The Least Of These My Brethren

The Blind Beggar
By: Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans

Today I will share with you yet another Bible passage indicating that men, not women, are the image of God our Father. It comes from within the following New Testament passage:

Matthew 25:31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus indicates that our judgement is somewhat dependent on how we have treated men, who act as His surrogates, His stand-ins, His alternates. Even “the least of these”, His brethren, are all still representative of Him. They are living representations, likenesses of Him. Actions done towards these likenesses, or images, of God are accounted as actions done towards God Himself.

So, how do we know That Jesus Christ was only talking about men? Well, by the words God chose to use, of course. Jesus calls His likenesses, “brethren” ἀδελφῶν (adelphōn) in verse 40. Jesus did not say, brothers and sisters. And in verse 45 when Jesus only says, “to one of the least of these” ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων and does not say add “brethren”, every single word of that phrase is in its masculine form. Feel free to double check it for yourself: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/matthew/25.htm

So, the Bible never tells us anywhere that women are made in the image of God, and quite scrupulously avoids doing so, in places where it would have been far easier to just say, all people are in the image of God, if that was the truth.

Now, does that mean that we are free to bedevil women, and are welcome to recreationally use them for our punching bags? No! They are God’s creatures also, and as such, we should not be cruel to them but show appreciation for them maintaining their proper place and love them by doing what is in their eternal best interest. Just because God intentionally chose never to claim that He is also represented by womankind doesn’t mean women are to be treated poorly or that we can’t also be rewarded for showing appropriate kindness towards any of God’s other creatures.

But, be especially good to men, because each man is a likeness of God.

1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.

Don’t Be Stupid! (part 2)

Leviticus 19:28 You are not to make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead or make any tattoo marks upon yourself. I am the Lord.

Disclaimer: This post is an opinion post. I don’t believe that all the Old Testament laws for the Jewish nation necessarily apply to us, however we may find some wisdom in them regarding how not to be offensive to God and to others.

When a woman is married, she becomes her husband’s property. They together become “one flesh”. Her body belongs to her husband, “to have and to hold”. Brides, who aren’t widows, are supposed to be virgins, unspoiled.

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So, what does the husband, who images Jesus Christ, deserve? A rebellious woman who has vandalized her body with piercings, a tramp stamp, or other tattooed graffiti that now blemishes her body? Of course not. Don’t Be Stupid!

A young woman getting tattoos or piercings isn’t “investing in body art”, she’s stealing her body’s natural beauty from her future husband. She’s adding blemishes to her body without his consent, diminishing her natural body in an unnatural way that he most likely would not want. And most men really don’t want such trashy graffiti, or things to snag or get infected, on their wife’s body.

cameron232 says: “Tats and piercing are gross”

Cill says: “I dislike piercings and tattoos, and haven’t tried to analyze why before. It seems like a fundamental repulsion, like the thought of sodomy or eating shite. No matter how attractive a woman is, any sign of self-mutilation puts me right off. It’s a reckless vandalization of the appearance nature and environment have given her.”

I can’t say that I know of any men who would actually like for their future wife to be getting tats or piercings that they might not approve of. To do so without approval shows you’re already disregarding your future mate’s preference on the matter.

What might tattoos and piercings signal? A study on adolescents found: A higher prevalence of tattooing and piercings was observed in groups with a history of psychiatric disorders, criminal records, alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug consumption and initiation of sexual activity. That all sounds about right.

1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Since this is an opinion post, please share your opinions below.

I have said, Ye are gods (part 2)

Originally, I was going to write covering more aspects regarding men being “gods” in the first part of this series but then I realized I was going to need more than just one post to get this all written out in reasonably short posts for me to write and for y’all to read. Originally, I wasn’t going to mention Dominic “Bnonn” Tennant’s viewpoint on the “gods” addressed in Psalm 82:6-7 and John 10:34. But then I was mentioned in Bnonn & Foster’s newsletter, and so I have decided to briefly poke fun at their silly theory which attempts to avoid the obvious conclusion that God actually meant what He wrote, and what Jesus Christ again quoted and applied to men while in the form of a man, here on earth. They wrote:

When we first launched It’s Good To Be A Man, we were screeched at by complementarians for being hyper-patriarchal, and we were denounced by hyper-patriarchalists for being closet feminists. (Shout-out to our favorite reader who still routinely reminds us that we are women-worshipers for claiming that our sisters in the faith are being transformed into the image of Christ just like our brothers.)

Yes, I do receive their free newsletter and I do fairly regularly reply back with corrections to some part of it, and I do regularly attribute their consistent errors to their woman-worshipping beliefs. However, their blurb I quoted above does not accurately portray our doctrinal difference. They actually teach that Eve, and every woman after her, is already made in the image of God, not just that female saints are supposedly being transformed into the image of Christ. This stems from their willful failure of reading comprehension regarding passages in Genesis where God clearly went to exceptionally great lengths to avoid ever saying that women were created in God’s image, merely asserting that females and males were both created by God, while at the same time obsessively repeating that “Adam” himself was created in God’s image, as though that is a great and notable distinction that we should be made aware of.

Furthermore, in their quote they seemingly grasp at another straw, by citing a phrase from 2 Corinthians 3:18 as their “gotcha“ proof-text. I responded back to Bnonn & Foster, by email, as follows:

I’ll assume that the biblical phrase you misused above is quoted from 2 Corinthians 3:18. However if you weren’t so stuck on worshipping women as the image of your goddess, you would likely have realized that the verse is clearly not talking about our sisters in the faith, but about the men who are ministers of the church. As God would have it, when I opened up the verse online, my Bible version was previously set to Geneva, and in the footnote I read this:

“But Paul speaketh here properly, of the ministers of the Gospel, as it appeareth both by that that goeth before, and that that cometh after, and that, setting them his own example and his fellows.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 GNV – But we all behold as in a mirror the – Bible Gateway

But to be sure I looked up the verse in Greek, and sure enough the inspired word chosen for “All” is (πάντες or pantes) a masculine form of the neuter root adjective (πᾶς or pás).

2 Corinthians 3:18 Interlinear: and we all, with unvailed face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (biblehub.com)

So God even made it clear that He was speaking about men, before the [gender-ambiguous] translation, in case you wouldn’t already know (from 1 Corinthians 11:7) that it is [only] men who properly go before Him with unveiled faces.

Now if you have a moment, I also found this fascinating bit of early church commentary linked to 2 Corinthians 3:18. [which verse you cited]

Letter LI. From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. From here:

Philip Schaff: NPNF2-06. Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome – Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Sharkly’s note concerning the following quote: [I doubt the scholars currently translating these early church documents believe that only men are the image of God, and they are likely to prefer sexually inclusive language or gender-ambiguous language when they can get away with it, so the fact that, given that natural bias, it still clearly shines through that the original author believed only men to be the images of God, is a testimony to the irrefutably gendered way in which this letter was written prior to translation. While I have not seen this text in its original language, if I personally were tasked with translating it, chances are quite likely that my translation would even more clearly attest to men’s uniqueness in being earthly likenesses of God.]

For, among other wicked things, [Origen] has presumed to say this, too, that Adam lost the image of God, although Scripture nowhere declares that he did. Were it so, never would all the creatures in the world be subject to Adam’s seed—that is, to the entire human race; yet, in the words of the apostle, everything “is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind.” For never would all things be subjected to men if men had not—together with their authority over all—the image of God. But the divine Scripture conjoins and associates with this the grace of the blessing which was conferred upon Adam and upon the generations which descended from him. No one can by twisting the meaning of words presume to say that this grace of God was given to one only, and that he alone was made in the image of God (he and his wife, that is, for while he was formed of clay she was made of one of his ribs), but that those who were subsequently conceived in the womb and not born as was Adam did not possess God’s image, for the Scripture immediately subjoins the following statement: “And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and knew Eve his wife, and she bare him a son in his image and after his likeness, and called his name Seth.” And again, in the tenth generation, two thousand two hundred and forty-two years afterwards, God, to vindicate His own image and to show that the grace which He had given to men still continued in them, gives the following commandment: “Flesh…with the blood thereof shall ye not eat. And surely your blood will I require at the hand of every man that sheddeth it; for in the image of God have I made man.” From Noah to Abraham ten generations passed away, and from Abraham’s time to David’s, fourteen more, and these twenty-four generations make up, taken together, two thousand one hundred and seventeen years. Yet the Holy Spirit in the thirty-ninth psalm [verse 6], while lamenting that all men walk in a vain show, and that they are subject to sins, speaks thus: “For all that every man walketh in the image.” Also after David’s time, in the reign of Solomon his son, we read a somewhat similar reference to the divine likeness. For in the book of Wisdom, which is inscribed with his name, Solomon says: “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity.” And again, about eleven hundred and eleven years afterwards, we read in the New Testament that men have not lost the image of God. For James, an apostle and brother of the Lord, whom I have mentioned above—that we may not be entangled in the snares of Origen—teaches us that man does possess God’s image and likeness. For, after a somewhat discursive account of the human tongue, he has gone on to say of it: “It is an unruly evil…therewith bless we God, even the Father and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.” Paul, too, the “chosen vessel,” who in his preaching has fully maintained the doctrine of the gospel, instructs us that man is made in the image and after the likeness of God. “A man,” he says, “ought not to wear long hair, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.” He speaks of “the image” simply, but explains the nature of the likeness by the word “glory.”

Instead of the three proofs from Holy Scripture which you said would satisfy you if I could produce them, behold I have given you seven. Who, then, will put up with the follies of Origen? I will not use a severer word and so make myself like him or his followers, who presume at the peril of their soul to assert dogmatically whatever first comes into their head, and to dictate to God, whereas they ought either to pray to Him or to learn the truth from Him. For some of them say that the image of God which Adam had previously received was lost when he sinned. Others surmise that the body which the Son of God was destined to take of Mary was the image of the Creator. Some identify this image with the soul, others with sensation, others with virtue. These make it baptism, those assert that it is in virtue of God’s image that man exercises universal sway. Like drunkards in their cups they ejaculate, now this, now that, when they ought rather to have avoided so serious a risk, and to have obtained salvation by simple faith, not denying the words of God. To God they ought to have left the sure and exact knowledge of His own gift, and of the particular way in which He has created men in His image and after His likeness. Forsaking this course, they have involved themselves in many subtle questions, and through these they have been plunged into the mire of sin. But we, dearly beloved, believe the words of the Lord, and know that God’s image remains in all men, and we leave it to Him to know in what respect man is created in His image. And let no one be deceived by that passage in the epistle of John, which some readers fail to understand, where he says: “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” For this refers to the glory which is then to be revealed to His saints; just as also in another place we read the words “from glory to glory,” [2 Corinthians 3:18] of which glory the saints have even in this world received an earnest and a small portion. At their head stands Moses, whose face shone exceedingly, and was bright with the brightness of the sun. Next to him comes Elijah, who was caught up into heaven in a chariot of fire, and did not feel the effects of the flame. Stephen, too, when he was being stoned, had the face of an angel visible to all. And this which we have verified in a few cases is to be understood of all, that what is written may be fulfilled. “Every one that sanctifieth himself shall be numbered among the blessed.” For, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

That concludes the excerpt from my email in reply to Bnonn & Foster, and the introductory setup for this next sharing of my beliefs.

I can see already that I’m going to need at least a third post to explain how men are indeed “gods” and what that might mean for us and how men and women should then live accordingly.

I was enlightened by this early church father’s note, and I discovered that psalms 39:6 describes all men using the exact same masculine Hebrew noun translated as “image” used elsewhere only in the phrase “image of God” in Genesis 1:27 & 9:6. So now there is yet another verse, previously unknown to me, referring to all men, but not women, as walking about as “images”.

Anyhow, Bnonn seems to have taken to seeing the “gods” of Psalm 82 as much like the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and that the “gods” are various immortal Titans or powerful spirit beings who compose a “Divine Council” not headed by Thanos or Captain Marvel, but by the Most High. And that despite being the supreme ruler of all the universe, the Most High, is really a very bad communicator, like Joe Biden, frequently needing folks like Bnonn to explain and walk back his clearest statements.

Psalm 82:6(AMP) I said, “You are gods; Indeed, all of you are sons of the Most High. 7 Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.”

Bnonn says that clearly these immortal Spirits can’t die like men nor fall dead like earthly princes, but that God meant to say that they will suffer a spiritual separation from God, alive, in the lake of fire which is a depiction of “death”, sometimes called the second death, even though they’re still just as alive there as those spirits ever were. Evidently Bnonn’s God has great trouble expressing Himself clearly!

Bnonn struggles greatly with Psalm 82 and even admits that his belief has some problematic spots that are difficult to overcome. But to otherwise take those words of God literally, and to use Psalm 82 as if it were speaking of men, how Jesus clearly applied it in John 10, would mean Bnonn of necessity giving up his Feminism and his religious ideology that men and women are both equally images of our Father & Son Godhead, and that is still anathema to Bnonn.

We really don’t need to struggle so hard if we can just accept that the holy Scriptures which came to us, tell us that men are gods, and sons of the Most High, nevertheless, we men have been doomed to die, even the greatest of us. Luke, in his genealogy of Jesus Christ, by inspiration, plainly tells us that Adam, our fleshly father, was “the son of God”. Which would make us all descendants of the Father, who is thereby the patriarchal LORD of all spirits and all flesh.

Luke 3:38 who was the son of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.

Sorry if my writing here is seemingly “stream of consciousness”, as I point to the layout of many separate foundational stones set into the metaphorical groundwork of our temples of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s now look at the definition of the key noun here: “god”.

  1. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
  2. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
  3. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
  4. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
  5. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed.

It is accepted convention to use a capital letter “G” whenever referring to the One God of definition number one. Whereas, except for when at the beginning of a sentence, when referring to the gods of definitions two through five, we use a normal lower case “g”. I try to follow that convention, for clarity’s sake, but I am not the One perfect “God” and therefore I am not completely immune from making errors and typos.

I believe that all men can fit definition two by showing an aspect of masculine God in their created being. I believe the Bible teaches us that all men also fit definition four, by being images of the supernatural God, to be reverenced by their wives. (Ephesians 5:33) No other graven images (idols) are to be made than the image God Himself formed in his own imprint from the dust of the earth. Adam, whose image was then reproduced in his son, Seth, (Genesis 5:3) and eventually was passed down to us men as well. And the words of some men are followed: Princes, Judges, Rulers, Pastors, Priests, and Etc., fitting definition five. The early church fathers weren’t scared of men being called “gods”:

Epistle of “Mathetes” to Diognetus from Chapter 10How will you love Him who has first so loved you? And if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness. And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing. For it is not by ruling over his neighbors, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can any one by these things become an imitator of God. But these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbor; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.

So clearly it wasn’t originally so inconceivable for mortal men to be called “gods” or to be encouraged to become better gods. Calling mortal men “gods”, is like a litmus test, which all Feminists reflexively balk at, preferring to reverence and give honor to other “idols” but never to the earthly image of God. LOL

The Feminist’s lord and master, Satan, keeps them from ever acknowledging all men’s exclusive reflection of their Father God. The “image of God” isn’t inclusive of women, it’s exclusive, a men’s-only group. But women can still join into God’s revealed truth by appropriately acknowledging and reverencing men as the images of God.

Stay tuned for more to come. (Part 3)

I have said, Ye are gods (part 1)

God gave mankind our various different languages at Babel, when previously all the people of the world had shared one common language. (On the recently demolished Georgia Guidestones, globalist goal number 3 was to: “Unite humanity with a living new language.”) So, God was the originator and the divider of all of our various current languages. Whereas the globalists indicated a desire for a new man-originated language, subject to frequent changes.

Something we should notice is that in the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek and also in English, the word “god” is an exclusively masculine title. Our masculine English word “god”, also has its own separate feminine form which is “goddess”. God, Himself, first made it that way.

Psalm 82:6(AMP) I said, “You are gods; Indeed, all of you are sons of the Most High. 7 Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.”

John 10:34(KJV) Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

When Jesus is charged with blasphemy by the Jews (in John 10) “because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Jesus rightly reminds the Jews that God Himself had called men “gods”.

There is quite a lot to be noticed in this Old Testament passage which was first given by inspiration to the Psalmist in Hebrew, and then was quoted again by Jesus Christ in the Greek New Testament. Firstly I’d like to say that I studied those verses in both Hebrew and Greek and the gendered terminology is entirely masculine in both languages. (you/ye, gods, sons, men, princes, and Etc.) And God, who is omniscient, would not have made a gender error in His inspired word. So clearly God meant what was originally written, and Jesus used the passage again to say that men are gods, and that God’s true word cannot be wrong.

Now it is also very important to notice what omniscient God did not say. God did not say “Ye are gods and goddesses”. No, God only told us that men are gods. Not that men and women are all gods and goddesses. God was free to write whatever He wanted, to make His image clear to us, and He specifically chose to write, “Ye are gods”, while intentionally not saying “gods and goddesses”.

Feminism exposed

I decided to post this slightly adapted comment I left elsewhere.

First, watch this brief clip where Doc Holliday psychoanalyzes outlaw villain Johnny Ringo. Doc seems aided by introspection regarding his own troubled life.

cameron232 Had commented: “Listening to the feminists at work I figured out the following years ago: it’s not about equality it’s about revenge. Payback time.”

If you view the movie clip as an analogy, Feminists have a great empty hole right through the middle of them. And they want revenge on God for being born, female. They can never kill enough (through abortion) or steal enough (through legislated female equality of outcome, set-asides, and favoritism) or inflict enough pain (through no-fault divorce, child custody battles, hostile accusations, and constant disrespect of men) to ever fill up their gap of inequality and to make themselves feel satisfied in light of the depth of their soul’s “unresolved penis envy”. Feminists intuitively realize God made them a “weaker vessel” yet they seemingly cannot resolve themselves to just willingly accept that lot, which they can never change.

As Cill pointed out, young men are angered by receiving constant disrespectful treatment and are naturally turning against those Feminists who oppress them just for their creation as stronger vessels, which in all reality they also cannot truly categorically change.

The desire to change sexes, which was once correctly recognized as a disorder of the mind, is now foolishly being empowered. And it is greatly harmful to the deceived ones, who imagine that pretending to be remade, as the other sex, will somehow assuage their underlying dissatisfaction and their refusal to accept their Creator’s unequal and unalterable categorical ranking and expectations for them, as defined by their birth sex.

Fear God, and give glory to Him. And show reverence to men forasmuch as they exhibit God’s image and glory. (1 Corinthians 11:7) (Ephesians 5:33)

Is The Bible Bowdlerized?

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Definitions

Expurgate:

  1. To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example) before publication.
  2. To purify; to clear from anything noxious, offensive, or erroneous; to cleanse; to purge.

Bowdlerize:

  1. to expurgate (something, such as a book) by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar.
  2. to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content.

Etymology: Bowdler +‎ ize; named after English physician Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825). In 1818 he published ‘The Family Shakespeare’, a censored version of the bawdy works of William Shakespeare, expurgating “those words and expressions which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.”

Recently I was alerted to someone in the “Christian manosphere” linking to some purportedly “Christian” hardcore pornography. Is “Christian-pornography” an oxymoron? Thanks to Hollywood and our “Sex, drugs, & Rock ‘n’ Roll” promoting entertainment culture, our nations have been saturated with the sexualization of just about everything lately. However the church has traditionally been the force in society that desexualizes everything. Well … until recently.

Debbie Does Dallas

Rev. Tommy Nelson famously produced a series of filmed messages re-pornifying a part of the Bible.

The yarn-spinning, joke-telling Texan travels the country using the Bible’s Song of Solomon as God’s definitive message on dating, marriage and sexual intimacy. … He explained words like pomegranate, vineyard and garden are layered in sexual imagery. Raisin cakes represent aphrodisiacs. And the phrase “let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me” means begetting has begun.

So does the Bible deal with the primary focus of our generation, sex?

fertility goddess worship

Jack, over at Σ Frame recently said:

Just to point this out… the Bible has R and X rated content in prose and PG language.

Is that true? And how does that work?

We shall ponder this curious matter of whether the Bible has been expurgated of its sexual mojo and whether there is merit to “brining the sexy back”. But first, as I stroke my beard and try to think of a wise and orderly way to open this subject, please smooth down your pornstache and prepare your mind.

Pornstache

Sirach 26:10(NRSV) Keep strict watch over a headstrong daughter, or else, when she finds liberty, she will make use of it. … 12 As a thirsty traveler opens his mouth and drinks from any water near him, so she will sit in front of every tent peg and open her quiver to the arrow.

Since Protestants don’t generally recognize the apocryphal books as part of the Bible, then perhaps without too much sacrilege we can then speculate about the above apocryphal passage and try to surmise what the ancient Hebrew author was trying to say … and why he didn’t just say it in plain English. Is the tent peg a literal tent stake? Could the quiver and arrow be figurative terms? Are you pervs already presuming it to be something sexual? Part of the issue is that there is a change in language over time and through translation. But is it possible that those who have translated the text have bowdlerized it by rendering Hebrew figures of speech in literal English? I’m not an ancient Hebrew father, but, their lives, back then, must have been pretty carefree if their biggest worry for a rebellious daughter was that she’d go out and sit in front of all the tent pegs and gather up arrows in her quiver. Godfearing fathers in today’s oversexualized culture have to worry about their daughters becoming sluts!

The translation problems may lie in the fact that Bible translators don’t generally deal in dirty words. Nor may the authors have chosen to use dirty words if they existed. The whole concept of “dirty words” is even sort of a cultural phenomenon. Is any particular word unwholesome? Or do words only convey the shared meaning and connotations we allow them, making the words themselves inert, unless you use them in an unwholesome way. Take for instance “the F-word” the queen mother of all dirty words. Is saying it like saying an incantation to summon evil? If I say “fuck” in a forest and nobody hears me, is it a sin? What if I’m heard? Or does sin come from disobedience and evil intentions?

For what it is worth, I had heard an urban legend regarding the etymology of the word “fuck” but after studiously researching the truth of the matter, the origin of the word is still mostly shrouded in mystery and is the subject of many speculations. The reason many folks use it as an expletive is because people have been conditioned not to say it in polite conversation, and so people often say it to emotionally express that they are not having a polite conversation moment. However, what is deemed as dirty conversation varies with the culture. God Himself remains unchanging, nor is the Omniscient naïve about any subject, including the two sexes He created. God has seen every sinful act ever committed. We don’t need to play coy at church. However, we should be careful in our speech since we will all be judged by our own words.(Matthew 12:34-37)

Many Christians seem to not want to ever speak to their children about sex, assuring that their children are either dangerously ignorant about sex or learn about it entirely from our perverted world instead.

Another translation problem may be that pornographic text could be made up of entirely inert words, which could be interpreted in another sense.

Give me your lovin’. Give it to me. Oh yeah, you’re the best. Oh yeah, I love what you do to me. Oh God I’m coming!

Was that people having sex or some new praise song lyrics? Would we know the difference if we read something like that in the book of Psalms?

Bible translators, generally like their life’s work to be accepted and not doubted or denounced, and so they have a personal incentive to not make their translation seem risqué. And modern translators may have additional financial incentive to get their translation adopted by denominations and the general public. So the incentives are always there to make God’s words more palatable and less objectionable.

Starting in the earliest church which began in a Roman society heavily influenced by Gnostics, Stoics, and Cynics, who viewed natural physical sexual acts and passions as inherently evil, there has been a push to further desexualize Christianity. And so today many risk-averse Christian leaders are also sex-averse cloistered and naïvely aloof in their ivory towers. While Hollywood usually focuses on the Roman orgies and the sexual decadence and corruption of Rome, the Roman church fathers were the olden day conservatives who along with other conservative sects tried unsuccessfully to stop the moral liberality that contributed to the weakening and eventual collapse of the empire.

Long story short, the human sex drive is stronger than most people’s drive to follow religious dogma, so unless you ignore the Pericope Adulterae and enforce God-given sexual law with dreadful force, society will steadily slip towards depravity.

Martin Luther lamented, when the civil Crown quit executing all adulterers, that his country was headed down a moral slippery slope … to … today’s Germany.

But does the Bible teach us more about sex, besides commands like killing all adulterers? Yeah! Proverbs 5 is an entire chapter about sex. For example:

Proverbs 5:15 Drink water from your own cistern,
And flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow into the street,
Streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
And not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 Like a loving doe and a graceful hind,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
Be exhilarated always with her love.
20 For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress,
And embrace the breasts of a foreigner?

So is Solomon telling us to not drink any water that isn’t from our own well, and not to let strangers have a drink from our well? Not even a cup of cold water given in Christ’s name? Or was Solomon using sexual euphemisms where the husband has a fountain and his wife has a well or cistern, because in that case then the commands are sensible and in keeping with the law of God. I have never even heard of a Christian man claiming they only drink water from their own well. So how can we apply these passages if they are bowdlerized and we are kept from understanding their wisdom? Well that’s where our free membership benefits kick in! I just explained it to you, for free. I may not fully understand it, but such as I have give I thee.

I think the correct position is to re-sexualize the Bible where it has clearly been desexualized, but otherwise to not sexualize the Bible just to make it more titillating to the sexually immoral.

Art Imitates Life: Biblical Forgery Edition

Christ and the Adulteress

“Christ and the Adulteress”, a forged ‘Vermeer’ painted by Han van Meegeren and sold to Hermann Göring.

A master painter from the Netherlands

Johannes Vermeer, 1632-1675, was an inspired painter, one of the old Dutch masters. Some consider him to be one of the holy trinity of Dutch painters along with Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh. Vermeer was a popular painter in his hometown of Delft during his heyday. However, due to the economic hard times brought on by the Third Anglo-Dutch War at sea occurring at the same time as the Dutch Republic was being invaded during the Franco-Dutch War, Vermeer had borrowed a large sum of money in hopes of being able to earn more money as an art dealer rather than just as an artist. Shortly thereafter he died suddenly at age 43 leaving his wife Catharina and the 11 surviving children of the 15 she had born to him, deep in debt. Vermeer and his work quickly faded into obscurity until, In the 19th century, Vermeer’s work was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published a highly influential essay on Vermeer’s art and attributed 66 paintings to him. There are currently only 34 paintings that are universally attributed to Vermeer, but at one time there were more than 150 paintings that were claimed to be his work.

Vermeer’s work is seemingly broken into two time frames and styles. Vermeer’s early Baroque paintings were often large-scale biblical and mythological scenes, while his later work showed scenes of daily middle class life in interior house settings. Vermeer’s later mature style is crisper and clearer than the more subdued tones and colors he used in his earlier work. The art world, which had once again become enthralled with Vermeer’s work, even debated on whether ‘Vermeer’ might have actually been more that one painter. The art world was eagerly hoping to discover some transitional works proving that Vermeer’s early style had in fact evolved into Vermeer’s later style.

(Which reminds me of how Evolutionists are so eager to find a “missing link” between humans and apes, that they conjured up ‘Nebraska Man’ from only a pigs tooth and fraudulently combined the jaw of an orangutan with a microcephalic human skull to produce ‘Piltdown Man’.)

Adding to Vermeer’s inspired works of art

Next in today’s tale comes aspiring Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, 1889-1947, whose paintings mimicked the styles of artists from the Dutch Golden Age, but critics disparaged his paintings as “derivative” and “unoriginal”. Eventually, to make a better living, van Meegeren became an art dealer just like his idol, Vermeer, had also ended up doing. He sold his own paintings for tiny amounts while selling older works for huge sums. Because he was an art dealer Han van Meegeren became familiar with all the existing ways to authenticate old paintings. Eventually he figured out that he could fool all the inspections by buying old canvases scrubbing the artwork off of them and instead of mixing the old-time powder pigments with oil he mixed them with Bakelite resin and then baked the paintings in his oven until they appeared as if they were dried and cracked from old age.

In 1937 van Meegeren copied Johannes Vermeer’s style in his painting “Supper at Emmaus,”. He then called in art expert Abraham Bredius, nicknamed “the Pope”, reflecting the authority he held in the art world, Bredius then publicly pronounced van Meegeren’s forgery to be “the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft.” Although van Meegeren was not nearly as good of an artist as Vermeer, whose art he forged, because he painted exactly what people were dreaming of finding, they paid a fine price for his miraculous “finds” and trusted the art world’s “experts” and testing with regard to their legitimacy. And so it came about that Han van Meegeren ended up trading the poor quality painting shown above to Nazi Germany’s second in command, Hermann Göring, in exchange for over one hundred real original Dutch works the Nazi high command had seized, that were worth a great fortune. Hermann Göring knew that there were very few authenticated works by Vermeer and he did not realize that small number was already inflated by eleven of van Meegeren’s personal forgeries. The rare “Vermeer” painting was everything that Hermann Göring could have wished for, Jesus and the forgiven woman both looked German while the unspecified Jews in the background were dark and sinister looking!

In 2020, while many theatres were closed down, the fascinating drama concerning Han van Meegeren and his forgeries was released as a movie, “The Last Vermeer”, based on the 2008 book “The Man Who Made Vermeers”.

Chicom chicanery

Next our story skips to recent times in communist China where textbooks are being produced, for vocational students by the Chinese University of Electronic Science and Technology Press, containing a modified “Bible story” to teach students professional ethics and respect for the law.

The Chinese have pirated the story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery and changed the ending:

The crowd wanted to stone the woman to death as per their law. But Jesus said, ‘Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.’ Hearing this, they slipped away one by one. When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead,” the textbook said.

LOL So the Chicoms just authored an apocryphal declaration by Jesus that, He too was a sinner. While their swipe at Christianity is transparent, to us, they combine their big lie with a bit of solid truth, rightly teaching that: if nobody who makes mistakes and has flaws is allowed to enforce the law, you thereby allow for no enforcement at all and are in fact putting all laws to death.

The Chinese communist government has often pirated and modified Bible stories in the past, to suit their purposes, but now the Chinese Roman Catholic Church has finally decided to fight back. Apparently the Chicoms making alterations to this particular “Bible story”, that formerly had shown Jesus assisting a woman in cuckolding her husband and getting off scot-free, does not sit well with the Church of Rome.

And why would changing that particular Bible story finally raise the ire of the Church of Rome?

Don’t adulterate our Biblical forgery!

Because the entire story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, sometimes referred to in Latin as the “Pericope Adulterae”, (John 7:53–8:11) is in fact Roman Catholicism’s own apocryphal addition to the Gospel of John. It was first added into lost Latin manuscripts by the Great Whore of Rome, possibly sometime during the AD 300’s. In some Bibles the Pericope Adulterae was inserted into Luke’s Gospel rather than John’s.

The Pericope Adulterae is not in Papyrus 66 or in Papyrus 75, both of which have been assigned to the late 100s or early 200s, nor in two important manuscripts produced in the early or mid 300s, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. The first surviving Greek manuscript to contain the pericope is the Latin-Greek diglot Codex Bezae, produced in the 400s or 500s.

Most notated Bibles will have a note that the text of John 7:53–8:11 is not in any of the earliest manuscripts. It is pretty well recognized that the Pericope Adulterae was written long after the apostles inspired works had all been finished, and we don’t really know who first wrote it, just that it wasn’t John or any of the other original inspired apostles who wrote the New Testament.

Christianity first began to flourish under Roman rule during the time of Emperor Constantine, who converted to the religion in 312 A.D. Although he brought a strong Christian presence to the empire, Roman culture and institutions resisted the change for more than half a century. Christianity became the official religion of Rome during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great, who ruled from 379 to 395 A.D.

I believe John 7:53–8:11 was composed and added to the original inspired Gospel of John around the time that the church was being co-opted by the rulers of Rome on its way to becoming their official religion for the Roman Empire. As I have mentioned elsewhere, there were many polytheistic goddess worshippers in Rome, whose religion had included orgies and temple prostitution, who were then forcibly converted to the new state religion of Christianity. Much was done to appease them. I’m sure the Roman rulers didn’t want to have to put all of the adulterous population to death as God’s law, given through Moses, required. (Leviticus 20:10 & Deuteronomy 22:22)

How much better it would be if somebody could “remember” being told an old story of Jesus forgiving somebody who was clearly guilty of adultery, and then that story could be added to one of the Gospels. Perhaps the person could be a sympathetic figure, better make it a woman. Then all adulterers and adulteresses can be absolved of the earthly penalties of the law set up by God for societies own protection. No more law. Voila!

Unfortunately they didn’t just grandfather their whores and whoremongers into Christianity. By adding to God’s inspired words they bound the gate open for all sorts of future lawlessness within Christendom.

As a case in point, I was reading a news story recently about a young boy who had been horrifically abused to death over a number of weeks by his mother’s new boyfriend while his mother helped him to cover up the boys injuries and declining condition and then tried to make her son’s murder appear to be from natural causes. The crime was so gruesome and heinous that most commenters were calling for the mother and her boyfriend to either get the death penalty or life imprisonment. But some chowder-head (a churchian I presume) publicly reprimanded all the other commenters claiming that nobody should be “casting stones” (not even comments indicating a desire to see fitting punishment) at the guilty murderers because we are all sinners as well. And there you have the fruit of it! Churchians will now defend even murderous child abusers against the slightest insult, based solely upon an apocryphal passage added to God’s word. No wonder the Chicoms want to fix that erroneous passage, and prevent any resulting lawlessness that would cause decline in their civilization.

The added passage, when applied, invalidates all law enforcement within Christianity and aids and abets lawlessness.

I myself have always had misgivings about that story of Jesus preventing an adulteress from receiving the earthly penalty of His Father’s law against adultery. She is neither recorded as expressing repentance nor faith. Why would Jesus help her to cuckold her husband, and to deny the cheated husband the justice of the law, and instead condemn the victim to a life he never chose of being bound to an adulteress.

Right about now some Feminist chowder-head churchian is probably already starting to speculate that the husband must have deserved to be cheated on. SMH Seriously! Quit worshipping all whores over God’s laws!

Anyhow, after I expressed my misgivings about the passage here previously, commenter “burnstaicho” pointed out to me that the whole story was not a part of the original inspired Greek New Testament. https://laf443259520.androsphere.net/2019/06/28/horny-housewives-of-the-patristic-age/#comment-1593

(Sorry, but I don’t fall in with the silly “inspired-KJV” dogmatists who think that the King James English translation is somehow God’s only inspired word. I think the KJV is one of the very best English translations, but, it came primarily from Latin manuscripts not directly from the mind of God. Refuting that heresy would be a lengthy post in itself.)

Recently, on another site, when I wrote about the snake-handling, poison-drinking, passage (Mark 16:9-20) that it was also not in the original manuscripts, I got warned that I was likely arousing disbelief among “seekers” by questioning the use of passages we know were later added to the inspired New Testament books. FWIW Mark 16:9-20 seems to have been added in to the New Testament a little bit earlier than John 7:53–8:11, and so even its apocryphal provenance is less dubious than the whore story. But is it really those of us who don’t want spurious and faulty passages kept in the Bible, and taught as inspired truth, who end up discrediting God’s word? We are told elsewhere in the Bible neither to add nor take away from God’s words. Would God have bothered to tell that to us Bible readers if nobody was ever going to effectively try to add or take away from His words? Shouldn’t we be zealous in removing the human-concocted doctrines added by the Great Whore of Rome? If you study the history of the New Testament you’ll see that a few other apocryphal bits that were added to the New Testament have already been removed from most current Bibles.

(If you believe Mark 16:9-20, then get your clot-shot, because believers are supposedly immune to all poisons. /S However I wouldn’t ever recommend risking your future based upon apocryphal additions to the Bible’s known inspired texts.)

The good news is that the Hebrew Old Testament was kept accurately by the Jewish scribes and whenever we find new manuscripts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, they only further prove the absolute accuracy of the Old Testament’s transcription down through time. Every jot and tittle is the same. Also with all the early manuscripts we have of the Greek New Testament and early translations from around the ancient world we can clearly tell what the original writing’s did say with great certainty. Any serious arguments over alternate wordings are seemingly only related to the very few pieces of later added wording where whoever was adding these apocryphal additions to the original text was also often taking liberties with where they added it and how it was worded. The best way to honor God’s word is to not allow these couple of clearly apocryphal additions to remain in it, nor to try to change or ignore any of the original text due to being ashamed of it or disliking it.

You can do your own research about how the Pericope Adulterae was first added into various Latin Gospels hundreds of years after the apostles were gone, and how it didn’t likely even originate from Greek text like the rest of the inspired New Testament did. There are enablers of lawlessness who defend this passage not being included in any of the earliest manuscripts, but unbiased Biblical scholars have concluded that the Pericope Adulterae is an apocryphal addition to the original text added hundreds of years later and first added into Latin manuscripts and then later added into Greek manuscripts. It kills the law of God that Jesus came to do and uphold:

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

It has always been clear to me that the Pericope Adulterae trashes our heavenly Father’s law and abnegates discipline within the church leading us to today’s lawless churches. Once I found out the passage wasn’t even part of the original Greek Gospel of John, it didn’t take me long to have a zeal to see it removed again, to the glory of my Christ who certainly would not have assisted in violating His Father’s law to keep the cheated husband of an adulteress bound in a cuckolded state. Jesus came to free us from our bondage to sin, not to empower us to sin. Abnegating the enforcement of God’s laws and church discipline will get many unsuspecting churchians cast into hell.

Matthew 7:22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Just as Han van Meegeren’s poorly painted “Vermeers” were a stain on the beautiful work of Johannes Vermeer until they were discredited and no longer attributed to Vermeer, so also any uninspired passages added to the Bible will only be a stain on the word of God until they are removed and we stop their enabling of lawlessness.

Is God after your money?

Rich Young Ruler

“Christ and the Rich Young Ruler” by Heinrich Hofmann

Note: If you are in a really big hurry, just read the “lesson” section.

When I was a young blue-pilled churchian I remember hearing the following lyrics from the song ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’ sung by U2’s Bono, regarding televangelists:

And I can’t tell the difference between ABC News,
Hill Street Blues, and a preacher on the Old Time Gospel Hour
Stealing money from the sick and the old.
Well, the God I believe in isn’t short of cash, mister!

I remember at that time thinking Bono was right that God wasn’t short of cash, but resenting that he had said so. For I feared that if word got out people would stop being guilted into supporting all the money-hungry churchian institutions, which at that point I naïvely believed were somehow a feature of us collectively living out Christianity, as though Christians collectively financed the working of God. Reminiscent of the old Catholic jingle:

“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, another soul from purgatory springs!”

The story of Jesus and the rich young ruler is found in Matthew 19:16-26, Mark 10:17-27, and Luke 18:18-27. In it the young and successful man asks Jesus, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus basically tells him to be perfect he must obey all the laws, which the young man claimed he always had, and then Jesus added, “If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. Basically Jesus asked the man to give up absolutely everything of himself including his very influential job and to become a homeless follower of Him. Jesus didn’t say that to everyone, but it is recorded for us in three Gospels as an example that nobody meets God’s righteous standards, not even a devout young leader of the traditionally theocratic Jewish nation who recognized that Jesus taught the truth.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

This was just like in Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus earlier told people that they would need to pluck out their eyes and cut off their hands to prevent themselves from sinning lest “that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” None of Jesus disciples took that as a literal command and maimed themselves. Jesus was just pointing out, in that case, that lust and hate were already in everyone’s hearts, and trying to make them realize that, even if outwardly they seemed blameless in relation to the law, inwardly they were still going to need a sacrificial savior. Because our nature is to sin, and we cannot be made holy through our own willpower.

I believe Jesus was illustrating that we all can’t even keep the first commandment.

The first commandment is: Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Eve the defiler put her own self-advancement before obedience to God, just like Satan had also previously done. Satan deceived Eve into thinking her disobedience would allow her to be like God, just like Satan had once tried to usurp and be like the Most High God. Adam then obeyed Eve’s request above God’s command. We all have things we put before total devotion to God every day, and those things that take God’s place in our life are “other gods”. I mean you still have stuff, right? You didn’t give all your stuff to the poor and aren’t reading this on a computer at the public library before you go out to witness for God and beg for bread crusts, am I right? Because if you’ve still got stuff, then Jesus said you’re not yet perfect. (to the rich young ruler)

No doubt the rich young ruler already tithed 10%. Tithing paid for the Levites and temple guards that provided a justice system and enforced law and order in the Old Testament theocracy that God had prescribed. Tithing was the Jewish taxation system that funded their national governance before they demanded to have kings. Then the kings also made demands of them separate from their 10% tithe. However, notice that Jesus told the man to go and distribute his wealth to the poor, He did not ask the rich man to give it to Him, or to the temple or synagogue.

That is contrary to many of today’s churchians who twist a single verse about Jewish tithing from the Old Testament and morph it into a self-serving doctrine called “storehouse giving”, whereby their dupes are required to give all of their charitable giving through, “the storehouse”, referring, of course, to that pastor’s church. And as they say, “funds are fungible”.

All of that has just laid a backdrop for the Biblical insight regarding money that I now want to explain to you:

~ Beginning of lesson ~

Matthew 22:15(NET) Then the Pharisees went out and planned together to entrap Him with His own words. 16 They sent to Him their disciples along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful, and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You do not court anyone’s favor because You show no partiality. 17 Tell us then, what do You think? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus realized their evil intentions and said, “Hypocrites! Why are you testing Me? 19 Show Me the coin used for the tax.” So they brought Him a denarius. 20 Jesus said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose inscription?” 21 They replied, “Caesar’s.” He said to them, “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22 Now when they heard this they were stunned, and they left Him and went away.

I think Jesus’ testing by two groups of Jewish men, the Pharisees and Herodians,(who believed Herod was the messiah) over paying Rome a tribute coin had more significance than we today usually realize. I believe Jesus was reminding those “Romanized” Jewish men that their overriding primary duty was in fact to their Creator, not Caesar. The tribute coin bore Caesar’s image and was circumscribed to him. The circumscription at the time of Jesus stated “Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus”. As shown below:

Emperor Tiberius Denarius - Tribute Penny

So the coin was stated to bear the image of the son of a god. Jesus taught that it was OK to give Caesar the tribute coin (worth one day’s wages) that was made in Caesar’s image and was circumscribed to him. And I believe the reason that they marveled at his answer was because those Jewish men who studied and debated the Torah remembered how they were proud to claim to be both formed in God’s own image and to be circumcised or circumscribed as a signet in their flesh that their very beings were forever wholly devoted to God.

Genesis 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. … 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

We who are redeemed have all been bought with a price, bought into Christ at the cost of his flesh and blood. However, since God made women for men and gave them to men, who are God’s image and glory while woman are only the glory of the man,(1 Corinthians 11:7) God doesn’t want women circumcised as His possession. Men were intentionally created for God’s good pleasure and are His direct possession, whereas women were specifically designed and given to be the cherished possessions of men. You can’t circumcise a woman into the covenant between God and Jewish men, and any vain attempt to do so is just female genital mutilation. Women were made by God for men, and given to men, to be men’s cherished possession.

Jesus reminded those Jewish men that their lives and bodies were doubly God’s possession, both created in His image, as all men are, and in particular they as Jews were circumcised signifying that they were God’s chosen possession and an eternal posterity of God’s. The Pharisees and Herodians had come to lay a trap concerning whether or not Jesus, an unschooled religious teacher, would honor Rome’s demand of tribute over God’s chosen people. But instead they got stunned as Jesus countered by showing how their very lives into eternity were already claimed and owed as an infinitely greater tribute to God Most High, in the exact same way that the little coins which Caesar had made in his own image and inscribed to himself, were meant to be paid back to him. The returning of Caesar’s coins not only did not violate God’s duly established claim over the Jews, but as Jesus revealed Caesar’s coins were in fact a token replication of God’s exact ownership signets on all Jewish men who bore both God’s image, and God’s inscription.(circumcision)

If Jesus had only meant for them to similarly pay off both God and Caesar each with a portion of money, like most hirelings claim, the Jews would certainly not have been left marveling at that compromise that would have blasphemously portrayed Caesar and God the Father as relative equals.

It disgusts me that greedy pastors falsely teach that Jesus was trying to show us, in that passage, just to hand over some of our money to pay off their church. It is clear that the Pharisees and Herodians would not have been left marveling if Jesus had just been understood by them to be telling them to pay Roman taxes while also shilling for the temple fund-raiser. The Pharisees were likely wanting to condemn Jesus for blasphemy against God (a capital crime) if he said to pay tribute to the Roman god-Emperor, since they could privately, in their gentile-free temple courtroom, claim that Jewish tithes were due to Jehovah alone. While the Herodians would have also been there to turn Jesus over to Rome for sedition (a capital crime) if He had said not to pay Rome the tribute. Jesus corrected them that as self-professed sons of God their Father owned them outright. And without saying anything seditious Jesus made it clear that there was no comparison between them owing the true God everything, while returning the self-proclaimed “god” in Rome his mere pittance. There is a great and glorious truth in there to be marveled at, for those with ears to hear, who aren’t too focused on money to see the image of God, and the covenant of circumcision, and men’s required duty, divinely illustrated by Jesus through the coin.

~ End of lesson ~

Bonus rant:

But what about the churchian’s money?

Early church father, Tertullian, said: “Nothing that is God’s is obtainable by money.”

Most hirelings will spend a lot of time and money attending seminary to learn how to preach the same lies and excuses in conformity with all the other preachers that lead our nation further into depravity. Like Simon the sorcerer they sought to buy the calling and gifts of God. And they bought a diploma, though they are still too cowardly to even face down this world’s Feminist influence and subject a woman to church discipline as Jesus tells churches to perform. Instead their purchased “training” seemingly only teaches them to make excuses and blame-shift on behalf of women.

It is evident that they get fully trained to tell all the same old foolish hireling lies about how you can slowly boil frogs without them trying to jump out when the water gets too hot. Am I the only one who went home and tried it? Frogs are amphibious, when cold-blooded frogs warm up they get far more active, and the moment they feel it getting too warm, they jump out. It turns out that even with their tiny frog brains, God made them wiser than hirelings who blindly plagiarize other pastors sermon illustrations, because God’s Spirit doesn’t reveal to them truth to teach, so they wind up trying to be religious entertainers. Their “messages” sometimes remind me of political talk shows where the host has 2 minutes of new material and a two hour show to fill.

“God doesn’t want to take your money. He just doesn’t want your money to take you.” ~ Andy Stanley

I recall the New Testament telling of churches taking up a collections for other churches. That sure doesn’t sound like today’s churches.

While the churches have gone moneygrubbing and many are in permanent fund raising mode, I do think it is good for us to give when we can, but certainly not to them, since they are apostate. That would be ungodly stewardship to hand off an offering meant to please God to false teachers, who are the firstborn of Satan. God spoke of sharing with the needy, and of giving those gifts to them in the name of Jesus. Jesus also praised a widow who, in faith, gave all that she had to the Jewish temple. I would recommend that you only give as you are led by faith to give, and when you can do so in a way that seems right. Because God loves cheerful givers, not perturbed givers who finally give in to some greedy pastor’s browbeating or tear jerking spiel. If you don’t give your alms in the right way you’ll lose your reward anyway. So I personally wouldn’t bother giving anything until you are prepared to give it wisely and to do it properly.

Matthew 6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. 2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

The less fortunate will often need money, but God is never in need and accepts no bribes. God looks upon our hearts. Is there generosity and love in your heart? Not if you can’t share your blessings when you are blessed, even though you’d still prefer to have more. There’s no fooling God. If you aren’t happy sharing your blessings, you’ll need to begin trying and practicing until you can be.

Epistle of “Mathetes” to Diognetus from Chapter 10How will you love Him who has first so loved you? And if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness. And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing. For it is not by ruling over his neighbors, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can any one by these things become an imitator of God. But these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbor; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.

Modesty, does it still apply ???

Two Piece Bikini

I recently saw an article about a youth camp pastor apologizing to his glorified neo-fertility-goddesses (embodied in young fertile women) for not having let them wear bikinis to church camp in the past. As the article explains, he came to this shameful epiphany about his “toxic masculinity” recently while accompanying his fiancée and her 10-year-old daughter on a shopping trip, where they “desperately looked for a cute one-piece that would be appropriate for camp.” LOL So already it seems this Beta-chump pastor’s life is being spent auditioning to become the nursemaid and personal-shopping-assistant to an immodest single mother and her spawn from another dude. They must make the preteen goddess look “cute”.(sexy) And while taking his goddesses out shopping he came to realize, not only how unworthy he is of sloppy-seconds, but of his need to repent of all his former vestiges of patriarchal control over women’s sexuality. It would seem that the patriarchal church fathers of the past didn’t adequately realize how women’s unrestrained sexuality is in fact the highest most divine thing a man can worship, those ancient saints believed women should be ruled over well. Why they must have thought God to be more worthy to be obeyed than women! Oh the misogyny! /S

The article says: A Christian pastor has apologized for banning girls at his youth summer camps from wearing bikinis, admitting that it was wrong to lay ‘the weight of purity’ on the girls but not hold boys responsibly for being ‘gross.’

LOL It sounds like a full-blown apology for our God-given male sex drive! For the record: My sex drive was described in a cunt-court ordered evaluation as both “normative” and “robust”, and I will be making no apologies for my masculine sex drive, or my manhood, and I may even brag about it. I’m truly sorry for all the Feminist’s unresolved penis-envy, but it just ain’t my fault that God made me a man, His preeminent earthly creature. If rebellious Feminist women cannot resolve their envy of all men’s penises, and so seek to denigrate that which they all lack, it is no wonder that well hung studs like you and I should become lighting rods of their envious spite. LOL

The pastorbater says: I am sorry that we have deemed a young woman’s body as something that “needs to be covered” …

Yeah! Bend over in your thong, little camper, and show pastor your underaged babymaker! Whores have more fun! “Wear a swimsuit that lets you have fun.” /S

The self-cucking pastor continues by saying: I am sorry if you felt sexualized by us telling you to cover up. I am sorry I didn’t teach boys to be men, and laid that responsibility on young women.

LOL This churchian clown lives in a backwards clown-world where girls are sexualized by covering up. In light of that, I shan’t be posting any pornographic burqa pics! LOL And when females irresponsibly strip down to near nakedness, it is always going to be some male’s fault for noticing. SMH If you point out the wicked stench of their public immodesty, the people pushing lawlessness will reflexively blame you for noticing. At my wife’s church, when I called out the churchian women for being immodest they said I must just be lustful, and when I called out a man for dressing immodestly they said I must be gay. Their silly defense of their licentious false-teaching is no more advanced than, “he who smelt it dealt it.”

But pastor Supercuck wasn’t done yet: “Women are all shaped differently and for a male to come in and say what a female should wear? That’s the most ridiculous thing in my head now … The number one thing I hope comes from this is that we as leaders, especially in the church, would walk in humility and stop pretending we are the ones that have the answers.”

LOL He admits he doesn’t believe in exercising the good and holy patriarchal dominion over this earth that God created men to have, nor does this pastor feel he should give answers to women, but in humility he believes men should remain silent not usurping over women.(1 Timothy 2:12 fully inverted) And he apparently lacks the good sense to even understand why people wear clothes in the first place. I wouldn’t send kids to his camp. You never know when his failure to understand modesty and why humans wear clothing will have him exposing himself as a result of his own lack of discretion.

I do have answers to many religious questions, as do many folks who comment here, so if you have a legitimate one, just ask it below. And if you’re going to ask about a specific bit of clothing … if you have to ask … it’s immodest.

I also came across a podcast regarding churchian modesty and a recent twitter storm it sparked while I was preparing to write this post. On the podcast the churchian thought-leaders lack much graveness, yet are still too polite to God’s enemies, and fail to go nearly as far as I would, nonetheless they do make a lot of good points. Apparently they are starting to wake up to the fact that most all of churchianity is a great whoring after the defilers,(women) and giving womankind (the creature) the worth-ship to be listened to and obeyed above our Creator.

Logically, once you give up your right to enforce modesty, accepting the complete nudity and public display of every form of perversity by absolutely anyone is your only logical destination.

You gotta fight, for your right, to purity!

Seriously! If you don’t want all your old and obese coworkers soon carrying on at work like it was an eight hour naked pervert pride parade, now is the time to speak out and start pushing back. Sodom is the next scheduled stop on our cultural train track if we don’t do something about it.

Usurper

The Swan Princess by Mikhail Vrubel

Tsarevna Lebed, The Swan Princess by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel painted in 1900 AD.

I found a good comment by “thedeti” responding to Jack’s post over at Σ Frame. So, I will post his comment in its entirety, as I have done once before. I borrowed the illustration below from Pete Rambo.

slide1

Thedeti says:

The main problem though is everyone thinking women are using this model; but they’re really not. This is really really subtle.

Jack describes this model:

God
Man
Wife
Children

Children submit to wife/mother. Wife submits to Man. Man submits to God.

Most Christian women, and nearly all clergy and Protestant family ministries, use this model:

God
Husband & Wife
Children

Children submit to wife/mother. Wife submits to God. Husband submits to God. Husband and wife submit to each other. Wife submits to husband if and only if she gets clearance from God through “her Holy Spirit”. (Her feelings, really.) Wife filters everything Husband wants, needs, desires, is, and does through “her Holy Spirit”. (“Is this in line with God’s will?” Does my Holy Spirit lead me that this is OK?”) If “yes”, submission to her husband is approved. If “no”, she is not required to submit to her husband.

Under this model, Husband and Wife are co-equal partners. Neither is above or below the other.

The husband is also not called “man”. He’s “husband”. In her eyes, his sole function is to serve her interests as protector and provider, and as “priest, prophet and king”. It never occurs to her that he has other functions. It never occurs to her that God has higher, loftier things for him. To her, the husband is HER priest, HER prophet, and HER king — Those functions were created, and he occupies them, solely for her benefit. His sole functions are to make money and turn it all over to his wife; to take a bullet for her; and to pray for her and lead her. In this model, Husband has literally no other functions or purposes. The marriage, the relationship, become all about her, and what she wants, needs, desires, is, and does. In doing so, submission to God falls away; and he submits to his wife.

This is wrong, of course, but today’s Christians use it because it gives lip service to submission without actually requiring true submission. It lets her “top from the bottom”. It lets her run the show without actually looking like she’s running the show. And it lets women feel better about “submission” because it is the one thing every woman hates – to lay it all down in the marriage before a man – a man she picked. Most women don’t ever truly submit to a man.

In heaven, men and women aren’t given in marriage to each other. But down here, in the fallen world, she submits to him, and he submits to God. If she has questions about God’s will for her, her marriage, or her children, she’s to go to her husband and have HIM seek the Lord about it. If she has questions about what God’s word says, she’s to go to her husband and have HIM seek the Lord about it. If she isn’t getting what she wants/needs in her marriage, she’s to go to her husband and have HIM seek the Lord about it.

God calls him. He follows. Or not, in which case he does it himself until he is at his wit’s end.

He invites her. She follows. Or not, in which case she does it herself (or with a series of other men in psuedo-submission through sex), until she’s at her wit’s end. (Gee, I wonder where I’ve seen that before?)

Most marriages don’t run this way. They just don’t. They LOOK like they do, the participants SAY they do, but they don’t.