It's a miracle. You do believe in miracles, don't you?
Miracles are those events from the hand of God which don't make sense, can't be accounted for in mundane terms of living on earth. But people in the Bible seemed far more comfortable with them, as if it was something they understood. We've lost that because we've lost mysticism. People get spooked at the mention of "mysticism." If you fear this word, you aren't ready to be a prophet. If you are able to mentally remove all the unhealthy associations from the term, we can demystify what this is all about. Mysticism simply describes a way of knowing things.
Recall we discussed the failure of the Western Aristotelian epistemology in the Introduction. The Ancient Hebrew people were fully aware of the rational approach, but knew instinctively it was not enough. If it were enough, we'd have more miracles and prophecies these days. It's not as if God has stopped working, but we have something which keeps us from getting into that part of the Kingdom of Heaven. People manage to exercise faith and it seems like such an amazing breakthrough only because we don't usually step into the part of our existence where faith and miracles are the norm. It's okay to stick to the analytical scientific method when there is nothing else, but if there is something else, we are obliged by God to take a look. The fundamental assumption of being a prophet is there is something else, and it's not obvious when using only our sensory and logical capacities. There is this thing called "revelation" which comes from God, and we have to account for this first and foremost, before we use any other means of deciding how we shall proceed in this life.
Obeying God's revelation does follow more or less the scientific method, in one sense. Your conscious mind takes revelation and obeys it, formulating what it takes in practical terms to get as close as you can. Making sense of that revelation cannot take place entirely in the conscious mind. There is a part of your soul which is outside the boundaries of conscious intellect. Science itself recognizes most of us are aware of only some 10-15% of what we can process. The rest is murky territory to science because science is forced to reject the only source of information we have about that other 85-90% of our processing capability. We know things are processed there because of dreams and sudden impressions which do not arise from conscious thinking. At a very minimum, a properly functioning intuition comes from there. Intuition is processing something by patterns you have absorbed, and don't require fully conscious engagement. Intuition is just outside the line of conscious thought, and is quite effective if you cultivate it. But there is much more, and revelation is processed there in the same realm.
The happy part of this is, provided you are able to suspend your Western bias and resistance to this whole question, no one has to convince you. Once you are open to the truth, either truth becomes self-evident. If this part of you is alive and functioning, it will absorb the truth of what I write here. This is an example of how revelation works. While transmitted through conscious means of communication, such communication is merely the channel for a content which is much more than the words and thoughts. Revelation is not about information, but a direct impression from God, a very personal communion. Your intellect is simply not able to handle any part of that, so your non-conscious faculty does it.
People who wall off that faculty have a real problem with being a Christian, and an equally tough time grasping God's Laws and how they apply. The Bible was written by people who presumed the reader was acquainted with mysticism, and their writings could not have made sense without it. Those writings do not make much sense today without it. When you read the writings, you must absorb them in that off-conscious faculty and process them there, or you will be missing the actual content. So when you read it, that other faculty recognizes things your conscious mind cannot. The same goes with any human writing which conveys truth, including this writing. The ability to recognize God's truth is not tied up in hitting all the right logical points, nor thrilling your mind with some compelling logical clarity, but something much more subtle, and frankly above the intellect.
If the preceding does not ring a bell of recognition somewhere off the center stage of your conscious thoughts, then I can't help you, and this manual will mean very little. Mysticism is simply embracing non-conscious means of processing and absorbing truth which is too complicated for mere intellect. Mysticism is not about the content, but the way of handling it. Only since the time of Aristotle have any significant number of humans not been mystics. This includes most of Hebrew history and all of Hebrew Scripture. If you don't embrace mysticism as the Hebrews did, nothing in the Old Testament will make much sense to you. If you do embrace mysticism, the Old Testament can be entirely clear and consistent. The core of consistency is outside the conscious mental processes.
Don't confuse this with emotions, which only appear to be in the subconscious. A critical element in learning God's Laws and serving as a prophet is understanding where emotions come from, and what purpose they serve in life here below. Emotions are simply the link between the body and the mind, the results of flesh and intellect interacting. We have been falsely taught by Western epistemology to confuse mysticism and emotions, but they aren't at all the same. Time will teach you the difference once you grasp the distinction.
Let's examine how we can get out of this mess.
Whatever man can know about God and His Laws is found in the person of Jesus Christ. He is God's Law.
In our Western intellectual culture, saying things that way is referred to as "anthropomorphism" -- ascribing human traits to something which is supposedly not human. The problem is the Hebrew culture which gave birth to Jesus would say that stands truth on its head. They would say Western culture depersonalizes and objectifies God. To the Ancient Hebrew mystical mind, God is Truth and Truth is God. Truth cannot be perceived as something which exists separate from God's Person. When Scripture says "God is love" that's not a figure of speech so much as symbolic logic. I have already offered an explanation in the previous chapter which views justice as a living thing, and this is an entirely Hebrew approach. Saying Jesus was the personification of God's Law is a Western statement; it presumes Law must be an object, a thing, an intellectual ideal. To say He is God's justice is a Hebrew statement, which signals that justice cannot be understood, much less applied to life, without knowing Him as a human being.
Jesus while He lived never directly condemned Aristotle. What He did say simply assumes Aristotle was not reliable. If you cling to Aristotle, you cannot understand Jesus. Jesus condemned the Jewish leadership of His day for embracing Aristotle, and departing from the ancient ways of Moses. (Bible scholars refer to Aristotle's influence under the broader term "Hellenism.") He contrasted what God had said through Moses with what they were saying was the Law. A little known secret even today is the Jews already had something we now call the Talmud. In Jesus' day that was an oral body of interpretation of the Law using Aristotle's epistemology. He called that body of oral material "the traditions of the elders" -- a merely human set of concepts versus the revelation of God. It was clear Jesus dismissed this body of human traditions as contrary to revelation, a subtle form of attack on God's Laws. They executed Him for that. Their Aristotelian approach had turned Law into empty legalism, had excused their greed and abuse, sucking the life out justice. They had it all figured out and anything contrary was "evil."
This shift away from the Ancient Hebrew intellectual culture, which includes mysticism, began during the time Alexander the Great ruled Palestine (roughly 300 BC). Nothing in the history of Judaism has corrected this, so modern Jews are Talmudic, not Mosaic. They were not content with killing Jesus, though. They slipped around behind all the Apostles seeking to reassert their Talmudic approach over the new churches. We call those Judeo-Christian evangelists "Judaizers." It was a major controversy in many of Paul's letters, though he did not use that label for them. He fought them throughout his apostolic ministry. Sad to say, they eventually won. The Western Christian churches of today are essentially Talmudic in their approach to Scripture. Instead of the Talmud of Judaism, we have Systematic Theology. Instead of a subtle Hebrew mystical approach, we have rational literalism. Insisting we have to honor Aristotle's epistemology as we read Scripture is nothing more than modern Pharisaism in the church.
This study is covered in much more detail in Western Civilization Is Not Christian. The point is for you as a prophet to realize most of the Western church is not a friend of your calling.
There is one more issue to deal with here: false mysticism. Among those who claim to embrace mysticism are Western mystics. What they promote is simply more of the same thing, a deeper rational logic, a higher grade of reason. Because it's fake, it becomes a caricature of mysticism, serving to discredit the whole thing. A related problem is the tendency to push things in Christianity into this fake mystical territory. That is, they paint ideas with an aura of false piety and false holiness so that it becomes sacred and untouchable. Thus, certain institutions exempt themselves from accountability to God's Laws and seek to avoid the prophet's piercing gaze. This is closely associated with an empty, externalized grade of fake holiness, and a boat load of self-righteous indignation for those who don't take them seriously. Let's be clear: All human activity, all human organizations, are subject to God's Laws. His justice applies to the churches and every person, regardless of titles and positions. Nothing on this plane of existence is exempt from His Laws.
Modern Western Christianity inhibits genuine prophetic ministry. How can we begin to restore the ancient faith?
The early churches in Judea were predominately Judean; they were mostly Hebrew people. They organized themselves in Hebrew ways, as they had done for centuries. Their social structure was as yet largely unchanged from ancient times, though already under attack from the Pharisees. That structure was the extended family household. The first churches in Jerusalem were reconstituted clans. If a new member was the head of his household, it was common for his whole family, however much was under his authority, to come with him. It had nothing to do with folks being "born-again;" this was a matter of God's Laws in their eyes. They understood how God intended for it to work. The churches were clans formed under the tribal leadership of Jesus, obeying His Laws. He was the King.
In those times it was common for people in one city to belong to different nations, and to be under the partial jurisdiction matching their national identity. One of the primary issues for Roman soldiers making an arrest is whether the prisoner was to be turned over to his own national magistrate, and whether there was one in that location. The Christians viewed Jesus as the rightful ruler of Judea and Jews, and maintained a rival social structure which they believed restored the ancient ways of God. The priests were replaced by the Apostles, but the ruling elders were recognized according to ancient tribal customs. That's because everyone knew such was what God required. The first fracas within the church required appointing elders who would adopt those in Jerusalem who lived away from their blood kin. Those seven Greek-speaking elders were the new heads of household for those who came from Greek-speaking lands, to make sure the system took care of them. The Apostles insisted the system not be broken, but extended in new ways. God's Laws presumed such a social structure, and no nation on earth had any other structure back when He first revealed His Laws at the dawn of human history.
The Gentile churches were held to a similar standard. The only Scripture at that time was what we call the Old Testament. The Apostles were engaged in full time research of these Scriptures, but reading them in light of Jesus' teachings, and peeling off the layers of falsehood from the Talmud. When the Gentile churches began struggling with the old Hebrew ways, everyone got together and discussed what had to be carried over as essential, and what was merely peculiar to Hebrew people. We have a bare outline of that in Acts 15, but in Paul's letters to the various churches, we see him pressing certain customs not mentioned in that outline. Obviously a certain amount of Hebrew ways were required universally. A few were reversed: Jewish men wore hats in worship; Christians did not. But women all wore a head covering, and folks wore a style of modest clothing. Churches met in the fashion of synagogues, with women and children separate from the men and older boys. And churches were organized as little Hebrew clans, with elders over their households within the churches.
The church cannot speak God's Laws to society at large if it does not first obey God's Laws. The task of discerning, of abstracting from the Bible what applies to us, cannot proceed from the Western assumptions, but must begin with the Hebrew assumptions. Fashions change, and wearing a veil is purely symbolic, but that doesn't remove the obligation to find a modern application. Western churches aren't even trying to understand the Laws, but are seeking escape clauses, and excuses to stick to their Aristotelian logic. What we end up with is the church simply aping fallen society, ignoring God's Laws as irrelevant. The churches mirror the secular society around them, so why should secular society do anything different?
It's not the Laws which need to be justified, but every departure from them.
What are some contrasts which help us as prophets begin to absorb the justice of God? What follows is an update of something I wrote a few years back.
First is the previously mentioned business of intellectual frame of reference. Ultimate truth is revealed; we do not construct our view of reality starting with ourselves and our reason. Hebrew logic -- the prophet's logic -- is symbolic, not analytical. That is more than mere allegory and metaphor; symbols are flexible and morph with the context. Symbols are more about character and power. Analysis is more interested in the nature of something, as if objective reality actually exists and really matters. Hebrew logic is far more fuzzy, contextual. The objective is not to know something, as if to establish ownership through mastery. We don't seek to settle the matter once and for all as scientifically verified. In Hebrew mysticism we seek to assess only how something can be used at any given point in time.
Life is all about communication. We don't convey data; we present an impact. Communication is transporting the listener to the context of the narrative, bringing the fullness of the event to life for them. We want them to be shaped by a fresh encounter with God. Hebrew language is a collection of symbols, each a statement of impact, often rather dramatic. Hebrew vocabulary is tiny, with some 800 root words. They synthesize bigger words from the roots, and the meaning always shifts with the context. The intended result is that the receiver of the message be moved to ponder the meaning, not simply memorize it and file it away. We aren't building a static frame or matrix, but growing a tree. If you aren't contemplative, you can't have wisdom. Life is not knowing things, and learning is not merely knowing more. Life is obeying, and learning is obeying more thoroughly, bringing ever greater satisfaction to God.
Hebrew Scripture makes reference to the heart, not as the place of feelings, but of the will or commitment. We can academically divide the soul into mind, will and emotions. Hebrew thought places emotions in the belly, a matter of appetites. The intellect is fairly obvious, but Western assumptions ignore the will as a separate faculty. As you seek to become more Hebraic, you'll find your mind fights being removed from the executive. It seeks to rule the will, which is backwards. The will is the sum total of your commitments, and the only conscious link to the non-conscious. The power of God's revelation in some indefinable way invades the non-conscious portion of our souls. It carries down to the will as imperatives, a driving necessity to serve. God does not speak to the intellect because His voice is not mere data, but something far more substantial, yet indefinable in terms of intellect. The will conceives a burning drive, a commitment which pull on every particle of our being. This what Hebrew Scripture means by the heart, the seat of the will.
The brain is supposed to take this commitment and implement what it requires in whatever context it recognizes. We can characterize the process of moral development as the battle to put the mind in its proper place, training the mind to more clearly discern the will, and the will being shaped by unseen forces in the non-conscious. That's about as clinical as it gets. The intellect rightfully serves as the pilot, and your will as the captain of the ship. The will takes orders from a higher command. The will is your character, God's unique stamp on your life, and must of necessity be different from every other human you encounter. It is in the will, the heart, where you discover the call to prophetic ministry. The will does not change so much as we simply discover more of it.
Everything is a mission, and everyone serves some higher authority. God portrays Himself as an eastern nomadic potentate, a desert sheik. He has the authority to declare you family, but all of Creation serves Him one way or another, whether as slave or with a direct interest in the family business. He gets His way, but we are permitted to know His will as Laws and cooperate willingly. His Laws are simply His desire. They are consistent with His eternal character, and this is a matter of getting acquainted with so much of His character as He reveals, but He reveals it based on our commitment to His pleasure. Things don't have to make sense to us; they make sense to Him. It's our privilege to understand some of what makes sense and why, but our duty is to obey whether we understand or don't. It will seem at first rather capricious from the Western frame of reference, but the fault is with our understanding. When we put Aristotle in his place as a mere mechanic, and embrace the intellectual climate in which our God chose to reveal Himself, divine logic begins to assert itself, and obedience comes naturally.
When we discard the lesser brand of human logic, events around us make more sense, too. We can detect a moral significance in things mere reason cannot imagine. Deciding when to accept circumstance and when to fight our fate follows the same divine logic. Success is not measured in terms of performance, but in terms of desire. Dying while trying is not a waste if struggling against what seems impossible is the mission. Nor is this a reference to Western notions of the noble sacrifice. That has its place, but only when arrived at from the proper Hebrew logic. Revelation is the whole point, and for us as prophets, it's the revelation of God's character as Law. His personal approval is the whole objective, and no other standard counts. Human measurements of effectiveness and achievement are hardly pertinent, whether they happen to agree with revelation or not.
The most difficult issue is that of authority and how it is delegated. It is entirely Person to person. You may be familiar with the phrase, "in the Lord's name." Almost no one seems to understand that means you are the personal representative of God in some particular mission. You have come to reveal His desire to someone. Your personal desires are impertinent. You may have been granted a certain amount of latitude based on your assessment upon arrival within the context, or as the context changes. However, the entire matter is the desire of God for His justice to prevail. You will as prophet spend some time reshaping yourself to accurately convey His sense of justice. You don't lose your personality; you discover what it should have been in the first place. Your apprenticeship ends when your accuracy reaches a level which pleases God. You will know.
No one can explain how you will know, but we can associate certain things with it. You will have learned not to take yourself seriously. Being made to appear a fool hardly registers, except as a mere fact within the context of your mission. Even if nothing at all changes, you walk away with that burning sense of injustice replaced with the assurance you could do no more, no different. And you walk away completely free. Free to go back when it seems appropriate by God's character, and free to disentangle yourself because you fulfilled all obedience. You know you revealed justice, and you are at peace with the mission.
More is difficult to put in words, but I can offer some ideas which will move you closer to what a prophet must be.
God is the greatest psychiatrist ever, fixing all your psychic wounds. At the same time, He wastes no effort on things do not need resolving. He knows. Some things are common to our human lot, and won't be resolved. God alone decides, but there are some things which should be obvious.
Here are some concrete ways to break the old habits of mind in order to be a prophet:
You are not the anchor, but the anchor is within you. Find it. Explore it in detail, often. You have to know yourself exceedingly well, and apply justice first to yourself. The process never ends, but you won't get started prophesying before God is happy with your commitment and progress.
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PUBLIC DOMAIN: Copyright declined by author at publication.
First edition July 2011