Bully's Blog

The Slow Wheels of Justice

I am Habakkuk the prophet. And this is the message that the LORD gave me. Our LORD, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence? Why do you make me watch such terrible injustice? Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime, and cruelty to spread everywhere? Laws cannot be enforced; justice is always the loser; criminals crowd out honest people and twist the laws around.
Habakkuk 1:1-4

[Part 1 here.]

Perhaps there is more to this idea of “suing God” than a mere Puritan quote, especially when God Himself fails to keep His own rules, when God Himself appears to break Covenant.
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“There is a curse on Mankind.
We may as well be resigned.
To let the devil, the devil
take the spirit of man.”

War of the Worldviews

I first heard Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds when I was 11. My brother and I and some cousins listened to it in a dark room. It was electric and terrifying. Hearing it again years later, the worldview behind the story is much more apparent. One song in particular lays it bare, The Spirit of Man.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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“Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps.” Numbers 10:2

The Bible Matrix aligns a lot of apparently unrelated incidents. When certain things appear repeatedly at the same point in the structure, we can confidently conclude, despite the earnest protestations of our learned friends, that these relationships are trustworthy indicators of the symbolic meanings God has given to the corresponding things. Liberal scholars believe that the idea of resurrection was “developed” by Hebrew theologians over the centuries. This is because they fail to see the contant symbols of the coming resurrection beating throughout the Old Testament in types and dark sayings. The drums reach a crescendo in the later New Testament epistles until the trumpets finally blast a terrifying staccato in the Revelation. This is the first resurrection. Continue reading

Beyond Binary

“In my Father’s house are many mansions…”

There are various covenants in the Bible, just as there are in human life. Covenants are the way God does things.

He calls a representative,
…..delegates His authority,
……….gives the mission,
……………allows time for it
……….to be accomplished,
…..assesses the outcome
and throws a party.

If the outcome is good, the delegate and his mission subjects are invited to the feast. If the outcome is bad, the delegated head and his corrupt body are the meat on the table. And the Holy Ones rejoice over their doom. There is always an outcome, a reckoning, a succession, an “offspring.” Continue reading

The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

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[1] See Behold Your Mother.
[2] See Incantation or Incarnation.
[3] Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper, pp. 73-75. Forget Calvin. Forget Barth. This book is a must-read.
[4] See Little Man With No Hair and Veiled Lawlessness.

“Now Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.” 2 Samuel 21:10

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

At the heart of the Bible Matrix is Testing. Although all the major narratives follow the pattern, many of the minor ones do too. If Adam had not failed his initial “qualifying round,” he would have progressed to the next stage of dominion. We know this because we see others later in the Bible move beyond this first round to greater glory. For instance, Daniel’s first challenge mirrors Adam’s challenge exactly. He was offered kingdom food and refused it.

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Here, Doug Wilson explains why the accusation that he is “mono-covenantal” is false.

It seems to me that if any distinction is to be made, it is not between pre- and postlapsarian history. The dichotomy Paul describes in Galatians is not between God’s Covenant with Adam and His Covenant in Christ, but between the Mosaic Covenant and the Adamic Covenant.

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Many atheists think it is their void-given right to make disrespectful, insulting or condescending remarks about religion. One I have heard a number of times is a common atheist response to “Your atheism is a religion”: If religion were a hair colour, then I am bald.

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After reading (“orthodox”) preterists for a few years, the failure of modern evangelicals to read the New Testament in its historical context, and to understand its constant allusions to Old Testament event structures now floors me. How is it that we so easily underestimate the importance of the destruction of Judaism in AD70? And worse than that, how is it that we fail to understand that the imminent warnings of the apostles as prophets related to that event? Here’s a perfect example that hits both these ugly birds with one stone; some pure gold from Peter Leithart this week:

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Some Perspective

(Pilfered from Tim Gallant’s blog.)

A quote from David Field’s Samuel Rutherford and the Confessionally Christian State:

Evangelical defeatism is a failure of Biblical perspective. After all, the risen Lord Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has been made head over all things for the Church; he is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he is currently putting his enemies beneath his feet; he has presumably asked the Father for the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession – and so he will receive them. All nations will bow to Jesus and all kings will serve him and his kingdom will grow to become the largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches. His kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth. He is the firstborn from among the dead and therefore it is right that in all things he has the first place. He has been highly exalted and not only will every knee bow to him but every knee should bow to him.

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