Who Is It About, Then?

 If it's not all about men and male church leaders and what they think, feel, want and how they want to teach and direct the church, then who is it about?

Well, I'm pretty sure that if we look at the words of Jesus, we can get an inkling. There are tons of amazing examples. But  I'll pull out this one because it gets straight to the heart of the matter.

Luke 10:30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

This story is not about religious leaders, except to expose their failures to represent God. As many church leaders today fail to take care of the vulnerable, broken, and wounded, so have these religious leaders failed to show God's heart toward the beaten and half-dead man on the road to Jericho.

Rather, this story is about a man who takes care of the broken, beaten, wounded and vulnerable. This is the story of what is important to God. Because it is all about the broken, wounded, and vulnerable and those who take care of them.

These are the kinds of things Jesus taught us. This is what is important. Years of men wringing their hands over what women and teen girls wear is a gross departure from what is important to God. It is a distraction away from what is near and dear to Him.

It's all about healing the broken hearted and binding up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). This is what God loves to do. And God loves those who join Him in this ministry.

Have Added a New Blog to the List

Yes, I know. Not much activity here. And for good reason. Personal life is all a jumble. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime.

But for now this blog is mostly a place I put things for safe keeping and for the benefit of others who may come this way.

Today I am adding a new blog to the blog list. It is "Visionary Womanhood" by Natalie, I was directed to her blog by Velour over at TWW through this comment: Link

I would like to highlight these two posts:

To Heal or Not To Heal a Woman's Heart

And

A Twist on the Good Samaritan

I am highlighting these two posts in particular because they expose the hypocrisy of the church concerning women. They expose how the needs of women do not concern the men in charge. Even though preachers teach on the Bible verses that would tell them to heal the wounded, somehow when it involves a woman married to an abusive man suddenly these verses fall away and the only verses the preachers care about are the submission and God hates divorce verses. These preachers lose sight of the fact that God cares for women and is concerned over their healing.

In combination with these posts I want to throw in an old one of mine.

Manipulating Scripture for Personal Benefit.

And here is a quote from it concerning God's concern for the hearts of women:

It is also about the wounded female heart that many men don't want to see and gloss over as though such a thing doesn't exist. Or if a woman's heart really is wounded, it is somehow the woman's own fault and she just needs to shape up, all the while serving the man with a sweet disposition.

Yes, I've heard messages from preachers about bitter women. I've heard the rebukes and criticisms, and blaming that these senseless preachers freely pour out on already wounded hearts. I've heard about the merciless shaming of pastor's wives who "let themselves go". What do these men know about a woman's heart? Nothing.

They know nothing because they do not care. The heart of a woman is of little value to them. They care about the outward rather than the inward. If the outward is not seemly enough, then let the ridicule fly. If the outward attitude is not sweet, then run her off and call her Jezebel since she is of no use to the man and not worth his trouble.

Thank God, He knows everything about women. Thank God, He cares deeply about every wound. Thank God, He sees past the sometimes prickly self-defenses of a wounded woman and seeks after her heart. He poured Himself out generously to heal and comfort every woman cursed and spoken against by self-righteous preachers, supposed brothers, false shepherds who attack the ewes to garner favor with the rams.

Thank you Natalie for you courage in exposing foolish men who elevate rams over ewes and themselves over everyone.

Mars, Venus, and Uranus

I'm not even going to tell you how I got onto this train of thought. The story is too long and complicated and drags in some places.

I am going to give a disclaimer:
I have never read "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus" nor "Women May Be from Venus, But Men Are Really from Uranus." So I can't comment on whether either book is worth anything.

I'm also going to state something else. In the past I never really thought about the name of Mars Hill being anything but taken from the Bible concerning Paul arguing for the faith on Mars Hill as mentioned in the Book of Acts. But part of me is really beginning to think that the name "Mars Hill" might be far more loaded in the minds and hearts of the men who came up with the name. Part of me is starting to believe that Mark Driscoll might have read John Gray's "Men are from Mars..." and might have taken it to heart so that it has became part of the psyche that is Mars Hill. Perhaps it is more Mars/Men/Mark Hill that what I originally thought.

This, I cannot really say. But part of me really wonders if they named it Mars Hill because they really are concerned about raising the Masculine over the Feminine, making Mars Hill a great place for men (the right kind of men, Mars type men, Mark type men). They have made it a great place for Mars Men at the hurt and expense of the women. I already know that Mars Hill is a place that hurts and puts down women in order to raise up and (fake) heal the souls of men. But I've never considered the name to be a part of the abuse and oppression of women. Now I'm wondering.

And the thing that got me wondering about it again this morning is reading a blog post by the women who wrote "Women May Be from Venus, But Men Are Really from Uranus." In this post Katherine Black lays out the top ten defenses of John Gray that she receives. I post them only because they sound strangely close to the defenses the are given against feminism, egalitarianism, and arguments against male privilege in the church.

Again, I can neither endorse nor defend anything concern the books by John Gray and Katherine Black. But I can appreciate this post on men defending the words and writings of another men by attacking a woman.

John Gray Is Soundly Defended

Experience from Inside Mars Hill

Another couple links on this last day of Link Junction January:

http://twocleareyes.blogspot.com/2012/01/mars-hill-altar-of-doctrine-and-occult.html#!/2012/01/mars-hill-altar-of-doctrine-and-occult.html

http://marshillrefuge.blogspot.com/2012/01/questions.html#comment-form

I added the above, Mars Hill Refuge, to my blog list.

(No guarantee that I will stop my linking frenzy just because we are running out of January.)

Poetry Threads.

[Edited to remove very long link. It was shutting down the blog.]

This very long link leads to a google image of a braid.
I picked this particular image due to the colors of the individual strands or threads.

One problem with the way modern, western civilization read the Bible is that they look upon it as an owner's manual or instruction manual. You can see this in their application of Ephesians 5 toward marriage and you can see it in Driscoll's application of the Song of Solomon.

I've got news for people. Poetry is so far removed from instruction manual material it is laughable. When the Bible was written, no one ever heard of an owner's or instruction manual. They didn't think in those terms. We think in those terms because we live in an age of technology and having to know how things work in order to get by.

But even in our modern age, do we feel the need to look at modern poetry as instructions for life? Why this compulsion to make Biblical poetry into such a thing.

What is poetry? It is many things, some of which are hard to pin down. One reason for this is that poetry can have many threads making up the whole. And the threads are woven together. Modern writers do this in both fiction and poetry. Why is it so difficult for some blockheads to see this?

WTH: "I have been convinced for years that Driscoll has the world's biggest tin ear for poetry. He doesn't think in poetic terms but in terms of propositional statements and formal arguments. This isn't just manifest in his approach to Song of Songs, it's also revealed perhaps even more tellingly in the fact that in fifteen years he's never done any substantial preaching from the Psalms. He did some okay work in the 2004 Advent series going through the songs in Luke but that was obviously more than half a decade ago." From a comment under his part 4b post.

I've complained in the past that the Songs have been mishandled by perverted men. I appreciate further understanding that another mishandling is by men who have no grasp or understanding where poetry is concerned. Men who try to shove poetry into an instruction manual mode have no business handling the poetry at all. They destroy and crush rather than teach and open understanding.

Song of Solomon is not a single thread of erotic and explicit, sexual instruction. Making it into it does violence to the text.
Rather it is a many layered poem with many threads, probably more than three, woven through out.
One of those threads is sexual.
Another of those threads is allegorical or typological.
Another thread is on healing.
Another thread is raising up of the downtrodden
Another thread is empowering the feminine against the anger of misogyny among men (supposed brothers).

There is much woven into this poem. It can be many things to many people. It can meet a point of need within a person's life. It can help with marriage. It can help with our relationship with the Almighty.

Smacking it down into one-size-fits-all is thievery and a great injustice. Glimpses of eternity can be found in it. Forcing it into a finite box is done by fools who rush in where angels fear to tread.

First and Last Overview of Song of Solomon

[This is a repost from 2009 for those who joined us after that time]

One of the reasons I see healing in Song of Solomon is through reading about the Beloved in the first and last chapters.

In chapter one it says:
Song of Songs 1:5 I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon.
Vs 6 Do not stare at me because I am swarthy (dark), For the sun had burned me. My mother's sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyard, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.

Above she confesses that she has been pushed into the position of a common laborer by her brothers who were angry with her. She worked for them because they made her do it. And they oppressed her to the point that she neglected her own property, her own vineyard.Elsewhere in SOS, the Beloved is referred to as a nobleman's daughter, so it is curious that she was forced to work as a servant by her brothers in the first chapter.

Now let's look at a couple of verses in the last chapter of SOS.
Song of Songs 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to caretakers; Each one was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.
Vs 12 My very own vineyard is at my disposal; The thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, And two hundred are for those who take care of its fruit.

I read a commentary somewhere that said that the Beloved's vineyard was her face/appearance.
That she couldn't take care of her looks and became sunburned. I disagree with this since the last chapter also mentions her vineyard and the money she has made from it. So unless they had super models back then, thinking of the vineyard as being her face and her making money off of it... This might imply she was a prostitute, which we know is not true. So she must have really had a vineyard, like the Proverbs woman did.

But the difference in chapter eight is that she no longer talks about the oppression of her brothers or her sunburn. The Lover (whom she is married to at this point) has his vineyard but
does not require the Beloved to work in it. He has hired men for that.

The Beloved is now in charge of her own vineyard rather than being forced to neglect it. In fact, she doesn't work in her own vineyard but also has hired men that she pays to work in it just like her Beloved, Solomon. No longer oppressed, she is in the position to be generous with her Lover. And out of gratitude or love she willingly hands over money made off her vineyard to him.

Quite a change from chapter one to chapter eight. The Beloved has been raised from an oppressed servant to manager of her own affairs. From my reading, the progression from
chapter one through chapter eight, is a progression of healing and being raised
up from a lowly place to an exalted place by the love, care, and generosity of
the Lover.

And this, my friends, is why I hold that Song of Solomon is not just about... uhm... sex. It is about healing and is an allegory or picture of God's love, care, and generosity toward the church and
individuals in the church, working to raise them from the muck and mire of
worldly darkness and into His marvelous light.

This also goes directly against the assertion by Mark Driscoll that the Song of Solomon is not a progression and not in chronological order, an assertion that he makes as though it were fact though he gives no support whatsoever. And there are reasons that he makes this assertion. Because if Song of Solomon were a progression, then his teaching would have the Lover and Beloved engaging in fornication, sex outside marriage.

But enough on that. The point of this post was a first and last overview, where the Beloved started and where she ended up after just eight chapters of being showered with unbridled love and affection from the Lover of her soul.

Driscoll's Error Is a Thief

The Bible says that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.
It also says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.

Part of me wants to accuse Driscoll of being a thief for stealing away the spiritually healing and empowering qualities of Song of Solomon.

But after reading WTH's assessment of Driscoll and seeing how important the marriage healing side of Song of Songs is to him, I have to back off and refrain from calling Driscoll, himself, a thief.

But his Peasant Princess series on the Song of Solomon and the error contained in it, this error is most certainly a thief.

There is healing and refreshing for the soul and spirit of the downtrodden in the Songs. There is also tenderness and a way of closeness to God, unparalleled anywhere else in the Bible. There is also the lifting up of the feminine from a low place from the muck and mire of this fallen world up to a high place of strength, maturity, and authority. I know it's there. I found it. It is a strong thread completely overlooked by Driscoll who is too busy looking for erotic, explicit sex under every rock and tree so his libido can be ever serviced.

The beauty and depth in Song of Solomon and the opening up of understanding of the Infinite is not something that should be brushed away lightly. Driscoll does the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a great disservice when he mishandles the Songs as he does.

The healing, lifting up, and empowering of the Beloved by the Lover is a strong theme that shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of Aphrodite and Eros. But I digress.

By now, any readers here will understand my concern over the thievery of Driscoll's doctrine. But with all my talk about him and the Songs, some of you may be wonder what sort of healing, empowering, and drawing near to God I'm thinking of. So I feel it would be good to repost some of my earlier writings on the Songs so that you may begin to see why the thievery and armed robbery of Driscoll's error bothers me so much.

Houses of Healing

There is a scene from Lord of the Rings that didn't appear in the theatrical version. I've shared it elsewhere. But because it seems to go with this series on strong men and men who have the heart of true brothers towards women, I've decided to link it here for those of my friends who haven't seen it yet.

Jesus taught us to treat one another as brothers and sisters. And this view is so lost when you start dividing things up into boxes and roles and giving one gender the lesser role. When in fact we are all called (male and female) to be warriors and brothers of light. The chapter that immediately follows Ephesians 5 is Ephesians 6 which tells us, regardless of gender, to take up the full armor of God. Yet the role pushers want to make only men warriors and relegate women to helpless damsels in distress, or victims. And such a set up sets women up for failure. Then when failure comes, the woman is relegated to the level of strange women and her humanity, brother/sisterhood is lost and she becomes even lesser still and a thing to be mocked, warned against, and even further used.

More about that later.

This scene opens up with a heart wrenching cry from a warrior brother who has discovered his sister's body on the battle field and shows his anguish over her. Then it quickly moves to the following scene in the houses of healing and what follows there.

The reason I like this scene is because it shows a couple things. One, the love of a brother for his sister (who refused the box of her culture and went into battle thus fulfilling an ancient prophecy and gaining a huge victory). And, two, the healing of this sister by another man who is not her biological brother, but is most definitely her brother in arms and in heart.

There is a third man shown who becomes a love interest later, but in this scene it shows his attraction and admiration for her heroic actions on the battlefield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UhO9K7F3I

True brothers want to make the church into a house of healing for all, including women, no matter where the women come from or how they are wounded. True brothers believe that the name of God, "The Lord our Healer" still applies today and is more important than their own 'advancement' and authority in the Kingdom of God.
False brothers are only concerned with their own authority, controlling women and making extra rules for them that men don't have to obey, and extra sins that men can't be guilty of.