Marriage 104

The Heinous Doctrine of Divorce

In the preceding parts of this discussion we have shown that, based on the Judaic and Christian Scriptures, marriage is a permanent bond between a man and a woman, defined as occurring at an initial act of sexual intercourse. Regardless the amount of intellectual and/or emotional discomfort this may create in current Western society, disregarding that fact has done an incalculable amount of damage within Christianity, destroying relationships and causing mental and emotional harm to children and adults alike.

From the words of Jesus, in Matthew 5:31-32 He stated,

“It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

And Matthew 19:3-9

And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, ‘Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”

As well as in Mark 10:2-9,

“And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? trying him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

And Luke 16:18

“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”

It was the express teaching of Jesus that (1) when the two join together in sexual intercourse they become one flesh, (2) that such joining is an act of God without any further action or sanction by any other authority, and (3) it is a bond which human agency cannot break. Thus Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:16,

“What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”

and in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11,

”But unto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife.”

and verse 39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

This was not a new teaching. Recall that after the return to Judea by the exiles, there had been intermarriage with the non-Israelite people who had either been transplanted in the land by the Babylonians, or who had wandered in due to the depopulation that resulted from the war with Babylon. Ezra forced the men who had married foreign wives to divorce them (Ezra 10). It was further related by Ezra (Ezra 10:44),

“. . . and some of them had wives by whom they had children.”

Now if the Scriptures are searched, it is truly stated that God’s people were not to intermarry with the heathen. However, nowhere in the Torah is it commanded that a man who had married a foreigner must divorce her. Thus the words of Malachi, in opposition to Ezra’s act (Malachi 2:13-16),

“And this again ye do: ye cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, neither receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, though she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.And did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covereth his garment with violence, saith Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.”

It is one of those interesting facts of Scripture, that while Jesus quotes Malachi, He never quotes Ezra.

We have alluded previously to the influence of patriarchal societies in regard to marriage customs. One of the marks of a patriarchal society is the practice of inheritance through the father. It is stressed repeatedly throughout the Tanach. The entire purpose for granting a divorce was not to end a marriage; God did not change the decree made at the first marriage. His purpose in permitting divorce was to provide for the innocent parties who would be affected — the children — to have some inheritance somewhere.

If a man divorced a wife with whom he had children, those children retained all their rights of inheritance even if their mother remarried. However, if she remarried without a formal release of the ketubah, any children she might have from that time on would be considered children born outside of wedlock and with no inheritance rights. A man who had children with a woman who was not free from the contractual relationships of her marriage had no obligation to provide an inheritance to those children; since she had no divorce papers. She was not free to contract with the second man because she was still under contract to the first. Consequently, it was considered a duty, a mitzvah, for a man to grant a divorce to a wife who left him, and the “chained woman”, the “agunah” who leaves her husband and who has not been granted a divorce, is still a problem in Jewish law today.

In no way, however, did the granting of a divorce undo the sexual intercourse that had instituted the marriage. While Graeco-Roman culture made the marriage contract the primary “glue” of the marriage, the mistaken idea that it did so carried on into the Church Age and was generally accepted because it was the pattern and practice of the pagan peoples among who the Christians dwelt. The first three centuries of church history are replete with the efforts of the bishops to purge as many vestiges of Judaism from Christianity.

Early on the simple concept of marriage as held by Jesus and His disciples began to be corrupted by the early bishops, who first suggested, then demanded, that couples obtain the permission of the church, through the bishop, to marry. That then developed into requirements that the marriage be formalized by the bishop, and ceremonies were developed to standardize the process. Along with this, the catechisms of the churches were developed to include a definition of marriage quite apart from the one in Scripture, and instead to echo the laws and customs of the Roman Empire.

The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage". The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh". If consent is lacking there is no marriage. - Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1626-1629

Note that in Roman Catholic theology, it it is the consent (agreement) rather than the sexual intercourse that "makes the marriage" -- a refutation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and of Jesus. The relationship of marriage thus became a “sacrament” which needed to be performed in a church by a church official. Protestantism got rid of most of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, except for baptism, communion, and marriage.

The Anabaptist movement generally removed marriage from the list of sacraments, but due to the statements of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14,

”Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?”

and 1 Corinthians 7:39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

even the Anabaptists, and most professing Christians today, maintained a belief that a wedding ceremony somehow makes a marriage more valid. This is because the concept of "equal yoking" and "only in the Lord" required some sort of validation by the congregation that such a relationship existed.

As the Church became more entangled in the governing of the relationship of marriage, it had to face the problems that arose when the relationships soured. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had traditionally refused to permit divorce since that was the teaching of Jesus, but it then adopted the position that since it had defined marriage as a matter of consent, that if somehow that consent were fraudulently obtained or in some other way shown to be illegitimate, then the marriage could be annulled by decree of the church. A semantic ploy, the argument being that if the marriage were invalid (by the Church’s definition) then annulment was not the ending of a marriage, since (by the Church’s definition) the marriage had never occurred. It was a small step from there to recognize divorce, using the same reasoning.

Within Protestantism divorce was once considered to be possible only because traditionally most Protestant groups ceded the authority to legitimize marriage to government. If civil authorities had the right to regulate marriage, then they could also dissolve marriage. Thus, divorce was viewed as possible, but nevertheless sinful. In the latter part of the 20th Century social pressures began reshaping that area of Protestant theology, to the extent that what was once deemed shameful became acceptable; the Roman Catholic position that marriage required mutual consent became the norm. Thus, if the situation within the marriage changed such that consent was no longer there, the marriage would become void and divorce would end it.

The words of Jesus, however, can never be relegated to the dustbin of history if one is to call himself a true disciple. “What God has joined together is impossible for man to take apart.” A divorce decree may be granted by a civil authority, but it has no validity in Scripture with regard to ending a marriage, and the following points can be summarized from the teaching of the New Testament:

1. When a man and woman engage in sexual intercourse, the two become one flesh by the act and decree of God, and the bond cannot be broken except by the death of one of the partners. Divorce never ends a marriage.

2. A woman who engages in sexual intercourse with a second man commits adultery against her first partner, if the first partner is still living.

3. The only legitimate reason for a man to permanently separate from his wife is because he discovers she was involved in fornication prior to the marriage. If he permanently separates from her for any other reason, he is guilty of causing her to commit adultery.

4. If a man permanently separates from his wife for any other reason than that she committed fornication prior to marriage, and takes a second wife, he commits adultery.

5. A man who engages in sexual intercourse with a woman whose husband is still living commits adultery.

There is no leeway in the teaching of Jesus for the practice of divorce. The way is very narrow, yet we will see that there are other misunderstandings about the mystery of marriage.

Marriage 103To The Death, orThe Doctrine of the Sanctityof the Undefiled Woman

Cultures have had varying degrees of regard for virginity, but regardless the standing that the condition enjoys, it is irrefutable that it is impossible to restore it after having been lost; virginity is a state of pre-coital experience. Further, it should be noted that there does not appear to be any built-in species resistance to promiscuity; the level of behavior associated with recognition of chastity seems to be controlled more by social expectations than anything else. Interestingly, that may be just another way of saying that sin is a universal human trait.

In cultures where strict patrilineal inheritance is the rule, there seems to be a stricter standard with respect to the importance of virginity. That, however, is often selective. It is also generally one-sided, in that female virginity is prized, guarded, and infractions severely punished — often with death as the punishment for an unmarried woman who is found to no longer be virgin — whereas loss of male virginity in those same societies is seen as something celebratory, or at very least not a matter to be concerned about.

Such double standards color even the so-called Christian societies, where men who “sow their wild oats” are viewed as doing what just comes naturally, whereas a woman doing the same thing is viewed as “loose” or unfit for decent company. While there are varying degrees of acceptance or condemnation of such behaviors from one social group to the next, for the Christian, there must be a single standard, and that is total chastity, i.e., sexual intercourse is reserved for (and delineates) the confines of marriage.

From our previous discussion, we demonstrated that Biblical teaching shows that sexual intercourse joins the partners as a single relational unit, “one flesh”, which is then the operational definition of marriage. Further, within the Commonwealth of Israel, law and tradition strove to maintain purity of lineage.

A number of laws dealt with the treatment of unmarried women. Some appear at face to simply objectify the woman, as Deuteronomy 22:13-20:

“If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and lay shameful things to her charge, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came nigh to her, I found not in her the tokens of virginity; then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate; and the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; and, lo, he hath laid shameful things to her charge , saying, I found not in thy daughter the tokens of virginity; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

And the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him; and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel; then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house: so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.”

Human society has not gotten any better through the ages at dealing with dissatisfaction and jealousy. The Hebrew requirement in the above situation is far more considerate than that found in a neighboring culture, where a man can simply pronounce the words, “I divorce thee”, and his wife is cast out of his home. God’s requirement in this situation was justice; if the woman was innocent, the man was punished and forever forbidden to divorce her. If she was guilty, then because she was committing adultery — her previous intercourse had linked her to a different man — her death was a necessity to free the man who had innocently entered into marriage with another man’s wife from the adulterous relationship.

There is additional New Testament insight to be gained from the statement of Paul in Romans 7:2-3:

”For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man.”

Paul’s understanding of this undoubtedly came from his discipleship under Gamaliel. We know that many of Jesus’ teachings were also part of the teachings of Hillel, and further explorations of the Talmud might disclose the Pharisaic basis of his position. While the passage only speaks of the dying of the husband freeing the wife, it is patently obvious that the husband’s relationship would also end if the wife died. Freedom from the relationship, via death, provided avoidance of adultery if the survivor remarried.

Similarly, the very next verses deal with an all-too-common occurrence today (Deuteronomy 22:22):

”If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away the evil from Israel.”

and Leviticus 20:10,

”And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

God was not about to be playing favorites; the adulterous man was as guilty as the adulterous woman. The purpose — to eliminate evil from society.

The woman was to be protected as much as possible from predacious men. In the first article of this series the Talmud was cited, “Kiddushin 1,1 specifies that a woman is acquired (i.e., to be a wife) in three ways: through money, a contract, and sexual intercourse. Ordinarily, all three of these conditions are satisfied, although only one is necessary to effect a binding marriage.” The contract (ketubah) was often drawn to ally families through their children, and could be made years prior to the actual physical consummation of the wedding (see the account of Joseph and Mary in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke). Thus the statements of Deuteronomy 22:23-27:

”If there be a damsel that is a virgin betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them to death with stones; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor's wife: so thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee.”

It was assumed that if the woman was honorable she would fight her attacker. It was also assumed that as the wife (betrothed) of her husband, she would be careful the she did not dress to incite other men, and that she would take care to avoid compromising situations such as being alone with a man or getting drunk in a mixed group. The claim of date rape would not hold up in such a situation; dating as practiced in contemporary Western culture would have been considered scandalously promiscuous behavior. One of the most serious problems, especially in the Christian culture, is a lack of understanding by each unmarried man and woman that, if it is God’s will that they marry at all, they are the the predestined mate of the person they will marry, and they should conduct themselves as already betrothed until such time that the actual betrothal occurs.

For this reason, and this reason alone, dating by Christian youth should be severely discouraged, since such encounters desensitize people to the fact that, in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:28, “whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” A man should lust only after his own wife, and a woman should lust only after her own husband, and within the context of “dating”, adulterous thoughts, as defined by Jesus, toward someone whom a person will not actually marry, are impossible to avoid.

”But if the man find the damsel that is betrothed in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only that lay with her shall die: but unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter; for he found her in the field, the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.”

Once again, the death penalty was to be applied to the man committing adultery with another man’s (betrothed under the ketubah) wife. The purpose — to put away evil from Israel, but also to free the woman from the unwanted relationship.

Then, in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 we find a situation that seems to approximate the dating culture:

”If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her; he may not put her away all his days.”

An objection to this has been the idea that the woman is being forced to marry the man against her will. However, close examination of the context does not support that. First, if the episode occurred in a place where help would be available (in the city) and she did not cry out or attempt to fight him off, the presumption is that the episode was consensual, and under the Talmudic citation above, they had willingly married. Secondly, the phrase “and they be found” implies that they jointly tried to conceal it, and that it was consensual, whether in the city or in the countryside.

Finally, we have the situation described in Exodus 22:16-17:

”And if a man entice a virgin that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.”

This is a bit more difficult, but may be associated with the divorce process as discussed in Deuteronomy 24:1-4:

”When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife . And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before Jehovah: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

It is important to understand the divorce process as outlined above. Remember the citation from the Talmud; usually all three elements were present in a marriage: the agreement, money, and sex. The divorce document basically rescinded the agreement and returned the money (nothing could be done to nullify the sex). In the case of the father not giving up his daughter, it could be either for her protection or because of his own greed and hard-heartedness due to pride. In both cases, the dowry was returned to the father so that a second marriage could be arranged and the woman would be able to bring something to the bargaining table. The statement of Jesus addresses both situations in Matthew 19:3-9:

”And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said, ‘Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away?

He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”

(In Luke 16:18 and Mark 10:11 the qualifier “except for fornication [porneias, generally adultery or incest]” is missing, but it is present in Matthew 5:32.)

In the view of Jesus, there was no action that could end a marriage aside from death — man-made regulations could not overturn the decree of God, and divorce had been provided because of the inevitability of human sin and the need to make sure that the woman who was put away from her husband would have the wherewithall to continue her life. The permission to remarry in Deuteronomy 24 did not, in the teaching of Jesus, eliminate the sinfulness of that second union while her first husband still lived.

Even today, among the Orthodox Jews, the descendants of a woman who obtains a civil divorce but not a religious divorce (in which the terms of the ketubah are nullified) are considered mamzer, unable to fully function in Orthodox Jewish society and synagogue worship. The writing of divorce was needed to bestow a semblance of decency to the lives of those innocently affected by a man unable to live up to his commitments. (Remember : divorce often happened to women who fell out of favor with their husbands and not because of adultery, in which case they would have been executed instead of divorced. Within the constraints of the written Torah, a woman did not have the right to divorce her husband.)

Some Christians have argued that Paul taught that divorce was permitted in certain instances in I Corinthians 7:12-15. However, he prefaces his statement in verse 12 by saying that what follows is his own private advice, not the Lord’s teaching. In the 15th verse, where he states “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart” he is not advocating for divorce but simply saying that an unbeliever determined to commit adultery will do so regardless of the believing spouse’s efforts and the believer should not allow his or her peace with God to be disturbed by the other’s actions. That Paul is NOT permitting divorce is evident from his words in verses 10 and 11 immediately preceding,

”And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband, but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife.”

So, from Jesus we see that if a man divorces his wife, except for her participating in sex outside of marriage, he commits adultery, and if he divorces his wife for any other reason and then remarries, he commits adultery. If a divorced woman remarries, she commits adultery. Why? Because divorce does not end a marriage, only the death of one of the spouses ends a marriage.

From Paul, we have the teaching repeated. Wives are not to leave their husbands. If they do leave, they are not to remarry, and if possible should reconcile with their husbands. (Very realistically, there are situations where for the good of the relationship there must be a temporary separation, but it should never be the precursor to divorce.) Men are not to divorce their wives, and there are no qualifiers as to what the wife may or may not have done. If an unbelieving spouse leaves, the believing spouse is not required to compel them to stay or to divorce them.

The intent of God’s direction in these matters has always been to maintain the sanctity of His people. The rules of His kingdom often contradict the rules of human law, but those who walk in faith according to His Word will find that trading the practices and customs of this age for the truths of the Scriptures will bring peace and joy in fellowship with those who share the desire to serve the God of Israel, blessed be His Name forever in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Marriage 102The Doctrine of the Chosennessof the Bride

There are several issues that must be put to rest in order to come to grips logically with the Bible’s statements about the husband-wife relationship. None of these issues is currently politically correct. Most are not comfortable in contemporary Western society. They are all not even theologically acceptable in contemporary theology.

First, to the order of creation. In Genesis 1, it is stated that God made mankind as male and female. It is a matter of conjecture whether the “them” refers to more than one of each. In Genesis 2, He took the man (et-haAdam, the special creation of verse 7) and set him in the garden — alone. Because it was not good for the man to be alone, and there was no other creature that was fit to serve with the man,

“21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And the man said: 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.' 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”

Note the order. God first. Then the man, chosen to work (l’avdah) in the garden. Not just any man — Adam was formed specifically for the task of tending the Garden. Then the woman, uniquely made to help the man. Note that the man had no choice as to where he would work — no free will there. The woman had no choice as to who she might marry; she was made specifically for the man because it was God who determined that the chosen man should not be alone. Note the man’s reaction; she is bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh, and observe God’s pronouncement that they are indeed one flesh. In light of Malachi 2:15, this is a very special match-up.

The order and the purpose will be repeated and reinforced throughout the Scripture. Paul reminds us of this in I Timothy 2:13. God arranged the first marriage. Parents in most cultures had strong influence in the marriages of their children. Even today, there remains the warning that Christians should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers in marriage — there should be planning and purpose in the arrangement. This idea has been sadly abused, especially where pagan thinking has been allowed to influence theological expression. That there is a purpose behind the making of each individual is clear, though, and there is a grand design realized within the lives of all those who embrace the Will of God.

Secondly, note the relationship. The two become one flesh. The “fitness” of Eve for Adam was a critical component in her making, and the concept of Malachi 2:15 (“For what seeketh the one? A seed given of God.” JPS Tanach) gives the reason why in the following ages, the fidelity of the wife would become a life and death issue. Despite her vanity that led her to be tricked by the serpent, she was still the “fit” partner of Adam. He may have blamed God for giving her to him, but he never did tell God to take her back.

Thirdly, the task. The very first command that God gave to mankind was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In Genesis we are introduced quickly to the “begats”. The concept of family and descendants immediately becomes apparent to the reader. If, perchance, the narrative of Genesis 1 leaves open the possibility of a different potentiality, we clearly see in the 2nd and 3rd chapters that God chose Eve to be the mother of a godly line. All of her descendants trace the male line through Noah to Abraham.

The Scripture does not give us much information about Noah. It states these facts about him : he was “a just man”, he was “perfect in his generations”, and he “walked with God”. Despite believing God’s warning about the Flood, and being labeled “righteous”, we are told that he “found grace in the eyes of the LORD”. In other words, he also deserved to drown, but God picked him out and favored him. His righteousness was in his faith in God, that translated into obedience — “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

The really curious statement about Noah is the one about being perfect in his generations, coming after the statements about the “sons of God” taking wives from the “daughters of men”. If there ever was a different line than that which descended from Eve, it provides a possible solution to not only the question of where Cain got his wife, but also the strange phrasing about the source of the giants. There is an implication that Noah’s “chosen-ness” was connected to his matrilineal descent as well as from his fathers.

The narrative is strangely silent concerning women for the next few centuries. It is finally, more than 400 years after the Flood, that Abram comes on the scene, and the first post-Diluvial woman to be mentioned is Sarai, his sister, and then in the same verse, Milcah, his brother’s daughter.

Abram marries his sister, Sarai. He also marries his sister’s Egyptian slave. He also marries concubines - plural. God picks him out from all the other men of his time and tells him “Go West, young (70 year old) man, to the place I will tell you. Take your wife [singular], your slaves, your flocks, all you have, and start walking until I tell you to stop.” God promises to make him the father of many nations through Sarai, even though at 60 years old she still has not had a child.

Abram obeys, and despite all his flaws, is labeled righteous because he believed God — the proof of his faith was obedience. Even though he does some stupid stuff along the way, he has been picked out by God, and becomes known as the friend of God. He fathers Ishmael through Sarai’s slave, Hagar. Sarai gives Hagar to Abram to be his wife — alongside Sarai. Thus Abram and Hagar became one flesh, just as Abram and Sarai were one flesh. The marriage between Abram and Hagar does not end the marriage between Abram and Sarai, even though it alters the relationship between Sarai and Hagar. While Hagar is not the “wife” in whom the original promise was vested, the promise to Abram that his descendants would be a great nation was additionally extended to Ishmael.

But when Sarai is 89 years old, Abram gets Sarai pregnant at last, according to God’s insistence and in spite of her thinking she was too old. It is a defining moment in history; the LORD changes their names. The reason Abraham’s marriage to Sara has prominence is because God had picked her to be the mother of a special nation — the carrier of a Godly seed. Abraham at this point prefers that Ishmael would be the chosen one. God tells Abraham that both Ishmael and Isaac will father great nations, but that His covenant, regarding the godly line and redemption from sin as promised to Eve, would be with Isaac.

God chose Isaac before he was even born, but what is more interesting is that He chose Sara instead of Hagar, despite the indications that Abraham agreed to the arrangement with Hagar without any argument. Isaac and Ishmael were not the only sons of Abraham, but it was Isaac to whom God referred when he said, “Take now your son, Isaac, your only son…”

So it goes. Abraham sends his most trusted slave to find a wife for Isaac. The narrative shows us that Rebekah was picked out by God, and we see how God sets things up so that men think they are controlling the situation. Rebekah was the daughter of Milcah,who was the sister of Lot. Behind the scenes, we see Milcah’s son Laban scheming; it would not have been surprising had he been hatching a plan to force Rebekah to go as a way of getting the treasures that Abraham’s servant carried. It was God, however, who picked out Rebekah and Rebekah willingly — apparently eagerly — went to Isaac (she appears to be seeking an escape from her idolatrous family). Despite what seems to be the planning of men, the hand of God is obvious.

From what we are told, Isaac appears to have been a one-woman man. There is a curious twist, though, in the narrative. When he blesses Jacob, he states, “be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee”; when he blesses Ishmael, he states of Jacob, “all his brethren have I given to him for servants”. Plural, brethren? Again, we see God picking a favorite in Jacob, who is a scheming, lying, fearful little brother in the shadow of Esau.

Isaac would have preferred that Esau carry the family blessing. Through the curtain of human intrigue, we see God arranging everything ahead of time. Rebekah recommends that Jacob go see her brother Laban, and Jacob marries two of his cousins. While we see a bit of a tragi-comedy in all these marital maneuvers, we are reminded that the hand of God is at work, choosing the wives for His chosen men. Jacob is smitten with Rachel, yet God chooses Leah, who will be the mother of Judah.

Judah’s sons by Shuah the Canaanite were wicked, yet God chose Tamar to continue that lineage. While we may be somewhat flustered over the chain of events, Tamar appears to have been a more Godly influence than Shuah, and her son Pharez was the forebear of Salmon. Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, testified to the greatness of the God of Israel, and was the mother of Boaz. Ruth the Moabite descendant of Lot, vowed to Naomi the she would adopt Naomi’s God, and was the grandmother of David the King.

Throughout the story, we see the choosing, the joining, and the laboring together as the lineage of Messiah is developed. There is a purpose to God’s choosing, even when it appears that the situation has accidentally developed out of sinful situations. In every marriage, while it may appear to be at first the choice of a man for a woman and perhaps her choice to accept the proposal, ultimately it is the choice of God as to who marries whom. For this reason, once the choice is made, for good reasons or bad, regardless how it is made, and the marriage consummated, any action to separate the marriage partners or defile the relationship is an act of rebellion against God, Whose choice has been executed behind the curtain of human cluelessness.

Marriage 101Sexual Intercourse = Marriage

My Sunday School did not offer a course in marriage. Neither did my high school nor my college. What I did know about marriage came from watching my parents, which was a healthy tutelage, from television, which was somewhat farcical, and from conversations with my peers, who were as ill-informed as I was. In general, ignorance tutored ignorance. I have to confess that when the time came that I was considering marriage, I was well supplied with misinformation and misconceptions.

My parents provided the positive influence. Dedicated to one another, hard working and devoted to team effort, they exemplified a pair bond. As to how that came about, we had the story that Dad had visited the Cipkar farm on a trip with his father, had met Mom, they had corresponded, he proposed, Grandpa said she couldn’t get married until after the crops were in and that Dad couldn’t return her after they married. So they got married and lived happily ever after. Siblings occurred, but strangely enough, the idea of my parents engaging in sex never really consciously entered my mind. Easy as that.

Television provided a second input. Marriage on television was displayed in half-hour segments, generally in a comedic setting. It was relatively sterile. There were occasional fights and reconciliations, children might be born, but again, while there were hints that perhaps something might be happening after the lights went out, TV in the 50’s and 60’s was generally very careful to avoid being educational in that respect. Sex was hinted at but not discussed directly; there was something seemingly unhealthy about it.

The influence of my peers was even less positive. We knew there was something mysterious about female physiology that was so forbidden that quite naturally we sought out all the information we could gather from whatever sources came to hand. The father of my best friend had a stash of girly magazines (which were off-limits to him, but he somehow was able to access them) and our sex education course was built largely around those. In secret we discussed the differences between “them” and “us”. The stories accompanying the pictures provided a basis for understanding that men wanted sex, women avoided sex, and when sex occurred, women participated because they either had to, or because they were immoral in some way.

The above is undoubtedly shocking to hear in the early 21st Century, but for many of my peers, the situation was very similar. As I neared the end of my high school years and entered college, the “knowledge” that I had about sexuality and what marital relations should be was discordant. Too many of the concepts conflicted, but there was still no way to resolve the discord. I understood that sex was acceptable within marriage, but if it occurred outside of marriage, there was a stigma, especially for girls.

As badly warped as my view of the physical aspect of marriage was, in retrospect, my concept of the social interactions that were part of the courtship ritual were just as flawed. Television and the occasional movie had presented courtship and marriage as the interaction between two people, totally outside the fabric of the greater family. Somewhere in the mix was the idea that a man would interact with his future wife’s parents, at least once or twice before the actual marriage ceremony. His family and her family had almost nothing to do with the relationship, or so the cinematic revelation went. Granted, way down deep this created some cognitive discord, but wasn’t the medium a reflection of reality? So it was perceived.

Dating in some ways reinforced those concepts. The girls parents had to be acknowledged and placated, but they were necessary obstacles to winning a girl’s heart. The important thing was the formula that would work out as boy + girl + love = marriage.

With that baggage I was encountered by Jesus and He changed the course of my life. It would be wonderful to say that somehow he magically wiped away all my prior miseducation and filled me with perfect understanding of how human relationships should be handled, but that did not happen. I was to be re-educated one step at a time, most likely so that I could end up writing this.

As a new convert, I realized the truth of God’s statement, “It is not good for man to be alone.” I also realized that the criteria that I had set for a marriage partner before my conversion were not suitable for a godly marriage. I did not want to enter a marriage that would be destined to fail.

The first bit of wisdom that was imparted to me was that the woman who was to be my wife must love God more than she loved me. In my unconverted state, that would have been unthinkable, but I now understood that if my wife were to love God in that fashion, she would never stop loving me. I began to examine the young ladies who were “available”, and soon came to realize that most of them had been educated in somewhat the same fashion I had previously been. In talking with them it was evident that they would prefer that I would woo them after the fashion of the world, playing to their needs.

Would I flatter them and make them feel important? Could I provide a good living for them? Did I have the proper social graces that they would not be embarrassed by my actions? Did I have potential for social advancement so that I could take them up with me? There were times when I wondered if I were being measured and evaluated based on the criteria that I had now been taught to reject.

I had gotten to know Violet at church camp as another new convert. She was serious — it was refreshing to meet a girl who did not seem to have husband-hunting in the back of her mind. Over the course of a year I realized that here was a young woman who did want God to have first place in her life, and whose compassion for others was such that she would humble herself to make sure that others were cared for. I grew to love her for that.

The fact that she was extremely attractive physically was not lost on me, and over the years I would need to learn to reconcile our sexuality with what I read in the Bible. That reconciliation would lead me to conclusions about the marital relationship which are not normative in current mainstream Christian thinking. It has also lead me to reevaluate the entire concept of marriage from the perspective of both the Tanach and the New Testament.

This is critical to theological well-being, since the Tanach repeatedly refers or implies to Israel as the “bride” of God, and the New Testament copies the thought with the drawing in of Gentile believers to be included in the “bride”. A number of evangelical theological concepts are intertwined with that. Current orthodox rabbinical Judaism parallels evangelical thought in many respects, and both have been heavily influenced by sources and thinking outside the written Word of God.

A unified and sound Biblical approach to the subject of marriage has several prerequisites. First is an unwavering faith that God Himself is righteous and good, and that all things He has decreed are also good, whether they are understandable by His people or not.

Secondly is an acceptance of the Bible, and especially the written Torah, as the Word of God. If that is the case, then whether what it says is humanly comfortable or not has no bearing on the universal validity of what is written there. The thinking of sages and the practices of cultures all fall outside the legitimacy of practice if they are in discord with God’s written Word.

With that we will begin the examination of marriage. In the realm of physical human existence, there is no escaping the fact that the only definition of marriage in the Bible is sexual intercourse. The reader is introduced to marriage in the second chapter of Genesis. “The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” [Gen. 2:23-25, NASV]

The first marriage in history had no ceremony, no formulas, no rituals, no promises or covenants. Those were all added later, by the practices of men, and not by God. For those who want to really be uncomfortable, there was no consent given by Eve, either (although she had no other choices, herself). Throughout the Bible, there is no ceremony prescribed, even when customs are described. In the evangelical arena, it is interesting to read the treatise of S. H. Froelich, Matrimony According to the Word of God.

From the perspective of orthodox Judaism, the Mechon Mamre website article Marriage states,

“The Torah provides very little guidance with regard to the procedures of a marriage. The method of finding a spouse, the form of the wedding ceremony, and the nature of the marital relationship are all explained in the Talmud. (Mishnah) Kiddushin 1,1 specifies that a woman is acquired (i.e., to be a wife) in three ways: through money, a contract, and sexual intercourse. Ordinarily, all three of these conditions are satisfied, although only one is necessary to effect a binding marriage.”

Because the institution of marriage can be entered into in such a simple way, in former times the concepts of chastity and virginity were considered extremely important. Outside of strict religious practice, promiscuity was largely treated with a double standard; men could be promiscuous without incurring extreme social censure, but women who were promiscuous suffered various forms of punishment. Numerous social safeguards were nevertheless erected to protect women, but most of those were overthrown in the aftermath of the mid-20th century “sexual revolution”.

It will be important to remember, however, as the subject is explored, that under the Bible’s definition of marriage, a person has as many spouses as he/she has had sexual intercourse with. This is clear from a careful analysis of written Torah, as well as the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. No other definition has Scriptural validity, and deliberate ignorance of the fact has lead to conclusions that have caused numerous people to live in sin.

Indiscriminate Justice

A President has been elected under the slogan “Make America Great Again”. The greater part of the States award him their Electoral College votes, but the few States on the east and west coasts with much larger populations skew the popular vote toward his opponent. The President is a man with a great sense of business and a definite vision of what the office of President entails, but he lacks political and diplomatic skills. He delights in directly communicating with the people, but in doing so, frequently antagonizes those who disagree with him, because while he can be charming, he is also used to getting his own way, by bullying if necessary. He is not a politically correct communicator.

The nation has suffered for a number of years from economic and domestic policies which have been viewed as egalitarian and desirable by the President’s opponents. Large numbers of people have become wealthy as a result of those policies, but a much larger part of the population has suffered poverty and despair. Large numbers of aliens have been permitted to enter the country, skirting the legal immigration process, to take advantage of the social programs, bringing with them customs which clash with the resident society and diseases which medical services are unfamiliar with and ill-equipped to handle. Some also bring with them the threat of terrorist activity as a part of their religious beliefs. At the same time, the social programs are strained and cannot meet the needs of the citizens for whom they were originally designed. Local law enforcement is taxed not only with criminal activity imported with the new arrivals, but also with the added problems of domestic abuse, identity theft, and voter fraud from people who have a very different perception of what behaviors are appropriate in this country.

The new President takes measures to enforce the existing laws, which his predecessor deliberately ignored to allow the situation to grow. His predecessor, and the two Presidents before him, had identified seven nations which were particularly prone to harbor terrorists and which either lacked adequate information services to identify such persons, or who actively trained and encouraged them to attack the country. The President calls a 90 day halt to allowing persons from those countries to enter or visit in order to set up a system to provide better background checks. He also instructs the immigration services to enforce the existing immigration laws, deporting aliens who have entered the country without going through normal channels and have also been convicted of crimes since they arrived. Large numbers of people see those actions as inhumane or contrary to their vision of what the country ought to be, and carry out protests and riots to block the authorities. Some of the people who have benefitted financially from exploiting the migrants file lawsuits to halt the action, and unjust judges, obeying the voice of the mob rather than the law, enjoin the President from enforcing the law.

What is a follower of Jesus Christ supposed to make of this? Is not God a God of mercy and compassion? Should the church rebuke the President for enforcing the law and taking steps to control the entry of persons who are unknown or might have dubious backgrounds?

What is the Christian to make of such verses as Micah 6:8 and Matthew 23:23? Should not mercy and compassion be at the forefront of our efforts? Is this a case of discrimination in justice against foreigners?

Micah 6:8 tells us that God requires us to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”. Matthew 23:23 contains a statement that the weightier matters of the Law are “judgment, mercy, and faith”. Why is mercy second and not first in both sequences? What of the statement in James 2:13, that “mercy exults against judgment”?

Prior to leaving office, President Obama was asked if he would pardon Hillary Clinton for breaking the law regarding using private emails for government business, and Edward Snowden for releasing secret government communications. Neither request was granted. He could not pardon them, because they had not been convicted of a crime, even though it was evident that they had committed crimes. Mercy is not possible until judgment has been passed first. If one is not capable of judging, then neither is he capable of being merciful or forgiving.

What is judgment; how does one apply justice? After all, Deuteronomy 16:20 concludes how righteousness in judgment was to be effected under the Law : “Justice, justice, you shall do!” The Law was to be applied without discrimination, and was to be applied equally to both the citizen and foreigner alike.

Are there unjust laws? Possibly so, but when a law is in effect to treat all persons equally, and one group of people is allowed to disregard it, that is injustice. When a nation has laws designed to protect its people, and foreigners are allowed to disregard those laws, that is injustice. Is a person who permits someone to break those laws — even for “humanitarian” reasons — being merciful, or is he being unjust? Unless the lawbreaker has been convicted of his lawbreaking, mercy is not possible. The person who permits the lawbreaker to proceed is being unjust to his fellow citizen, and is actually discriminating against those strangers who do obey the law, who do not practice identity theft, who obtain legal permission to hold a job and earn money. That person who permits the lawbreaker to proceed unhindered is a partner in crime.

So the Christian is commanded to love; to show compassion and mercy. Can he do that without considering the precursor to mercy? Can he show favoritism to the stranger over the fellow citizen and still consider himself just? Before we speak out against the authorities which God has placed over us, should we consider whether we ourselves are acting in indiscriminate justice?

There is a strain of theology which teaches that God is merciful and loving and non-judgmental. If that were true, then there would have been no need for Christ to die in our stead for the sins which we have committed and for which we would suffer eternal deportation to the Lake of Fire. God has judged all humankind worthy of eternal damnation, for there is no one who has not not transgressed His law. The Scripture relates that even the thought of foolishness is sin, punishable by eternal separation from our Creator, who is holy and abhors the violation of His orders.

Having judged us, He was then able to be merciful, offering Himself by taking on a human body in the person of Jesus, and forgiving us by paying the price for our sins Himself on the cross. Forgiveness is not possible without paying the price for the wrong in place of the one who has wronged us.

It would be the gravest injustice to tell someone outside the Church that God will save him from eternal damnation by simply “accepting Jesus” without also telling them that they must repent of their sins because salvation comes through the payment in Jesus’ blood for those very acts. Jesus may have forgiven a person and paid the price of admission to Heaven, but the Scripture is clear about the woes of those who disregard the preciousness of the blood of Christ and go on sinning as though the price was despicable.

The Christian must feed and clothe and help the alien in his land, but must also warn him that his breaking of the immigration law is an insult to those who serve and protect. To despise the laws that were set up to protect the health and safety of our country’s citizens — laws defended and paid for in the blood of those who have sworn to uphold the law of the land for our good — is to despise their sacrifice. The alien who has entered the land illegally should understand that we judge that action as unrighteous, that we can mercifully meet his immediate needs, but that he must repent by returning to his own land and following the rules if he wishes to join us here. Repentance is never easy. Repentance is usually accompanied by tears. But supposed “mercy”, without such judgment, is simply a form of damnation, leaving the alien to live in fear until the day he is caught and banished from the Promised Land.

A Sticky Situation

Once upon a time, I heard that deer flies were attracted to the color blue. In fact, I read that one trick to reduce the annoyance was to hang blue balls — Christmas ornaments, I believe —- covered with insect trap goo, from trees. Or, as one person related, to place a blue ball on a rod on his lawn tractor, just higher than his head, so that as he mowed, the deer flies would land on the ball and be trapped.

Not having blue balls, I was puzzled as to how I would get a similar result. Then I spotted an anti-freeze container in the garage. One gallon. Blue. Polyethylene. Time to check out the tale.

Tools. Some Tree Tanglefoot for making it sticky. $11 at Home Depot for a 15 oz tub; $10 at Menards. Two tubs sitting in my garage cabinet for years.

Brushes. I always knew that someday I would need these. $2.99 for a pack of 36 at Harbor Freight. Sitting on the shelf in the garage.

Ah, yes, the blue polyethylene. Empty containers have to go away somehow. The jug provided two 6”x6” pieces, which I hung in the pear tree and the cherry tree.

Then another thought materialized. What if other bugs like other colors? Back to the garage. A small Folgers can provided three 4”x4” red squares.

In the kitchen, a sour cream container was recruited for the white rectangles — 3”x4”.

So there they dangle in the wind. Red, white, and blue, fitting for the 4th of July. As for the white ones, they have printing on one side. Maybe some bugs prefer to read while they expire.

We shall see how this turns out. What kinds of bugs prefer red, what kinds prefer blue, what kinds prefer white, what kinds can read?

Hi, There, Pigeon!

One of my required courses as an undergrad Education major at the University of Akron was Psychology. I must confess that listening to Dr. Popplestone lecture was not one of the more exciting things that happened in my academic career. I got a D in that course because I found other things to hold my attention. Nevertheless, the good doctor did capture my attention one day with his description of the experiments of B. F. Skinner.

In a nutshell, for the unenlightened, Skinner discovered that he could induce superstitious behavior in pigeons by rewarding responses to stimuli that had nothing to do with a situation. The pigeon would associate the appearance of food with whatever behavior it was performing at the moment. The essence of the experiment was a demonstration that superstitious behavior was caused by linking correlation with causation.

It was in my post-graduate courses that I was provided with the opportunity to distinguish between experimental and quasi-experimental design. I was also provided with the understanding that science is an exercise in the reduction of uncertainty, and that in a true scientific endeavor, it is never possible to prove a hypothesis (or a theory, of which a hypothesis is a subset), but that true certainty only arrives with the disproval of a null hypothesis.

To explain that logic, understand that to prove that something “always is true”, it is necessary to test it an infinite number of times without failure. One failure in the testing destroys the concept of “always is true”. The ability to trust the results resides in the probability of the next experiment also concluding true — a wondrous exercise of faith in the theory, but which never concludes with absolute proof.

However, if one sets out to prove that something “always is false”, even though every experiment fails there is always the uncertainty that the next one will not — a true result destroys the theory — which engenders the real “scientific” attitude of skepticism that drove the Enlightenment. One failure to prove falsity results in an absolute surety that the idea of “always is false” is in itself false.

That may seem a bit like a dog chasing it’s own tail, but in reality most experiments end up with a set of mixed outcomes. There may have been a flaw in the experimental design, or an invalid set of inputs, or some other quirk that distorted the outcome. That leads to the concept of degrees of certainty, in which an experimenter may say that the null hypothesis was rejected at say, a confidence level of 5%. That is to say, the hypothesis is true up to a point, and the individual may choose his level of risk with it.

Thus the entire purpose of science is centered around “randomness” or “chance”; the user of the experimental results has the opportunity to decide if a certain action is worth the associated risk. Human nature, however, abhors uncertainty; we would rather have the weather witch tell us that it will not rain today (so we can place the blame if we get wet) rather than that there is a 50% chance of rain, in which case getting wet is our own fault.

Suppose, though, that we notice that it always rains after certain birds sing a particular series of notes. Without any other inputs, we might conclude that the singing of the birds causes it to rain. While we, as “scientific” people might scoff at that conclusion as being superstitious, it might be an entirely logical one to a less sophisticated or educated population. Similarly, if almost every time a policemen enters our neighborhood someone is killed, we might conclude that our chance of dying increases with the appearance of a policeman. When fear or trauma become factors in our decision-making, rationality declines and we tend to associate the factor with the greatest correlation as the cause of the event, ignoring any other factors which might be in play (such as hostility to authority, drug abuse, or other criminal activity).

As humans, we also find it easy to be lead by those who have established themselves as “authorities” with regard to various disciplines. Thus when an “authority” proclaims that he has found a correlation between the amount of man-made smoke in the air and an increase in average temperature, he can easily announce that he has “proven” that people cause climate change and that by modifying our behavior according to his prescription, we can change it in a different direction. That other factors such as solar radiation, tectonic movement, or position within the galaxy (yes, Dorothy, we aren’t in Kansas anymore — we are millions of miles away from the Kansas we were in this time last year and the part of our galaxy we are in now may have a different temperature than the part we were in last year!) could instead cause such climate change is uncomfortable because they are beyond our control. It is a hallmark of superstitious belief that people can choose freely to obliterate the cause of a frightening situation; the Salem witchcraft trials come to mind.

While science and the scientific method(s) have some obvious usefulness within our culture, allowing us to exercise our curiosity and design inventions which advance the good of humanity, they never provide certainty. Further, they never answer the questions about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. They never provide absolute truth, and with it, absolute reality. Those items have always been the province of metaphysics, and particularly, of religion. In the attempt to reconcile science and religion, there has always been a thrust toward elevating the humanity of men and the humanizing of deity. Wherever belief in causation has surfaced, man has tended to create his god in his own image, and the more sophisticated a culture becomes, the more urbane and sophisticated it’s god becomes until at some point, the deity is no longer needed and humanism triumphs. Unfortunately, without some superstition, humanism lacks any sense of certainty.

For myself, the specter of being a pigeon at the mercy of fate (or karma, as neophyte Humanists, Hindus and Buddhists might term it) is so unsettling that I would rather be in the hands of the Almighty God of Heaven, as described in the Hebrew Bible — a Being so all-powerful and all-knowing and good and righteous and holy that no matter what happens in my life, it is intended for good. A God who is just, but whose mercy endures forever. A God who is true, and who never fails to keep His word. A God whose love is so vast that He, the only immortal being, devised a plan whereby He could pay the penalty for my sins by dying in my place. A God so righteous that death could not hold Him, and He was raised from death so that I could be confident in the rightness of His plan and the surety of His promise.

So keep your randomness, your chance, your choices, your fate — whatever brand of uncertainty your superstition entertains. We are all superstitious, every one of us. Go ahead and be scientific. Phrase your basic beliefs as null hypotheses, test them and live with your insecurity, if you can do so without insanity. As for me, I will trust in the Eternal God of Israel, who keeps His covenant with His chosen people forever.

R.I.P. Bobby

Daniel J. Hrubik, May 25, 1947 - October 3, 2016.

Tin-foil Hats and Chip Readers

I like to imagine that I am one who thinks “outside the box”. Hopefully, that will not someday result in having to think inside a box, one with bars on it, but I guess I will just take one day at a time.

Some time ago I got a new MasterCard with a chip. For those just learning, “chip” technology is replacing the old magnetic stripe on your credit card.

The magnetic stripe is just a semi-permanent account information record that was difficult to change. A card fraudster could take that information and use it in multiple transactions before anyone caught on to the fraud. It could theoretically be reprogrammed, but that would be inconvenient with current technology.

The “chip” in chip technology looks on your card just like a the SIM card contacts for a cell phone. The technology allows a transaction made with the chip card to be given a one-time transaction code. Even if a fraudster can steal the basic account information, a second transaction cannot be made without the physical card to generate the unique one-time code. Again, theoretically, this is more secure, but the chip cards are capable of carrying far more information — in some European countries, they are used as ID cards - and the cards that are enabled for remote scanning can be read without being physically inserted (“dipped”) in a chip reader.

That fact has lead to concerns that information on the card that has nothing to do with a credit transaction could fall into the hands of an identity thief. As the technology becomes more sophisticated and complex, the exploits by card hackers will undoubtedly become more difficult to block. It is an adaptation of the Peter Principle that techies just don’t seem to understand — there is always somebody out there who is smarter than the programmer.

Back in the days when you had to barter, it was relatively difficult (but still possible) to pull off a fraud. When people switched to cash, the job became a bit easier; fake coins were minted but as long as they had the requisite amount of precious metal nobody cared. It was when the fraudster mixed in something less valuable that the eureka moments of an Archimedes were needed.

The printing press took the game a bit farther. Paper money was easier to carry, but a good forger could make counterfeits in bulk. The trouble was that trying to make a large purchase with counterfeit money was a sure way to get caught. To be successful, the counterfeiter had to make numerous small purchases in varied locations. Each advance in printing at the mint brought a corresponding increase in the sophistication of the copying.

The credit card was supposed to not only free the participants in the transaction from having to carry wads of cash, but it was also supposed to make the transaction more secure, since the cash simply stayed in the bank and just changed ownership there. Remember the old credit card machines? You put the card in, placed the multiple carbon receipt in, and rolled out the invoice. Then you wrote in the amounts by hand, the buyer got one copy, the merchant got one copy, and one copy went off to the bank. The lag time was as good as physically mailing a check; you could buy stuff today and still have a couple of days to get the money to the bank.

That was a banker’s nightmare. Money in transit is money that is not earning interest for the bank from the Federal Reserve. Why do you think the bank puts holds on checks from one account to another in the same bank? It is cash in the banker’s pocket. So, the credit card process had to be speeded up. The magnetic stripe technology came in, and the account information could be read off the card electronically, sent to the bank at the speed of light (almost), and the card information could also then be exchanged without the physical card being present, allowing mail order sales to flourish. All you needed to do was give the information and sign for it.

Secure? Alas, another pipe dream, because once a thief got hold of the credit card numbers, he could forge a signature and steal until the card statement showed the thefts. It had to get more complicated. Thus the chip technology. The card companies have forced merchants to install chip readers, with the incentive being that a merchant who has a chip reader installed is not responsible for credit card fraud that occurs using a magnetic stripe swiper. The credit card companies have offered to be fully responsible, even if the buyer does not have a chipped card and the swiper has to be used. However, if the merchant does not install the chip readers, then the merchant is responsible for any fraud loss.

The early cards being issued are mostly (but not all) using contact-type chips. Some, however, have the capability of being read remotely, using a scanner that queries the card wirelessly. When the chip enters the radio frequency field, it vomits out its information. Supposedly, these are short-range transmitters, but there is a concern that hackers could use somewhat more powerful transmitters and receivers and steal the information while the card is still in the owners purse, pocket, or wallet. Move the cheese, and the mice get bigger leg muscles. Cage the cheese, and they get bigger teeth. When your treasure is on the Earth, the thief will break through and steal.

So, as an experiment, I have put a tin-foil hat on my new chipped Discover Card. Using rubber cement and some aluminum foil, I carefully covered the front and back of the chip to insulate it from radio frequencies. (In olden times, we called this a short circuit.)

I tried it out at WalMart. I slid the card through the stripe reader; the woman at the checkout said I had to insert it in the chip reader. I did so. The screen said, “CARD PROBLEM”. She said try it again. Same thing. She said try swiping it again. No workie. She tried swiping it from her register. No go. The woman in line behind me was getting a bit upset. I just looked toward the ceiling. Finally, after about the dozenth time swiping it, the transaction went through. Maybe you have to swipe it r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

I haven’t tried it at the gas station yet. I may have to go inside and have them manually enter the account numbers. I don’t know. This will be interesting.

One other thing. I looked at the card agreement to see if there was anything about tampering with the card. Nada. My guess is, though, that all it will take is some wonky lawyer realizing that the scheme is wide open to make the merchant institute a policy whereby it refuses to accept the card if the card has had its chip crippled. Once that occurs, I may have to rethink this.

Meanwhile, the rumor on the street is that this technology, which is already 20 years old, will probably be scrapped in another half-dozen years and replaced by something like ApplePay. The merchants who are paying out mega-bucks to install chip readers will have to bite the bullet and start over. Nevertheless, I have my ears open to hear about the first successful attempt at hacking that system. It will happen. If your treasure is not in Heaven, the thieves will get it sooner or later. Happy treadmilling!

P.S. -- my Better Half tried hers at the gas station. While it did not work at Bed Bath & Beyond, and the card info had to be entered manually by the clerk, it did work at the gas station pump.

Good-bye Summer

A half year has passed. The summer is over, harvesting is taking place, and winter planting has begun. As an update, none of the Yummy peppers made it; one germinated but then damped off. Germination of the Delicious and Abe Lincoln tomatoes was less than spectacular — less than 50%. We did get tomatoes of each of those varieties. The Delicious grew like gangbusters, climbing out the top of their cages and reaching over 6 feet high. They are a good tasting, solid fleshed, fairly early tomato.

The Abe Lincolns struggled. Again, a tasty tomato, but somewhat watery inside — sliced and on my sandwiches, they soaked the bread. Neither appears to be resistant to any diseases at all. It is a toss-up whether I want to bother with them next year.

The Rutgers, as always, were slow, but steady producers.

Many of my cages this year were made from 2” x 4” mesh garden fence. A 5’ wide roll allowed for 24” and 28” high cages with 4” prongs into the ground. For next year, the 28” cages will be cut down to 24” — they are just a bit too deep for good maintenance. Also, the spacing between the cages needs to be increased for better breathing.

There is plenty to blog about. More later.

End of Round One

Now the jalapenos are in pots -- 96 out of 114 seeds for an 84% germination rate. Not sure why so many failed to germinate, but the plants that did come up were nice and healthy looking. So I'm off to make labels to keep them from getting mixed up ... or maybe, to keep me from getting confused ... whatever.

Add Endum

Finished potting the wax peppers - total was 163 out of 187 seeds. Had perhaps a half dozen culls; make the germination rate about 91%. Good, but not optimal.

On Being A Pot Person

Well, occasionally I have to stick some kind of title in that will get noticed by the web crawlers and draw attention to this site. I would have used "pothead", but that might have drawn WAY too much attention...

Thursday I started potting the Rutgers seedlings. Out of the 103 seeds planted, I potted 99 plants. I discarded 3 as being too small yet to transplant, so that is close enough to 100% germination for me. Yesterday I went to work on the wax peppers; at this point I have 137 pots and there are still 24 nice healthy ones left to transplant with about 6 or so still struggling; say 167 out of 187 seeds and I actually discarded at least a dozen for one reason or another. Ran out of dirt so I had to quit until tomorrow. Then it will be on to the jalapenos.

Not only am I out of dirt, I am out of room and this is going to be a problem. There are at least 100 jalapenos, likely more, and the Abe Lincoln tomatoes, Delicious tomatoes, and the sweet basil are popping through. The Yummy peppers are still not appearing. I figure maybe another 200 pots to go, but I really did want to do some flowers this years as well. This could be a SERIOUS problem.

Chard is up in the greenhouse along with the romaine lettuce. Can't put the tomato and pepper seedlings out there, though -- too cold. Keim Lumber is delivering my material for the new asparagus beds either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Got to musing about the Peter Principle. Once a person has risen to his level of incompetence, what are his options? A new career, starting at the bottom? Longevity seems to be a factor in our family; Dad lived to 91, Mom is 91, Uncle Joe is fixing to be 95 next month -- is it unreasonable for me to have a mid-life crisis at 68? When you have forgotten more than you currently know, is that a sign that reprogramming is in order? I think I'll sleep on that one. If it doesn't keep me awake half the night thinking about it.

Update

It's almost time to pot the seedlings.

Rutgers

Wax

Jalapeno

Also the seeds for Totally Tomatoes arrived, so last Thursday (9th) I got those going : 25 Abraham Lincoln tomatoes, 36 Delicious tomatoes, and 17 Yummy peppers. Since I had some left-over cherry tomato seeds, I interred those as well : 30 Supersweet 100s. That batch is still sleeping, but they should start popping soon.

Romaine lettuce is up in the greenhouse like a carpet, but still no sign of the onions, cabbage, broccoli, and chard. Tonight I decided to get some sweet basil going... maybe I should just go to bed.

Good night.

Sowing Seeds of ...

Yup, time to get down and dirty again. Garden season is coming back.

Last Monday (Feb the 29th) I put some wax pepper seeds (187) in the dirt. Tuesday it was the Rutgers tomatoes (103). Wednesday, the jalapeno peppers (114). This morning some tomato plants were looking at me. There is some action in the wax pepper tray; I have a feeling some of those will show by morning.

Not a very sophisticated setup -- the planter trays are simply the rotisserie chicken containers from Sam's Club. The bottoms hold enough potting soil to get the seeds started, and the bubble-top covers are clear to let me see what is happening and keep the humidity inside high. The seeds are soaked in hydrogen peroxide for 8-10 hours and then laid out in rows (so I can get some idea on germination rates) and covered with a fine layer of soil, water added carefully to get everything wet, and an incandescent bulb set over them 24/7 to provide some warmth.

Looks like the winter lazy days are over.

Merry Christmas 2015

Not having written much this year (2015) I felt that at least I should wish the entire world a Merry Christmas.

The Christmas story tells us of the love of a God Who not only created a universe for His own pleasure, but having a desire to share that pleasure with someone, created beings in His own image. In the mystery of all of the reason for being, He provided a scenario in which His prime creation, Man, would lose that privilege and become estranged, requiring restoration.

I repeat, a mystery lies behind this. The Eternal One is described, in His own words, in Exodus 34, as

"The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation."[JPS 1917]

In order for His entire character to be displayed, there had to be a reason to show mercy. Mercy cannot be shown to anyone who has not been condemned. The recipient of mercy is chosen by the Merciful One, who decided in His wisdom that the being created in His own image, who would also be capable of showing mercy, would transgress, and due to the utter holiness of the Creator, be eternally separated from the pleasure of His presence.

Now someone who has been cast down from the presence of the Ever-living One has no power to raise himself back up. The dead cannot come back to life by their own power. The holiness of God is so far beyond the imagination of men that no dead man can lift another dead man to that height. God will by no means clear the guilty; He says so Himself. A living substitute could effect redemption, but no offspring of a dead creation could pay the price.

In that was the wisdom of God brought to the problem. God Himself -- sinless, living, loving -- would take upon Himself the nature of His creation, a created body, and offer Himself as the perfect substitute. The Christmas story is the story of that endeavor. By the power of the Holy Spirit of God, a child was conceived in the womb of a virgin. Because His Father was God, He did not inherit the estrangement of Adam, and because His mother bore Him as a human, he took on the flesh of the creature. He would be the perfect substitute, accepting the guilt of men without Himself being guilty, and redeeming those to whom mercy could then be shown.

And so we have Christmas.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."[Is 9:6, KJV] (...פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ, אֵל גִּבּוֹר, אֲבִי-עַד, שַׂר-שָׁלוֹם.)

Misplaced Compassion, or Wells Without Water?

The feature of Christianity that is supposedly most attractive to people is the unfettered compassion that followers of Jesus are reputed to exhibit. For the person who claims to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, however, an important question that frequently rises is the question of God’s will for his or her life.

For some the search after knowledge of that will takes arcane twists and turns, almost on the level of fortune-telling or divination. It is not unusual to hear of people opening a Bible and attempting to do whatever first comes to sight, or the “Gideon thing”, i.e., “putting out a fleece” (without doing a thorough reading which would show that Gideon pleaded with God not to be angry with him for doing so).

Just a bit more research would reveal that God’s will for His people is really no great mystery. In Hebrews we read that it was His will that we be sanctified through the offering of Christ, in Romans we read that His will is that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds in order to serve others (a living sacrifice!), and in First Thessalonians we read that it is His will that we be sanctified, maintaining proper living in the face of temptation. Peter even goes so far as to say that His will might call for our suffering as a result of sanctified living.

Unfettered compassion has the appearance of performance of the will of God, even in the need to defy authority to carry it out. Many of the “peace movement” groups actively protest or violate Governmental restrictions on their desires to offer such compassion, citing Peter’s response to the Sanhedrin that “We ought to obey God rather than men.” It is always dangerous to quote Scripture out of context.

The following clips were carried on Friday March 6, 2015 by a number of news organizations and were eventually picked up by Fox News and other major conservative outlets:

“Max Villatoro, 41, was arrested by immigration officials when he left his house for work Tuesday after more than 16 years of legal complications and two denied appeals to stop his removal from the country, culminating in his now imminent deportation. But Villatoro's wife, Gloria Villatoro, 33, and others in the Iowa City community say the man has turned his life around since his initial charge in 1998, and they're fighting to keep him here.

Max Villatoro is a pastor at First Mennonite Church who has lived in Iowa since he left his northern Honduran town in 1995 and arrived in the U.S. without legal permission. Deportation would separate him from his wife, a native of Mexico who was brought here when she was 8, and his four children, ages 7 through 15 and all U.S. citizens.

In 1998, Villatoro was convicted of drunken driving. And in 1999, he pleaded guilty to record tampering for purchasing a Social Security number that he used to obtain a driver's license. His plea resulted in an order of supervision for the duration of a 180-day suspended jail term, but the convictions stayed with him until his recent arrest.

Gloria Villatoro said her husband's past doesn't reflect who he is. And Margaret Richer-Smith, a fellow pastor at the Iowa City church, described him as a 'person of great integrity and wisdom.'”

The story was even carried in the Daily Kos, and without doubt it will end up as one of those viral emails that circulates the Web forever. Before getting into too much of a lather over the story, however, it might be good to examine not only this family’s particular situation, but also the general conduct of what is popularly seen as evangelical Christianity. Let’s dissect the story as it appears in the news, and then look for the implications as regard’s the will of God. The facts:

- Max Villatoro is a Honduran citizen who has lived in the United States illegally for 20 years
- he has been convicted of identity theft, having used someone else’s Social security number
- since his conviction in 1999, he has apparently continued to work and perhaps drive, without legal documentation
- also since his conviction in 1999, he has married a foreign national and fathered 4 children (birthright citizens)
- he now professes to be a Christian pastor with the responsibility to teach others Godly behavior
- he is described by his co-pastor as “a person of great integrity and wisdom”

Assuming all of the above is true, I feel quite queasy. The same Peter who stated that “We ought to obey God rather than men” also stated “Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your behavior seemly among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.”

If all of the Villatoro story is true as reported, we have a person who has openly defied authority. Reading carefully we can wonder at the pain suffered by some unfortunate citizen who was left with the complications from Villatoro’s use of his stolen Social Security ID, as well as being curious about whether the pregnancy of his teenage wife was an attempt to produce an “anchor baby”. He not only calls himself a follower of Jesus but is being held up as a good example of such. We also appear to have a great cloud of people with an opinion that his behavior is acceptable. There is something absurd going on here.

The March 25, 2015 edition of Mennonite World Review carried the news that Villatoro had indeed been deported to Honduras on March 20. The article contains this statement,

“‘This is utterly unfathomable,’ wrote executive conference minister David Boshart of Mennonite Church USA’s Central Plains Mennonite Conference in a statement the same day.”

Unfathomable? Jesus taught that “. . .whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.” If we are to understand that His will is inseparable from His character, we see a God who is not only merciful, but also scrupulously just. As Lord Jonathan Sachs has observed, it is not logically possible to have mercy unless first there is justice. While Sachs does not follow through with the resultant, that it was the Father’s justice that required our punishment for sin, and His acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son that made mercy for us possible, he has nailed the problem squarely. God is holy and just. He has established principalities and powers as an exercise of His will in order to maintain justice among men. For that reason Peter urges obedience to those authorities except where it contradicts the command of God.

There is no command from God to violate laws which we disagree with simply because they cause us discomfort.

What, then, should take priority? Our desire to feel like we are heroic martyrs of mercy, or our desire to uphold the justice of God, Who says, “You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.” and “You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”? Should we be partial toward the foreign law-breaker, allowing things that we would not tolerate in a fellow citizen or even a foreigner who was respectful of our laws? How does that uphold God’s justice, and if it does not, how can it be said that encouraging a person to continue in sin (for “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”) is a mercy?

Christianity that “does its own thing” is not following the teaching of Jesus. To the contrary, the Church in America is missing out on one of the greatest evangelistic opportunities that has appeared since the Great Awakening. There are hordes of people who have entered this country illegally who are prime candidates for the Gospel. The Gospel, however, (as presented by Jesus Himself) begins with “Repent!” —- which requires the illumination of sin and the turning away from such.

Unfortunately, Americhristianity sees success in spiritual things the same way it sees success in business — the bigger the better; quantity trumps quality. Americhristianity fears to label specific behaviors as sin, lest some potential convert be offended. We, however, need not fear to preach that sin in every form, including breaking the law, (yes, you speeders and stop sign runners, that includes you) needs to be repented from. Then, when the Spirit of God converts those whom He draws and convicts, they become the seed of renewed missionary activity.

If that leads the illegal immigrant back to the place from which he came, perhaps it is the hand of God which drew him here in the first place, fleeing the corruption due to sin in his own land, for the purpose of returning him to be a blessing in the midst of a crooked and corrupt land. To be sure, such a theme will be unpopular, because it flies in the face of “cheap grace” and pop gospel. Nevertheless, it is the way the Church has grown through the centuries. America may be ripe for judgment, but even in her last days the true followers of Jesus in this land can carry out the will of their Father.

So Peter states, “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”