A Sword Drill for the Theologically Curious: In the Beginning...Gods Aplenty

The heavens praise your wonders, Lord,
    your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.
 For who in the skies above can compare with the Lord?
    Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings?

In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared;
    he is more awesome than all who surround him.

Psalm 89:5-7

(These are the "Us" of "Let us make man in our image and "Genesis 3:22 ²²And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
The Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil as well as The Tree of Life were God-fruit trees and not for humans evidently.

The uh oh scripture that didn't make the cut and should have.

"When the Most High (’elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated humanity, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings. For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage."

Deuteronomy 32:8-9

"There are two points to take away from this passage. First, the passage presents an apparently older mythic theme that describes when the divine beings, that is each deity in the divine counsel, ( The El-ohim of Genesis 2-3) were assigned and allotted their own nation. Israel was the nation that Yahweh received.

Second, Yahweh received his divine portion, Israel, through an action initiated by the god El, here identifiable through his epithet “the Most High.” In other words, the passage depicts two gods: one, the Most High (El), is seen as assigning nations to the divine beings or gods (the Hebrew word is elohim, plural “gods”) in his council; the other, Yahweh, is depicted as receiving from the first god, the Most High, his particular allotment, namely the people of Israel. Similarly, in another older tradition now preserved in Numbers 21:29, the god Chemosh is assigned to the people of Moab."

The complete discussion and responses can be found here:

Are Yahweh and El the same God?

(That's as short as I can make it and offer it as a bit of historical and theological stimulation outside the boxes of the Churches of God :)

Living Church of God: Even unconverted husbands look forward to matzos and unleavened bread in their lunch boxes this time of year

It's that wonderful time of year again in the Churches of God when church members in both hemispheres pretend they are preparing to observe the "spring" Jewish holy days."  While church women are wearing themselves out "spring-cleaning" their homes of those nasty old bread crumbs those in the Southern Hemisphere are doing "fall-cleaning." That glaring dichotomy has never mattered at all to church leaders when they demand that members all over the world keep days specifically assigned to the Jewish people. Gerald Weston, of the Living Church of God, even thinks it's kind of fun and normal as he talks about squirrels delivering bread to his porch during Unleavened Bread time.

You remember those stories too! Admit it!  Finding cookies in your suit jacket as you walk up to give opening prayer, or dropping your pen in the car and reaching under the seat and pulling out a nice fluffy Twinkie your kids stuffed under the seat, or those devious breadcrumbs that deliberately worked their way into your pants cuff and discovering on the last day of the feast that your toothpaste had baking soda in it.  Oh, the horrors! Salvation and redemption is a dirty business!

Occasionally, some well-meaning speaker reads from Clarke’s Commentary on Exodus 12:19, where it says, “To meet the letter of this precept in the fullest manner possible, the Jews, on the eve of this festival, institute the most rigorous search through every part of their houses, not only removing all leavened bread, but sweeping every part clean, that no crumb of bread shall be left that had any leaven in it. And so strict were they in the observance of the letter of this law, that if even a mouse was seen to run across the floor with a crumb of bread in its mouth, they considered the whole house as polluted, and began their purification afresh” (Clarke, Adam. Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 354).

What are the odds of a mouse running across the floor with a piece of bread in his mouth on the eve of this festival? Actually, not as remote as you might think, based on my experience. Twice while living in Canada, we had a bird or a squirrel leave bread on our front porch right before or during the Days of Unleavened Bread, and they were more like chunks of bread than crumbs! As trite as it sounds, you can’t make this up! At least they were on the porch instead of in the house. The timing was remarkable, as neither my wife nor I ever remember such a thing happening at any other time of the year. Maybe it was a kind Jewish neighbor disposing of leavening where wildlife could get to it. It seems to me that God has a sense of humor.

We stopped buying cookies from Girl Scouts (or, in Canada, Girl Guides) many years ago, because no matter how the Holy Days fell each year, the leavened cookies always seemed to arrive in the middle of the Feast. And have you ever noticed that it is during the Days of Unleavened Bread that the neighbor brings over a freshly baked cake?

Those damn Girl Scouts!  Satan is deliberately using them to remind church members their sin is not gone because their eyes and stomach yearn for those delicious Thin Mint 's as they are sneakily thrown in the neighbor's trash can. And those birds and squirrels! Wow! Satan's little spreaders of sin back into the lives of the chosen people of God!

This is also the time of year that unconverted husbands of church wives eagerly look forward to matzos and other unleavened products in the work lunches. Yummers! Church of God youth eagerly look forward to opening their lunch bag to share matzos covered in peanut butter with their lunch pals.  Who can forget the delicious taste of pizza-flavored rye crisps!  It certainly is the most wonderful time of the year!  Even though those church members in the Southern Hemisphere are NOT keeping a spring holy day.  Never mind though as Charlotte has decreed it is commanded of them.

One physical task that we may not find so pleasant is obeying the command to put leaven out of our homes (Exodus 12:15). Some go to extremes, spending days in what becomes spring cleaning in the northern hemisphere, and I suppose, fall cleaning south of the equator. Others barely give it a lick and a promise, taking a very casual approach toward the task.

Those of us who have been in the Church of God for 50 or more years have a unique perspective on deleavening. We have seen ministers, members and the Church as a whole sometimes fall into opposite ditches. Growth is a process, and we can, perhaps, have a few laughs along the way, such as the year I destroyed two toasters during the deleavening process. However, we also saw on more than one occasion where God’s instructions were watered down.

We all appreciate a clean house, but we must never forget that the purpose of this cleaning is to identify and remove leaven, and it is important that each member of the family take part in this process. Both removing leaven and avoiding eating leaven during this time provide valuable insights into our sinful nature. 

Yep, never mind the fact that if you are a Christian, that "sinful nature" has been obliterated by the work of Jesus. That work of washing clean is totally lost on Gerald Weston as he makes the following statement:

Jesus corrected the Jews for their oppressive interpretations of the law. He is to be our guide, not the Jewish custom described in Clarke’s Commentary. There is something about human nature that exalts physical activity over activity of the heart. Some, who once understood the truth, have joined Messianic Jewish groups that focus on the physical rather than the spiritual: prayer shawls, circumcision, certain kinds of dress, and other customs and rituals.

But Gerald does not do this. He is still of the "truth."  You know, the "truth" that is always used as a weapon to denigrate and label those demonically influenced unconverted slobs who reject the "truth" that has to offer Weston.  You know those people, they are the ones who make fun of Weston's demand that you eat matzos or deleaven your home and car, and all the other fun things associated with unleavened bread time.

There were also times when we heard comments that downplayed the need to deleaven. Such comments usually preceded or accompanied times of apostasy. How easy it is to make fun of or ridicule deleavening practices, and while some take deleavening to extremes that God never intended, but some of us have been around long enough to attest to the fact that when deleavening is abandoned, other apostasies follow. God clearly instructed Israel, “For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land” (Exodus 12:19).

"God clearly instruct's Israel" and all LCG members are spiritual Jews in their hearts, so that makes it all kosher.

Some claim this is only for Israel, but we are, through the Holy Spirit in us, children of Abraham and spiritual Israel (Romans 2:28–29; Galatians 3:26–29). We keep the Feast as Paul commanded the Gentile Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:7–8): “Therefore let us keep the feast….” Paul then explains the symbolism of leaven in this context: “…not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

Malice involves the thought process of an evil heart. Wickedness refers to wrong actions. These are to be replaced with a sincere heart and righteous behavior. Truth is described in 1 John 1:6 as something we practice. In other words, truth is more than academic. It is the way we act, what we do. So, we are to change in mind and in actions.

LCG leaders and HQ work so diligently this time of year to present themselves as stewards of the law as they publicly make a display of putting sin out of their lives, yet, come the very next day after the days are over, they are back to mistreating and abusing members. How soon after Passover are members reminded that their family members that have mental health issues or have family in nursing homes that they are demon possessed? Or, when members who work in nursing homes, to provide for their families, that they must immediately resign due to working in an environment controlled by demons?

Remember that actions like these happen right after LCG members have "spiritually deleavend" their minds and hearts, even though LCG leadership are the most "balanced" leaders in the church today.

Balance is difficult for human beings—that’s us. As one minister once pointed out, the only time we are in the middle of the road is when we are on our way to the ditch on the other side! The emphasis must be on spiritual deleavening.

We should take time each year for fasting and introspection, praying as Jeremiah did: “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. O Lord, correct me, but with justice; not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing” (Jeremiah 10:23–24).

Pray for a tender heart that you might learn the less painful way, knowing that God loves you and that any correction He gives will only be for your ultimate good. As Paul instructs, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:31–32). 

Oh, never mind. After all, this is the Living Church of God speaking.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God... Ephesians 2:8

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ... John 6:50-71

Friday Musings- On Being Wretched and Blind, Worm Prone and A Miserable Human Being Without Hope

The purpose of most religion is to make us "better" than we currently are. The Biblical premise is that all human beings are fatally flawed, not good enough and in need of vast improvements and control of their "human nature." Without this ongoing overcoming of the evil self, growing towards a better kind of person and change, one runs the risk of being so not good enough that they will spend eternity, for their inability to change over a rather short lifetime, in a punishing hell. Scripture goes out of its way to remind us all that our fundamental human qualities are deceit, wickedness, jealousy, anger, lust and greed. I find that personally to be one of the most unhelpful and controlling lies ever foisted upon human beings by religion. Of course that is how we can act, but that is not who we are by any real means when given the freedom to be authentic and feel safe in being so.

We are called "worms" and less than nothing in this great book of encouragement. Even the early leaders, prophets and apostle types knew that they had to degrade themselves as less than human in order to show they understood they were not worth anything as an unregenerate human being. Only when one realized they were a pile of manure, could they lead the people who were really composed of the same.

If you could not utter the words, "I am not worthy," you would never be a Bible CEO. The Apostle Paul noted that he was "the least of the Apostles" (but later said he was their equal) and that "the things that I don't want to do, I do and the things I should, I don't." He made his problems everyone's. He concluded he was simply a wretched human being, and so should everyone else. He reminded others that they were blind, miserable, poor and naked of heart and spirit. He even said he had to beat himself into submission, lest after preaching to others, he should flub up himself and be a castaway. Seems he didn't have the confidence "in the blood," to make up the differences in what he was and what he felt he needed to be.

Jesus is also said to have said that humans are to become "perfect, even (in the same way) as your Father in heaven is perfect." No challenge there to be better than one is at any one moment! Of course this is not possible and it is not possible or plausible in any "now I'm converted and full of the Holy Spirit" way. You have never met any Christian who has reached this goal in life. I have met some who act like they have and I have met some who agonize of not being able, but I have never met one that did in fact, whatever that means. Actually they would be one freaky human being I would think.

How did we get this way? Well, of course it was due to the "fall" where Adam and Eve, our really true and actual first human parents, created by God out of mud and ribs, flubbed up and ate the forbidden fruit. We have all been blamed for this event and must spend our lives coming under a blood sacrifice of a more perfect human/god being and then continuing the struggle to be "better" until we die. Its then we find out we understood being bad enough to be good enough to live forever.    

Redemption of humans by blood sacrifice and execution have always been the preferred solution to the depravity of man. Membership in the club usually cost ten or more percent of your material income and membership in the one true of many churches. I am not being disrespectful to the life and teachings of Jesus but few understand how that has been woven into a tale that Jesus himself would have cringed at.

I remember as a teen when it was "time you were baptized" being told I was all these miserable things and in need of deep and heartfelt repentance and, of course, a savior. The minister took me through all the Ten Commandments and asked me if I understood that I had broken EVERY ONE of them all my short life and thus, was condemned to death. I was a mere 18 year old, nice kid, good home, pretty compliant, a bit guilt and shame ridden by upbringing, but not a really big nasty sinner on drugs with three illegitimate kids. And yet, here I sat being convinced I worshipped other gods, (money, success, human hopes and dreams), somehow always took God's name in vain, (mom and dad would have washed my mouth out with soap...I only learned to cuss and such after being in the ministry) and worshipped on the wrong day of the week along with having to repent of keeping the wrong Holy Days all my short life.

I was in some deep evil way a killer, adulterer, thief, liar and coveter of all men's goods and women. When I said I hadn't really killed anyone, I was told that I hated and that's the same thing. I didn't recall hating anyone either but if you say so.  I admitted I had not had sex with anyone to that point, but my lust covered that one too. I wanted to say, "well no, I really hadn't done that either", but that would have been ill advised if I ever wanted to get baptized and have a future with the group. He told me to come back another day and more deeply repent of my nasty, evil and wicked 18 year old self.  I did admit to having a girlfriend from 14 to 17 who I kissed a lot and one at 18 who I kissed a lot but no babies or potential for one in either.  At AC I "dated widely" as in "do you want to come to bible study with me?  How about you?  And you're next..."   but I blame that approach with not getting to know or really spend time with one you really wish to in a quality way with consequences to follow. I did lust after Miss  __________ however.   

Of course I did take the plunge in time and joined the "you still aren't good enough" club for the next three decades as a pastor who then passed the good news of human depravity on to thousands and reminding them that while they might think they are nice people, they are under the eternal death penalty those stinkers Adam and Eve brought upon us all no matter. Be as nice as you want but you are a miserable human being especially if you don't tithe or show up when expected. 

However, I did a bit of growing myself and concluded the story of my guilt by association to Adam and Eve wasn't literally true. Human beings have evolved for the most part as good science has noted. I've had my own genome mapped back 60,000 years to all our African origins. I don't believe that it would be a very fair thing for humans to pay a literal and eternal death penalty based on a mythical and not literally true story.

Have you ever considered the fact that you and I may have been born right the first time? What if the most simple and spiritual goal a human being has is to become your own genuine, authentic and self? What if our purpose in life is neither to jump through the hoops set out by others, who think they know, nor to struggle and strive to improve yourself dramatically over what you are? People don't change much over a life time no matter what their religious affiliations, and while it's an improvement to stop killing one's self with sugar, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine along with other assorted body killing habits, it's OK to just be yourself?

That's a far cry from humans being merely wretched, miserable, poor blind and naked worms that need major rehab at the hands of prophets, priests and pastors. Saying we are born right the first time and not in need of being born again or reborn goes against the meme, which is the mind virus we all got taught as kids. Our parents had it taught to them and their parents before that. It is the idea that we are all flawed a birth by a non-event in the lives of our first not literally so parents Adam and Eve. It's the idea that even if you are a pretty OK person, you are filled with vanity, jealousy, lust and greed that unless paid for by a perfect blood sacrifice, demands you spend eternity in hell burning forever, cut off from God, or permanently dead. It's also not true and is not what a genuine human being, in reality needs to become the monkey on their back over.

How much misery and struggle to be all that one can never really be religion has heaped upon the faithful. Not many will leave the warmth and comfort of the boxes they were born in by happenstance and explore ideas that are not acceptable to the tribe or the church. But some will. They might be labeled "heretics" or perhaps more benevolently, "ahead of their times." In the past, those ahead of their times tended to be burned at the stake. Leaving the box of religious dogma is difficult and often one leaves it alone and on their own.  You get called a lot of names and labels are applied aplenty.

Don't expect those in the last box you were in to follow you into the next one your grow into. You generally and mostly go alone.

Politics, fear, guilt and shame are some of the reasons human beings behave badly. Feeling unsafe can do a lot of damage.  When people feel safe, appreciated, respected and listened to, you'd be surprised how much good can be accomplished and how well behaved they can be.  

What is the most simple spiritual truth a human can come to recognize? While there may be many, how about the simple recognition that we all do the best we can, warts and all and that being the lifelong monkey on our own backs as "not good enough" is a complete waste of time and unnecessary? I have done the funerals for those few who felt they were so unable to measure up, they took their own lives in despair.  None of them were necessary. That was a long term solution to a very short term problem of thinking badly. 

After my first sermon being transferred to Kentucky a woman came up to me to introduce herself to me. She said,  "Really nice to meet you Mr. Diehl.  I'm the woman who committed adultery..."   That was her evermore label someone put in her mind and she adopted.  I took her aside and said "I don't ever wish to hear that label you have given yourself again.  What is your name?"   She looked at me quietly as tears filled her eyes and seemed not to know what to say or do.  She said her name, I said "Nice to meet YOU." We hugged and she was free.  She said she felt born again and I said she was probably born right the first time.  Based on her knowing smile, I believe she knew exactly what I meant.