The Crimson Thread - May I Gently Suggest?

It is God's intention to restore the creation to what He originally intended it to be. His servants are to be agents in that restoration. In his parables Y'shua gives instructions as to what His servants are to be doing in while He is away. To do this the servants need access to the Master's power and authority. He has given that to us in the Torah and the Holy Spirit.

Bathsheba's grandfather, Ahithophel, advised Absalom to pursue David immediately. When that advice was not followed, the rebellion was essentially lost. Although David prevailed, the death of his son was devastating. Especially since he knew that the whole thing was his own fault.

In much of the contemporary church the Gospel is primarily seen as the way to get to heaven. That is not how those listening to the Apostles heard it; nor is it how God meant it to be understood. By spiritualizing the Gospel, the church has been robbed of the power it was intended to have.

After his adultery with Bathsheba, God cursed David saying that evil would come upon him from his own family. David's son Absalom would be the vehicle for the outworking of that curse.

In Genesis we read that "God said...and it was so.' Speech both defines everything and provides a window into a persons character. Kind, encouraging words reveal a kind person. The converse is also true. Words can build up or tear down a community which is why Scripture repeatedly tells us to watch what we say.

David's firstborn son, Amnon, raped his half sister Tamar. Tamar's brother Absalom secretly planned vengeance. As prophesied by Nathan, this began a string of tragedies within David's family.

In Scripture God defines justice. He speaks of it repeatedly and when Israel corrupts its justice system, He sends them into exile. Both English Common Law and American law are based upon the Biblical standards. As America has become a post-biblical nation, our sense of justice has been thoroughly corrupted. God's indictment of Israel in Isaiah 56 could equally apply to us today.

There is more to the story of David and Bathsheba than you were probably taught in Sunday school. This is a complex story of court politics which will have ramifications for the remainder of David's reign.

In Parsha Kedoshim we are instructed to be holy as God is holy and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are also instructed not to sow our fields with different grains and not wear mixed linen and wool. How do these seemingly unrelated ideas tie together?

Having gotten Israel united, David proceeded to subdue the surrounding nations. At his height David's realm extended from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River. With the exceptions of the Philistine enclave on the southern coast and Phoenicians in Tyre and Sidon Israel held sway over the entire extent of God's promise to Abraham.

God spoke His words to a nomadic people. Scripture recounts that as His people became prosperous and settled into cities they were pulled by the world and quickly drifted away from God. The church has undergone the same process. What was born in enthusiastic revival has gradually drifted back to the world. As an example a professor at a Christian college was recently fired for a tweet that simply...

After the assassination of Ishbosheth David was able to unite all Israel under his reign and move his throne to Jerusalem. When he tried to bring the Ark into Jerusalem, he did not follow God's instructions as given in the Torah. This error cost Uzzah his life.

There are many theories as to why Nadav and Abihu died when they brought strange fire into the Tabernacle. Most of those theories have to do with their attitude. In reality their attitude or heart condition had nothing to do with why God responded as He did. The reason is far more fundamental and important.

With Saul's death, David was free to begin the process of becoming king. He made a number of deft political moves that first got him installed as king over Judah ruling from Hebron. In the north, Abner had installed Ish-botheth as king to replace his father Saul. Ish-bosheth, however, was not nearly so astute as was David. He alienated Abner, and so began David's moves to consolidate the nation un...

When John first encounters Y'shua, he says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Consulting only the Torah, it is possible to explain why that statement was true, what it means to be "the Lamb of God" and why His sacrifice is able to redeem us.

Before his final battle with the Philistines, Saul had lost all contact with God. In desperation, he consulted a necromancer who channeled the ghost of Samuel who predicted Saul's defeat and death. David meanwhile was rejected when he tried to join the Philistine army fighting against Israel. This was quite providential because he would have had a very difficult time uniting Israel under his reign...

In the first six chapters of Leviticus, all of the sin or guilt sacrifices are voluntary. In other words, the sinner realizes his wrong, does his best to make it right and only then will the sacrifice be accepted. In this we have a model for what it takes to truly repent and then come before God and ask for forgiveness. In the entire Bible, repentance precedes forgiveness, not the reverse.

While evading Saul, David and his men lived by raiding. In this he spared Israelites and even offered them protection from rival tribes. This forms the background for his marriage to Abigail. When her husband, the fool, refused to let David and his men share in a feast, David vowed to kill him and his men to avenge the insult. Abigail's quick action forestalled that event and when Nabal died, Davi...

Leviticus begins with a table of sacrifice. Most Christians skip over this part as being repetitive, out of date and boring. This is a mistake. Leviticus is arguably the most important book in the Torah in that it teaches us how we are to approach and relate to God. The many prophetic passages where God reacts angrily to Israel's sacrifices might lead one to think that they are forever done away w...

Saul's paranoia was so severe that his own people could see it. He accused the priests of conspiring with David against him and ordered them killed. The Israelites would not do it, so it fell to an Edomite. David had to constantly stay on the move in southern Judah to avoid being trapped and killed by Saul. Yet for all that, when presented with the opportunity to kill Saul as he was relieving hims...

The world lately has become a very unstable place. This past week 3 major banks have failed; government and major institutions are no longer able to recognize the difference between men and women; there are 'wars and rumors of wars' throughout the world. In the face of this shaking, God represents Himself as a rock; the ultimate earthly symbol of stability, He wrote His commandments in stone. He i...

In the earlier books of the Bible the divide between the spiritual world and the physical seems to have been much less rigid than it is now. There are quite a few stories where two people meet and it is only later that one realizes that the other is an angel. Indeed, some of these angelic beings appear to be either God or Messiah.

In the wilderness, the sin of the golden calf was spawned by a crisis of confidence. Moses had been gone for 40 days and the people began to worry that they were stranded in the desert without a guide and without a connection to God. This only one of several such crises and it provides lessons for us today.

As David continued to succeed in all that he did, Saul became increasingly paranoid and unstable. What began as throwing a spear at David on impulse changed into an official condemnation and edict that David be murdered. In this, Saul's own children sided with David and helped him escape. Thus began David's time in exile and the wilderness.

The movie, The Jesus Revolution, is about the hippie revival between 1967 and 1973. This revival which bore long lasting fruit was sparked by the Vietnam war. Lots of comfortable, middle class young adults were jolted out of their pleasant prosperity and sent looking for truth, love, enlightenment, etc. Conditions in today's America are analogous in many ways. Physically, we are prosperous, but th...