Broad meadows

For those who have been following these writings, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for taking the time to do so. I think when I reach the conclusion of them you will see why I am making the following request: If you have the means to do so, please take the time to print out what I have written starting from my first page titled “Introduction “ from October of 2023 and all of them from then until I have reached a conclusion.
To those who have been following the “Law, justice. . .” series, it hasn’t exactly ended, I’m just pivoting to a different emphasis. In summary, I think the greatest threat to humanity’s existence rests in the governments of the world. I think that idea became more distinct from the measures taken during what was labeled a pandemic. The series so far has been about many things involving biblical prophecy and the methods I’ve been taught to how things end up being the way they are among humanity because of over governance.I have dealt with how false worldviews affect those governing decisions. So to day I will be turning my attention to what I have seen in the church and as usual, comparing it to biblical prophecy and doctrine.

Before I start, though, I want you to know that I love the Church and the people in them. There is probably no warmer feeling that I have experienced than being among them for so long. Even the ones that disappointed me, I care for very much. Make no mistake, being rejected by them does hurt and I miss times of corporate worship. Unfortunately, it’s not a simple matter to me to just step back into another church. Many of the things scripture teaches, they simply don’t practice or believe. That will always put me at odds with leadership, something I don’t really want in a community I might belong to. I’m sure they don’t want that, either.

I don’t feel I need to step back from any of my attitudes, behaviors or writings I have done or made. I have read the Bible dozens of times, including the hard to pronounce names, my entire adult life. I have put together classes that met with high praise and the study that I put into those classes were obvious to those present. I have spent countless hours in studying the prophetic value of the symbolism present in scripture. I have tried to live up to what I have learned. So when I talk about the things that I will be addressing, it will based on those things and not some random complaint.

Today I just want to make one point: The churches attitude toward the Old Testament. There are some in the church who call for a total disassociation of the Old Testament with New Testament. This would be a mistake at the very least. The New Testament alone has many Old Testament quotes in it , how can you disassociate with it? But in my own run in with my previous church leadership, the precipitating moment for us came in how they were approaching and teaching part of the book of Exodus.

The symbolism in the book of Exodus is the thickest you will find anywhere. It gets especially thick when the articles for the temple are discussed. Using the methodology of connecting symbols across the whole of scripture to gain meaning from what we were reading, I could have gone on for quite a while on just the first six verses, but they had four chapters they wanted to cover in an hour. To me, that is the same as not reading it and trying to understand what the LORD is saying. I have a short parable I would like to illustrate the problem you have with that type of analysis I call “The grocery list.”

Imagine that you are walking along when you see something flutter in the grass. You come to where it is and you see that it is a twenty dollar bill. How do you value that find? Most likely you would keep it, possibly trying to find out who lost it, but at the very least you would keep it and not just throw it back on the grass where you found it. Now imagine that the fluttering turns out to be what appears to be an old grocery list. How would you value that find? You might not throw it back into the grass, but most likely you would crumple it up and put it into your pocket until you got home to throw it away.

But wait, there’s a twist: After finding the list, you tell someone about the list, he looks at it and said he recognizes the ingredients for a meal, that if consumed regularly would add 15 years to your life. How would you value that list then? Wouldn’t you want to know the chef and get his recipe? It’s a very different posture than just skimming over the list of ingredients. That is how, whether directly or indirectly, the church is valuing the Old Testament, as just an old grocery list.