Detox #3
January 22, 2023Pastor Patrick presented today's 3rd and last message of a series called "Detox." A video of the message is here.
[Conversation Starters will begin again with the start of the next official life groups session.]
All three of today's "body" items to detox from are fundamentally from the fact that humans are flawed. As the Jewish world puts it, we all have good urges and we all have bad/evil urges. We are neither naturally good nor naturally evil. Much of the Torah is about identifying these urges and knowing how to control them. This is done through story and laws.
When talking about debauchery, Patrick mentioned it's the "opposite of holiness." Opposite made me think of a spectrum. In this case, one of the Torah's favorite spectrums is:
animal <-> Man <-> God.
Looking at this specturm, it's clear we're somewhere between animal and God. God wants us to move toward Him, away from animal, and away from Man's evil urges. Following the Ten Commandments will get you a long way to the right. "Holy" in Hebrew really means "set apart."
All of the Torah's laws about sexuality are aimed at preserving the sanctity of the family. This includes adultery and incest. It also includes caring for the orphans and the widows. There are also many stories that provide wisdom along these lines such as Noah and wine after the flood, and Lot's daughters. Interestingly, these all line up nicely with Patrick's "get away, guard your mind, and be all in with God."
Bonus
I recently discovered Jordan Peterson via Dennis Prager. As we speak, Prager is involved in a workshop that Peterson has convened wherein 8-ish great thinkers talk about the book of Exodus. I think I gathered that Peterson will ultimately do a lecture series on Exodus, based at least in part on what he learns during these workshops, and that this lecture series will be available later this year (not sure about free or not). In the meantime, these 2-hour workshop sessions are available behind the paywall at DailyWire.com (currently available at about $86/year). Eight sessions are available now; the final eight were filmed last week and will be available soon-ish, I understand.
Many Jordan Peterson videos are freely available on his YouTube channel. Included amongst the free videos are some short clips from the Exodus workshop sessions.
In these workshops, they do go verse by verse, but it's really more like chunk by chunk, and at each pause (end of chunk) they go off on various themes depending on what strikes whom as interesting from the chunk. Here's a sampling of thoughts I gleaned from just the first 1.5 sessions:
"What's at the top of your assumptions pyramind is key, your god," Carl Jung. Another way of describing false gods.
Early in Exodus (1:8), "Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt." While the timeline is not totally understood, there may have been as many as 400 years between Joseph and Moses. That's plenty of time to forget someone or something. In the workshop, Prager noted that this quote today might be, "There arose a new President in the U.S. who did not know the Founding Fathers."
There are internal tyrants and external tyrants. The Ten Commandments are aimed at internal tyrants.
God is ethics centered, not ethnicity centered.
Compassion should be directed toward people who are innocent and helpless, not the guilty or able-bodied.
Chasing faith/religion is an entrepreneurial act.
For therapy to be effective, one must recognize one's own responsibility and culpability.
God does not save individual Jews. He saves the Jewish people.
Removing his shoes at the Burning Bush, Moses shows no claim of ownership to the land and is made totally vulnerable, "naked." We must approach the transcendent vulnerably.
Parents should take reasonably-old children to funerals so that they start learning to deal with death.
Where a society holds no common vision of its future, the society perishes.
Where there is no ideal, there is no goal. Where there is no goal, there is no joy.
"Poor in spirit," from the Sermon on the Mount, can be translated as humble(d). "Theirs is the kingdom of the heavens."
In Genesis, woman is created "as his helpmate who is his equal/adversary."
Paying attention may be a precursor to revelation. Moses "turned aside" to study the burning bush, and said, "Here I am," ready to go... Also of note, it's mostly what Moses heard, not what he saw.
The "have dominion over" phrase could also be understood as subdue which suggest "put it proper order." God ordered the world, make sure you keep true to that order.
Was God looking for the right person (Moses) for 400 years (following Joseph)? Perhaps mankind does have to make a first move, meet God halfway.
Saving societies involves getting back to something(s) basic.
Redemption of Jews from Egypt is separation. It did not "fix" Egypt.
"Final victory" does not free is from fighting evil now.
Believers can't be above politics.
We can chat about any of these, too...