ALL THESE RESPECTABLE FOLKS PRESUME NO "HELPER" (Holy Spirit). So, they get no 'help' in their research, and instead tilt after fake windmills. So they go running off on false-analysis paths, i.e., presuming that Gospel writers used OTHER WITNESSES for their writings, LOL! Or, (EB), because two datings of same event don't SEEM to accord (based on the empirical data they have), the BIBLE must be in error. Oh, it's just not possible that they have errors in their data, or lack data! Every day in every way the Lord's First Advent is replayed live, before our eyes, since Scripture is His Thinking: oh, watch how TODAY'S 'Pharisees' piously ATTACK! One despairs: will the Bible, like the Lord's Humanity during Passover week, NEVER get a fair 'trial'?

Of course it never will: you best DEFAME if you ASK AND ANSWER THE WRONG QUESTIONS, PRETENDING THEY ARE THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. Every politician knows that if he makes a big stink out of his opponent's problemmatic FAMILY life, the RELEVANT question of the opponent's COMPETENCE FOR THE JOB will no longer matter. Every trial lawyer knows by discrediting the witness on something IRRELEVANT, the RELEVANT parts of the witness' testimony will be likewise discredited.

The good news is, for us Christians, we'll CELEBRATE all the stupidities we 'bought' while down here.. forever. We'll laugh, boast in our many weaknesses, for God gives us the Victory in Christ.. forever! [2Cor12:9ff., 1Cor15, etc.]

More on How God orchestrated Cohesive Word out of Disparate Writers

God being INFINITE, wants INFINITE INTIMACY with whatever He creates. So, that means SHARING His Thinking, to have that COMPATIBLE intimacy. Which means, FREE WILL on God's Part, to TEACH us His Thinking; which means, free will on OUR part, to LEARN that Thinking. Has zippo to do with works, but EVERYTHING to do with WANTING GOD. So, GOD'S TEACHING GOD'S WORD to a person, such that it is written in the heart (BELIEVING part of soul) and mind (ACADEMIC PROCESSING part of soul), is the biggest promise of the OT, and THE reason to live. Third and Fourth Reasons in LordvSatan3.htm explore the ramifications of this promise for Church, in great detail.

So, the task is, who can be DEVELOPED in this Thinking to EXHALE it, in Writing? Theopneustos, God-breathed, Bible Keyword. So, first, to TEACH a person means that the person obviously NEEDED the teaching; so, obviously, didn't KNOW until taught; so, obviously, didn't necessarily YET know ALL of God's teaching. So, obviously, when God taught certain truths to a person such that the person COULD 'breathe out' God's Meaning wholly accurately, God could use that person to WRITE SCRIPTURE on those topics.

So, obviously, we can indeed learn well enough to really KNOW God, since the writers of Scripture were taught enough to PERFECTLY WRITE whatever God had assigned to them. It wasn't automatic writing. It was CONVERSATION, faithfully converted into the writer's OWN style of writing, without waiving anything God wanted said the WAY God wanted it said. God knows how a person thinks. God knows how a person will COMMUNICATE what he learns from God. So God knows HOW TO TEACH a person, to get the desired OUTPUT God wants. All this, without waiving any human characteristic in the person, and DEFINITELY without waiving his free will. (Sheesh. People give God no credit whatsoever when they tie themselves in knots over the Inspiration of Scripture.)

Frankly, this BREATHING in by the BREATH (heh — Holy Spirit, the Breath of our Spiritual Life!), is the same method as for spiritual growth in any believer — difference is, the believer doesn't get the learning to WRITE SCRIPTURE, since it is perfect/complete/finished — since Christ is Seated and all the apostles are dead (John died last). Instead, the believer gets this COMPLETED WORD, to learn and LIVE on it: "living stones", as Peter calls us (wordplay on his own nickname).

So: just as we don't learn the whole Word at once, neither did the WRITERS of Scripture. That's why certain things are omitted by one writer, but covered by another. So, for example, each Gospel writer has a particular underlying framework on which his deposition is constructed, by means of, and under the direction of, the Holy Spirit Himself. So, God's Word fits together perfectly, but there's a PROGRESSIVE REVELATION quality to it, since the books are written by different folks at different dates who had differing UNDERSTANDING. NO MAGIC to this. It's LEARNING. Better than magic, this: it shows GOD directed them all, especially since each one didn't know all of the being-revealed truth. Many misinterpretations of Scripture will be avoided, if this how-did-Scripture-get-written history, is remembered.

So GOD ORCHESTRATED ALL THESE DIFFERING GROWTH RATES, all these folks, throughout OT and NT; AND ORCHESTRATED the meanwhile, via the TEMPORARY spiritual gifts like prophecy, visions, teaching and knowledge, what was GOING TO BE IN WRITING. Thus HE orchestrated was taught to the then-current crop of believers. The so-called 'spectacular' NT temporary gifts like tongues, miracles, and healing were given as letters-of-credit, to prove that those TEACHING were really from God — because, there WAS no written NT available, yet. Just as, in the OT, during the time when Israel was yet positive enough, to even hear anyone. Sadly, by the days of Malachi, they were so NEGATIVE, Malachi has to be the last guy — book ends on the prediction that Elijah will return to proclaim Messiah, which we of course know as John the Baptist (see Gospel of John for the Lord's statement to that effect).

    Note how strange: between Malachi and the PREDICTABLE DATE of the Lord's First Advent per Daniel 9:25, there were no prophets. Just the Word. Jews knew that, also, and busied themselves collecting and collating the Book just as Christians would later do, in Constantine's day. [It's remarkable how the OT collection dates mirror the date that the WHOLE BIBLE collection under Constantine, was institutionalized. Seemed to be 300 or so years on either side of His Birth. Hmmm. That would make a great topic of study, why man is so slow to wake up and be careful about the Word. Every 200-300 years since, we've gone through something similar, an AWAKENING of interest in Scripture, somewhere in the world. It's a pattern you can test in history.]

    Meanwhile, this guy named Alexander, also predicted and arriving on time per Daniel 9, swept over the Middle East and most of India. As a consequence, this guy insisted everyone learn his language, a polyglot Greek known as "koine" (common — idea that all Greeks would speak one COMMON version). So, the conquered peoples learned that GREEK, just in time for the COMPLETION of the OT to be made IN that Greek, which we know as the "LXX". Just in time for the language to be so natural, when the Lord ARRIVED on time, that LXX was the Bible. For the Jews had largely forgotten, their Hebrew. Even more amazingly, within 200 years AFTER the Lord was here, no one could READ that Greek; the vernacular had changed too much. So notice how precise is our PROOF of when LXX was translated, and NT Scripture was written — the language itself has a very narrow time window of fluency. Then, all you have to do is look for the historical markers, aka "isagogics", to get the WRITING DATES within a year or two of the ACTUAL date written. Even if using a copy many centuries hence. (It's not that they didn't have the Hebrew text, but that the majority were LESS COMFORTABLE, using it. It was the less-familiar of the two texts, for the NT more often quotes from the LXX. We know that there was a Hebrew text extant, for some of the quotes are from what we call the "Masoretic" (aka BHS, one of the Masoretic manuscripts), which is VERY close.)

      This is usually called the 'science of textual criticism.' It's more an art than a science, for language doesn't lend itself to hard-and-fast formulas. There's lots of Attic Greek in Bible, because Greek drama and Greek culture, were COMMON. So, if a PARTICULAR POPULARITY only applicable to a certain YEAR was written about, then you know WHAT YEAR the writing was made. Trick is, to be sure what the item is, and to what year it belongs. That's painstaking work. Similarly, the USE OF WORDS has a dated quality to it. Well, there are many variables to mention which make up the clues you need to correctly date Scripture. However, none of them require genius intelligence: plodding and 1Jn1:9, is more the need...

GOD ORCHESTRATES. Mirroring.htm is on the Daniel Timeline. Notice God's orchestration of TIME, for crying out loud — you can VERIFY EVERY DATE IN IT, in advance, mostly; dates which no believer could cause, or influence. Heck, most Jews don't even understand Daniel, because if they did, they'd FLEE Jerusalem like the Lord recommended, in Matt24. So you can't cause the Temple to be destroyed EXACTLY ON TIME; you can't cause the Dome of the Rock to be built on the Holy of Holies, A PROTOTYPE of the Tribulation "abomination", and simultaneously fulfilling the "until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" clause in Luke 21:24, spoken HUNDREDS OF YEARS PRIOR to the birth of Islam, which no believer created...

    So, bring the idea home: look for His Orchestration EVERYWHERE in your life. Now that I can spot it in Scripture, I can spot it anywhere in my own life — so will you. Bible shows how this orchestration WORKS in any narrative, in the way words are used, and.. in the CHRONOLOGY and PROGRESSIVE REVELATION process which unfolds as you study Scripture. [My website is sprinkled with personal anecdotal information for that reason: so you can get an idea of how to spot God's orchestration IN YOUR OWN life. BTW: Satan orchestrates, too — an TESTABLE empirical model of his orchestration is embedded within the "Thinking Out Loud" series. I learned of this model via Doctrine, but it lends itself to repeated empirical testing. Works every time.]

    Additionally, God's ORCHESTRATION offers thousands of applications which affect every speck of dust in life: THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS. If He orchestrates TIME, then nothing is accidental. A thing is free to occur, as it freely is, but that doesn't mean God can't turn a lemon into lemonade. Doesn't mean God can't turn lemon scholarship into lemonade even the scholar who WAS ONCE a lemon, will himself, savor...

God's Orchestration of NT writers, is phenomenal. It's a wonder these folks learned as quickly as they did: Paul, 14 years; James, 15 years (assuming Book of James was penned in 45AD). Those two weren't even BELIEVERS until the Lord in Resurrection Body Personally APPEARED to them severally, AFTER His Crucifixion! So why be surprised, that between roughly 50-65AD, Paul's letters were penned; that Luke wrote most contemporaneously, for Acts ends with Paul being under house arrest in Rome, not afterwards (so you pick up the timeline with the prison epistles); that Peter wrote post-60's AD, to the DIASPORA (some think the 90's); that John didn't write his Gospel until maybe 90's AD. Believers grow at differing rates: especially, to a level required to enable accurate writing of SCRIPTURE. And even if they were already grown enough — was the AUDIENCE READY? Folks don't think of that, when debating whether Gospels contradict. Yeah, well folks don't think. So let's try...

    Think how James must have felt, having been a lemon SO LONG, though being The Lord's Own Half-Brother. (Jude, too). Think how Saul must have felt, that consummate SCHOLAR among the Hebrews (Phili3), to have MISSED the meaning of all that prophecy! Boy, they sure must have been TEMPTED to feel they were lemons, undeserving as they were of so much grace. You have to understand: these were two of the greatest experts in OT, of that time. Yet, look! God made them DELICIOUS lemonade for the millions and millions of us who have the privilege, to read what God enabled them to write!

    Today's lemons will have the same satisfaction, though everyone puckers, now. There has long been a very UNscholarly practice of oh-so-slightly DEBUNKING the Divinity of Bible, by sly intonations which accompany a term like, "Pauline". As if some verse or epistle were Paul's idea, not God's. Like the debate over whether Luke COPIED from someone else — oh, he couldn't get it from the Holy Spirit? Or they debate the DATES of the letters to see who COPIED from someone else. Mark's Gospel is disputed. If any of today's lemon-scholars actually spent time CROSS-REFERENCING and thinking over the words, they'd see GOD WROTE IT through these people. So a 'scholar' who debunks like this is automatically UNqualified, sorry. Such a person wouldn't know the Bible if it bit him, and it does; and it shows. But then, he's in good company, for once upon a time, even James and Paul were lemons. As indeed, all of us...

    So, the puckering Bible debunkers and weak believers think it rational to expect that within a year or so after the Crucifixion, believers would be SO trained in God's Thinking, they should just spew out the Gospels; for, critics are forever debating what they consider the 'late' Gospel writing dates (45 or 50-96AD). Oh, these books were written so LATE, they must be inaccurate memories. LOL! What, is the HOLY SPIRIT unable to remember? What, are John 14:26 and 2Pet1:20-21, 3:15, and Heb4:12 and missing in their Bibles? What, do YOU go from babyhood to being a nuclear physicist in only one year after the most politically-traumatic event in history, the Cross?

    It positively amazes me how no one recognizes the tremendous UPSET the Cross created for all the polities in and around Israel at the time; within a generation or two, how it traumatized every so-called 'civilized' society all over the world. Christianity spread like wildfire. Everyone and his brother either wanted to kill believers, or ape them; counterfeit 'gospels' abounded. Every religion extant at the time underwent MAJOR revision, partly to keep their adherents. Jews, in particular, under James (maybe he was forced), ran around trying to track these folks down and KILL them. That's what Paul was trying to do when the Lord APPEARED to him in Resurrection Body (badge of apostleship, that). WOW: it's SO patent how devastating the event was WORLDWIDE, how there was a massive attempt to either piggyback onto the new "Way", or to crush all reference to it — even, in the acerbic comments of Tacitus and Suetonius.

    Look at today's problem of American culture 'infesting' all other polities on the globe. Even in the remotest parts of Amazon you'll find children with DKNY T-shirts! Iraqis, who are supposed to hate us, giving their kids Mickey Mouse T-shirts (recent TIME or LIFE photo shoot of "21 Days to Baghdad"). Of course, that's why Osama wanted us attacked: we are the Great Satan, see — decadent. A threat to the young. Yep, and we BEGAN to be that threat as a result of our victory in WWII, when an exhausted Europe no longer could keep hegemony. We are the big bear in the candy shop, the evil moneybaggers, you name it. We have a secular, not a religious culture. And everyone WANTS what we have. Which is why the entrenched authorities, feel compelled to debunk US. The loudest critics reflect a populus which is the most threatened. That's always been true historically; right now, it's US; by BREATHING, we are the object of OTHER PEOPLE'S insecurities, just because we exist. And our behavior, gives them an excuse to condemn. 100 years ago, political consciousness was LOW, because there was less FREEDOM in the world. Now, with more freedom, well.. more vociferousness. But then why are our products, popular? We don't FORCE people to buy our T-shirts and videos, for crying out loud...

      WitnUS.htm has details, and can be clicked from the "Quicklinks" box of the Home Page. Basically, the anti-US sentiment is a sense of INFERIORITY by other nations to combat the WANTING of what we have among their people. On the other hand, we ourselves, never having progressed spiritually beyond the third grade, CAN'T PROPERLY COME TO CONSENSUS ON HOW TO USE our size such that others are not so intimidated; such that the terrorists are wiped out like the cockroaches they all are. THEY are the ones tyrannizing the world with their religious satanisms, but WE get blamed — no matter what we do, right or wrong — because we are BIGGER. Because everyone WANTS what we have, and that upsets the established orders — encouraging them to HELP the terrorists, to defend themselves, against US. Before, it was a problem of USSR vs. USA, much easier: just play off BOTH sides. But now, the (incorrect, imo) perception is that there is but ONE side, the US. So everyone's feeling antsy, and our spiritual childishness at home, only makes our situation FAR worse...

    So also, back in the Lord's Day, the news about salvation galvanized the world; MANY WANTED IT. Which thus made the Gospel the biggest threat in the world, to date. For, state religion was an integral part of every nation's political STRENGTH. Its culture and its religion were so intertwined, this new "Way" threatened the entire political cohesion, in the eyes of rulers like.. um, Claudius. Nero. Every Roman Emperor after them. And, of course, the littler states surrounding SPQR were affected too. Remember the riots which kept persecuting Paul, like the one in Miletus? Gallio? See: what happened then is like what America represents to polities today: a threat to their POWER. It was NO small thing, the Crucifixion.

    NOTE WELL: GOD'S MIRACLES ALWAYS HAVE A RATIONAL AND NORMAL PURPOSE. The Crucifixion's upheaval needed special treatment. God is the God of Authority, so miracles were used to CALM DOWN people, so they WOULD NOT REBEL against authority; thus the miracles were first of all, AUTHORITATIVE 'credit cards' — ORDERED to prove that these many spectacular claims of Messiah, weren't FALSE. That's what prophecy was FOR, the ESTABLISHMENT of TRUTH, not titillation: you compared the claim to its fulfillment, so you could separate the sheep from the goats. Then, you wouldn't NEED to rebel against authority, for the superior authority handling ALL authority, is God. (Like today's Christian right, like Hitler, false messiahs throughout history are always about overthrowing existing human authority. The Lord turned DOWN that offer when Satan made it, when the Zealots made it, when the Palm Sunday crowd made it, when Pilate queried it.)

    So God managed, thank you, to teach people what they needed to know while the apostles and writers like Jude and Luke were being grown up enough to write their assigned books. Which, the meanwhile, the HOLY SPIRIT HIMSELF also communicated — just as He had always done since time immemorial (OT verses are loaded with Spirit-empowering clauses) — to the other folks who wouldn't yet see Canon. So much for the tawdry argument that NT writers needed some other eyewitness. LOL!

Now, you can see plainly all this Divine (not human) orchestration when you go through the NT letters chronologically. Write out the names of some NT doctrine you know. Then, begin to TRACE it chronologically, starting with the oldest book (James). Finish with the newest one (Rev). Note the progression in each epistle, as above — what doctrines are in the epistle? How expressed? How UNIQUELY expressed?

    For example, John's Gospel is the basis for his letters; his letters, like the Gospel, are in the 90's; note how in the LETTERS, VERY LITTLE is said about basics, and in fact, MUCH is said about how the addressees, ALREADY KNEW the basics. In the Greek of 1Jn, he uses TEMPLE and other OT and GOSPEL KEYWORDS throughout his epistle, to remind them of the NT upgrades THEY ALREADY know; he doesn't spend time explaining WHAT THEY MEAN; and his focus, is on how to grow up, and avoid false doctrine (which is also the theme of his other two epistles). By contrast, John DOES remind them of that basic generation of the spiritual life, 1Jn1:9 to stay online with the Spirit, using TEMPLE words; and he stresses by means of dramatic parallelisms, beginning in v.5. Which tells us right away that the problem was REMEMBERING to USE 1Jn1:9 — which almost NO Christians even use, today. Same problem then, same problem, now...

    Yet when you read the older Romans, Paul painstakingingly traces the origin of our spiritual life out from the OT version. Similarly, Hebrews, written due to Paul's execution or near it, sketches the same thing because what believers weren't hearing, was the Matt24 warning. Again, same problem then, same problem, now.

    What's really interesting when you do this chronological comparison, is that each writer uses his OWN keywords. For example, the beginning of 1Peter is an awful lot like Ephesians 1, but in PETER's shorter style. We know at the end of 2Peter that Peter was familiar with what Paul wrote, but only CONCEPTUALLY do you find commonalities: the VOCABULARY is different; complementary, but different.

    What common keywords the NT writers all draw on, ARE IN the Gospels and the OT; which thus means the AUDIENCE had something of that material in writing already; or, well-taught ORALLY (more convenient — ancient memories were better than ours). Because, seldom does a writers spend time EXPLAINING definitions; but by contrast, they all spend a LOT of time on how to USE the information. HOW TO THINK WHAT YOU KNOW is the driving purpose of all these epistles.

    See? We always overlook the obvious: you don't need to write about what people already know. You need to write about what they DON'T know, or are still getting confused. So, remember that as you read: what is NOT said tells you volumes about what HAD BEEN said, prior.

SO ADD TOGETHER the teachings: "find the highest truth" litmus ("Cardinal First principle" on NTKeys.htm). That litmus will help you properly ORGANIZE the Doctrines taught in God's Word, for in God's Word, all doctrines FIT in a hierarchy. This issue of assigned-jobs' fitting together is a part of a BIGGER theme in Eph4, the knitting-together of the Body of Christ: by INSTRUCTION (Ephesians verses are usually mistranslated and fuzzy).

The fact that each writer of Scripture corroborates other writers, in that each one is given the same basic doctrines to explain, PLUS the fact that each of the writers is given some unique things to teach, should be borne in mind when you read Scripture. Ask: what DOCTRINES does the writer express? What DOCTRINES does the writer UNIQUELY express? What DOCTRINES does the writer corroborate? Then, HOW does the writer express, express uniquely, corroborate? For, just as in a corporation, everyone has some tasks in common, so also each one has some unique duties.

    Paul, for example, is at the top, for he's got the 'job' of writing about CHURCH: the other writers didn't GET the information at the same level he did, so most of that PORTION of God's Word is ONLY revealed in Paul's writings, viz., the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher of a local church, Eph4:11, was NEW, replacing 'prophet', 'teacher' and 'knowledge' gifts of the pre-Canon period.

    So, for example, when you read what another writer writes, viz., James, you should FIRST ORGANIZE CHRONOLOGICALLY, and then ADD together the portions of James which tie to CHURCH that Paul wrote. There is a lot of overlap, but James' job assigned by God was not Paul's, and vice versa: the problem of the Jerusalem church was that they DID NOT ACCEPT what the Holy Spirit gave to Paul; so James has to talk about what they DO accept. To not recognize the CHRONOLOGY and AUDIENCE is to misinterpret Scripture. For, only when you ORGANIZE the epistles by their DATES and then LOOK to see how they all fit together, do you avoid the many controversies in Christendom's history.

    Apostacy began immediately after the Session, as Acts so painfully reveals. Just as was true with Israel from its foundation forward, so also for Christianity, over 90% of believers never get beyond spiritual childhood. There are periods where belief in Christ might reach 10% or more of a populus, but that populus never grows up. The pious noises are just so much eyewash, but with the Lord's Name splatted on for attention. Just as the Lord explained in the seed parable (i.e., in Luke 8). So opposition is THE NORM, and as it progresses, it progresses into activism and — finally, violence. Kinda like, today in the US. Just like Paul explained in his letters, how he MORALLY caused the destitution, imprisonment, and death of Christians.

    James became a believer, just as Paul did, owing to the Resurrection appearance of Christ to each of them. That appearance constituted their appointment as apostles (James replaced Matthias). James, as head of the Jerusalem Church, helped Paul (Acts 15:20) but also was behind the persecution of Paul by the Judaizers (was influenced/forced to go along, by the other leaders in the Jerusalem faction). Paul, distinct from the other apostles, taught the full Church doctrine, a doctrine he got directly from the Holy Spirit; a doctrine which you can see unfold in his letters, if you arrange them chronologically. Everyone else, was somewhat confused.

    So not everyone knew what CHURCH actually was — except, through Paul. And the others, opposed the idea of the Mosaic Law being abandoned. So, yes: James wrote the book of James, but his ACCEPTANCE of all doctrine was not complete when he wrote it. Yet, God gave him that slot on the team of the Body of Christ, anyway.

    So, even today, you'll find that most of Christendom interprets the spiritual life as quasi-Mosaic Law, which both the Book of Hebrews (talking about the changeover to Church in Judaic terms) and the book of Ephesians expressly DENY. For, most of Christendom continues that old apostate controversy which started after the Session, rejecting CHURCH as Paul was given to teach. Check it yourself. We've always been a Body of mostly dingbats. Yet, even dingbats can be used to harvest a crop! Yet, even the worst of us dingbats, can be grown up by the Holy Spirit, and we all grow up at different, fluctuating, rates!

If you read NT with the purpose of learning what THEY learned and watching the unfolding of THEIR understanding, you can know PARADIGMALLY, the foibles ALL CHRISTIANS face in EVERY GENERATION. God isn't exposing our flaws to us to condemn us, but to PROTECT us. We'll screw up anyway, but then the same exposure is our comfort: oh, those hallowed believers of the first century were also wacko, so I needn't beat myself up about my own stupidity. That's right: brush off the dust, pick up those feet, and move on, James 4. James ought to know!

    Further, these follies exposed also tell us what they DIDN'T get wrong, what they WELL knew which today WE DISTORT. For example, THEN everyone grasped the fact that baptism was but a witness ritual, only; everyone knew the doctrine expressed by 1Jn1:9; that everyone knew about the Filling of the Spirit and that Canon was being developed to complete the WRITTEN "Mind of Christ" for CHURCH.

    Principle: these were real people, who had real problems, who were NOT fully versed on all doctrines at the time of writing. NONETHELESS, they were qualified in some respects, and GOD USED THEM WHERE THEY WERE QUALIFIED. So also, does He use us. I have this particular fact on my refrigerator to constantly remind me: it's a question of FIT, not merely competence, and one doesn't have to be COMPLETED to have a FITTING role.

    Another Principle: God STILL communicated His Full and complete message by means of these writers. That's why Canon CLOSED with John's Apocalypse; that's why the counterfeit bible books are all scams (obvious, except to those yet hooked on emotion). So there is more to the message than they themselves understood at the time of writing. They knew ENOUGH to express it rightly, but they didn't NECESSARILY understand at the time of writing all the meaning in the words they wrote. "Verbal Plenary Inspiration" means GOD KNEW and GOD DIRECTED, but the individuals' own attributes, understanding, personality, etc. are nonetheless expressed in the writing as well. So for the student of Scripture, it's critical to notice what THEIR understanding was, compared to GOD'S message in their words. That requires the constant use of 1Jn1:9 and study under one's right pastor. It takes time.

    Try this experiment: While under the Spirit, try writing out a doctrine you yourself know. Give it your all, don't be dilatory. Then, read it over, edit and revise anything, add corollaries you discover. You should find that you express a thing rightly, but when writing it you yourself did NOT see certain facets of meaning IN THOSE WORDS — until you re-read what you wrote! If you do this enough, you'll notice a huge DIFFERENCE in your competence here — versus the rest of your life. That's a SPIRITUAL competence the Holy Spirit is building. Try to detect it early, so you won't get cocky and mistake it for your OWN ability, yikes!

      One helpful clue as to the difference — while in VPI the Holy Spirit doesn't at all interfere with volition, so also in what He teaches you and you manage to write down — you WILL notice that your own personality is NOT the only one present. See, just because what you write while filled is NOT perfect, NOT Canon — doesn't mean it won't REFLECT Him. In fact, it can't HELP but reflect Him, if you are FILLED when thinking and writing. That's what getting His THINKING, DOES to you. At each discrete consent, of course.

      So, often I cringe when reading these webpages, for I'm a withdrawer, a tribble: not at all inclined to criticize. It's not that I'm afraid, but I can't stand confrontation: perhaps it is more like impatience mixed with too much empathy for how the words SOUND to a hearer/reader, I dunno. By contrast, God is TOTAL LOVE, so nothing He says, however confrontational, is a put-down. God puts UP, not down. So while God doesn't really criticize the way we humans do, He doesn't mince words, either. I do, though. So to see that yes, I really wrote this, but see how STRONG it is — the natural 'diplomat' in me, recoils. Worse, the more I practice this THINKING the LESS 'mincing' I myself want to be: what is happening, yikes! Now it makes sense that the no-holds-barred Paul, actually ASKED people in one of his letters to PRAY THAT HE WOULD HAVE COURAGE to speak the Gospel fearlessly. Yikes! Hits Home! So you might find something of that observation helpful in your own detection — so you WON'T MISTAKE what you should LEARN for something great you yourself are. That mistake is pure poppycock, thank God!

    It's really important to do this experiment, so you can get a hands-on idea of what "verbal plenary inspiration" means; so you won't mistake the human author of Scripture for the Divine One empowering him. This latter mistake is made by most people, e.g., the incredibly-stupid practice of putting only Christ's words in red letters. ALL BIBLE IS HIS THINKING. That He used a human mouth, is no less VALID, capisce?

    You gain confidence in your own spiritual life if you recognize that just because a DOCTRINE is in your head, doesn't make it less valid. 'As well as, seeing how the spiritual life 'plays' when trying to USE a doctrine you've learned. So you'll see it's NOT magic, but LEARNING: it's more like math, where you know the answer but when you REVIEW the answer, you see more TRUTH there than you saw while solving the problem; which leads to many corollaries, reveals more postulates, etc.

So, as was true in the OT with respect to the Law, so also in Christianity, there continue to be two basic 'drifts' in Christian apostacy: 1) misdefinition of the nature of God; and 2) MISORGANIZATION of the doctrines in God's Word. All other misinterpretations, misdefinitions, etc. come from these two; and if 1) is wrong, 2) will NEVER be right. What makes 1) go wrong, is lack of FILLING — no use, or too-infrequent use, of 1Jn1:9; what makes non-use or infrequent use, is RELIGIOSITY. For, if you mistake being religious for being Filled, you will sin the sin of self-righteousness continually, never detecting it. Like Jude 21 says, like Peter echoes in 2Pet3, like Paul warned Timothy in 2Tim2:26-3:7,16, be on your guard AGAINST emulating such mis-sing!

    For example, as noted earlier, God gave it to PAUL, not the other writers, to explain the NEW gift of LOCAL CHURCH pastor-teacher (hendiodys in Eph4:11, poimen kai didaskolos, Granville-Sharp rule). This NEW gift was explained further in the Timothy epistles. If you remembered that Scripture, whether OT or NT, was PROGRESSIVELY revealed, you'll quickly understand how it is that the Christian apostacy of ecumenism remained: just like those Christian Jerusalem legalists back in 58AD, their spiritual progeny stuck to 'big' and 'monolithic' and 'institutional' — holdover from the old Mosaic Law. But the Law was rescinded (Heb7:18 and elsewhere), because Christ was Seated. So, a NEW teaching system was promulgated. By 96AD, the new gift was well-established, for John is writing about the seven CHURCHES of the province of Asia, in Rev1-3.

      Principle: pay attention to the CHRONOLOGY of the Bible Books when you interpret, being sure to take into account all SUPERCEDING doctrines. Like, Heb7:18 and Eph4. Instead of Mosaic Law. Like, 1Cor13, which is about how the future completion of Canon will END the temporary spiritual gifts; instead of, apostleship, etc. which Bible proves there and elsewhere were merely temporary, because "greater gifts" (1Cor12:31 keyword, ties to "better things" elsewhere in Scripture) would REPLACE them. [In GREEK, "BUT" is a contrast-word which applies to what's mentioned AFTER it, not before. In English, the term is more ambiguous. So people almost always MISorganize and thus MISinterpret the role of temporary spiritual gifts, thinking that 1Cor12:31 refers to what was said BEFORE the "but". Of course, 1Cor13:8-13, 1Cor15:1-10 NEGATE the MIS-sings, but — what the heck.]

    Chronology will help you prove that God means there to be ONLY a local church gift of pastor-teacher. Paul's epistles to Timothy were about how a pastor-teacher should conduct himself, and were written roughly 65AD (my memory may be wrong). Peter's letters don't use the word pastor-teacher, but in 1Pet5:1-2, he uses the term presbuteros in the context of sheparding ("pastor" means "shepard"), followed by some behavioral criteria which are similar to Paul's. John writes as Peter does, but without the detail; yet stresses, in Revelation1-3, the TEACHING side of it, via the word "angelos" ("messenger", lit., so means pastor — idea of giving God's message; angels were teachers in Mosaic Law times).

      So you have a matching in the later letters, thus the CONCEPT which only Paul coined, was UNDERSTOOD LATER by Peter and John. More particularly, John's usage in Revelation is important, for John had BEEN the pastor of all those churches, but was no longer; because John is EXILED at the time of Revelation. NB: God would not have allowed that, if sufficient interest in Bible, remained. Test this yourself: whenever interest in GOD declines, the Word itself is less taught, and instead, SUBSTITUTES for the Word are promoted. Like today, all the emphasis on feely-ritually-religious claptrap. Maligning God in the extreme, passing itself off as Christian — yet no one on Christian TV, even gets the GOSPEL, right? See? Historically, the Word itself GOES LOST when interest declines sufficiently. "My people perish for lack of knowledge" in Hosea is a TREND you can document historically. Even today.

    So Paul's sole use of the term "pastor-teacher" IS in fact God's meaning as interpreted above, since it is referenced elsewhere, but with variant emphasis, since the role is dual-sided. (Eph4:11, a hapaxzlogomena: all Bibles mistranslate it, even though the Granville Sharp rule is first-year-seminary Greek! Notice also how easily he wrote it — axiomatic style — MEANS EVERYONE KNEW THE DOCTRINE ALREADY. He didn't have to EXPLAIN what it meant. See why 'omission' is an important interpretative key? All he does is SUMMARIZE how the pastor's role builds up the church, in vv12-16. So naturally, all the translations are mangled, lol. LvS4b.htm will eventually have the right translation in its "Father's Criteria" table. But it will take awhile to craft; lots of old notes on exegesis must be coalesced.)

    Of course, the idea of 'sheparding Israel' and the Lord as the Good Shepard are OT doctrines of long standing. The question was, Judaism WAS monolithic: its splintering was a sign of apostacy. BY CONTRAST, this new "pastor-teacher" role REPLACED the monolith with local churches, PRECISELY BECAUSE THE GOOD SHEPARD WAS NOW RISEN AND RULING. So, no more need for one organization on the earth. For, the Mosaic law was rescinded (stated several times in several ways in the Book of Hebrews, and each epistle of Paul's). See how important it is to know WHEN a thing CHANGES?

    One of the cardinal rules of "hermeneutics" (finding Bible's OWN interpretation of itself) is that you compare Scripture with Scripture. That's how one VALIDATES whether a verse or book is of God, and is one of the skills required in textual criticism, far more important than the age of the manuscript media. So, yet again, first-century problems and foibles, keep on replicating in every Generation of Church. We face the SAME DEBATE.. and keep on flunking it...

    A quick look at church history reveals a lot of the power plays which happened throughout its shameful story thus far are based on allegations that there should be ONE denomination. Thus, denominations form and fight, each one trying to be "the" one — kinda like the tongues crowd — not knowing, THEY ARE NOT AUTHORIZED BY GOD. God's use of Hebrews, Paul and John and Peter here completely shatters the denominationists' incompetent interpretations (or lies, I GLADLY can't tell which); and John's Revelation 13-17 explains WHY. See how important it is to be CAREFUL how you study Scripture?

Finally, besides showing

  • Divine authorship by this progressive revelation;
  • our foibles AND THEN COMFORTING US ABOUT THEM, using the same seemingly-fragmented authorship style;
  • the PRIORITY AND UPGRADING of Doctrine via this same system;
by using specific authors and assigning them jobs of writing truth which overlap AND uniquely teach, God used a 'buddy system'. In many ways, this 'buddy system' displays Divine Orchestration more than anything else He does. I'm dumbstruck with awe every time I ponder how He did it...

    Dunno about you, but when growing up with my Bible it always BUGGED me how God seemed to be saying the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. You pick one prophet, he's always saying the same thing as the next — no matter WHERE you open the OT. Why? I kept on wondering. So this pondering wasn't, strictly speaking, an admiration. Of course, I was being a lemon. Heh.

What's a 'buddy system'? Well, so far as I can tell, it's an American military expression going back to WWII. That is, if one part of a platoon is shot, another part keeps going. If one division in a corps is trapped, another division can keep going. So if one Bible book is kidnapped by Satan&Co., another book is still 'out there'. So, EACH BOOK of the Bible REPEATS truths which are central, as well as crafting their explanation in unique ways; as well as, expressing truths which are unique to such book. Clever, huh?

    Christians find it DISTURBING that Scripture is so fragmented, as if somehow its fragmentation, was 'inferior', or that the collection of Scripture, was MAN-MADE. Bible's endless critics make much of the collecting done pre-NT, and during Constantine's Day. Catholic Church claims CREDIT, for crying out loud, that IT IS HOLY because IT did this. GUESS AGAIN! Ohhhh, no — quite the OPPOSITE! This fragmentation and GOD causing it to be found and collected — never man — proves more conclusively that God wrote BIBLE, and proves it better than any other empirical factor. Second only to the CONTENT of the Word itself, this fragmented history of Bible, proves GOD WROTE IT.

    Sure, the Catholic Church was involved, and we owe it a debt of gratitude; sure, sects since have had a LOT to do with getting those manuscripts so we can see the ORIGINAL languages of Scripture, all nicely put together, in what we have now; we owe ALL these organizations and people, our UNDYING affection, for their work is enormously sacrificial. But let us NEVER forget that GOD orchestrated it all, never man.

For, note how CORROBORATING yet FRAGMENTED books over a LONG history proves God's Authorship BETTER: then the ONLY conclusion is that GOD is behind them all. For, if all these disparate books EACH corroborate the doctrines, but aren't written at the same time nor by the same person, and there is ON THE SURFACE considerable VARIETY of expression; if these books historically are largely LOST then found; if someone GETS one, and GETS truth out of it, ANYWAY — GOD has to be behind all that. No human even LIVES long enough, to do it; no human is SMART enough, to do it; no one even can READ these DEAD LANGUAGES well enough, to COUNTERFEIT. After all, while God won't do magic, and crafts even His Miracles for the sake of the Doctrinal Content of them — don't we still have to get CONFIRMATION from Him that it's HIS WORD? If there is a surer proof than this many-disparate-and-often-hidden-books method, I can't think of one.

For if it is really GOD's Word, it is really attacked by Satan&Co. Sure enough, you don't hear people make a swear word out of "Allah", or "Krishna".. you don't see people trying to attack Divinity by attacking those books.. ahh, but they all attack what? THE BIBLE. And if the Bible is ATTACKED, it NEEDS a 'buddy system', so that people can GET IT, anyway. Even if a torn portion, as is so hungrily desired in Africa and some parts of China. Yeah — and that teeny portion, can save a life...

    Look: when the Catholic Church collected what IT called Scripture, it stuck in 7 extra books of the most INSANE stuff ever to be written. Even the three volumes a Catholic is obliged to purchase (Missle, Prayer Book, and a sort of primer — mine being from Cardinal Stritch's day, 8/53) — even its own books tell you that these 7 added books contain "fanciful" material in the Life of Mary subbook.

So how do you know what to trust? THINK: puzzle pieces FIT TOGETHER, so they all had ONE MANUFACTURER. A square peg never fits properly into a round hole. So if you have a LOT of pegs, and a LOT of holes, and THEY fit together, then you don't HAVE to guess. Well, that's what so many FRAGMENTED books and parts of books, accomplish for the person who WANTS THE REAL WORD. It's painstaking, but IT FITS or IT doesn't, and you can't HALLUCINATE the fit, because there are TOO MANY pieces to fool yourself. Pieces which don't fit in a puzzle, JAM together. So also, with false books of scripture, false verses, and false INTERPRETATIONS!

    Here's an important example, which you can look up in LvS4d.htm, by searching on "kauthesomai". That verb's FUTURE PASSIVE belonged to Byzantine times, and DID NOT EXIST in Paul's day. Some scribe didn't like Paul's use of kauchesomai in 1Cor3, because he found it insulting. So, he changed ONE LETTER of the word. Well, GOD ORCHESTRATED that scribal 'error' to TEACH BETTER what Paul was saying in the verse. We know God had to orchestrate our FINDING the error, see. It's been a subject of controversy for centuries, and Bibles today split over which of the two verbs to use — without excuse, since kauthesomai DID NOT EXIST in Paul's day. So we see not only God's orchestration, but man's uneven POSITIVE ATTITUDE to God's PROOF.

    As just noted, Catholicism doesn't pretend their Apochrypha is Divine, only that Pope pronounces it so. Well, it's nice they are so honest with their parishoners (or were, back in the red-leather edition I have). Same kind of distinction is usually made, with respect to OTHER sects which ADD BOOKS or SUBTRACT Books from Bible. So, look: it's not as though no one recognizes there's a difference, k?

    Frankly, even Satan gets in on the act: every fake holy book of satanic authorship ADVERTISES that fact. It's very subtle, as the wordplays are made on BIBLE VERSES IN REAL BIBLE in the ORIGINAL Languages. I couldn't believe my eyes for a LONG time, once I discovered this: frankly, I felt like one of those wild-eyed weirdoes who talk of the evil of Satan and the end times — which is not me at all. So, to make SURE I wasn't descending into a looney bin of my own making, I spent more than a year vetting the Appendix of the "Thinking" series (LordvSatan pages) for that reason; that page walks the reader through some examples, so he can do his own empirical comparisons.

      The results are something of a shock. My pastor had long taught us Satan was more erudite and urbane, nice and attractive, yet chock-full of apoplexy — because he ADMIRES God, as well as despises Him. All at once. But I really didn't EXPECT to find the PROOF of that in the fake holy books, the ghost stories and UFO tales. Which items, by the way, were GIVEN to me or URGED upon me by folks who know NOTHING about this website. So I was OBLIGED to read them, anyway. And I certainly didn't expect to find them CORROBORATE the Bible ON PURPOSE. It's really surprising, how much Satan&Co. MOCK anyone who DOESN'T believe in Bible, yet also HATE us, when we do. Too clever for human authorship, just as Bible verses and their fragmented lost-then-found history, are WAY TOO CLEVER for any human tampering. Which, by the way, always sticks out — like a kauthesomai, a square peg in a round hole, burning itself away...

God, of course, ACCOUNTED for all this hostility in advance, and preserved Scripture in JUST THIS WAY, to make it CERTAIN which is His, and which are satanic counterfeits. Moreover, God by Nature, is real big on multiples. Abram only wanted ONE son. God the Son, would BE that Son, really — but not alone! Oh no — ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD WOULD BE BLESSED through AbraHAM, Gen17. That humor runs rife throughout Bible, and constitutes a sort of SIGNATURE of Divine Authorship. So too, in these many Bible books — not just ONE book, but MANY. Not just ONE human author, but MANY. All tying flawlessly, same humor, same AUTHOR BEGETTING them. So that, if a child is lost, another is there to beget more children, see...

So we are EXTREMELY blessed to have a RELIABLE SET OF WHOLE CANON available to us. It's only in the last 150 years that this is true (click on Canonicity link at pagetop). It's only in the last 50 years we had truly-reliable Greek grammar (found in the 50's). Granted, earlier versions of Bible did exist, particularly Geneva and KJV — but these were based on inferior manuscripts (more copying errors in them than the best ones later found). Moreover, until the last 150 years or so it was VERY hard for the common man to GET a full Bible. So, most people made do with a few Bible books: historically, mostly some Psalms and some Gospels. Most other people in HISTORY have never been able to do the kind of research urged in this webpage. Most other people have gone through their lives GUESSING what God means, based on VERY LITTLE information.

    During OT times, most folks didn't have it, either: even though, most of the time it was 'lost', it was really FORGOTTEN, lying in the Temple. In short, we are a privileged group of folks, since the time England embarked on its imperialistic venture, and we should be VERY grateful to her for that (imperialism was FAR more beneficial than revisionists would have you believe). In short, if all those past people couldn't get God's WORD, but WE DO, how much more responsible will WE be at the Judgement Seat of Christ for how we used this WORD? (2Cor5:10, Bematos, genitive of "Bema", a catchword among Christians today, ties to 1Cor3. BTW: a "bema" is a technical word. Survives in drama, to mean 'stage'.)

    How did all those folks survive, then? How did they grow spiritually? Well, to see how, take this test: using ONLY the Gospel passage of John 3, run out all the corollaries of it LOGICALLY — see how much about God, about Christ, about the spiritual life, you could DEDUCE from only that chapter. Then, you'll see how the Holy Spirit can take even a TORN PORTION of Scripture, and craft from it, spiritual growth.

    Remember also people had a LOT more time on their hands than we do; that they LOVED words more than we do; so they had MORE time to think than we do. Also, 'logic' itself was more the provence of the common man, since his life was so much more dependent on logic, for survival. It's LOGICAL to assume that if I sin, I should name it to God. No need for a Bible to tell me so — but if there's a verse, then that much BETTER. It's LOGICAL to assume God exists, and that He had to provide something akin to a salvation package, since I know I'm not worthy of Him. Don't need a BIBLE to tell me that. (Well, HS does it, and no age or IQ is barrier.) So, WITH a Bible, however abridged, I've got MORE to work with. Logically.

    Why didn't they get the Scripture WE GET, since even our COPIES of the manuscripts are surely old enough, dating from (so far) 100-400AD? Well, what do you think the answer MUST be? If I want God, won't He make Himself known? If I don't want God, won't He be a 'gentleman' and say little? So, then:

    • if I wanted God back in the Dark Ages, I'd become a priest so I could SEE that heavy Bible; or,
    • I'd become a monk so I could WRITE COPIES or hear it at meals. In fact, the way we got Codex Sinaiticus was from one such monk — who HID it in his cell (while another manuscript at the same monastery had been ERASED, rewritten over and used to make FIRES at night)! Or,
    • a sick duke or duchess might have started studying. Or,
    • a slave or servant might have 'assisted' such a person in study. Or,
    • someone who had a Bible and got 'mad' at it gave it laughingly to someone ELSE who wanted it. Or,
    • someone died and a relative who secretly longed for a Bible came into possession of the dead one's Bible.
    One could spend a lifetime writing all the permutations of how a person could get Scripture, even grow to Pleroma (Eph3:19, highest maturation threshold) on a LITTLE Scripture! Look back on your OWN life for the many things which you just KNOW God orchestrated. So, then: wouldn't He all the MORE orchestrate getting the WORD out to whoever REALLY wanted it, despite the fact that Bibles were routinely locked away from the common man?

      Time for another personal anecdote. Long ago, when I finally got over being recalcitrant about DAILY study, I had began daily study tapes of my pastor's, which are always heavy on exegesis. During a break at work I had a conversation with someone which turned into my noting that I was doing such study. The gal told her sister; the sister insisted on meeting me PERSONALLY in order to get a CATALOG of what I was studying. Just that: she would not allow me to just give the catalog to her sister. So, we met at my apartment. You should have seen her EYES when I handed her this little catalog — you'd have thought it was a MILLION DOLLARS. For, it was.. to her. NOW WHO DO YOU THINK ORCHESTRATED THAT? Certainly no human.

    In short, there always WAS a way to get Scripture — if you wanted it. Never easy, of course, to get it. Nor is it easy today: look at all the RESEARCH one must do, to even begin to understand it properly? And how many are WILLING to do it? Precious few. Very precious, very few. Most prefer their idea and use that. Which means, feel-god, form-god, ritual-god, works-god. Even when the REAL God is 'hiding' in plain sight. Whose Nature even a primitive tribesman or developed-nation child could DEDUCE. So we needn't ASSume that God was hamstrung by the satanic kidnapping; we needn't ASSume that people couldn't get or know Bible; we shouldn't ASSume that because we so easily have it now, there is no extra liability to KNOW what others (however negative, doesn't matter) didn't even have AVAILABLE to them. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if we aren't a more NEGATIVE group of folks, than they were? Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if we aren't a more POSITIVE group of folks, than they were? Makes you conclude, doesn't it, that BOTH previous (rhetorical) questions must be answered, "TRUE"?

OBVIOUS CONCLUSION: you are richer in Scripture than they were. USE IT. If I were one of those weirdos who's trying to date the (always-undateable!) Rapture, I'd find it EXTREMELY significant that in THIS century, for the first time in history, Scripture is EASILY available to anyone, anywhere. Even someone in the remotest parts of China, Africa, or Asia can get the ORIGINAL LANGUAGE manuscripts downloaded to a computer. Scripture has been kidnapped for SO LONG, now suddenly FREE to the lowest, least, of humans (by societal standards). Read Matt24:6ff, esp. v.14. Just as the Dome of the Rock is the prototype "abomination", so also this AVAILABILITY of Scripture everywhere is right-on-time playout of v.14... [For the terminally-titillated about the end times, LvS4a.htm and its siblings will prove insightful. Note that "tribulation" in the Matt passage is NOT talking ONLY of the official Tribulation, since it clearly says other things happen, and "then the end will come" — v.14, SEPARATED from the rest of the text, grammatically.]

If you track the story of Scripture's being written, lost, discovered, and then compare how its history OF EXPOSITION has transpired, you get the very distinct impression that BIG DUE-DILIGENCE DISCLOSURE is going on, right under our noses. That has to mean UNUSUAL positive AND negative volition in the world! In other webpages I try to analyse MORE of what this phenomenon means, which is partly why my sites focus so much on mistranslation and misinterpretation of Scripture — I'm trying to TRACK SATAN's ABUSE of Bible, for we are all cannonfodder. It's not about human error, which is constant and axiomatic; but rather the PATTERNS of what gets screwed up, tells you more about the CONFLICT going on. Christians are SUPPOSED to be wise, not foolish.

    Conclusion thus far: certainly, there is a HUGE crop of unprecedented positive volition. Beyond that, I'm not sure my OTHER interim conclusions are accurate, i.e., will Christianity LATER HARLOTIZE (homogenize) worldwide, causing a new 'dark ages'; inter alia, that outcome seems likely, so Satan can get Scripture BACK UNDER HIS CONTROL. Still, here's again the OBVIOUS CONCLUSION: you are richer in Scripture than they were. USE IT. For, it's an UNPRECEDENTED opportunity, our generations have, to see Him better. Let us not flub it.

    It's super-easy to flub it. An arcane example should dramatize the ease with which sincere believers can really screw up recognizing God's Word. Back in Israel's day, during its own inter-testamental period (after Malachi), Israel was busy collecting its Tanakh. A big debate arose over the Book of Esther, because the standard monikers of Divine Authorship were missing. You'll find, maybe extant, some of the conversations about this debate in one of the Talmuds. Anyway, EVERYONE missed NOTICING the uppermost truth: that Israel was always cast as BRIDE, that if the BRIDE rejects Her Husband (Jehovah Elohim, but as Sacred Tetragrammaton), then He would reject Her, but not forever. Every prophet talked about this: so why, then, didn't anyone notice how the refusal of Vashti and 'grafting in' of Esther was LIKEWISE the same theme, THIS time warning Israel as 'Vashti'? How could we all miss that meaning, since the story is set in PERSIA, the land of Diaspora, for crying out loud?

    BOOK OF ESTHER ENTIRELY DEPICTS ISRAEL'S PRESENT AND FUTURE. Just as much, as ANY prophet's discourse. Totally amazing. 'Esther' is the outsider, normally NOT eligible for brideship, so depicts the GENTILES. Having Grafted Her in Vashti's place (a Gentile, but playing the rejecting Israel), in order to SAVE the Jews from their persecutors. Think over all the parallels! I don't know if anyone in the Talmud had a commentary to that effect (I've only gone through Mishnah), but doggone it: see how the uppermost truth hides in plain, sigh? It's not as though the Lord Himself didn't USE this analogy repeatedly, from Matt16 onward. Check it out, for yourself!

    While it's true that Church was never forecast in the OT, because ONLY IF ISRAEL REJECTED Messiah could there be a Church (so avoid anti-semitism like the plague), there WAS this veiled warning in Esther. Paul echoes it in Romans 11, so we CHURCH should be very chary of missing the boat on this OBVIOUS ADVERTISEMENT of unprecedented ACCESS to Scripture. Another group of believers, can easily replace us. One branch within Church withers, but another is being grown; one nation of believers going apostate can easily be PRUNED — still saved, still in heaven. But no rewards.

    The US is withering. When a nation dies, like a star it first gets much brighter. Never let that light fool you. See Jeremiah 25ff. We Americans who are growing in Christ CAN BE USED to keep our nation whole. No other hope. Let us not let our country down, by NOT growing in Christ! My pastor estimated that if only 250 believers got to the Pleroma stage, the nation will be preserved. The massive "Thinking" series on Home Page is all about this blessing-by-association, structure.

In closing, notice this Fitting-together of Time and Scripture, and prepare for the shocking MACRO HISTORICAL conclusions. These are covered in excruciating detail in Part IV of the "Thinking" series, but you'll need to start at Part I, to get the context...

The macro, progressive fitting-together of history

Eph 4:11-16 is never properly translated, but if it were you'd understand, especially in light of the REST of the book, that the CORPORATE MATURATION of Church's Understanding of CHRIST'S THINKING is Father's Objective for History. You can trace this maturation process through Christendom's history. Just after the Cross, there was widespread confusion about whether the Mosaic Law would still be followed; this, despite KNOWLEDGE of what became the verses of Matt16:18 and Acts 1:5, John 14-17.

So, Christianity has gradually morphed since the Crucifixion from a ritual-based, childlike aping of the Law into the full-scale RECOGNITION that studying His Thinking in the ORIGINAL LANGUAGES is the real spiritual life. Granted, currently this recognition is trending back toward a catholic-like slant. But in the 1800's through the 1930's, a BIG REALIZATION of it, grew like wildfire. This latter phenomenon took centuries to rise to public recognition, and each time the recognition notched up, you'll notice that original-language manuscripts were either translated and disseminated, or 'found' and publicized. Usually, under very strange circumstances. If you want to trace this gradual rollout of what was the ORIGINAL INTENT of Scripture being available to the common man, get The Book by Christopher deHamel. It's $50, hardback, lavishly-illustrated, but the text is so valuable: dunno if there's yet another book of its kind. Author doesn't take a position, so what is typed here, is 'mine'.

    So, test the claim yourself: notice, when you do this tracing,

  • how Scripture got deep-sixed in the 2nd century;
  • how PUERILE are the Church Fathers' writings;
  • how even baby-basics like the mechanism of Salvation and the very definition of GOD were muddled and confused by the time of Commodus.
  • Oh, so they had to have RELIGIOUS COUNCILS decide what was Scripture, what was the nature of God?
  • What, were all the VERY CLEAR verses in the Bible on these topics, suddenly missing?
  • NO, but people stopped caring: the incompetence of those Councils is positively incredible; yet, punctuated every now and then with EXTREMELY BRILLIANT (gotta be HS-filled) insight.
  • By the time of Commodus, people could BARELY read the Greek anymore, notes Roman historian Carey in the last chapter of his History of Rome. So low was the interest, a Byzantine scribe could get away with "kauthesomai". Good ol' boy network replaced interest in God, as usual.

    So of COURSE Scripture wasn't being read. "God" was a label you used to make yourself feel holy.. or, to persecute someone whose Bible ideas differed from your own. Gibbon's many scathing criticisms of Christian hypocrisy well illustrate the low level of REAL interest in God. Notice the corollation between low interest and high legalism and ritual...

    So notice that it took about 14 CENTURIES before Wittenberg, Luther's 95 theses, which centered on Faith Alone in Christ Alone IS salvation. (Yes, that's a Calvinist phrase, but the DOCTRINE is John 3:16, and Luther was protesting the Catholic MASKING of it.) Imagine: 14 centuries, before it could be again publically acknowledged? What, did everyone NOT know John 3, Acts 16:31? Scripture wasn't totally hidden, you know. It was transmitted by word of mouth, for people are uniformly too lazy to READ in any generation — but THAT LONG before there was enough popular INTEREST in this basic doctrine? Granted, things unrolled rapidly from there, and had 'bouts' of interest before, such as in the 900's, and the 1100's, so if salvation was known (and no doubt it was, the HS is not impotent), it was PRIVATELY communicated. Quietly.

    So notice how rapidly the world developed from Gutenberg forward, and notice how interest in the Bible spawned ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. The two trends invariably go together, in ANY country where such interest burgeoned. So also, the downward interest in Scripture is soon (in a generation or two) accompanied by economic downturns and war. Leviticus 26 and Deut28 are as predictable as gravity.

    Overall, though, as you trace the development of UNDERSTANDING of Scripture through the centuries, you'll notice a gradual UPWARD trend (with many spikes) which is AWAY from the simplistic (and inaccurate) ritual/formal TOWARD the personal 'I wanna know Scripture for myself' orientation. Which, if you go through Paul's epistles, you'll see was God's intent all along: promised, in fact, all the way back in Jer31:31-34, which Heb8:8-12 through 10:15-17 CLEARLY EXPLAIN in the Greek. So, a progressive MATURATION OF RECOGNITION of God's intent has now reached even the internet.

      So now, anyone, anywhere in the world, can FOR FREE download the original-manuscript text which God managed, thank you very much, to preserve in copies, be they found in crocodiles, in baskets beside the fire (to be used to light fires!) in the guarded halls of the Vatican where no one could even take pen and paper to copy. This treasure of Scripture has NEVER been so easily available: even in the first century, folks had to make do with all those 1Cor12 spiritual gifts, "until the Perfect comes" (1Cor13:9 or thereabouts), the Head of the Body being in codified in writing. We are at the highest apex of Scriptural history since the Cross. Whether that apex will grow further still, or we will dip back into yet another Dark Ages, remains unknown. The trend back to a new dark ages has already begun, though.

    This, this, this, is the key to interpreting Christian history: how, from primitive and ritualistic beginnings, Christianity is FINALLY getting publically understood to be a private and THOROUGH STUDY of Scripture as the spiritual life. Frankly, this realization was a long time building, and started in earnest with the Reformation, but not until the 1800's did the idea seep into the MAINSTREAM public consciousness. America wasn't the first or even the strongest proponent of it, but we were, the largest body of Christians to embrace it. Hence our prosperity — NO OTHER SOURCE.

      Which, we are now abandoning faster than we can count the vowels in a church program out of boredom. Even now, with the fabulous find of Greek Grammars which revolutionized how we READ the original manuscripts, the idea of INDEPENDENT STUDY under INDEPENDENT PASTORS is still kinda new. And, unfortunately, contested. Satan can't afford this idea to become popular yet UNinstitutionalized. For, only the institutionalization of Christianity afforded the kidnapping of Scripture, an act which became widespread from about 100AD onward, just after the last Book was penned (Rev, by John).

    So, then: see also how the interpretation of MANY INDEPENDENT CHURCHES is proved right by even common sense: we are all one in CHRIST, "now". [Nerd note: "now", when used to designate an epoch, is a keyword for the Church Age in the NT.. trace it and see.] See also WHY Revelation 13-17 are so important to understand? Without knowing there should be NO so-called 'unity' of churches, people would not be FREE TO LEARN SCRIPTURE.

      The 'unity of churches' idea, which stems from EGREGIOUS MISINTERPRETATION and MISTRANSLATION of verses like Matt16:18 and Eph4:5, is the very DEFINITION of apostacy, the harlot. Notice how clever Satan is: "Petra", translated "Rock" in Matt16:18, is THE NAME FOR CHRIST everywhere it appears in the OT. The name given Peter is of a different GENDER in the Greek, and is SMALLER: "petros", a chip OF the Rock. Then, to Eph4:5, note the satanic cleverness: "One Faith" really DOES mean, "One Doctrine", but stands for Our Lord's Own Thinking, not some religious institution. It's so obvious a meaning in the Greek, it CAN'T be mistaken: only, LIED ABOUT. Look: Funny how HERE the word "Faith" is rightly recognized AS "Doctrine" by Christendom, but in James 2:18 and 1:1-5, it's NOT. Heh: nothing like a little convenient 'ignorance'. Ok, now watch: whose 'doctrine'? God's, or.. Satan's (1Tim and 2 Tim 4:1, 2Tim2:16-3:7)...

      So Satan twists this 'oneness' thingy into 'catholicism'. This isn't to badmouth the Roman Catholic Church, but rather ANY institutionalization into 'religion' is the Rev17 apostate harlot. Universal Tyranny, which those founding what became 'catholicism' surely never intended, but boy oh boy, everyone USED! Which tyranny, of course, our sordid past with Scripture being locked up and NOT taught BY DENOMINATIONS, for nearly two millenia, confirms. If it weren't for some extraordinary work done in the mid-1800's by a truly gifted group of men (which broke wide open access to the original-language-manuscripts of Scripture for local churches), you and I would NOT have the freedom to learn! (If you can even mildly read German with a dictionary, go to www.bautz.de and pick the biographies of Samuel Tregelles and Count von Tischendorf.)

      The current politicization of Christianity in the US is an EXACT REPEAT of the force which gave rise to ecumenism in the 2nd century AD. FLEE IT WITH YOUR LIFE. It's the Tower of Babel, playing all over again. Which should be no surprise, considering Rev17 links the moniker 'Babylon' with the harlot.[Note to self: the Rev1-3 and 1Pet5:1 tie-togethers came from L.1613, which turned on the lightbulbs in this para. Listen to it again.]

      Denominations, as distinct from those IN them, are basically evil, because they ARE INSTITUTIONS. It's the institutionalization which causes the Rev17 evil; for an institution must perpetuate its power, so STOPS depending on God. So, denominations stand pat on a few doctrines which are, by that point, hopelessly distorted versus Bible. They don't mean to be evil (lol, who does), and they don't start out evil. The Reformation, for example, started basically as a freedom-fight to GET Scripture. But look what happened: state religions formed, and two huge subdenominations formed. The politicization caused these new denominations, named after their founders, to HARDEN and RESTRICT teaching to a few poorly-defined doctrines. So, learning was STULTIFIED. So, became state religions. So, just as apostate, in their OWN ways, as the so-called 'catholic' church they rebelled against.

      Even so, look at how God managed, thank you very much, to even use the evil of the institutions to a) preserve Scripture and b) nonetheless teach a few to REALLY LEARN SCRIPTURE, though technically still in, of, or a founding member of, the denomination in question. Where, for example, would we all be, without those roaming friars?

      The US was founded on the freedom-to-worship apart from superchurch control. Yet look at it now: Christians are largely too-dumb-to-live (Eph4:14, churches run amok), so they band together for prol-itics, fancying themselves to be doing the Lord's Will. It's SATAN's will they really do: for the God of Romans 13 and 1Tim2 did NOT approve of such activity. So, eventually — and the homogenization is moving so fast, it may already be too late — they will 'unify'. God will withdraw His support for US at that point, scattering those who really ARE in the spiritual life, into a new diaspora. Ponder the matter under the Holy Spirit, use 1Jn1:9 like breathing, because this historical trend is obvious, far-developed, so greatly impacts YOUR life right now. Watch how the 'prolife' campaign goes, for it is a barometer of apostacy: the more popular it becomes, the WORSE Christians are becoming, en masse. Seems like 'prolife' is the rallying issue Satan wants to use to pimp the Rev17 harlot, again, for it's sure serving to 'unite'!

      [Ya gotta be vicious, nuts or stupid to think that God would put SOUL life in the womb: that would make God a sadist, for then the person would be AWARE OF AND FEEL all that horrendous biological development; would BE TRAPPED AND KNOW IT — well, once he had a brain, which isn't really developed fully until just before birth, so how the HECK would God be so stupid to put a soul in 40 seconds after conception, lolololol! Bible teaches the opposite, i.e., God breathed lives into Adam's nostrils — body formed and OUTSIDE first, get it? More detail on what Bible actually says is in Caveat #4 on Home page. Also, in NTKeys.htm, "Near-and-Far Keywords", and passim in all other pages. Again, this is NOT to point the finger — I'm not interested in putting down — but rather, to track MEGA TRENDS which Satan's MEGA plan (LvS4c.htm), plays: to POINT OUT how Satan blinds US ALL. Oh: see also LordvSatan2.htm's small font (keyword to search is "Mary") has more info as well.]


    Now, let's look at the LARGER HISTORICAL CONTEXT. (LordvSatan4.htm and ~5.htm's pages focus on this context almost exclusively.) Three huge SUPERHUMANLY-MANAGED historical trends have been unrolling in Christian history since Canon was completed. Thus you can see the Angelic Conflict play live on the BIG stage and figure where in history you are (a Church believer 'job' Scripture frequently orders). These macro, battling trends are:

    1) the kidnapping of Canon and its subsequent 'breakout'; such that, just as in the 1st century AD, INDIVIDUAL STUDY under a PASTOR (now, of the ORIGINAL LANGUAGES OF SCRIPTURE) is the NORMATIVE method of learning God's Word. In that 1st century, because Canon was being WRITTEN (1Cor13's main theme, the Head being completed so the Body can be), everyone looked forward with "hope" (confident expectation) to the day when they'd no longer have to rely on visions and spectacular gifts to get God's Word, just as those of Jeremiah's generation (Jer31:31-34 and Ps119) hoped. This was the Divine intent all along, obviously; but no sooner is Canon completed, than it was 'kidnapped' and after that subverted/distorted for nearly two thousands years after Christ. (SatStrat.htm is largely on this topic.)

      This first historical trend is actually the THIRD of its own kind: the first was the LOSS/DISTORTION of what Adam and the woman initially knew. When it ended, 'Israel' (the nation) was 'born'. When Israel as a nation rejected the Brideship offer (from Moses forward, really) from the Messiah during His First Advent (i.e., in the Sermon on the Mount), 'Church' would be grafted in. [LvS4a.htm centers on this topic, but it might not make a whole lot of historical sense until you understand the prior 3 htm's.]

    Because,

    2) CHRIST INVENTED A NEW SPIRITUAL LIFE DURING THE FIRST ADVENT, which invention Christianity has largely NOT recognized. This spiritual life is INTERNAL, THINKING, completely ABROGATING the OT methods (Heb7:18 and parallel verses in NT). It's truly awesome to realize HOW LONG Christianity has been in the dark about this fact, given the thousands of direct and oblique commands to THINK like Christ: i.e., MATT4:4 (can Christ make it more obvious than by using the words STOMA (mouth) and REMA (teacher-SPEAKING-teaching)?); Phili2:5-10; 1Pet1; 1Cor2, 2Cor5. That this INVENTION of a unique and NEW spiritual life WAS NEVER AVAILABLE BEFORE is baldly stated in verses like John 7:39, John 14-17, and is the whole point of Corinthians, both books; macro description is in Ephesians and Hebrews, MAIN THEME OF BOTH BOOKS. Micro how-to's are in those books but more baldly explained in Philippians, Romans, "musterion" verses. BASIS is John 17 (the prayer for it).

      Virtually everything about the unique Spiritual life He authored is the OPPOSITE of the OT system: opposite method, opposite priesthood, opposite covenant, not even the same GOD is FIRST worshipped, for OUR focus is UNDER SON, TO FATHER (Heb1-2; topic is a running central theme of Hebrews). [This topic is core for the accounting in the Lord vs. Satan.] So instead of a MONOLITH, there are many 'stones', all these petroi, chips of the Rock Who is Risen. Every "joint of supply", every PASTOR (Eph4:11-16), not just one hunk of stone. For He is not ashamed to call us brothers (Heb2), for we are a Royal Priesthood to Father (1Pet2:5,9, Rev1:6, 5:10).

        So, where there WAS in OT a system of ritual, now INSTEAD there is a system of THINKING (Phili2:5, Heb12:2, Rom12:2, Eph4:23, etc), since, as the Lord put it, it's THINKING, not what you do with your body, which can defile you (Matt15, Mark7). So, even the LONE ritual of Church, the Eucharist, is a REMEMBRANCE, not even a ritual except in the nominal sense. And why? BECAUSE IT'S ABOUT INTIMATE FELLOWSHIP, depicted by FAMILY DINING, like the Last Supper. [See Luke 22:19, 1Cor11:27. NOT transubstantiation: CAN NO ONE READ BIBLE, ANYMORE? What evil idiots invented transubstantiation? What evil idiot could EVER believe such a thing? Is God a genie, for crying out loud? Is THAT ALL GOD IS WORTH, to do magic? Can hatred of God be more deeply expressed than to ask Him to do the trick He refused to do for Herod? See how Satan dupes us, making us repeat that same evil 'request' Herod 'asked' of Jesus, though in DIRECT CONTRAVENTION of Scripture on the meaning of Eucharist, and calling the lie 'holy', to boot? LOLOL! What sops we Christians are!]

        It's not that ritual, etc. are wrong in themselves. 'All things are lawful, but not always helpful', Paul says in Corinthians. What BECOMES wrong is, essentially, the HUMAN DISTORTION which inevitably results from such practices. Like, if you have a CUSTOM of sending out Christmas cards, but one year you don't do it, you feel guilty. Why feel guilty over what is merely a VOLITIONAL custom? So it is, with ritual, taboos, appearances, etc. The item slides from being a free-will celebration, into a DUTY. At that point, it REPLACES GOD in importance. This is what felled Judaism even while the Law WAS still prescriptive of the spiritual life, for the rituals and do's, were there for CELEBRATORY AND TEACHING purposes, so to just go through the motions without the meaning, was like a woman who lies inert while her husband makes love to her; or, like a woman who cheats on her husband, preserving only a facade (God's own analogies, developed extensively in Ezekiel and Hosea).

        So it is, with the history of the Church: undoubtedly, folks who still wanted to practice the Law, could do so, but the Law was no longer PRESCRIPTIVE, from Pentecost forward. Ergo those who had had prominence or approbation due to the Law's former prescriptive status would naturally have a sin-nature need to regain the former importance. Which, they COULD, by becoming teachers of the Word, of the New Spiritual Life based on the New Spiritual Species we become, in Christ (theme of 1Cor2,6-13, 2Cor5, etc). Which, they DIDN'T WANT to accept, so that's why Paul got the upgrade information, and the strict charge to NOT witness to them (see Acts 22).

      So we're ALSO looking at the kidnapping and subversion of the 'builders', our TEACHERS of the REAL Spiritual Life Christ Authored, both in Paul's day and since: there's just plain NO EXCUSE for this spiritual life not being taught. Most everyone post-Cross recognized the post-salvation life became 'different' due to His Life here. Question was, how much, and what? The Jewish legalists were all busy keeping the Law as a post-salvation spiritual life, which is why the James-Paul friendship was so glitchy, eventually 'causing' (superfically speaking) the death of both: Paul got the UPGRADE INFORMATION the most, and the Jews were UPSET about that.

      So, if you look at Christendom's doctrinal interpretation history, you find an alarming childishness which centers on just another version of keeping the Law. It's SO pathetic, given verses like Peter's "hupolimpano hupogrammos", and Heb12:1-2's DELIBERATE GREEK-ATHLETIC PARALLELLISM, that we don't RECOGNIZE the gigantic change His Spiritual life engenders. How this Legacy fits in history, the Holy Spirit had Paul explain in Ephesians. And not just Ephesians, either, for POST-PAUL, the writer of Hebrews explained the very same structure but via the OT system itself to show the change to CHURCH. And, the writer does this in such painstaking detail, replete with both OT and NT keywords so you can SEE THE CONNECTIONS CLEARLY, there is NO EXCUSE for teachers to miss it. We just don't care, that's all. Greatest Spiritual life ever given to humans in history, baldly displayed, and we go for the glitz and the baby-rituals. Incredible.

        A sterling example of this not-caring is rampant in the Christian movie/mini-series, "Time Changer". The root theme is like H.G. Well's "Time Machine", only this time a Bible-toting, 19th-century professor travels in time. Lots of very interesting stuff is presented, and the authors of the series intend to show how morality is just orality if the Master of Our Hearts isn't IN our hearts. This professor is horribly legalistic; he can't even state the Gospel properly (he tells people to receive Christ as Lord, which Bible contradicts in passages like Acts 16:31 and John 3). He runs around shocked about loose morals and our not TIEING God to state and business (never mind the Lord turned that offer down in Matt4). This oh-so-holy professor also himself tells bald lies. Those reacting to him aren't so hot, either. Everyone gets SOME of the Bible correct, but a whole lot is wrong (time travel and its Christian inventor, of course, being obviously incorrect themselves); which of course is an accurate reflection of our lives.

        So, you end up seeing ALL sides of the how-do-we-screw-up-Bible. Very au courant: is Christianity a series of behaviors, or LEARNING CHRIST, for crying out loud? Authors don't appear to take sides, but they also don't actually SAY what learning Christ means. Which is fine, since we are all Royal Crown-Prince Priests in Training by means of the HOLY Mentor UNDER Our King of Kings, FOR FATHER. So, we must draw our own royal conclusions, before the Lord. Individually.

        Most of what's promoted as 'Christian' is rarely Biblical. I've yet to see one Christian program, one movie, which wasn't a TRAVESTY of the Bible. It makes me wanna put my eyes out, like Nebuchadnezzar did to Zedekiah (Jer39:7). My people are suffering, and I can do NOTHING about it! Only a few Bible classes aired VERY RARELY even had sound Bible teaching ON BASICS. It's unbelievable. No wonder unbelievers hate us. We've GOT FULL ACCESS TO SCRIPTURE, now. There is NO excuse.

        That blessing-by-association doctrine which God grants to anyone growing in His Son is a lifeline. The ONLY thing a believer can do amidst apostacy is GROW GROW GROW. For, like Abraham said to the guy in Hades of Luke 16, if they won't listen to the Bible, they won't listen to an informed believer or a miracle, either.

    3) The above two trends illustrate the underlying history-wide trend (Adam's Fall through end-Millenium) of VOLITION's NEGATIVE DIRECTION. This trend has TWO PRONGS, like 'graph lines', which Scripture constantly reminds the reader: a) ANTI-GOD trend. As mankind multiplies, he becomes ever more negative. The actual pattern plays kinda like regression lines, but trending downward at a faster pace as history unfolds. Then, b) BELIEVER trend, though zigzaggy, trends UPWARD, but is really a BELL CURVE (which is why Rapture ends up happening — detail in LordvSatan5.htm, first division). The relationship between the progressively-downward NEGATIVE trend and the BELIEVER BELL CURVE trend is that the former progressively effects the latter: for, not only does volition routinely choose to 'fit in' (here, to mass negativity), but MORE IMPORTANTLY, God always uses what's bad as a catalyst for greater GOOD. Not, because God would have believers cave in to mass pressure; but rather, because believers, like unbelievers, progressively become negative to God, in favor of people and things (including self). Just like Adam chose a human, over God, in the Garden.

Thus, history ends when all believers are harvested (there will come a day when prolonging history will not further develop a Millenial believer, nor result in an unbeliever, believing). When you see verses like "latter days", "days are evil", "man will learn war no more", or other sweeping-macro statements, you're looking at some FACET of what God is saying about this underlying trend of history. ALL SCRIPTURE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS TREND. Correct INTERPRETATION of the "ages", God's TIME-DIVISION of history (Big Bible keyword which translations routinely screw up) will be missing if you don't understand this underlying trend and its two 'prongs'.

GOD FITTING TOGETHER: prophecy, fragmented Word, time, history, Body, and the PATTERN IS SOOOO CLEAR! So many puzzle pieces exactly fitting! So we better spend more time FITTING TOGETHER our understanding of His Word, than fitting in with the crowd, for this rollout of Scripture is NOT normal!