The Wedding Garment

ASV Matthew 22:11-14

But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw a man who had not on a wedding garment. 

 

Photo by Gez Xavier Mansfield on Unsplash

Why is this ponderable?

Many prominent Theologians have pondered what the wedding garment symbolizes.  To this day there is no consensus on its purpose in this parable.

• Augustine of Hippo interpreted the garment as symbolizing charity,
• Martin Luther suggested that the garment represented Christ himself.
•  John Calvin felt these controversies in interpreting the meaning of the "wedding garment" was a useless controversy; faith cannot be separated from good works, nor do good works proceed from any other source than from faith.
• James L. Resseguie suggests that the missing wedding garment is an object that supports the plot and the motivation of the characters. It merely reveals the guest's lack of desire to be at this feast.
• Bernard Brandon Scott notes that the parable immediately follows the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in Matthew, and that the man without a wedding garment represents servants hired by the king (God) who do not perform their duties,i.e. wear proper garments to the feast.

 So we are left to ponder whether Jesus intended it to symbolize anything or merely used it to support the lesson he was teaching. Perhaps the answer lies in how the man responded when he was confronted by the king: he was speechless. In our day he might be compared to a wedding crasher who is caught in the act by the Wedding Host. Depending on the man's reason for crashing the wedding, the Host might throw him out onto the street or invite him to stay for the celebration.

Some of the most common reasons given for crashing weddings include:

• To see a relative or friend get married, even if they are not invited.
• To accompany another person who is invited and wants a companion
• To mooch free catered food or alcoholic beverages.
• To steal money or gifts from the bride, groom, or guests.
• To get revenge, when the bride or groom is an enemy of the person doing the crashing.

The first two reasons are benign and not likely to provoke the harsh reaction by the king in this parable. 

 Then the king said to the ^[f]servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. ¹⁴ For many are called, but few chosen.

So the lack of a  wedding garment was likely used by Jesus to convey the motivation of this mythical wedding crasher. His intentions were evil and had no place in a feast meant to celebrate love and joy. So he was cast out into the darkness to join kindred spirits. He and many like him may have been called into the feast, but only those with pure intentions were selected by the king.

This Stone Will Be A Witness

NKJV Joshua 24:27

And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.” 

 

Why is this ponderable?

Although most Biblical Scholars believe that Joshua referred to this stone as a symbol of their covenant, recent scientific research indicates that it may have been much more than that...

The EM Spectrum exists naturally, occurring as a part of our natural environment. It should come as no surprise that ancient civilizations and cultures possessed some knowledge of this naturally occurring “tool”, especially acknowledging the ancients’ intimacy and inter-dependency with nature.

Advanced ancient civilizations used the resonant frequencies of sound as the source of energy. Tesla proved that specific sound frequencies broadcast from a tower created pure electro-magnetic energy. Measurements of the circumference of Stonehenge indicate that it was constructed to resonate at the frequency of10 hertz which is the Alpha Wave frequency of the human brain.

Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibrations. "It is important to understand that although sound is invisible it actually carries structure, both in air as well as water."
https://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/biology.html

"When we study the geometry of sounds visually, using the CymaScope, we see that they include many of the mathematical constants of the cosmos, including phi, sometimes known as the 'golden mean'. This ratio is approximately 1 to 1.618 and it is found in all living things. Cymatic geometry is based on definite angles that form on a membrane 'imprinted' with the sound vibrations, thus allowing us to observe them cymatically.

Pure sounds are devoid of harmonics and do not feature the rich complexity of a musical sound. An example of a fairly pure high-pitched sound is an organ pipe, which causes air to spin into a vortex. Such pure sounds contain the all important phi ratio and they create sonic scaffolding that, we believe, organised, structured and triggered life."
http://www.cymascope.com/iphoneweb/cymaphone/cyma_research/biology.html

One of the most fascinating discoveries of cymatics is that the vowels of Hebrew and Sanskrit, when toned formed the actual patterns of the letters themselves! Modern languages did not have this effect. All of which leads to the speculation that there may be some truth in the concept of a ''sacred language'' — an actual, physical reason why the recitation of sacred mantras and texts may have real healing properties. This research was done by Hans Jenny in 1967.
Tesla said that the core of the earth rings like a bell. Perhaps Biblical Scholars need to ask for whom that bell tolls...

My Hair Has Never Been Cut

NLT Judges 16: 17

Finally, Samson shared his secret with her. “My hair has never been cut,” he confessed, “for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as anyone else.”

Why is this ponderable?

The story of Sampson and Delilah holds an encoded truth.  Delilah learns that Sampson could be constrained and defeated simply by cutting his hair. Many Bible scholars took this as spiritual allegory but recent scientific research has revealed otherwise.

During the Vietnam War, special forces in the war department sent undercover experts to comb American Indian Reservations looking for talented scouts. They sought out young men with outstanding, almost supernatural, tracking abilities.  Recruiters reasoned that these  young men could be trained to move stealthily through the  rough terrain of Vietnam.

Once identified, the Indian trackers were enlisted and processed according to military protocol. They were given uniforms and a proper military haircut. But for some unknown reason, the talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field.

Serious causalities and failures of performance led the government to conduct a review of these recruits to ensure no skill certification mistakes had been made in the recruiting process.

When debriefed about their failure to perform as expected, the recruits consistently blamed their military haircuts. Once the long locks were sheered,  they claimed,  they could no longer ‘sense’ the enemy, they could no longer access a ‘sixth sense’, their ‘intuition’ no longer was reliable, they couldn’t ‘read’ subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information. This seemed far-fetched but, with no other explanation for the unexpected skill loss, the government opted to perform more testing.

More Indian trackers were recruited. This time the military haircut rule was waived. Half of the recruits were allowed to keep their long hair; the other half would get the standard military cut. They would pair two men together who had received the same scores on the preliminary tests; one was allowed to keep his long hair, the other was given a military haircut. Then they repeated the tests.
Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores; the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high.

Based on these results all Indian trackers were exempt from military haircuts. In fact, they were required to keep their hair long for the duration of their service.

Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in numbing-out.

So the story of Samson's bad hair day may have been much more than spiritual allegory. It may have been God's way of teaching us that every part of the human body is embedded in the fabric of the Universe.


 

Strengthen My Spirit

NABRE Psalm 138:3

 On the day I cried out, you answered; you strengthened my spirit.

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash 

Why is this ponderable?

We think of our spirit as being immune to the physical forces that attack our body. Our body can be killed but our spirit will live on. If that is the case, then there are no degrees of strength by which the spirit can be measured. The spirit cannot be diminished or enhanced. So what is David saying here?

Sometimes when our physical powers are diminished and our enemy is winning, God unleashes the spiritual strength in our souls instead of giving the physical help we desire. Yet this answer to our prayers is both Just and Merciful. It is what enabled the martyrs to endure death without fear.  It is the Spirit of God, enabling us to take up our cross without fainting or backsliding. And it cannot be broken by Satan or any evil force.

Paul explains this well in his second letter to the Corintians 12:8-9 He asks God to remove a physical problem but God replies, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” That power is the source of all our spiritual strength and it cannot be diminished by any physical problem.

Sing Before the Gods

NLT Psalm 138

I will sing your praises before the gods.

 

Why is this ponderable?

Today we ponder what David means when he sings praises before the gods. To whom or what is he referring when he makes this exclamation? We know he is singing this Psalm to the Lord on high. We may not have known that this praise of the Lord is not only an expression of  deep devotion but also bears witness to the impotence of idols.

David stands face to face with the Princes of the heathen world. Each believed they had  the patronage and protection of powerful gods that stood above the gods of their neighbors including the Hebrew god. This view does not shake David's unswerving fidelity to Jehovah. He uses this position to symbolically state, "in your face you misguided Princes serving idols; Jehovah is above all other gods and He protects us."

David is not suggesting that these gods really existed; he speaks of them only as figments in the minds of their worshipers.  By exclaiming his thankfulness to Jehovah in the presence of these idol worshipers he affirms his trust in the one true God. In this way he assures his people that they have nothing to fear from hostile nations. At the same time he chides those Princes that place trust in gods having no real power to protect or sustain their kingdoms.

The Image of God

NLT Genesis 1: 27

So God created human beings in his own image...

Why is this ponderable?

Ever wondered how God created us in his image? Thanks to a branch of physics called quantum mechanics (QM) we are closer to finding out. 

QM tells us that atoms and subatomic particles are not solid objects. They do not exist in a specific time and place. We only "see" them  when we are looking for them. The physicist and the method used to observe them are linked. This implies that the consciousness of the observer plays some role in the existence of what is being observed.  So how we think about things may determine how they become real. 

The results of recent QM experiments support this interpretation.  The world as we know it may not be fixed in concrete.  It may be more like Silly Putty that is shaped by our consciousness using the powers God gave us. 

 Scientific methods based on "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" have increased our understanding of the material world. This understanding enabled us to improve every aspect of our existence in the material world. Yet, this dominance of materialism limited our ability to understand the mental and spiritual side of ourselves. What could not be seen, touched, or heard simply did not exist.  The subjective dimension of human experience was blindsided. For centuries we struggled with this distorted and impoverished understanding of ourselves and our place in nature. 

The Bible does not say that God created nature in His image. That may be why, after thousands of years of searching, human beings have not been able to find God there. In a way of speaking, nature is our creation. By seeking God in nature, all we have been able to find is ourselves. By pondering the image of God in ourselves, we may find more than we ever dreamed possible.

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” – Nikola Tesla

Full of Old Dry Bones

TLB Ezekiel 37: 1-3

^1-2 The power of the Lord was upon me and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley full of old, dry bones that were scattered everywhere across the ground. He led me around among them, ³ and then he said to me:
“Son of dust, can these bones become people again?”
I replied, “Lord, you alone know the answer to that.”

 

freebibleimages.org/illustrations

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Why is this ponderable?

Imagine walking along a mountainside trail through a thick forest.  You see a bright opening ahead foretelling a stretch of open pasture. As you approach the field, you expect green grass, an easy walking trail and maybe a stream of cool water. Instead you find a long runway strewn with piles of old dry bones. As you get closer disbelief turns to horror as you realize these are human bones. Some are still attached to skeletons; others are just strewn about in reckless order.

That horror is what Ezekiel must have felt when the Spirit of the Lord let him see this vision. That fear and horror gave God the platform needed to test Ezekiel by asking him, "Son of dust, can these bones become people again?" 

Because Ezekiel was a seasoned Prophet he knew better than to give a foolish answer. He deferred the question back to God, "Lord, you alone know the answer to that."

We would like to think this is just another Bible story with no relevance to the world we live in today. But lets look around us at the twisted broken lives resulting from violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, and religious extremism. Are they much more than old dry bones still covered by rotting flesh?   Can we restore them to abundant life again? 

Our answer must be the same one Ezekiel gave. The old dry bones cannot be restored by our own power. Powerful Governments have tried and failed. We must defer to God, who alone can turn dry old bones to living people again.