RECENT BLOG POSTINGS

SEP 22, 2025:  SETTING THE STAGE    The first 500,000 to perhaps close to a million believers that Yahshua was the Messiah were Jewish!  That means that automatically the vast majority understood Jewish concrete thought, the ins and outs of Blood Covenant, and the Law and the Prophets better than the average USA pastor.  The average adult in Jesus’ day almost automatically knew things like why the Pharisees got mad when Jesus said “You must eat of me,” knowledge we today have lost.  So, what happened?

Dozens of things!  Roman persecution of the Jews became “popular”; Jerusalem fell in 70 AD; Masada fell in 73 AD; there were numerous diasporas; and Rome did what it could to tick the Jews off (for example, in about 130 AD the Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, and Israel was renamed Syria Palaestina).

In about 132 AD Rabbi Akiba declared Simon Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah to rally Jews in a last-ditch effort to fight Rome.  Most Jewish believers were more than willing to fight for Israel with their brothers, BUT NOT UNDER THE BANNER OF A FAKE MESSIAH!  The result was bad feelings, words of “traitor,” a split between Jews.

To keep this short, the Romans had conquered the Greeks, but the Greek language and patterns of though conquered the Romans.  That Greek thought pattern is abstract, word definitions, linear, one dimensional, one directional, and twelve rules for logical debate.  The Western World is still mostly Greek thinking thanks to Rome!  Any discussions that do not conform to these Greek criteria were and still are naturally viewed as inferior.  Paul ran into this in Acts 17:32 in Athens where they shut him down because per their thinking, he missed a step or two in logic when referring to the resurrection!

Nails in the coffin, next week.

—    —    —    —    —
 

SEP 15, 2025:  PAUL'S ADD ON    Okay, Paul the used car salesman has sold someone into the “Sinner, Repent, Accept, Jesus, Forgiveness” with power windows and air conditioning.  And he did it without even mentioning Blood Covenant or Covenant terms.  That person had been given the truth, and they were in about the same position as people today in churches that don’t go much beyond salvation!

So, what did Paul do to add maturity to those saved baby believers?  He made sure they were discipled!  He added more Jesus flavored teaching to the sales pitch he had tuned for Gentiles!  You think I’m kidding?

Antioch:    a whole year they met with the church and taught
Lystra & Derbe:    appointed elders for them in every church
Philippi:    turmoil, but saw the brothers left behind to teach
Athens, Greece:    he spent three months
Corinth:    stayed a year and six months
Ephasus:    stayed three years
Thessalonica:    but Silas and Timothy remained there
        Plus
Add to this, his letters which were shared and passed around.  There was a definite message shift to how to live together and what living in a relationship with Christ was all about, but ALL without using the words “Blood Covenant” once, except to quote Jesus at the Passover meal in 1 Corinthians 11:25.  (The book of Hebrews, probably not by Paul, does have covenant references, but it is to a Jewish Christian audience, under persecution, wavering in their faith, about the pattern and doings of God’s priests, the progression towards a new covenant in Jesus, and that Christ can be trusted as you go through nasty stuff.)

Where does ALL this leave today’s Christian?  Saved.  Perhaps being groomed to become another used car salesman.  With what Jesus taught plus most of Paul’s backup material right in our hands.  But with a scary percentage of pastors specifically trained to substitute Greek logic for concrete Jewish flavored roots.

SO NEAR,  YET SO FAR.

—    —    —    —    —
 

SEP 8, 2025:  WORKS    Paul's gospel is different than what Jesus taught simply because it is to a multitude of different cultures who have NOT had the benefit of living under a Blood Covenant with God for 2000 years!  They were even more into "works religions" than some of the Jews who had slipped into that thinking.  They were indoctrinated by their gods and their priests to work, bribe, placate, cajole, plead, earn, and bargain, with a multitude of prideful, capricious, petty, bickering, even warring gods.  So, Paul has to talk these people into their need to trust, flow, yield, and accept Christ's provision without works.  For their benefit works and a few other things had to initially be carefully understated!

Today this anti-works message has become so ingrained in Christianity that the majority of people have forgotten why it was necessary.  They tend to forget that Salvation really is based on Blood Covenant, and they forget that ALL of God’s Covenants contain “terms” and “but if” clauses!!!  In their forgetfulness (of how “doing to become” is a necessary part of the Covenant that is at the root of their relationship with Christ), some Christians have even come to dislike the book of James — because it sounds like works!  That says that over the centuries WE HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG!

James, brother of Jesus, was the first leader
of the church in Jerusalem.  Listen to him.
Read his book!

—    —    —    —    —
 

SEP 1, 2025:  PAUL’S GOSPEL    Okay, basic Bible message to God’s Covenant people: Fear and Do.  Jesus’ basic Rabbi School message to the Disciples who would then spread it to the rest of God’s Covenant people: Your “Fear and Do” Father God accepts you, loves you, is filling His promises to you, and I’m here to prove it.  Paul’s message to a Gentile, non-covenant, idol worshiping people: well, that is a whole other story.

Paul’s audience was very diverse and taught by gods and priests to work, bride, placate, cajole, beg, plead, and pay for favors from petty, bickering, warring, capricious, prideful gods.  Oy vay!   Plus, they did NOT have 2000 years of living as a Covenant people under their belt!!!  So, Paul HAD TO modify his message and very carefully de-emphasize “works.”  (PLEASE remember why he had to do it when you hear someone today preaching against ANY and ALL works.  They are half wrong to start with.)  Paul’s resulting initial message to Gentiles, taken from a list of 23 scriptures, should sound very familiar:

- You are Sinners
- Repent, agree with God
- Accept Jesus suffered and died for you
- He was without sin, so qualified
- Jesus rose from dead, as proof
- Jesus rose from dead, as first fruit
- Jesus made King and Lord
- Born again in Him
- Be Baptized
- Receive Gift of the Holy Spirit
- Will be an eternal judgement

This has a whole different “feel” to it than what Jesus specifically taught.  It is almost as if Paul is a spectacular used car salesman, selling Jesus as a Bride Groom who loves you so much that He died to pay off your debt in order to have you as a bride.  Such a deal!  It comes with AC!  Power windows!  And it carries an eternal warranty!  He led people into a trusting, covenant, relationship with Christ without using the word “covenant” and really soft pedaled the “do” or “but if” terms of the Covenant.

This "gospel” unfortunately makes over emphasizing, or rejecting, different parts of the list above by different groups, cultures, or denominations way too easy.  But Paul had several ways to correct that (which we don't seem to use properly today).  We will talk about that addendum to his car salesman pitch soon, but for now —

— Paul did not teach the Jesus Rabbi School message.

—    —    —    —    —
 

AUG 25, 2025:  JESUS' GOSPEL    If the base line message of the Bible is “Fear (good kind) and Do” then I can start looking at the specifics of what Jesus taught to see, like Peter clearly saw, if it matches.  Does his good news, his “proclamation of liberty” match what the Father wants?  A search of the four Gospels yields an amazing 70 or so “do” or “do not” type verses!  I can post the list if anyone wants.  Typical is Matthew 6:25 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.”  And it is implanted, as again seems typical, in a section that relates the doing or not doing to: the Father’s awareness; the Father’s concern; and the Father’s provision.

Here is one picked at random from the 70, Luke 14:13 “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”  It is tied to being repaid at the resurrection of the just, with the implication that the Father is aware, and the Father will repay.

Here is another one picked at random, Mark 1:17 “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  Not much there, and before Jesus Rabbi College started, but random pick it is.  It does lead shortly to, “I know who you are—the Holy One of God" which absolutely points to the Father and the coming fulfillment of His promises.

Please read the Gospels through for yourselves, but here is how I summarize Jesus message to those in the Abrahamic Covenant.  Trust in the Father's Covenant provision and acceptance, and live per the terms of that Covenant.  He loves you.  He wants you.  And I’m here to prove it.  It is NOT about works, but relationship.

Yup, that matches what the Father wants.

—    —    —    —    —
 

AUG 18, 2025:  FEAR AND DO    Let me take a look at the four verses I marked last week with an * .  There seems to be a similarity in their simplicity.  1. Deuteronomy 10:12 gives Israel the simple command to “fear and walk.”  2. Ecclesiastes 12:13 gives us all the summation, "fear God and keep,” as the whole duty of man.  To keep, or to walk, are both referring to the terms of God’s Covenant with Israel.  They are a doing to become, a doing of relationship.

The third stared verse is Acts 10:34,35 where Peter inadvertently substantiates that his understanding of Jesus's teaching IS consistent with that basic Bible message, except now applied beyond just the Jews.  Peter says, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him."  There is that same fear and do pair again, from Peter who heard Jesus first hand for three years!

The fourth one, Revelation 14:6,7 still defines the eternal message as that same, "Fear God and give Him glory."  In all cases the "fear" is a respect, an awe, a looking up to; and glorify is initially defined in the Bible as agreeing with God, or showing that He is RIGHT! which is best demonstrated by “doing.”  The whole of the Bible indicates that the law and commandments are NOT just legalisms, and certainly NOT works you do to earn Brownie-points, BUT doing, walking, and living per the spirit behind the terms of Israel's covenant with the “God of Abraham” (that is THE Covenant name He took and still proudly wears. It is that important to Him!).  Doesn't sound exactly Pauline, does it?  But there it is, from beginning to end . . .

You ignore "fear and do" at the risk of totally
misunderstanding God and Christianity!

—    —    —    —    —
 

AUG 11, 2025:  WHAT GOD WANTS    So many denominations, so many variations!  All the differences say we are missing something!  Doesn’t the Bible contain one simple main message?  What does a Father God say He wants?  Now, whatever we find, remember the Bible is mainly to a people who ARE ALREADY IN a Blood Covenant with Him.  That one fact flavors everything.  Gentiles, you are blessed because His people are in Covenant with Him and were blessed to be a blessing.  Never leave that out of the equation.

So, let’s see what God has to say.  I found a list of nine scriptures that address the specific issue of what God says HE wants from man, and I like them because they range over the WHOLE Bible:

*  Deuteronomy 10:12  And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deuteronomy 23:21  If you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.

Psalms 40:6  In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.  Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

*  Ecclesiastes 12:13  The end of the matter; all has been heard.  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ezekiel 20:40  For on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land.  There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your sacred offerings.

Micah 6:8  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

*  Acts 10:34,35  So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Acts 15:28  For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.

*  Revelation 14:6,7  Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.  And he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory"

I don’t want my BLOG to get too long, so will stop for now.  Read them through a few times!  Now, a few more.  See what you think.  Is there a commonality?  Next week I will look mainly at the verses that are highlighted with a * .

Remember, this is to people already IN God’s Blood Covenant!

—    —    —    —    —
 

AUG 4, 2025:  PASSOVER    I have recently Blogged on: breaking Covenant; being Yoked by eating food sacrificed to idols; the number one food Christians must avoid; the claim made by Jesus; and YOU invited to eat of the Tithe!  Have you noticed that every one of them required a Hebrew perspective, not a Greek one?  Also, they all tie Covenant and eating together.  So, what naturally follows next?  The last Passover meal of Jesus!

First of all it was Passover, PASSOVER,  P A S S O V E R !   The “Do this in remembrance of me" of Luke 22:19 was: the specific taking of the bread and of the wine of Passover detailed in the Haggadah script; followed that evening by Jesus; still in the Haggadah available and used almost unchanged today; and also in place prior to Jesus!  The thing is that bread and that wine are not explained in the Haggadah.  What was unique about Jesus is that he broke the silence of centuries by explaining that specific bread and that wine of Passover!  He basically said, “It’s about me!”

The promises would be fulfilled in his blood.  He would die for us.  And thereafter he would be our day by day by day daily bread.

You need to understand God’s Blood Covenant with Abram,
to fully understand that bread and wine!

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUL 28, 2025:  HAND WAVING    The Tithe was initially designed to go 100% to the Levite who had no inheritance in the land.  The Lord purposely changed that distribution because: the Levite gained oxen, carts, fields, cities of refuge; plus, God needed to deal with the surrounding paganism of food sacrificed to idols; and He wanted to put His spin on those type sacrifices by inviting the people to ENJOY Him!!  The resulting change?  YOU were to consume some of that one specific tithe before the Lord so as to Feast, Fear, and Rejoice in His presence, you and your family!!!

Now, having read the Bible cover to cover over 30 times, I can find no Biblical justification for thinking there was a second tithe or that Jesus annulled those God ordained changes.  Have you?  It might be interesting to ask your pastor or priest for the exact Biblical validation of the cessation of God’s personal command/invitation to enjoy Him.  I suspect many will get an excellent example of —

— Religious Hand Waving

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUL 21, 2025:  EAT    Jesus told many stories and parables.  Some made the Pharisees mad enough to want to kill Jesus because they knew the parable was aimed at them!  But do you remember what one thing Jesus said that perhaps made them the maddest?  It was John 6:53, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  Now, as always I ask you Christians, do you know what Jesus was talking about and WHY the Pharisees got so mad?  Why did people stop walking with him?

This goes straight back to what I was trying to tell you last week about food sacrificed to gods, and farther back to Blood Covenant!  The general understanding of that day was that Jesus had just said he was the Christ and YOU needed to be in Covenant with Him!!  That is why the Pharisees went straight up and turned left!!!  That is why many of the common people stopped following him!!!

There really are a lot of things important to Christianity where the Greek disfavor of all things Jewish flavored in the early church after about 200AD has caused —

— knowledge to be replaced with partly empty religiosity.

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUL 14, 2025:  NUMBER ONE    Consider the first thing on the list of four things that James and the Disciples decided that Christians be required not to do.  Acts 15:29 says, “that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols.”  If this is number one on the list, do you have any idea where it comes from!?!  Unless you have a real good grasp of Jewish tradition and a solid understanding of Blood Covenant, you probably don’t.  I’m sorry for you.

Let me quickly take you back to Peor and the Moabite encounter.  Numbers 25:1,2 says, “The people began to whore with the daughters of Moab.  These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.”  Now God got REALLY fiercely angry.   Why?   I have heard teachings of sexual immorality, but they miss it.  The real reason?  In Numbers 25:5 God says, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.”  Did you catch it?

Any good Hebrew instantly understood!  When you dedicated food to a god, setting it on an alter or whatever, the god was assumed to have consumed something of that food!  Some of the food was in the god, and the god was now in the remainder of the food.  Now eating some of that food taken to the feast was LITERALLY taking some of that god into YOU.  YOU were now in Covenant with that god.  YOU were "YOKED" to that god!  And that is WHY the real God got totally, fiercely, angry!!!!!

Once more, do you see why you need a better understanding of Hebrew thinking and of Blood Covenant to understand Christianity?

God still takes you YOKING yourself to
anything but Him, very seriously!

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUL 7, 2025:  REAL SERIOUS    Consider the Gibeonites.  This offshoot of the Amorites was: on God’s hit list for destruction and death; they lied and cheated to get Joshua, the leader of Israel, to make a covenant with them; they were discovered and cursed; and some were made forever cutters of wood and drawers of water for the house of God.  If ever there was an inconsequential vassal group, they were it.

Perhaps 340 years later king Saul sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel.  He was the King.  Nothing for God to get too involved in.  Right?      WRONG!!!!

A number of years later there was a three year famine in Israel.  And God said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death."  The breaking of any Covenant is REAL SERIOUS to God and even to the land.  It had to be paid for!  Read 2 Samuel 21:1-14, especially the last sentence.

Now I can repeat a very important message.  This is something a hundred times more important than the Gibeonites.  If you do not understand how important and  REAL SERIOUS  God’s full Blood Covenant was with Abraham some 3950 years ago, you absolutely can NOT understand: the nation and people of Israel; the roots of Christianity; what Jesus taught his Disciples; the roots of your salvation; what is happening right this minute in Israel; or even what the Father wanted for us right from the beginning!!!!!

By the way, be very careful,
marriage IS a Covenant cut before God!

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUN 30, 2025:  TOTALLY CORRUPT?    Whoa!   When I examine the Bible as a whole I find the idea of “totally corrupt” is almost always applied by God to those who won’t or CAN’T listen to God; NOT categorically to His children!  It’s the corrupt that eat His children like bread!  The hybrids born of the sons of God and the daughters of men are an excellent example.  It is almost as if there was a “God receptor” missing in their hybrid brains that then required the flood and their destruction.  Today it might apply to those who have totally bought into a lie of Satan big enough to grieve the Spirit and make it impossible for them to listen or hear from God.  It’s not mine to judge.

BUT!   But those that are His children?  Stubborn, stiff necked, rebellious, covenant breaking, even in need of having a wooden spoon applied to their posterior!  I do not for one second deny we can be nasty, deceptive, little buggers, but always still His children!

The second you apply the Calvinist label of “totally corrupt” to include God’s children you are ignorant of Blood Covenant, and besmirching the power of God to redeem and to parent!!!  You are repeating what Satan thinks of the whole human race!

Do not ever call God’s children totally corrupt!

—    —    —    —    —
 

JUN 23, 2025:  AN EXAMPLE    In various BLOGs I have said that the Greek thought patterns used in the Western world in Bible Colleges, Seminaries, etc. (abstract, word definitions, linear, one dimensional, fixed rule for logical debate, etc.) are useful for research and scholarly endeavors, BUT NOT FOR GRASPING GOD’S HEART!

Let me give you a concrete, Hebrew type, example.  My wife and I were married by a Rabbi on the 2nd of Sivan, 5739, with the canopy, the smashed glass, the whole nine yards.  But the marriage contract was the interesting thing.  As was typical, it did not once use the word “Love.”    What!?!    It spoke not in abstracts but in concrete terms of how we would act towards each other, look at each other, decide to see each other, and care for each other.  Again, DECIDE TO ACT TOWARDS EACH OTHER!  Why!?!

God knows feelings wear thin, passion gets spent, butts get flabby.  But, if you decide to act in a godly, Covenant honoring way, THEN the Holy Spirit has this neat way of filling in the godly feelings to match the doing!  Now, the Bible is your Blood Covenant Contract with God!!!  And it is written the exact same way as those Jewish marriage contracts!  Concrete, pictorial, story-telling, concepts important to God worked out in real examples.

If you do not understand Blood Covenant
and the doing that slowly builds Christlikeness into you,
then you simply can NOT GRASP WHAT GOD IS UP TO!

—    —    —    —    —
 

For a full List of all previous BLOGS, please click on:

BLOG List