There is safety in solitude

School of the Vestals, a painting by Hector Leroux, 1880

 How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

 

-- Alexander Pope 

Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, the American who dismantled the misuse of Romans 13 and made disobedience to ungodly rule the Christian's very duty

 

This essay is a wrecking ball in its own right. 

Before the Revolution, There Was a Revelation

 ... The man historians call the “morning gun of the Revolution” was not a soldier or a statesman. He was Jonathan Mayhew, a 29-year-old Congregationalist minister in Boston whose 1750 Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission dismantled Romans 13 — long wielded by the Crown as a theological cudgel against resistance — line by methodical line. He demonstrated that the Bible places a clear duty upon Christians to resist tyrannical rulers. This sermon became the source of the declaration that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” — a phrase Jefferson later proposed for the seal of the United States. John Adams called it “the morning gun of the Revolution” and remembered it “was read by everybody.” ...

 

 

The Jesus of history proclaimed final judgment on the Israel of his generation, the Christ of faith offers mercy interminably into the future to all generations

 

 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

-- Matthew 23:35f.

That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

-- Luke 11:50f. 

For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

-- Luke 1:48ff.   

The Late Great Planet Earth in the news

 The Apocalypse Goes Mainstream

... What surprised me was how much of this came not from pastors, but from pop prophecy texts. The most recent example being the “Left Behind” books. Kids went to ordinary evangelical churches and then read these highly literalized, fictionalized telling of end times prophecy. In the case of the Weaver family on Ruby Ridge, it was reading Hal Lindsey’s, “The Late Great Planet Earth.” ...

 

 

 

What the Christ of faith can do in every generation

 

 He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth,

And sets the passions on the side of truth;

Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art,

And pours each human virtue in the heart.

-- Alexander Pope 

A professor of "worship studies" reckons that God's glory is disclosed through humility and suffering

 

The Glory of God Revealed: Living the Resurrection

... many early Christian thinkers offered a striking insight: the glory of God is seen most clearly in His act of rescuing those in need. ... The glory of God, therefore, is not merely something to be observed, but something encountered in His gracious movement toward humanity. It is revealed in His willingness to enter the depths of human brokenness, to meet us in our need, and to act decisively for our salvation. In this light, glory is not diminished by humility or suffering but is disclosed through them. The God who is truly glorious is the God who comes near, who restores, and who redeems. In short, the God who is truly glorious is the God who rescues. ...

I don't mean to pick on this guy. What he writes sounds completely plain vanilla unobjectionable to the average Christian mind, which unfortunately is full of gooey sentimentality and dull humanitarianism. Except for the fact that none of those early Christian thinkers he speaks of, whoever they may be, are in the New Testament. You will be hard pressed to find lines there which endorse a preoccupation with glory disclosed through humility and suffering.

On the contrary, the New Testament evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the view that God's inestimable glory is robust, and still to be revealed in the future at Jesus' second coming, an acknowledgement that the crucifixion and resurrection most certainly did not constitute a convincing revelation of God's glory. If it had been otherwise, preaching the Gospel would not have been promoted everywhere by the New Testament because it would not have been necessary. The glory of God would have been self evident. The book itself would not have been necessary, because the revelation of the glory of God would have meant the end of the world.

The New Testament remains pregnant with unrealized eschatological expectation, in which the revelation of the glory of God is an explicitly future apocalyptic goal, because obviously the promised glory failed to be revealed the first time around for "all flesh" to see.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

-- Isaiah 40:3ff.

If the New Testament thought that God's glory had been disclosed through the humility and suffering of Jesus and actually had replaced Isaiah's, and John the Baptist's, vision, it ought to have said so. It is only its unworthy heirs who have done so.

The New Testament certainly does insist that God accomplished something through Jesus' suffering, but all flesh seeing the glory of God is not one of them. Only a select few "beheld his glory" (John 1:14). "Read my book" (John 20:31).

The revelation of the glory of God is yet future, and the not-yet is by no means comparable to it.

 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed [ἀποκαλυφθῆναι] in us.

-- Romans 8:18

But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed [ἀποκαλύψει], ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

-- I Peter 4:13

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed [ἀποκαλύπτεσθαι]: 

-- I Peter 5:1

For who hopes for what he sees?

-- Romans 8:24 

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

-- Romans 5:1f.   

But these are written that ye might believe . . .

 That paltry story is untrue,

And forg'd to cheat such gulls as you. 

 

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras 

William Law, the Christian Chuang tzu

 When a right knowledge of ourselves enters into our minds, it makes as great a change in all our thoughts and apprehensions, as when we awake from the wanderings of a dream.

-- William Law 

Blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin

 Oh ! Portius, is there not some chosen curse,

Some hidden thunder in the store of heaven,

Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man

Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

 

-- Joseph Addison 

The times, they are not chang'd at all

 A man can hardly pass the streets, without having his ears grated with horrid and blasphemous oaths and curses.

-- John Tillotson 

 

There's an anti-Samaritan Jesus in both Matthew and Luke, despite the so-called Good Samaritan Jesus of Luke 10

 

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

-- Matthew 10:5f.

In Luke 17 Jesus himself practices what he preaches in Matthew 10, avoiding Samaria.

He takes the route south from Galilee after his ministry in Galilee, passing through the Valley of Jezreel which runs between Galilee and Samaria from northwest to southeast.

He does this to get over to the Jordan Valley, where John had baptized him like everybody else (Luke 3:21; 4:1) and which runs straight south to Jericho (Luke 18:35). Once in Jericho, he literally goes up to Jerusalem from there (Luke 18:31; 19:28) to meet his fate, a climb of as much as 3,700 feet in elevation.

Note that for their part the Samaritans in Luke's telling also avoid Jesus (Luke 9:52f.), because he's headed to the rival religious center in Jerusalem. The bad feelings are mutual.

But by the time we get to Luke 17 we are met with at least one thankful leper whom Luke says is a Samaritan but Jesus merely calls a foreigner:

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Sama'ria and Galilee. ... "Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner [ἀλλογενὴς]?"

-- Luke 17:11, 18

Were the ungrateful nine healed lepers in the story also Samaritans?

The text does not say.

Luke does not have the saying found in Matthew, Many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 20:16; 22:14), but it might not be wrong to say that he is illustrating that in every tribe and tongue most people really suck, but not all of them.

Such men as he never be at heart's ease, whilst they behold a greater than themselves

 

Trump Posts New AI Image of Himself Embracing Jesus

D. Stableford, Yahoo News 

 

 

Slaves bury the dead

 

 Henry is dead, and never shall revive:

Upon a wooden coffin we attend,

And death's dishonourable victory

We with our stately presence glorify,

Like captives bound to a triumphant car.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act 1, scene 1  

So Jesus' hate-filled threat to wipe out his entire generation for the blood of Abel on down, which his generation had nothing to do with, trivializes genocide and is outside the bounds of justice, according to Christianity Today

Threatening Profound Evil Trivializes That Evil 

Justin R. Hawkins, Christianity Today

... You don’t need an exhaustive knowledge of just war theory to know that genocide is well outside its bounds. This threat merits the most strident and serious moral condemnation, for the very act of threatening such profound evil trivializes that evil. ...

 

You can always count on CT to give you the Jesus whom they wish they had, not the one we've got.

 

Unlike Ezekiel, Jesus was a spiritual determinist "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." And none of what he predicted happened, either:

 

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

 

 -- Luke 13:1ff. 

 

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

 

 -- Matthew 23:33ff. 

 

Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 

 

-- Luke 11:47ff.