Posted on by Abe Austin

No Purpose Without Striving

There are those who try to forever remain in their favorite period of life. Some look backwards, trying to recapture the glory days of High School. Some look forward, trying to hurry themselves into retirement and empty nesting. Their great goal is to reach the most comfortable or most exciting chapter of life and repeat it over and over.

Which means that their life is already over.

If you wish to freeze life at a specific point, then obviously there is nothing more to discover in that life. The story is done, the development is over, the new adventures are ended, and the meaning is already passed.

Life has no purpose without change. Far better that we look for fresh battles to fight, for new improvements to make, for novel achievements to accomplish, for unresolved wrongs to right, and for original healing to give. We should ever be striving to be better than what we are, so that our best self is not already behind us.

It is in striving that we keep our story moving forward, in trying that we find meaning.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Unknowable Author

Pure Creation)

John 1 tells us that in the beginning was the Word, which Word was apparently an animating and creating figure, by whom all created things were created. Of course, that would mean plants and animals and people, but even more fundamentally, if minerals and atoms and forces of nature are created things, then they were created by this Word also.

Thus, the Word would be neither mineral nor atomic nor natural, but instead an immaterial, uncreated being that has always been. The Word would have created all things, but not been made up of those things itself. It would have made this world, but would not be contained within this world. And the world, by measuring itself, would never find the Word, only clues that it existed somewhere “out there.”

The closest analogue that we have to this sort of creation is when a person composes a story, a song, or some other conceptual thing. The making of something physical like a bridge or a building would not be the same, because that requires using pre-created elements that are composed of the same sort of matter that we are. So, too, the physical book and the ink that forms the notes on the page are not the same, only the idea that is the story or the song itself. These are the things that are pure creations, things that are not made of the same stuff that we are, things that we exist entirely outside of. They are ours, they are of us, but they are also distinct from us.

The Author Becomes a Character)

However, John 1 goes on to tell us, “and the Word was made flesh.” Though the Word was uncreated, existing outside all the material universe, yet it entered into that universe. The author became a character within His own story, meeting and knowing the different protagonists and the antagonists, and influencing them along their way.

We once again have an analogue to this, for we also imbue our conceptual creations with the imprint of our own selves. For example, many authors will conceive of a story by imagining themselves in a particular situation, and then will write their own simulated words and thoughts and feelings within that context. The story itself is an idea, but the author, himself, is an idea within that idea. A love song will draw on the real-world longing and heartbreak of its composer, a conceptual reflection of the heart of the one that sings it. It has often been noted that all art is in some way an expression of its creator, which means the creator is recreated to some degree within it.

The Unknowableness of God)

But who could say that the imprint of the creator is the full creator? The story and the song capture only a single projected dimension of the creator. They do not capture the full person. They cannot. For once again, they are not made of the same stuff that the creator is made of. They cannot have his flesh, his blood, or his evolving states of mind after he first created them.

And so, too, it must be with the Word. For the Word was not a man, but the Word projected a single dimension of itself down into manhood. What we see in Jesus Christ does give us a glimpse at God, but it as flattened and narrow a view of God as the opinions and ideas in a story are a flattened and narrow view of their author.

You are right now receiving my ideas in this post, but think how much separation there is from these ideas to the actual, full me. Think of how much you still do not know about who and what and how I am. How insufficient these words would be to recreate me in the flesh. And then consider that these flat, limited ideas are to me as Jesus Christ is to God.

Thus, if you ever feel that you lack a full conception of God, is it any wonder why? We may know abstractly that He is our creator and that He is good and that He is worthy of our obedience, but none of us can really know Him at all, and we never will in this mortal life. The magnitude of God’s being is beyond incomprehensible. It could not be told in all the space and time of this entire universe because, after all, this entire universe is but an idea within His mind.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:31-33

31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

Israel had been promised the land of Canaan, but in these verses God defines the exact boundaries of their inheritance. One of the bounds given is the very desert that they now wandered through, so they were not yet in the land that God meant for them, but stood upon its border, in limbo, suspended between the death of their old life and full rebirth.

Other scholars have noted that even after coming into the Promised Land Israel’s borders would not extend out to the places described in these verses for many years, but would eventually be reached during the campaigns of David and Solomon. Afterward, those borders would recede. This was therefore a prophetic foretelling of the limits that Israel would reach at its largest point, not what its borders would be at all times. God had set the maximum borders, and Israel would play within those bounds.

Israel is also told that they are to remain a people apart. They are not to make a covenant with the other people of the land, meaning entering into no alliance or contract, nor open their borders to them. This does not seem to be a ban on immigration as God had already detailed how a foreigner might live among them if he or she was assimilated into the faith, like Ruth famously did, but there were not to be pockets of foreign nationalities within God’s own people.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:27-30

27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.

30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

God continues His promises, now detailing how He will fight Israel’s wars for them, breaking down their enemies before Israel even arrives. Verse 28 promises that the Lord will even send a plague of hornets to drive them out.

As it turns out, we do not hear of the fulfillment of that prophecy in the books of scripture. It may have very well occurred, just no record of it has survived to this day. Other scholars have suggested that “hornets” may not have been meant literally, that the Lord may have just been saying He would send all manner of afflictions and plagues to wear the enemies down and drive them from the land. If this interpretation is correct, then it may be primarily a reference to the Egyptians, who would, in fact, break many of these nations in the campaigns of Ramses III.

Yet in the midst of all this dramatic conquest the Lord also shows a well-thought-out strategy. If all the enemy is driven out in a single year, the land will be ravaged by the destruction and the Israelites would have more fields than they can handle. By driving them slowly, by degrees, there would be less sudden brutality upon the land and the Israelites would be able to gradually take over those places.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:25-26

25 And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

In return for the Israelite’s faithfulness, God now makes some significant promises. He assures them of the basics, bread and water, and also that He will heal them of their diseases. He says that “the number of thy days I will fulfil,” meaning they will be a people that live full lives without meeting an early demise. Thus, God is ensuring the necessities for a full life. Not only this, but nature itself will be particularly blessed for them, their livestock giving birth to healthy young and the land yielding its fruit.

Notice in these promises that God is removing from the Israelites much of the curses He pronounced to Adam and Eve. He had told Eve that “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” Obviously the Israelite women would still face the pains of childbirth, but would not suffer the anguishes of infertility or maternal or infant death, given God’s promises that there would not be barrenness or shortened days. God had told Adam that “cursed is the ground for thy sake. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” Obviously the Israelites would still have to labor for their food, “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” but here He describes that the land would no longer be actively working against them.

What we read here is the first step in the Lord reclaiming His people from the fall. Humanity had been in an extremely dejected state, and now God’s people were half-exalted, living blessed lives. God had begun the work of taking the sting out of death and the victory out of the grave (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:24

24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

Yet again the Israelites are commanded not to worship false gods in place of the Lord. Today’s verse takes it further, though, commanding Israel to actively overthrow and break those idols. The Israelites are to be the anti-idolatry. A faithful Israelite and an unbroken pagan god cannot remain in the same place, for either the god will be broken or the Israelite will become unfaithful for not doing so.

I confess, I am not sure that I can fully identify this same attitude in my own life. Certainly there are all manner of sinful behaviors that are totally incompatible with my faith, but if I find those practices occurring around me my reaction will depend on my location. If I am out in public, or in someone else’s domain, my natural behavior would be to remove myself from that place, not to destroy the problematic elements. On the other hand, I would not tolerate anything that I perceived as an idol or a vessel of sin to stay within my house. Should I find drug paraphernalia in a drawer or pornography on a hard drive within my own home I would destroy those things.

Perhaps this difference in attitude is cultural. We do not have the legal right in our Western civilizations to destroy the things of others just because they are an affront to God, and I don’t see many Christians looking to die on that hill. Of course, it does not seem that the Israelites toppled every pagan edifice when they were a captive people in strange lands either. Perhaps such absolute refutation and destruction of false gods is dependent upon living in a free theocracy.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:20-23

20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

23 For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

We have reached the end of these laws and now comes a grand promise to the Israelites, detailing all the great things that Gods will do for them if they obey Him. To start it off, God declares that there will be an angel sent down among them. Apparently that angel would speak to them at times, and also he would watch the people closely to see their behavior. If they broke their covenant, he would not be able to tolerate it. The angel carried the name of the Lord, and so he had to condemn everything that was unworthy of the Lord.

On the other hand, if the people were to obey every word, then the angel would set himself against their enemies. He would go before the Israelites, cutting off the pagan nations in Canaan before Israel even arrived in the land.

Thus, there was no neutral outcome. The angel’s strength would be against one side or the other, it was simply up to Israelites to steer that wrath according to their faithfulness. Even today we have this sense that obedience to the Lord will cause Him to be a champion in our cause, fighting our enemies for us and winning our battles. Even if we still experience trials after being faithful, we believe that we are fighting through those trials alongside God, as opposed to fighting against Him for having been unfaithful. Thus, everyone in life fights, the only question is against who and with who?

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 23:17-19

17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.

18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

We are told that all the males must present themselves before the Lord at the tabernacle three times in the year. Given that we just heard about three feasts to be observed in a year, it may very well be that this mass gathering would coincide with those celebrations.

This would certainly make Israel a well measured nation. On a regular basis they would have a sort of informal census, seeing exactly what their maximum military strength and workforce was. This would also require the people to remain a close-knit society. Being required to regularly travel to one central location would mean that they could not spread themselves too far from their center, and on a regular basis they would see one another in close company. Separation, distinction, and rivalry would therefore all be deterred.

Also, it would seem, they were not to come to this great gathering empty-handed. The assumption is that these following verses about appropriate sacrifice are referencing these three gatherings in the year, and that every man would come to the Lord with something to offer. They would bring offerings of firstfruits or offerings of livestock, perhaps according to which feast was being observed or according to the man’s occupation.