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See also Literary Constraints
A lack of clarity would lead to confusion and then to possible wrongdoing. This would be something the Lord God would have to guard against.
Confusion might come from:
It is all too easy for a student to become confused and get hold of the wrong end of the stick! We've all been there and got the t-shirt! Sometimes the failure lies with the teaching; but sometimes the failure lies with ourselves.
Confusion may arise from a student's refusal to pay attention, for whatever reasons. A confusion which is self-inflicted, and for which he will be held responsible.
However, poor quality teaching might arise from:
Those tasked with teaching were under the constraint of excellence; to fall short was to incur guilt. Yet the Lord also - as an offerer of the Primary Contract, and His commitment to the guidance of His People - was equally constrained. In fact, the Covenant Contract placed constraints on all parties.
Clarity would be a requisite for all age groups, and for all levels of ability, and for all personal circumstances. Those in reduced or difficult circumstances would not be able to think too clearly: they too must be cared for. The scope is such as to make this constraint of clarity a very demanding one.
[Dissertation: If God targets those with the lowest levels of ability and education, how then does He address those with much greater ability and education?]
How could the Lord ensure that His standards were maintained by those appointed to carry out education on His behalf? As their 'employer', how could He avoid charges of incompetence and negligence being levelled against Himself if those He'd appointed went off the rails? As their 'employer', He would be liable in law: the buck would stop with Himself!
One passage in Scripture caught my eye: it was the Lord's treatment of the three friends who had not spoken of the Lord what was right:
7 After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job's prayer. (Job 42:7-9 ESV)
Although the Lord's anger burned against the three friends, He did not deal with them according to their folly. Why?
Compare the Lord's handling of the three friends with His handling of the false shepherds in the days of Jeremiah7-6C and Ezekiel6C:
1 “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:1-2 NIV)
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 O mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and say to them:
To the shepherds: Thus said the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel, who have been tending yourselves! Is it not the flock that the shepherds ought to tend? 3 You partake of the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, and you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not tend the flock. 4 You have not sustained the weak, healed the sick, or bandaged the injured; you have not brought back the strayed, or looked for the lost; but you have driven them with harsh rigor, 5 and they have been scattered for want of anyone to tend them; scattered, they have become prey for every wild beast. 6 My sheep stray through all the mountains and over every lofty hill; My flock is scattered all over the face of the earth, with none to take thought of them and none to seek them. 7 Hear then, O shepherds, the word of the LORD! 8 As I live—declares the Lord GOD: Because My flock has been a spoil—My flock has been a prey for all the wild beasts, for want of anyone to tend them since My shepherds have not taken thought of My flock, for the shepherds tended themselves instead of tending the flock—9 hear indeed, O shepherds, the word of the LORD: 10 Thus said the Lord GOD: I am going to deal with the shepherds! I will demand a reckoning of them for My flock, and I will dismiss them from tending the flock. The shepherds shall not tend themselves any more; for I will rescue My flock from their mouths, and it shall not be their prey. (Ezekiel 34:1-10 (Tanakh))
The disparity between the Lord's handling of the failure of the three friends, and the punishment He intended to visit on the false shepherds had, to me, seemed inconsistent! But was it?
For the answer, we must look at the timeline.
Job and his three friends existed in the mists of time long before Jeremiah7-6C or Ezekiel6C. It was a time of population growth and expansion. But the Lord, as yet, had not formally appointed any shepherds. The abstract Covenant in those days was implemented as the post-Eden Covenant‡:
[‡ It's important to note that at this time there had been no formal appointment of shepherds and no related contract. It would be many years before the Lord God formally appointed shepherds (the Levitical Priesthood) and bound them by contract (the Levitical Contract).]
When the Lord God looked at the developing situation in the world at the time of Job, He realised that the poor teaching standards could only be corrected with a centralised approach, and the appointment of a nation dedicated to His service. He realised, too, that a nation was the smallest unit which could stand alone in a world which was headed towards evil beyond human imagining. However, such appointment would have to await a time more conducive to its effectiveness. That came at the time of Moses13C, when the Lord God formally instantiated the Mosaic Contract.
It is important to remember that the three friends were not appointed shepherds and therefore not bound as such by contract. Compare that with the shepherds appointed at the time of Moses13C who were bound by a contract - the Levitical Contract.
So, the three friends had broken the Covenant, but they had not broken a contract relating to an appointment as shepherds. In mitigation, they were doing the best they could in the conditions which existed in those days. However, those shepherds mentioned in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel were bound by the Levitical Contract, and so could not escape the penalty clauses triggered by their wrongdoing.
When looking at the conduct of the three friends, they were using a doctrine which was commonplace at that time. Eliphaz asked Job,
9 What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have? 10 The gray-haired and the aged are on our side, men even older than your father. (Job 15:9-10 NIV)
It would have been inappropriate to have dished out heavy penalties to the three friends and let everyone else - their teachers, the gray-haired and the aged - go unpunished. However, the three friends were required to seek forgiveness of the Lord and of Job, both of whom they had wronged (Job 42:7-9)
Notice that Job - in line with Jesus' words - forgave his three friends and interceded with the Lord on their behalf. And this was genuine forgiveness - not the false forgiveness we see so often today, where victims 'forgive' those who've neither confessed nor repented nor sought their forgiveness. Note that confession (by the three friends) and forgiveness (by Job) was in line with Jesus' later teaching.
Peter questioned Jesus:
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22 NIV)
To be confused by poor teaching is not a sin! However, when confused, the sin is in failure to seek God's clarification. It is important to continue seeking, for clarification may not come until later on in life.
[Essay: By obfuscating the Scriptures, is God breaking His own rules on clarity?]
Truthfulness (mass noun): the fact of being true; truth (Dictionary of English).
Note that the antonyms of 'truthful' are untruthful, deceitful, false, untrue. These are to be avoided! We also need to beware of those who would deceive us!
Truthfulness in education is a prime requirement if sin and error are to be avoided.
[Dissertation: Avoiding oversimplification for younger students.]
[Dissertation: The false education which is taking place in schools, higher education, and universities in the UK today.]
Information (mass noun): facts provided or learned about something or someone (Dictionary of English).
Information provides the bricks upon which knowledge is built. So, it is important that those things which are purported to be facts are, in fact, true.
One of the great advantages of the computer is that it allows the storage of vast amounts of information in a relatively small space, and then makes it available for retrieval.
[Essay: 'Fake news' is not just a secular problem.]
Knowledge (mass noun): facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject (Dictionary of English).
[Homework assignment: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein. Discuss.]
To knowledge must be added 'truthfulness'. Knowledge is important - but only if it is true!
The Lord God affirms the importance of knowledge:
“Who is this who darkens counsel, speaking without knowledge?” (Job 38:1 T).
And Jesus berated the experts in the law because they had taken away the key to knowledge:
52 "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52 NIV)
The key, of course, was belief in what Moses13C wrote concerning Jesus:
46 “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:46-47 NIV)
The experts in the law didn't believe what Moses had written, thereby destroying the key to understanding Jesus' words. In view of Jesus' condemnation of the experts in the law, what can be said of Paul et al who have denigrated and annulled the Mosaic Contract?
[Dissertation: The evaluation of those Two Great Abstract Rules relies on a knowledge and understanding of the Messianically Amended Covenant, together with a personal knowledge and face-to-face relationship with the Lord.]
It is in the mining of information that the break-through comes!
[Dissertation: Contemporary failure to mine the Scriptures. Compare with Jesus' example of text-mining‡‡ (Luke 24:27).]
[‡‡ [27] And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:27 NIV)]
Think of all the rules and regulations of the Mosaic Covenant - some 613 of them. Yet Jesus is able to reduce them to just two abstract rules which are to be evaluated in real-time in the context of the current Covenant! Such an evaluation will require rational thought, knowledge, and understanding!
In the Old Testament, God invites Israel to, “Come now, let us reason together” (Is. 1:18 NIV). Here, the Lord God is inviting rational thought and discussion.
Unlike the Lord God, our limited capacity means that we cannot hope to remember every bit of information; neither can we be expected to excel at everything. Consequently, there is specialisation in the workplace. Technology lends a helping hand - through indexed books, computers, smart-phones, and the web - by giving us the ability to store information and then make it available for lookup and retrieval.
But it is rational thought which allows the processing of this wealth of information which progress and research have placed at our disposal.
Rational thought is our ability to think sensibly or logically. It is our ability to reason. And rational thought allows us to process the vast amounts of information brought by progress. It allows higher levels of abstraction; and, going in the opposite direction, it allows us to drill down to greater levels of detail.
To illustrate the point, consider the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Mosaic Covenant law. Rational thought allows Jesus to abstract the Law into two high-level principles, each of which is explicitly stated in the law of Moses. These abstract rules can easily be remembered and evaluated at point of need - though knowledge of the current Covenant and of the world are also required.
Rational thought allows us to drill down to a level of detail far greater than that covered in Genesis ... leading eventually, for example, to a better understanding of true and false guilt, and to the first recorded instance of false guilt in the Book of Genesis (Gen. 3: 9-11a T).
Commandments based on whim or capriciousness have a negative Spiritual Dimension: in other words, they are evil. To say that God can contradict Himself and act inconsistently because His level of knowledge and understanding are so much higher than our own (new-covenant church doctrine), is a downright lie. We can verify the lie because of the absence of a sound, God-given reason at the Spiritual Level. God knows that understanding the reasons behind a commandment will more likely result in it being obeyed†. The Most High therefore wants us to understand the reasons behind all His commandments - and this knowledge and understanding will enable the successful evaluation of those two great abstract rules.
[† Those who have engaged in dangerous sports will know just how true this is! Yet here, in contrast, the penalty for failure won't be physical death but Spiritual Death!]
The Lord God thinks rationally. To accuse Him of irrational thought and behaviour is to court individual and collective disaster. The Lord knows just how important it is to avoid confusing mankind!
To be rational is to be logical. The acceptance of doctrine based on inconsistency and contradiction is irrational.
A study of Pauline doctrine reveals inconsistencies and contradictions which are attributed to the Lord Spirit (q.v.); Paul's actions, too, are inconsistent (eg: the refusal to circumcise Titus; yet Paul endorses the circumcision of Timothy!
Paul's doctrine on circumcision:
[2] Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. (Galatians 5:2 NIV)
In the light of Galatians 5:2, how could Paul endorse the circumcision of Timothy?
He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. 2 The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. (Acts 16:1-3 NIV)
Quite simply, having annulled the Covenant, how can Paul then circumcise Timothy? If Christ is of no value to those Gentiles who let themselves be circumcised, then Paul has forced Timothy to obey the annulled Covenant which kills (2 Cor. 3:6); and, at the same time, Paul has rendered Christ of no use to Timothy. Paul doesn't compel Titus to be circumcised, even though they were going to Jerusalem; yet Paul compels Timothy to be circumcised in order to placate the Jews who knew that Timothy's father was Greek!
But perhaps you think that new-covenant doctrine evolves and syncs with current new-covenant 'scholarship' and its accommodations with evil?!
[Dissertation: Paul's irrationality.]
It is not therefore the object of logic to determine whether conclusions be true or false;
but whether what are asserted to be conclusions are conclusions
Augustus de Morgan
It would be helpful to draw attention to a few important points, as they will be encountered sooner or later. Doctrine needs to be:
Slanting is a failure to convey the whole truth of the matter in hand. This incompleteness has obvious consequences! But what is the agenda of those who are slanting their message?
Inconsistency - saying one thing one minute, and something else the next - will inevitably lead to confusion and wrongdoing. This is particularly true when evaluating those Two Great Abstract Rules in the context of the current Covenant.
Contradictions are extremely damaging. Notice how Paul's contradictory doctrine on circumcision is spread across several of his letters in the Bible - as if such a tactic can escape the notice of the Most High!
God is not changeable (Prime Axioms): He is consistent, logical, and does not contradict Himself. Capricious He is not! God knows our limitations, and so He speaks and acts in a way which will not confuse or mislead us.
To be caught in a contradiction is to be guilty of fabrication and falsification. It goes directly to authority, competence, and integrity - which in turn go to the dismissal of those in office.
Contradictions lead to confusion among the flock. And confusion, in turn leads to error and wrongdoing.
To hold to a contradiction is to be guilty of:
[Dissertation: By upholding inconsistencies and contradictions, the new-covenant church can slant and shape and change doctrine to suit themselves.]
Oversimplification is to be avoided, since it can introduce voids and errors. Einstein suggests that:
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The new-covenant church assert that the Bible is a truthful account, without error or contradiction. They go so far as to assert that the Bible is sufficient and will meet every need, being divinely inspired.
Unfortunately, the Bible incorporates errors and wrongdoing, courtesy of Paul et al (qv). Necessarily, therefore, those reading the Bible must sift the wheat from the chaff - not easy for those not academically inclined or for those struggling through difficult times, so emotionally drained that they have trouble thinking straight.
To summarise, the Bible is not dependable.
Enter the Book of Teaching!
The Book of Teaching is a stripped-down version of the Bible, from which all corrupt content has been removed. The Book of Teaching contains the Scriptures (qv), the content of which has been directly or indirectly endorsed by Jesus. Its dependability is thus assured.
Knowledge of the Scriptures is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Also necessary is a personal face-to-face relationship with the Lord.
[Essay: The need for a face-to-face relationship with the Lord, in addition to a knowledge of the Scriptures.]
Every aspect of the Covenant must be free from even the slightest blemish: whether it's the integrity of the Book of Teaching, the design and structure of the Covenant Contract and sub-contracts, the conduct of the parties to the Covenant Contract, the integrity of the shepherds of Israel, the structure and administration of Israel and its society, ...
The constraints are such as to ensure the perfection of the Covenant. No one should be forced to separate the wheat from the chaff, as is the case today with the Covenant with Death (House of Desolation) and the new-covenant (Paul, unknown writer to Hebrews, et al).
[Dissertation: Constraints - integrity]
All authentification is to be from Father and Son. The examples of authentification by Paul and the unknown writer to the Hebrews, are to be avoided.
[Dissertation: Constraints - authentication.]
The Covenant is a complex composite contract which is enforeceable in Law. It is therefore subject to the most rigorous constraints of the law of contract.
[Dissertation: Constraints imposed by the terms, conditions, and penalty clauses of a contract.]
[Dissertation: Obfuscation - constraints and restrictions.]
[Dissertation: Metaphor - constraints and restrictions.]
Version: 2024-07-10