I think this was a line from the movie Bug’s Life, when a moth responds to calls from other bugs to stay away from the flame (or lightbulb).
A friend recently told me that moths use the moon to navigate. They continue in a straight line by keeping it on one side, which is why smaller lights get them flying in circles.
I thought this was a great analogy for the way idolatry gets us spinning our wheels.
Or, Reading the Bible without imposing your own worldview.
It seems we either read the Bible carefully but with the blinkers of remnant higher criticism (modernism), or we ‘get’ the narrative and typology but disregard the basic boundaries of responsible interpretation (postmodernism). Rich Lusk writes:
Biblical Theology requires us to learn to read the biblical narrative from within. We are insiders to the story of Scripture. It’s our story. We have to learn to read the Bible canonically. We have to allow the Word to absorb the world rather than allowing the world to absorb the Word. We have to take Scripture’s outlook as normative rather than imposing another worldview on our reading of Scripture. We must learn to read the Bible organically, in terms of itself. We should read the Bible the same way Peter, Susan, Lucy, and Edmond would read The Chronicles of Narnia: as a story not only for us, but about us.
Reading the Bible organically means reading it intertextually and typologically. Intertextual reading listens for echoes of and allusions to other passages within the canon, using Scripture to interpret Scripture. Typological reading looks for repeating patterns within the unfolding storyline of Scripture. Biblical typology is focused on totus Christus — the whole Christ, head and body, Jesus and the church. Typology means reading the Bible on its own terms, as a revelation of the suffering and glory of Christ (Lk. 24). As we move from type(s) to antitype, there is both correspondence and escalation.
Read his full article here.
We don’t know how many wise men travelled from the east, but perhaps we can make a guess via God’s deliberate typology.
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Peter Leithart has posted about the structure of Galatians 6:
Galatians 6 is roughly organised as a chiasm:
A. Bear one another’s burdens
…..B. Boasting in oneself and not another
……….C. Sowing and reaping; flesh
……………D. Do good
……….C’. Judaizers want good show in flesh/boast in flesh
…..B’. Boasting only in Christ Jesus: crucified to world
A’. I bear stigmata
The links are mainly verbal. The verb “bear” appears in verses 1, 5, and 17. ”Boasting” is a theme in 6:4 and 13-14, contrasting the boasting-in-flesh of the Judaizers with the boasting-in-the-death-of-flesh of Paul. ”Flesh” is found in verses 8 and 12-13. At the centre is an exhortation to persevere in doing good to all men, and especially to do good to the family or “household” of Abraham that Paul has been describing throughout the letter.
I could be imagining things, but I see the feasts of Leviticus 23 here as well:
A. Sabbath (the Spirit overshadows, the Word comes from God) call to worship
000B. Passover (Adam presented) self-examination/confession
000000C. Firstfruits (High Priest – Adam ascends) ascension of praise
000000000D. Pentecost (Law given) sermon
000000C’. Trumpets (armies – Eve presented) offertory
000B’. Atonement (sin expelled from nation – Eve ascends) communion
A’. Booths (rest) doxology and dismissal
Note also that when this pattern appears elsewhere in the Bible, the last point, Booths, is a glorified Solomon (Sabbath-king) sending out letters or chariots with the Word, beginning this cycle in the next generation. Here, Paul himself is the epistle carrying the graven words of God on tablets of flesh.
Was Moses a murderer?
Moses’ execution of the Egyptian was “good death.” It was judicial. Moses had the authority to pass judgment and execute the sentence, and later became the judge of his people. “And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22). However, he rightly feared Pharaoh’s unjust reaction.
The Hebrews’ rejection of Moses as their judge condemned them to 40 years’ more slavery. They were at fault, not Moses.
Okay, so Moses did look this way and that, and buried the body in the sand. Yes, but the point was he feared Pharaoh’s reaction.
The Hebrews’ rejection of him as their judge condemned them to 40 years’ more slavery. Just as in the wilderness when Moses was their judge, it was the next generation that would be delivered. Moses was not condemned:
“The Bible never criticises Moses for this, but presents his action as righteous and faithful (Acts 7:24ff.; Heb. 11:24ff.). The execution of criminals is never said to defile the land, or to require atonement; such execution is itself the atonement required.” James B. Jordan, The Law of the Covenant, p. 254-5.
Moses’ judgment pictured the greater one to come upon the Egyptian taskmasters at his return—prefiguring Christ’s ministry in the first century.
No Jordan means no Canaan. The Lord’s supper (feast) table is for the faithful who obediently follow our Joshua across the river.
Typologically, we dine with Moses and the elders of Israel above the crystal sea (Exodus 24:10), the Laver that washes us before we, as a church, ascend to the Holy Place.
A new Adam (High Priest) ruled the wild animals of the Gentile kingdoms, but without a king this rule would be truly priestly. Daniel prefigured the nature of this new kingdom: obedience would bring persecution, and suffering as witnesses before the Gentiles would be the means of Gentile conversion. A new Israel would be the initial fulfilment of the despised, suffering priestly servant of Isaiah 53. When the Lord scattered His people for their sin, He also spread them to the four winds as witnesses to the empire.
A recurring pattern throughout the Bible is this one: Called, Divided, Filled and Reunited.
We see it in the exodus. The Hebrews are divided from Egypt through a divided sacrifice and a divided sea (blood and water). In the wilderness, Israel is betrothed to God by Covenant, and fed with miraculous bread. An enormous haul of grapes brings a promise of wine, but they aren’t ready for it.* After a generation, Israel is no longer just a people but an army. She has been ‘filled.’ Through another crossing of water and blood (Jordan and Jericho), she is finally united to her Husband in the promised land.
God always divides, fills and reunites. Creation consisted of three days of dividing and three days of filling the 3 new ‘chambers.’ God divided Adam to construct Eve.
In Communion, the bread and wine are given separately. Christ’s body is dividedfrom His blood. We are filled, and His body and blood are reunited in us. As we partake, we, Greater Eve, fulfill His resurrection as a holy army (Ez. 37; John 12:24).
*We see this pattern in the garden of Eden, with a bread tree (priest) and wine tree (king). Adam wasn’t ready for the wine of kingdom. It would be another generation, Noah’s, who would drink wine before God in a new land.
The Ark was always to be carried by human legs, never on a beast or a man-made cart. The Jewish rulers and religious leaders were content to keep God in a box, symbolically hidden behind a veil. But in Christ, the Ark was free and walking around on human legs with the eyes and mouth of a Man. When the Ark was mobile, the people of God followed, seeking rest and scattering His enemies on the way (Numbers 10:33-34).
The Ark was a covering that protected Israel from the consequences of face-to-face exposure to God’s Law. With the Ark taken by God, the Restoration Covenant would be different. The synagogues would come into their own, and the Law would be studied by all Jews throughout the empire:
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31)
The next fulfilment was the bodily incarnation of the Words, Jesus Christ. He was both the Law of God written on tablets of flesh, and the blood covered container that protected Israel from extermination. They all knew Him, from the least to the greatest. Like the Ark, His words were a flaming sword that would bring either life or death to His hearers.
And of course, we are familiar with Paul’s explanation of this being applied to believers who are His body. Our words also bring division:
“…clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart… for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3)
The golden Lampstand, with seven flames, pictured the sun, moon and five planets (those visible to the naked eye) that govern the firmament*—the seven “eagle-eyes” of God. In Ezekiel 1, this corresponded to the face of the Eagle that always faced north, watching over the people of God, the Table of Showbread (the face of the Man).
The Lampstand was also a stylised almond tree. In Hebrew, the word translated “almond” is also the word for “watcher, overseer.” An almond tree is a shepherdwho grows out of the earth and reaches heaven—a Tree of Life.
The serpent usurped Adam’s authority in the garden, and he became the legal judge (satan) of mankind, standing full of eyes before the ark/throne – seven stars at God’s right hand. As the ancients, including Solomon, sculpted wild beasts to guard their thrones, so this angelic tutor became a beast “crouching at the door.” Man had to pass him to reign with God. We see him before God’s throne in Job. He roamed to and fro on the Land like a raven and returned to accuse God’s people. The angel of light—the shepherd “Lampstand”—had become a wolf.
*The governing lights were created on Day 4. The speech concerning the Lampstand is the fourth speech regarding the Tabernacle construction.
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