hey jim…i am feeling like you are saying to forget the actual inconsistancy..and just believe in the resurection,then you will automatically have to let go of the discrepancies because of an irrational faith…in its place ,To me this is no different than what the religious mindset is trying to say to get you to just follow along..now im not angry with you im just frustrated with the common idea presented to me:”just believe in the miraculous and the inconsistencies wont bother your conscience anymore because you wont want to look at them anymore”/to me that is a pretty David Koresh way of looking at things…and i realize i have picked up some prove it mindsets from religion and it helps that you do understand this but….can you see were im coming from..my home slice? later homey….A. [homey is a slang term of affection often used by the african american culture..hehe ha ha] Adam

Homey  :) … hey, you’re talking to a guy who happens to be currently “in” as far as the new 2002 standards of “What’s in, what’s out”. haha! I’m referring to a CNN broadcast where they stated that the practice of the “knuckle-shake” is “in” this year. That’s the handshake where you strike fists first up, then down, then dead on in a knuckle rap. haha! At my Home Depot, where I work, I have gotten the reputation for having the “bro” handshakes down as good or better than those who showed me how to do ‘em. :)

Okay, my response …

“hey jim…i am feeling like you are saying to forget the actual inconsistency”

No, that is not at all what I’m saying. I’m suggesting that these “inconsistencies” are the screwed up by-products of the fleshly wisdom found in the religious mindset you are trying to combat by a radically difference religious mindset of your own making formed by your attempt to disprove it. hahaha! Did I confuse you yet? Let me give you a mental picture to convey how I see this. I see you standing under the pooh-pooh tree asking me if I think you should stop examining the apples hanging off the branches … only they ain’t apples. Maybe, “road apples”!! hehehe!

The “inconsistencies” are merely the failures of the fleshly assumptions that have turned OT scriptures into a holy version of the “National Enquirer” with all its future predictions. You are suffering under the delusion that by using the same bullshit approach to the scriptures that has been used by the dead religious mind that you can actually understand those ancient writings enough to make assumptions that will fit with our current delusional interpretations. haha! I’m sure I’m really confusing you now!!!

Let me give you a Biblical example that continually proves to me how far off my religiously learned assumptions are. Do you remember when King Herod called the chief priests and scribes together and asked them where the Christ was to be born (Matthew 2:1-12)? They came up with the correct answer found in the writings of the prophet Micah. Now, when we examine the simple statement in this connection it makes sense. But if we take the whole context into account we might wonder how they even came to their conclusion. What’s my point? Simple, it made sense to THEM. The same holds true with the other stated fulfillments where the religious leaders were steaming mad at the very suggestion that Jesus was said to have fulfilled them.

Consider something. You referred to me as “homey” … and then made sure to explain that it is a slang term of affection. Why did you feel the need to tell me that? Was it to make sure that I didn’t take it the wrong way? Who knows, maybe you thought I might think you were calling me a “homo” and you didn’t want to insult me. Either way, a difference in culture within our own time frame can give us a totally wrong idea of what is being communicated. Could you imagine how confusing it would be to try to understand the African-American culture from even 100 years ago without taking their own understanding into account? Okay, then, forget the easier African-American culture (because at least they’re American!) and then take into consideration that we are talking about an ancient foreign culture who we assume to have a better understanding simply because we have some of their writings “perfectly” translated into our own language. What’s the MOST confusing aspect of the whole thing? I think it’s the fact that we have ASSUMED that we understand their viewpoints and use of communication.

Forget trying to figure out what it means to YOU, and consider instead why THEY would have been expecting a fulfillment that, once seen, satisfied THEIR expectations. Are you following me here? Now, if you write me back with another inconsistency based upon our 21st century religious American church misconceptions I’m going to assume that you are NOT following what I have said here, okay? I don’t write this in a harsh manner, but merely in a factual realization that you are not following me. :)

You see, once you realize that Christ IS the fulfillment of all those scriptures then you will also be forced into considering the ancient foreign mindset upon which they were considered in ancient times. This doesn’t mean that you will understand it all, but you sure will have fun laughing at the intellectual and religious assumptions we’ve been trying to squeeze them into. Now, if you still want to squeeze them apples you might want to make sure you’re standing under the right apple tree. hehe!! :)

Adam, I want you to know that I value your openness, but that mostly I value the reality of the real you that I immediately connected with!

when you say that we have to believe “it made sense to them”i wonder about that ,because to lots of people im sure it made no sense at all Adam

Keep in mind that even though the religious leaders recognized the prophetic sense of the OT scriptures with their doubled meanings they still missed the one it testified of. So don’t read too much into that comment about what it was that made sense. Actually, this was the “stumbling block” to Israel, because of all the things they could have figured out if pushed to it, the one reality that didn’t fit their expectations was the unexpectedness of the expected one.

and i wonder if the legalistic were more offended by the fact they[the apostles] were twisting scripture than they were scared of loosing there positions? Adam

Of course they were offended by MANY things, and I’m sure they questioned everything that either Jesus (or the apostles later) said. But if you read all the accounts of the run-ins you’ll begin to see that they were offended primarily with Jesus himself. Their falseness was exposed by his very presence … and definitely by his words. The fact that their arguments lost their usual effectiveness by a few statements from Jesus must have been extremely embarrassing. Their accusations regarding Jesus and the “scriptures” stood upon a premise that Jesus didn’t believe Moses (the Law) as they did. Strangely enough, the thing that did them in was their inability to answer his questions about the Law. He stumped them, not by some hidden meanings or obscure scriptures, but in the stuff they had quoted … and supposedly believed, their whole lives. I encourage you to re-read those accounts and notice their comments and reactions to Jesus. They were offended in HIM way beyond any offense seen in his “viewpoints”. They were offended that he spoke as if he really KNEW God. They were offended that he dared to call God his own father (something Jews did not claim). They were offended that he did “good”. They were offended that he knew what they were all about. They were offended that he saw right through their games. They were offended that they could not be like him in many ways, because you can be sure they wished they could speak with “authority” and have the power to do what he did. But they were offended by him because he was also so weak.

And yet it would fit well that they were (hyped up or lying) because of the fact they were the”simple”,”uneducated”,”poor”people in life who didnt really know the scriptures probably as well as those who had direct access to them like a pharisee Adam

You know, I think this fact pissed the religious leaders off the most about the disciples. “Knoweth not letters” is a phrase I remember hearing as used against either Jesus or the apostles. This was very offensive to them. Why? Because even though they had not received an education they were able to speak boldly about the true God, which is something they had never done. Remember the blind man in John 9 who was given sight by Jesus? While in the midst of a cross-examination by the Pharisees the realization came to him that their one desire to disprove Jesus was the most obvious statement against them. He said,

Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. John 9:30

Funny thing was that as soon as this man’s new-found realizations backed them into a corner with no way to get out — rather incredible for a man who couldn’t see until that day — they turned on him and made his rejection official. That’s the amazing thing about those who speak God’s freedom, for they’re actually a bunch of ignorant folks who confound the wise. You and I? We’re the “nothings” of this world who somehow speak with a power unknown to all the religious learning in any “spiritual” center. And I don’t have to tell you why … you already know that. :)

Hey Mr Dig!”when Israel was a child,I loved him,and out of Egypt [Isreal in bondage] I called my son [Israel], But the more I called Isreal [or my son] the further they went from me”/ok heres an example of how the new testament writers would say this refers to Jesus Christ. Am i using the tools of the” mindset of today” to see right here? Are you maybe saying that the apostles were never even claiming these to be fulfilled in a prophetic way in the first place? [as we understand prophesy] is what im seeing the apostles saying, not what they were saying in the first place regarding those old test passages? Are they doing more of an object lesson? I guess that would settle better than a claim of direct fulfilled prophesy. Is it more of an example they are giving? Adam

Yo, Homey!

Has someone ever told you that you were just like your father … or mother … or another? How did you receive their claim? Did you argue the point by describing all the ways you were unlike that person (forget those stupid teenaged years where you argued everything, of course! haha)? Or did you automatically pick up their meaning? I would be out in the yard working my butt off and my grandmother would say, “You’re just like your daddy!”. I knew what she referred to, and I didn’t sense any contradictions based on the fact that my dad was much older than me, married (to my mother, no less), looked different than me (I took after mom), BIG, went to work each day, etc. The statement simply fit within the embedded awareness I had that my father was a hard working man who did a lot of yard work on the weekends.

Israel had a long, long history where little by little (sometimes gobs at a time) God embedded the sense of Himself into their very beings. It wasn’t merely a conscious awareness, for it mostly went much deeper … way beyond what they could even begin to explain. How did God do this? Through every way imaginable!

He spoke of the relationship between them as father and son, or even husband and wife … and yet they were so painfully aware of the incompleteness of such a connection. Now, one might argue the contradiction of having BOTH relationships with the same parties, but it was merely stated to be so by God … and they took it into their memories.

There were also multitudes of sacrifices and other rituals that presented shadows of something substantial … for those continually repeated sacrifices didn’t really satisfy, they only made the need for the real thing more and more intense!

They were given laws and rules and principles by which to govern themselves. Once again, these statutes only made their need for fulfillment painfully obvious. And yet, what were they to do but simply go through the motions of a life that became a vicious cycle.

They had been given songs to sing which became merely dry repetitions of a hope that seemed unattainable.

Every child grew up learning these things so that they became as routine as our own A,B,Cs, 1,2,3s, 1+1=2, and “I pledge allegiance to the flag ….” (for us Americans who learned it that is). Now, imagine knowing these things, but not being able to read and write, not even understanding what those numbers mean, or how to add and subtract, or not having the faintest idea what the “Pledge of Allegiance” means! Whoa, wait a minute … maybe we don’t have to imagine too hard!! doh!!

What I’m telling you is that God had prepped this whole society with a shadow reality embedded into the the things they had grown up with as they learned to quote and memorize and perform ceremonies and rituals and sing the same old songs and routinely visit the holy places and hear the prophecies that were so unfilled, though they may have assumed that the men of old had supposedly fulfilled them. The fact is that the religious leadership had been so intertwined with the political arenas of their contemporaries that they were imagining a messiah that would be born who would come and crush their enemies. They had totally pushed out the true justice, mercy and compassion that was embedded into their historical upbringing … but the downcast losers of the day (the majority of the people) were anxiously hoping for those things.

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. Hosea 11:1

Regarding your question about “out of Egypt I called My son”, I think you’re straining too hard and overlooking the simplicity of it. You see, it was the connection “the prophet” would have with Moses that was unfulfilled in everything they had experienced. For Moses said,

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like ME from among you, from your own countrymen, you shall listen to HIM. Deuteronomy 18:15

Though MANY prophets had been raised up from among the people there was still that unanimous sense that none had really fit the bill. Remember the question they asked John the baptist …

Are you ‘the Prophet’? John 1:21

They KNEW that the one Moses referred to hadn’t yet come.

See that little phrase, “out of Egypt I called My son”? It seems like such an insignificant thing, but the built-in relational aspect would have jumped out to any Jew who KNEW that through the prophet Moses Israel had been called out of Egypt … and “the prophet” was to be “like Moses”. Not only that, but “the prophet” mirrored many of the historical highlights of Israel. You see, “the prophet” wasn’t one who would not understand their pain and suffering, but would be FAMILIAR with it so that he would UNDERSTAND their weaknesses and failures.

THIS is the stuff they understood in the fulfillments. They would even consider going back and technically dissecting each and every word to see if “the prophet” had fulfilled it to a “T”. Why not? Because they already knew how those scriptures fit into their own history and long-dead prophets and kings and wars and conquests and failures, etc, etc. The real fulfillments to come were not detailed predictions needing to come to pass, but instead they were the SUBSTANCE OF REALITY that had NEVER come to pass in all the so-called fulfillments during their long history. It was the “like Dad” expectations that were fulfilled in Christ. For those who had their emptiness filled by the life of God’s Spirit these fulfillments FINALLY made sense because for the first time there was a prophet who did not fail in completing the will of God.

I think you’re reading too much into the prophecy Peter was claiming to be fulfilled in Christ. Here’s how Peter was seeing it:

Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Acts 2:29-32

Do you notice how Peter did not suggest any fulfillment other than what he spoke in the above verses? You gotta figure that this was one of those much debated passages among the rabbis as to what in the world David may have been talking about when it got to the part of him not remaining in the grave (“abandoned to hades”) and not decomposing. If you want to talk about “over-spiritualizing” scripture, I can guarantee you that Israel’s leaders had come up with some real stretches over this one. It would have been a very familiar scripture among the Jews as I’m sure many of them argued over which rabbi’s interpretation was the best. I think the truth of the “mystery” simply came to Peter as he spoke. The mystery that had stumped them for centuries was simply that David PROJECTED the promise onto himself since he knew that the resurrection of the Christ was to become his heritage.

Now the scripture that Peter quoted after this (“The Lord said unto my Lord…”) was the same one Jesus used to totally confound the Pharisees (in Matthew 22:41-46) by presenting it as a puzzle.

“What do you think about the Christ, whose son is he?” The Pharisees said, “The son of David.” Jesus said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord’ …?” Matthew 22:41-43

Always look for the simplicity in any “fulfilled Scripture”.

Jim :)