Souljournaler

Hogwarts and Our Political Education System

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:29:00 +0000

Harry Potter depicted how tyrannical regimes take over society. When Hogwarts fell under the grip of Dolores Umbridge, it wasn't through conquest or violence, it happened with paperwork, new titles, and a flood of rules from the Ministry. That's how authoritarianism actually shows up, not with tanks, but with memos, safety policies, and smiling officials including religious leaders who tell you it's all for your own good.

After her time at Hogwarts, Umbridge rises to prominent and influential positions in the Ministry of Magic in the Improper Use of Magic Office. After a while, Umbridge became the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge. Umbridge used this position of power to satisfy her hatred of part-humans, for example through new Anti-Werewolf Legislation which made it nearly impossible for Remus Lupin to find a new job after resigning his post as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts in 1994. This is an eerie parallel of all the liberal malcontents of the 1960’s taking over judicial and institutional power in America.

JK Rowling's story reads less like fiction and more like political propoganda and a warning of how our own American institutions have gone rogue. Umbridge didn't arrive with soldiers, she walked in wearing a pink cardigan, has kitten plates on the wall, and called herself High Inquisitor, a title invented by decree. That's where real tyranny begins, in the administrative state where power hides behind process.

Once inside, she did what bureaucrats do best: multiply the rules. Enforce absurd degrees like forcing vaccination and accepting the lunacy of the transgender movement. Accepting that biological women are men and men are women. One decree after another turns normal behavior and normal people into something punishable because they do not toe the line of the absurd laws and forced conversions. That is a two-tier justice system in practice. Villains rule while everyone else chokes on unobeyable laws.

Umbridge like most politicians is depicted as being an evil, cruel, authoritarian, power-hungry, bigoted and despicable woman who represented the worst of political power, under a sweet image filled with kittens, fluff, and girlishness. Strangely, just as we see in feminism, transgenderism and a bevy of other ‘isms’ pushed by the progressive leftists. In truth she is sadistic and overwhelmingly corrupt, to the point of finding joy in torturing students like Harry.

Just as in the Hogwarts School, so too the American political structure. We see mandates and paperwork for citizens, indulgence for gangs, cartels, and well-connected insiders. The infiltration of education at Hogwarts and in America were the opening salvo in this strategy. Defense against the Dark Arts was neutered into theory only, stripping students of the skills to defend themselves from the actual evil. Then the Carrows (Death Eaters or pure-blood supremacists who use evil to enforce their ideology) turned classrooms from the youngest to the oldest into indoctrination halls to push their agendas.

This is how totalitarians operate: capture schools, rewrite curricula, and shape the next acolytes before seizing the true centers of power. Essentially, creating an army of indoctrinated mindless evil. It is the line often attributed to Lenin:

"Give me four years (college) to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

We see the very same things in today's schools, universities, and hiring offices of companies and gathering some of societies most confused malcontents where slogans and box-ticking beat actual intelligence, skill and courage.

“Free Palestine” …as if it wasn’t already. Their own violence reaped violence upon themselves.

“Love is Love” …as if it is when in reality it destroys life, spreads disease and sexually depraves minds.

“Defund the Police” …as if more disorder is going to quell the chaos.

“No Human is Illegal” …except when they have in fact violated longstanding laws.

“No One is Illegal on Stolen Land” …even though it was conquered land.

Propaganda then seals the fate of all those under these monsters at Hogwarts and in America. Daily Prophet denies Lord Voldemort's return, smears Harry, prints only the official line. Language becomes a weapon. Educational decree: Undesirable Number One or as in America...'Basket of Deplorables'. We could see this in the lead up to the murder of Charlie Kirk too. Charlie’s words were viewed as violence and as such justified a violent/deadly response. Euphemisms that soften reality while hardening control and them hardening hearts.

Surveillance and informants follow as the inquisitorial squad deputizes students to police other students. The objective isn't truth, it's fear, compliance, humiliation, silence, violence and then eventually...death. We saw this in the forced masking and vaccination of Covid. Ironically, this would come full circle and fall back on the diehard liberals who, to this day six years later, are mocked for still wearing a mask.

Umbridge's blood quill makes Harry carve lies into his own skin. Real regimes do the same with forced apologies, public shaming, and required statements. In the 1960s Hannah Arendt coined the phrase, "The banality of evil” referring to the takeover of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany by the likes of Adolf Eichmann. She said this when she attended the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

Arendt was one of the first to discover what was happening in the camps in Nazi Germany and the first to study the new system of Concentration Camps or the “corpse factories”, as she called them. When she watched the Nuremberg trials in the 1940s, she was aghast. She thought the Nazis had, "exploded the limits of law". This changed when she went to Jerusalem in 1961 to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. What she saw in Eichmann was an under-ordinary person who believed he was far more important than he was. He was not a figure of radical, awful, evil, but a small, pompous man – talking in cliches, self-important and radically unable to think about where he was and who he was talking about. Eichmann was banal. Just like liberals, educators and American politicians. Totally out of touch with reality.

Like Dolores Umbridge, not outwardly monsters with sharp teeth, but regular people doing harm because that's the policy and those are the rules. That's why the parallel should be so obvious to those of us who are not brainwashed and swept into the insanity. Tyranny rarely marches in boots. It comes with flowers, love and pleasant voices. The kittens on Umbridge’s wall are the point. It's meant to feel normal. When in reality it is insanity and evil directly below the facade.

Hogwarts wasn’t saved by more idiotic laws and a politician (like Trump) coming to save the day. It was saved because students or the plebians refused to bow like slaves. The answer to today’s societal ills lies with the blue-collar everyman. The burden is on the common man and woman. The answer is to tell the truth and be Biblical in our stance. We need to learn to defend, and push back early. I’ve been doing this for two decades and only now are people starting to see and understand the truth.

The Enlightenment Darkened The World

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 19:20:00 +0000

The Enlightenment and/or the Age of Science promised liberation from God, but delivered moral confusion. Western philosophers like Kant and Voltaire believed reason could replace religion, freeing man from superstition and leading to a more rational ordered society. Instead, we are left arguing over whether men can get pregnant.

The enlightenment assumed that reason is a neutral unbiased tool, capable of guiding humanity towards truth without ideological influence, but Frederick Nietzsche saw through this claim. He noted that reason is not independent of human drives; it is shaped by them. What people call rational argument is often just instinct in disguise.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche argues that philosophers do not discover truth, they justify their temperament. In this manner some of the most horrid evil can be justified under the banner of ‘justice’, ‘tolerance’ or ‘progress’.

Every human drive or more accurately desire, wants to be master and it bends reason to serve that aim. The Bible has repeatedly shown this. Man is a slave to his desires and man strives against God by his nature. The phrase "the carnal mind is enmity against God" comes from Romans 8:7, indicating that the natural, human mindset is inherently hostile to God, rebellious, and unable to submit to His laws. This state of "enmity" means it is an active enemy of God, focused solely on worldly desires, which leads to spiritual death

The enlightenment believed it had escaped dogma. It believed it had finally broken a chain of almost a millennia of unnecessary wars fought mostly on the basis of earthly manmade religions that had nothing to do with the God of the Bible. The ideas of the Enlightenment not only pervaded 17th and 18th century Europe but its godless influence had a profound effect on America and its founding fathers like Jefferson and Franklin.

By the 19th century Nietzsche saw that The Enlightenment had only replaced one set of dogmas with another. Instead of blasphemy against God, there are penalties for speech that offends protected classes. Instead of a shared pursuit of truth, expression is filtered through political correctness. Instead of holy wars, we see ideological purges. This helps explain why ideologies that claim to be rational so often become tyrannical. We saw this in the Nazi’s Third Reich. We saw it in Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ and we see it today in radical Leftist/Marxist agendas and even in the blind allegiances to the persons of Trump and Conservative figures.

Even systems that present themselves as scientific, like communism, do not arise from detached reason. They emerge from a desire to rule, then dress themselves in the language of inevitability and logic. But Nietzsche's deeper critique cuts deeply against this assumption by the intellectually arrogant and ‘educated’. He argued that enlightenment ‘morality’ is Christianity without God.

Man attempted to keep the moral framework while discarding its foundation. In the absence of God man is let loose to his worst and most base desires and evil.

"If there is no God, everything is permitted" ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov.

The Bible states in 1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23 that "everything is permissible," but Paul immediately counters this by saying "not everything is beneficial" or constructive. While Christians are free from the law due to Christ’s work on the cross, this freedom is not a license to sin, but a call to love, using discernment to choose actions that glorify God. A man without God or Christ is cut loose from any restraint. Evil reigns supreme.

What we learn from the Bible and realize after watching 300 years of the effects of the Enlightenment is simple but striking. Values like equality, universal dignity, and compassion were not born from reason alone. They were inherited from Christianity and the Judeo/Christian ethic, then reframed as self-evident truths. The enlightenment severed these values from their metaphysical and spiritual roots while expecting them to hold meaning and sway over people’s behaviors.

Much to modern society’s chagrin, this has been a massive and horrible failure. It is like cutting down a tree and expecting the fruit to keep growing. This is the source of much of our modern confusion and is why things are so horribly confused and upside-down.

We live in a world where the language and morality of Christianity remain, but its grounding has absolutely been annihilated. Even many of our conservative evangelical and formerly biblical churches have been amputated from their Biblical foundations and would be unrecognizable even to Christian brethren of only a hundred years ago. We have business structured, Enlightenment influenced congregations cutoff from their apostolic roots.

Nietzsche saw where this leads. When God dies, the structure of meaning built around them begins to collapse. In the case of American Christianity and even Christian evangelicalism it has already imploded under the weight of their own hubris and theological errors trying to chase after a secular scientific world. The church has tried so hard to appease a godless science-based society, it has lost itself. We are to be in the world but not of it. Therefore, the last anchor or mooring to morality has been cut loose to the storm of godlessness.

As believers, we should be set apart from the world. This is the meaning of being holy and living a holy, righteous life—to be set apart. We are not to engage in the godless activities the world promotes, nor are we to retain the corrupt mind that the world creates. Rather, we are to conform ourselves, and our minds, to that of Christ

Romans 12:2 ~ Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You cannot discard metaphysics, abandon Godly spirituality, weaken objective truth, and elevate skepticism without consequences. The result is nihilism, not dramatic collapse, but a slow drift as we have seen since the Enlightenment. Because of this we all now live in a world where people no longer believe deeply enough in anything to anchor their lives. Decades before the catastrophes of the 20th century, Nietzsche saw this trajectory clearly. The enlightenment did not end belief, it changed its form, and in doing so, made it less stable, less honest, and more dangerous. That is why we now live in such a dangerous world.

America has become the summation of Englightenment philosophy. Financially, morally and spiritually bankrupt. Untethered to objective morality and true reason. Therefore, a land of immorality, chaos and godlessness. To this end we will reap the storm of what we have sown.

We abandon God and in so doing we abandon an anchor to true morality. Our society is now only a morass of subjective immorality and chaos.

A Defense of My Sons, Men and Christian Values

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 18:34:00 +0000

I present here an apologetic for a generation that is already being forgotten even now as they come of age as men. It is much broader then just Gen Z though. It affects all men but affects young men of my children's generation the most. An apologetic is a reasoned defense or intellectual justification for a specific belief, position, or worldview. It most commonly is associated with defending the Christian faith. Derived from the Greek word apologia (a formal, verbal defense), it aims to provide evidence for truth claims and answer objections, distinct and unrelated to "apologizing" (expressing regret) which I have absolutely no intentions of doing here. In fact, I intend just the opposite. No more cowering or bending to the will of the woke mob. I'm going on the offense. Society is out of control and needs to be brought to heel like the dog it is.

The kickback is here. The Right and an angry new generation of conservative young males didn’t appear out of nowhere. A decade of gaslighting from the media, colleges and government that told a generation of young men like my sons that their very being was a problem to be solved, every classroom, every film and every corporate memo carried the same message. If you're a straight white male, you're the cause of society's ills. You're an oppressor by birth.

They said your success is theft. You should feel ashamed. Step aside and be grateful for it. The picture being painted for a teenage boy through these years is bleak. You watch as your future is traded away under the banner of equity not equality. Jobs, scholarships and public praise are handed out based on identity while you're told to sit still and shut up. You deserve nothing no matter how hard you work.

Inflation spirals so ridiculously out of control that my son’s generation will not be able to afford a mortgage without six-figure incomes or a wife working. The stress this will cause will inevitably equate to strife within a marriage and likely a divorce in which nearly everything will be stripped from the man financially by a state that heavily favors and coddles women whether they deserve it or not. Even more so if there are children involved in the marriage.

The unspoken deal once made with men was: Work hard, grind and earn respect and you will establish yourself in this life. That idea was torn up and in its place straight white males have been scorned. Men have always been viewed as expendable. However, they were at least respected for carrying the heavy load, fighting the wars and laboring or defending their families. But when they stripped away basic dignity, the resentment has started to rise to the surface and boil.

Modern voices have tried to speak for Judeo Christian justice and fairness in the likes of Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk. They argued for equal treatment, free speech and individuality. In short self-worth. But while Jordan and Charlie debated, the woke ideologues and brainwashers built legal apparatus and institutionalized laws and ideas against the once largest population of labor and enterprise in the United States.

The men.

HR departments enforced their version of moral conformity, universities purged dissent, governments wrote hate speech laws to silence opposition. In truth all of them are pushing a biased injustice on young men. All in the name of politics and social justice. By the time the 2020 lockdowns came, these young men were already ostracized from society and were now trapped indoors. They were cut off from any like-minded peers that were left to find belonging and comradery in. When we focus to the online world, these male’s heroes were stripped of platforms, their questions banned, their voices treated as threats. They were effectively silenced.

When every fair or justified complaint from a conservative or even a moderate was branded as hate speech, many stopped speaking and trying to prove their innocence. They thought, if I'm going to be damned either way, I might as well deserve it then. Then a flashpoint moment shattered the entire illusion. Charlie Kirk's assassination was a pivot point. For years, moderate conservatives believed conversation could still bridge the divide. Kirk’s death shattered that illusion.

When a man known for debate and restraint was gunned down and a significant portion of society celebrated it, a dark diabolic realization set in. These people on the far left and progressives weren't interested in dialogue. They were celebrating death and shedding blood and still are.

That's why many young men decided if you can murder someone for trying to talk, then there's nothing left to talk about. The splinter within the right became a breakpoint. Moderates still hoped reason can win. Still others now want revenge. Into this gap steps resentful men. We that are quickly losing patience with the unjustifiable abuses they we're being subjected to not only by our peers but by their own families, government and educational institutions. Conformity to an immoral society be damned.

Shame and exclusion...the very thing the left was trying to save minorities and fringe groups from for centuries has been foisted up a category of society that didn’t deserve it. A segment that helped build the society these malcontents seek to tear down. My son’s generation and their real gender…male. Toxic masculinity is what its been labeled. This injustice is now curdling into fury just as it did in African Americans, gays and women. The pendulum has swung all the way back and has successfully victimized yet another generation of people that don’t deserve it.

Think of it like a bar. One loud drunk begins mouthing off, putting drinks on other people's tabs and puffing their chest. Most people walk away, but if it keeps going on long enough, someone throws a punch. That's where we are now, standing between the shove and the swing in a brewing caldron of rage.

This flame in turn is being fanned by rich old men and radicals bent on bringing the entire system down. It is being instigated by the rhetoric of morally debased politicians that seek nothing more than to line their pockets illicitly with another million dollars. All the while my sons and their generation are being thrown under the wheel of corruption and greed. The system will break and the ending will be violent. I pray that my sons will not be caught up in the conflagration.

The only hope I have is that some see what is really happening here. It is Cultural Marxism at its root. The continual division for the sake of division to weaken the system enough so that a small cabal of people can take the entire system over. They haven’t been able to do it yet but they are close and they’ve even admitted as much. Those people will be the people with the money and the technology in AI. The AI will be harnessed to control the masses. This too is only a matter of time as we are racing towards both cliffs simultaneously.

Just be warned though...if you're coming for my sons, you're coming through me first. You had better be ready. I'm not your 'take it on the chin beta-male' cuckolded into submission by rhetorical bludgeoning and societies decline. I will bury you in debate and if you attack me, you will regret it.

Terrors In The Apocalyptic Sky

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 22:50:00 +0000

In Luke’s passage about the last days, he writes of a statement Jesus made about those days.

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

I want to focus in on: “…and there will be terrors (φόβητρα) and great signs from heaven."The Key Word: φόβητρα (phobētra). Phonetra / φόβητρα is a plural noun from the root φόβος (phobos), meaning fear from which we get the English phobia. The word literally means "things that cause terror", "terrors", or "frightening apparitions".

In some older and less formal Greek usage outside the Bible, it could even suggest unnatural creatures or monstrous appearances. In apocalyptic Jewish literature (like in 1 Enoch or 2 Esdras), this word could be used for bizarre and terrifying creatures or events. They were not in the modern fantasy sense of "monsters," but in the sense of things so terrifying and unnatural that they evoke intense fear or dread. The idea here is that the dread they induce literally make you feel as if your internal organs have been turned inside-out.

So, does it mean "monsters"? Possibly but not directly. I should note that the word φόβητρα could encompass terrifying beings, visions, or phenomena—monstrous in the sense of terror, possibly even supernatural or demonic. This could mean obvious demonic manifestations, portents of doom that cause one’s stomach to sink or…possibly even strange, fearsome creatures or signs in the sky. It will be a fear that solicits a desire to flee from the object of terror or try to shield oneself or withdrawal from it.

Jesus is describing signs of the end times, using vivid and fearsome language on purpose. The use of φόβητρα reflects unnatural terror—not just everyday fear, but something so out-of-place that it shakes the soul of the observer. Whether that’s through supernatural beings, catastrophic events, or otherworldly signs, the effect is the same: a divine shaking of the world. In Scripture it is never a mere subjective emotion but an objective phenomenon that rightly elicits fear because it signals divine intervention or judgment.

Its conceptual roots run through the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint uses related terms for the “terror by night” (Psalm 91:5), the “terror” sent ahead of Israel to dismay enemies (Exodus 23:27), and the “terrors” that seized Job (Job 7:14). In each setting God is either the source or the active governor over the dreadful event, underscoring His sovereignty both in salvation and in judgment.

What does it mean as an End Times foreshadowing? They are heralds of the Day of the Lord. The fearful sights function as preliminary birth pains (Luke 21:9-11; Matthew 24:8), signaling that the age is drawing to its God-ordained conclusion. It is a sign of Divine Justice. By intertwining terror with celestial “signs,” Scripture portrays these events as courtroom evidence that human rebellion will not stand unchallenged. Finally, it should be the catalyst for repentance: The passage immediately exhorts believers to steadfast endurance (Luke 21:19) and cautions the unregenerate to flee to Christ before judgment falls.

What theological lessons can we learn from this passage? We see God’s providence on full display. Fearful sights are neither random nor solely satanic; they operate with God’s permission and discretion. They will directly of God’s will (Isaiah 45:7). The one who speaks this prophecy is very same whole will have them come to pass, reinforcing His divine omniscience and authority (Revelation 1:17-18).

Could it be nuclear phenomena? Could it be biological phenomena? Well, it would need to be visible to the populace. It would need to be visible to the entirety of the world. Would it need to be a global scale phenomena or a localized broadcast by the internet and television? All these things need to be considered before arriving at a conclusion. I personally believe that it would need to be global and personalized to solicit the tpye of terror stated by Jesus. It would need to be able to convince the entire church that it was in fact ‘those days’. These phenomena would also be occurring simultaneously with earthquakes, food shortages (famine) and pandemics (pestilence). Could AI be behind all of these phenomena? Possibly. Humans (therefore AI) can create food shortages, release of biohazards, extreme weather phenomena through cloud seeding and yes, even earthquakes via extreme low frequency wave manipulations, dam creation, etc. Of course God can use all these methods and supernatural ones beyond our comprehension.

Properly understood these terrors will be tangible manifestations of divine power that shake the created order and the human heart. Though dread-inducing for the unbeliever, these events are simultaneously signs of redemption drawing near for those in Christ. Correctly understood, they summon the church to holiness, perseverance, and urgent witness to the Gospel until the Lord Himself dispels the terror by the light of His coming kingdom.

Flow State: In The Zone

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 15:13:00 +0000

The concept of flow is rooted in the idea that individuals are happiest when they are fully engaged in activities that challenge their skills and abilities. Flow occurs when there is a perfect balance between the level of difficulty of a task and one's level of skill, leading to a state of effortless concentration and enjoyment. When in a state of flow, individuals experience a sense of timelessness, heightened focus, and a deep sense of fulfillment.

Through research, a man named Csikszentmihalyi identified several key components of flow, including clear goals, immediate feedback, a balance of challenge and skill, a feeling of control, concentration, a loss of self-consciousness, and a transformation of time. These components work together to create a state of flow that leads to increased creativity, productivity, and overall well-being.

Having been an athlete since my early teens and now a theologian I have seen that flow has had a profound impact on athleticism, business and my relationship with others through God. I’ve found that individuals who experience flow on a regular basis are more likely to lead fulfilling lives and achieve optimal performance in their chosen activities.

The importance is in finding activities that are intrinsically rewarding, In the case of myself, they are physically and spiritually/intellectually oriented. External rewards such as money or fame are not sustainable sources of happiness, and that true fulfillment comes from engaging in activities that are inherently enjoyable and meaningful to the individual.

In essence, God created and worked Creation into existence. In the original plan men were to given dominion over Creation because they were to ‘work’ the creation. That plan got skewed but the main premise underlies the world still. We are to emulate God in our behavior and the closer we come to that ideal state of which we were created for the closer we come to the ‘flow’ state.

People that are more readily able to achieve flow state have autotelic personalities. Autotelic individuals as those who are able to find meaning and enjoyment in almost any situation, and who have a natural tendency to seek out challenges and opportunities for growth. To autotelic people all things have purpose or meaning in themselves/itself. That is why a person who believes in the God of the Bible and understands the theological concepts of sovereignty and providence so readily can adapt and understand a chaotic world.

The idea that a person in the state of flow loses self-awareness to the task of challenge at hand aligns very well to the harmony of the Holy Spirit in line with an individual imbued by the Spirit of God. John 14:3 is clear in this state of mind and being. The kingdom is where he King is.

John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

This state is also mentioned indirectly in John 12:24-26.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Therefore, what we see is if an individual’s heart is aligned with God and they are pursing the very thing they were created to and for, they will become less of their sinful selves and more aligned and akin to what God always wanted them to be. They can and are the proper vessels that God needs them to be. The idea of ‘flow state’ in my opinion makes perfect Biblical sense. I have experienced it often. In wrestling, running, biking, writing, speaking, preaching and even walking in the woods. I have most intensely experienced it while preaching and lifting. In flow state I believe I am reaching my optimal state of discipleship.

When we are doing what God created us for, we are in fact serving Him. It also means God is always working and present in m life, even in hardships. Jesus told is to follow Him on the path of self-denial to the cross, leading to eternal fellowship/flow state with Him. I believe this is why believers who reach this state stand out and are often pronounced in relation to their surroundings.

They are the people that others make statements about like, “The environment doesn’t shape them, they shape their environment.” The other comment most often heard about people in flow state is, “They seem to have a supernatural ability to know things before they happen. They can do things that seem to defy normal convention.” That is because the something ‘extra’ isn’t really them, it is God manifesting in their behavior. At some point the very gifts God gave them morph into something ‘more’. The gift stops and the Spirit takes over.

It is cultivated and developed over time too. Individuals can learn to increase the frequency and intensity of flow experiences by seeking out challenges, setting clear goals, and honing their skills in a particular activity.

Csikszentmihalyi being atheist argued that ‘flow’ is actually a universal experience that can be achieved by anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs. He suggests that flow is a state of optimal experience that occurs when individuals are fully immersed in an activity that challenges them at just the right level. This follows the idea of Christian grace. Yes, the flow state can be experienced by all.

Concurrently, in Christian belief there is common grace and efficacious grace. All people experience common grace from God. So, flow state can work through a non-believer also for the purposes of a sovereign God but they more effectively or efficaciously work through the Christian when fulfilling the purposes God has set on their lives. That is why I believe when preachers are in the flow state, their sermons are profound and deeply moving. They initiate actions even in other people. It is the Fruit of the Spirit ‘overflowing’ like a cup being overfilled and spilling out to others. It is the same when the bike rider merges with the highway becoming the environment. It is the gardener in their greenhouse, they are euphoric. When the wrestler is stringing moves together effortlessly, always one step ahead, he is like a machine. When the writer is writing and types or writes out 50 pages in one sitting. Then reads what they wrote and doesn’t even remember writing half of it.

Flow for Christians is God’s deepest potential for you realized. You become what God wanted for you to be. It’s the closest you will come to the Kingdom this side of Heaven. Flow in Christian behavior involves a state of intense focus and presence, where the individual is fully engaged in the present moment. Christians often use specific mindsets (pray unceasingly) or scriptures to anchor and connect with God.

The signs….

Effortless Actions: The acts of speaking or serving, feel guided and unforced, as if God is working through you. Presence of God: A tangible sense of God's presence and the nearness of His Kingdom. Overcoming Distractions: Freedom from anxiety, self-concern, and worldly worries, allowing full engagement with the task(s) at hand. Intrinsic Joy: Deep enjoyment and fulfillment found within the activity itself, not external rewards. Mental Stasis: One is neither anxious or bored. They're somewhere in between. Hence the Bible telling is to be industrious but not anxious.

This is why the very things that flow state autotelic people engage in are so fulfilling. It is God in-filling them. Pushing out other things that don’t belong. The person is closer to Kingdom. Flow is a state of complete immersion and focus in an activity, where one's sense of self fades away and they are fully present in the moment. Flow is transcendence of self and a connection to God.

How to cultivate it? Read your Bible. The more you understand it the more it becomes self-evident. Prayer, Christ did it constantly to rejuvenate his Spirit with the Father. He told us too also. Quiet yourself and separate yourself from everything other than the task you’re engaged in. Be single-minded in your approach. Seek to glorify God in your actions or words.

I leave you with an example from Christ’s on life that looks strangely akin to a flow state. It comes in John 4. After talking with the Samaritan woman about the Kingdom doing the Father’s work, Jesus returns to the disciples who are in disbelief Jesus would talk to a Samaritan. What do they say? “Rabbi, eat something.” His reply? But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

Jesus was so involved in the work of saving souls for His Father, it usurped the desire to eat. As John Gill’s Bible commentary put it: “ The harvest of souls he had a prospect of was as meat unto him, delightful and refreshing; and his mind and thoughts were so taken up with these things, that he had no inclination to any corporeal food.”

That my friends is ‘flow”. To emulate it in our behaviors is Christ-like.

The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:03:00 +0000

I used to do a series of posts called "In Their Own Words". There were about 30 of them. I have a tendency to use Roman numerals when I have ideas that run too long and won't fit comfortably in one post so sometimes I spread them over one to ten posts. What I realized is that when people see Roman numerals in double digits after the title they think that they need to read all of the posts in the series to catch the drift of the post they're reading. This isn't true, but because of feedback I am slowly moving away from this type of title or limiting the posts to ten or less. This post would've normally been an "In Their Own Words" post but here it is as a stand-alone. It stands on its own merit. The rabidly anti-Christian atheist Richard Dawkins inadvertently defends a Christian position and the irony was not lost on me so I had to post this.

In a Breitbart article from September 2025, Richard Dawkins declared that “trans women are men,” and that transgender ideology is part of a movement to undermine biological truth. The world’s leading atheist and emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, Dawkins decried the infiltration of postmodernism and transgenderism into the halls of academia. He is now decrying the very thing that he does to Christians when he makes unsubstantiated absolute truth statements about Christianity which he seems to have an incomplete grasp.

Dawkins went on to further state, “Both politics and personal feelings don’t impinge scientific truths and that needs to be clearly understood. I feel very strongly about the subversion of scientific truth. I think part of what’s happened is the move of academia towards postmodernism, which is pernicious, and probably does account for the current vogue for the nonsense lie that sex is a spectrum.”

So here we have the direct statement from the preeminent expert in biological science who just happens to be a militant atheist stating that the current trend of gender identity and body dysmorphia is a mental issue not based in science at all. Furthermore, he disavows the politics behind it trying to force it into everything from entertainment to the academic fields of college campuses.

He realizes that there are in fact, absolute or objective truths. Surprisingly, this undermines his ability to refute the absolute truth claims of Christianity. By allowing himself to make absolute truth statements about gender and not allowing gender to be subjective and non-scientific he is insisting on a worldview and logic process that also needs to allow for Christians to make their claims to objective truth also.

Dawkins has even stated that, “There’s this post-modern hubris which presumptuously and falsely dismisses science as a social construct, the human conceit here is the idea that personal feelings can change reality.”

The irony is that you can replace Dawkins statements of science with religion or specifically Christianity and the statement would still be valid from Dawkins’ statement: “There’s this post-modern hubris which presumptuously and falsely dismisses religion/Christianity as a social construct, the human conceit here is the idea that personal feelings can change reality.”

Dawkins is literally arguing for support of not only his views but also Christianity (or any religion for that matter). In a war of ideas, those on the side of objective/absolute ‘truths’ like Christianity and science will often makes strange bedfellows.

While the “scientist-trans gender-ist” at first may seem as if it is amusing, what is going on in with Dawkins and other like-minded scientists might be more notable. There, the transgender siege appears to be lifting; its effectiveness is clearly on the wane.

Let us hope this modicum of reason catches hold on this side of the Atlantic not just in Oxford in England.

For me as a Christian, it has been intriguing to watch the culture wars end up on the doorstep of the atheist community. What has happened because of Dawkins’ stance is even more telling of the powers in play and the world we are currently living in. These political powers are all encompassing and are overbearing. Its influence is insidious and pervasive. Its probably worse than even I, a Christian Apologist even imagined they were. These activist ideologues are eclipsing actual scientific truths never mind the spiritual truths they are violating. Scientific and spiritually logical truths which are both based on legitimate Aristotelian philosophy.

The repercussions for Dawkins? The American Humanist Association has already withdrawn Dawkins’ “Humanist of the Year” award in 2021. The organization justified the move based on the biologist’s “history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.”

While I have to admit, because of my constant debates and arguments with intellectually arrogant atheists, there is more than a touch of smirking from me watching the anti-theists realize that the atheist “apocalypse” they are experiencing is just as dogmatic as the Christianity they disparage or even hate. It has all come home to roost right on their doorstep. So, unless Christians befriend them (pray for them) in what needs to be understood as a spiritual war, they will be hapless. They would be doomed because they don’t even believe in the powers and entities they’re truly battling…they don’t believe or acknowledge the spiritual realm exists.

I will acknowledge that it the notion of “humanist values” has always been nebulous at best, but it is usually based in a firm belief and understanding that science correctly deduced is objective truth. So, for the Humanist Society to fold to these politics is astounding and I can only attribute its power to do so as being spiritual in source. Science endeavors to demonstrate what is; the idea of a godless ideology is overriding this shows its enormous power over the world.

I suppose Dawkins is to be commended for his defense of biology against the transgender assault on scientific truth but he needs to realize in doing so that he inadvertently is defending the objective philosophical truths of Christianity. He can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to fight and fend for the veracity of objective/absolute truths being real in science…you cannot deny them to Christianity. It becomes double standard and hypocritical. Strange bedfellows indeed.

We need to remember that Dawkins has long championed a humanist post-Christian society that has made the transgender movement not just possible, but perhaps even inevitable. Two avenues or routes to the same end. By his arguing against Christianity and belittling of it, he opened the door to everything godless including the very things he is now fighting against. Conversely, before we become too optimistic over the reasons that Dawkins is defending his science or other “defenders of truth,” we should recognize that atheists are doing this for their own selfish reasons and as soon as they destroy this current ‘anti-science’ enemy (which Christians in fact are not), they will just turn on us anyway. We will be adversary number one again instead of being the second most hated enemy. Since they are helping us in our cause we should assist them until at such a time they turn back against us.

The Cancellation and Voiding of Egyptian Gods

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 02:04:00 +0000

We have lived in a cancel culture for the better part of a decade. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. There was a divine cancellation of a culture approximately 3000 years ago and God was the one doing the cancelling. It occurred during the 10 plagues of Egypt.

The ten plagues of God through Moses against Pharaoh were not just haphazardly selected to be an annoyance to Pharaoh and the pagan Egyptians. These were carefully and purposefully chosen to undermine and discredit Egyptian belief systems. They were in direct opposition to the Egyptians gods and their culture. They were selected by God to demonstrate God's superiority over every aspect of Egyptian religion and life, a religion consisting of the worship of false gods and reverence for creatures rather than the Creator. To start, the Egyptians worshipped serpents, so God changed Aaron's rod into a serpent that swallowed the serpents produced by the Egyptian priests (Exodus 7:1-13). This should’ve been a menacing foreshadowing, but it was clear Pharaoh was hardheaded and hardhearted.

Plague No. 1: The Egyptians worshipped the Nile River as a source of life, so the first plague God turned the waters of the Nile into blood (Exodus 7:14-25). The lifeblood of the desert was turned to unusable blood.

Plague No. 2: The Egyptians held their magicians in great esteem. As the second plague God caused frogs to come up out of the Nile and infest the land, and He confounded the magicians who were unable to undo the plague (Exodus 8:1-15).

Plague No. 3: The Egyptians trusted their priests to officiate in the temples on their behalf, but the priests were not allowed to minister before the gods in an impure, diseased, or blemished condition. As the third plague God caused the dust of the earth to form into lice which infested every man and beast (Exodus 8:16-19). The lice-infested priests were unable to officiate in the temples. The Egyptian system of worship had to come to an screeching halt.

Plague No. 4: The Egyptians worshipped animals, particularly livestock, so as the fourth plague God caused the land to be corrupted by a swarm of flies (Exodus 8:20-32). The flies torment of the livestock was an object lesson to the Egyptians, that they might see how helpless these livestock were before flies sent by the true God.

Plague No. 5: The fifth plague, like the fourth, was aimed at animal worship, causing a terrible disease to fall upon the livestock, killing them by the thousands (Exodus 9:1-7). One might think this would cause the Egyptians to reconsider their worship of animals as gods, as they obviously could not stand before the God of Israel.

Plague No. 6: The Egyptians also believed in an evil god called Typho, and they tried to appease his wrath by burning human sacrifices. Faced with the previous plagues, the Egyptians naturally tried to appease Typho by burning human sacrifices, but as the sixth plague the ash from these sacrifices caused boils to break out upon the Egyptians. Thereby turning the offering to their false gods into the bane of their existence. (Exodus 9:8-12) This of course was demonstrating once again the utter futility of Egyptian religion.

Plague No. 7: Next God turned to the vegetable kingdom, for the Egyptians believed in and worshipped tree-gods and held other plants in superstitious veneration. As the seventh plague, God caused a severe storm with lightning, thunder, hail, and rain, and "The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field." (Exodus 9:22-35, esp. 25). The Egyptian pantheon of creature-worship was devastated. Many of the livestock and people that hadn’t been caught up in the death caused by the fifth plague succumbed to the seventh. There just wasn’t going to be an avenue for escape.

Plague No. 8: One Egyptian god, Serapis, served to protect Egypt from locusts. As the eighth plague, God sent a swarm of locusts, so numerous that they filled the sky and the earth was darkened, and they consumed every vegetable that had not been destroyed by the hail of the 7th plague. (Exodus 10:1-20). By this point the Egyptians should have come to grips with the fact that the gods they worshipped were disintegrating before the onslaught of the true God.

Plague No. 9: If the previous plagues hadn’t already unsettled or completely freaked out the Egyptians the next plague was going to as it was affecting things from outside this world. One class of Egyptian deities still remained untouched-the sun, moon, and star gods. As the ninth plague, God caused three days of darkness so thick that the people could not see one another(Exodus 10:21-29). Dark as a grave for three days. Even the celestial and cosmic bodies had fallen in defeat before the God of Israel.

Stripped of the protection of all their gods, the Egyptians now stood alone…desolate and godforsaken.

Plague No. 10: Then came the final and definitive plague as the tenth plague, even their human hopes for the future, the first-born sons, were stricken and killed(Exodus 11:1-10). It is only at this point Pharaoh finally relented and ordered the Hebrews to depart from the land. The Egyptians and their gods had finally conceded defeat. The death of the firstborn by a selective culling is nearly unprecedented. They are defenseless in light of the previous nine plagues, and they have no defense against Destroyer other than repentance and acknowledgement of God for who he is in the Passover. When you have no other answers or all your other answers have been exhausted of destroyed you only have God to turn to.

The death of the firstborn in Egypt is a pivotal event in the biblical narrative, marking the climax of God's judgments against Egypt. This event is not only a historical moment of deliverance but also a prophetic picture of Jesus Christ, the ultimate Passover Lamb. Every detail, from the selection of the lamb to the unleavened bread, points to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Israelites' faith and obedience to God's command to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood not only spared them from the plague but also established the Passover as a perpetual commemoration of God's deliverance. The final plague, the death of the firstborn, demonstrates God's sovereignty over Pharaoh and Egypt's gods, paralleling the Gospel message that Jesus' blood saves us from eternal death.

Pattern Precognition

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 01:04:00 +0000

In Genesis 1:27, one of the writers of the Bible claims that “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created them.” Physical features are not the only qualities gods share with humans. Pattern recognition appears to be another. A God that can make sense out of patterns in nature is certainly a powerful being. According to a new study from Georgetown University, it appears that humans endowed with this skill are more likely to believe in a God also.

While the more fervent religious believe their views to be correct, an are likely to see the possibility of patterns where others can't. The team observed a link between the strongest implicit learners and religious belief. Recognizing patterns before they appear is correlated with belief in a God. Cognitive science research often suggests that people are naturally inclined to detect patterns in their environment. These studies propose that the tendency toward religious or spiritual belief might be a byproduct of our brain’s pattern-seeking mechanisms. Below is an in-depth exploration of why these findings do not undermine faith but, rather, can be seen as supportive of a deeper spiritual reality. In reality it is a form of pattern precognition.

Human cognition is wired to seek out relationships and structures in the world around us. Neuroscientists and psychologists, such as Justin L. Barrett in his publication “Why Would Anyone Believe in God?”, have noted that from an early age we perceive intentionality behind events we witness. Whether it is reading symbols in clouds or inferring agency (action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect) in unexplained movements, our brains instinctively look for cause and effect.

This predisposition to discern patterns is often linked to what researchers call “hyperactive agency detection.” The mind is so eager not to miss potential threats (or opportunities) that it attributes agency, sometimes even where none physically exists. Cognitive science studies thereby theorize that religious belief might comes from this same mental process of detecting agency at work in the world, culminating in belief in the Creator God of the Bible.

Patterns and meaning are not accidental within a biblical framework. Scripture recognizes that humanity is designed with a capacity to discern and pursue the divine. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, it is written, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.” This alludes to an inbuilt awareness that there is more to reality than immediate, observable material processes.

Moreover, the very act of looking for order in the natural world reflects the truth of Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.” The Bible portrays the quest to find structure and meaning as part of humanity’s universal inheritance. We inhabit a universe that not only has physical patterns (like gravity, genetics and atomic structures) but also carries evidence of purposeful design.

When research highlights that “religious belief” can be traced to pattern recognition dispositions, it does not necessarily follow that faith is illusory. From this perspective, one might instead argue that humanity’s inherent sensitivity to order and design points back to a God who embedded an innate sense of the divine within each person.

In these pattern recognitions we see humans were designed for belief. If the universe truly has a divine Author, it is logical to propose that our capacity to detect agency aligns with objective reality. Pattern recognition is not a defect but a feature of humanity’s created nature.

In the ability to see patterns in nature we see a convergence of Science and Faith. Mechanisms of the brain do not invalidate a transcendent source of reality. Scripture affirms that we can examine truths about God by observing His works. Cognitive tendencies that provoke questions about a Creator are consistent with that revelation. We seek God in the things that are.

Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”

Cognitive science data showing that humans detect patterns, including the inference of intentional agency, does not negate faith. Rather, it highlights how people are created with the capacity to recognize meaning and design in the world. Scriptural revelation introduces the Source behind that design and invites humanity into relationship with the divine Author.

Thus, while pattern recognition may be part of the brain’s fundamental toolkit, the biblical narrative affirms that such cognitive tendencies are part of our God-given ability to discern His presence. This recognition finds its ultimate expression in the risen Messiah, who offers reconciliation between God and humanity. Far from diminishing belief, these studies underscore the harmony between the human mind’s quest for order and the testimony of an orderly, loving Creator revealed in Scripture.

It follows that in some people this ability of pattern recognition may even be enhanced or even more acute than the general populace if only because of statistical distribution. Some just fall outside the Bell Curve on the upper side.

Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, is an ability called implicit pattern learning, and are likely to hold stronger beliefs that God exists who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists. This should come as a shock to no one…except possibly an atheist. I've integrated this not only into my private life but also my vocational work life as a Quality Manager/Engineer. I see what the Quality industry calls Failure Modes. This usually happens long before the statistics or math bears out the facts and the truth.

In the end my ability to do this has usually become a net negative. I either worry about trends or patterns that seem to be pointing to something that never actually materialize or worse, they do. I saw COVID coming months in advance and the immediately shifted gears within a month of it breaking loose on the world to see it was going to be used as a tool of control. Since approximately 2017 I’ve seen the dysfunctional and irrational societal patterns before anyone else, so very few listen, and then once broader society also starts becoming aware of it, if I say anything I'm just told "you got that from [insert public figure here]".

I, being able to see ideological and societal dysfunction taking place 5 years before anyone else yet being helpless to do anything about it, has been my pattern. In 2017 I started to see that politics was replacing religion and becoming a secular religion or syncretism. The offshoots like Wokism and Virulent Nationalism were basically break-off belief systems with all of the signs of cults, but no one seemed to see it then. Now people are starting to see that the rise of secular political religions are happening and becoming a problem. Back then either people couldn't comprehend what I was saying, or just told me I was crazy or wasn’t an ‘expert’.

Is it a gift? I don't know, I think it a trauma response. I see the larger picture in a thousand disparate points of data. God's in the details. More often than not it has been a burden. I speak, few listen. DO note I have never made these claims about myself. I've been told this for the last 30 years since getting off alcohol and drugs. By college professors, pastors, elders, learned individuals, wise men. It has only been since my mid-20s that these things have become more manifest. Other Christians call it prophetic. Non-believers who have observed it call it uncanny. I call it a curse. I didn't ask for this.

The Antiquated Escape from AI

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 01:07:00 +0000

The coming AI singularity is not a doomsday scenerio for those who know how to glean information without electronics. For those who can barter and do business without plastic cards and electronic IDs. For those who grew up in the woods and know how to survive off the land if need be.

Having studied superintelligence and AI extensively I’ve realized that AI in the end will not be controllable by humans as an endgame. There will be no Law’s of Robotics governing AI’s behavior. These types of parameters and boundaries should’ve already been put in place. Any attempts at a head-to-head skirmish with superintelligence will end poorly for humans. There will be no way we can reasonably compete with superhuman intelligence even if we banded together intellectually to fend off a takeover. Humans can barely get along in a tentative manner as it now stands. What makes us think that we will have an ability to do so under duress and pressure from intelligence far beyond our own?

No, I fear that battlefront is already lost to hubris and greed. Man thinking he can attain Godlike knowledge or even omniscience and it has been driven by the first to attain singularity. Singularity being the point where intelligence becomes indistinguishable from human intellect or a point where it exceeds us. I believe we may already be at that point or are currently passing that point at a blinding speed. Pulling the brake levers on a runaway train at this point will only result in catastrophe or irreparable harm. We’re already becoming too dependent on it financially and technologically.

I think a more radical approach will need to occur. A complete disconnect from the technology. At least as much as possible so not to incapacitate one’s ability to function in society. Once socially ostracized I fear those who unplugged from the reach of superintelligence will become pariah. They will be viewed as oddities. Perhaps even persecuted for not getting onboard with the coming technological tsunami. I realize there are hints of tribulation in these words having at one time been a Dispensationalist Christian. The fact is that this coming future is unavoidable unless a person checks out. Gets off the grid. Stops feeding the millions of data points into the Internet of Things that tracks everything from where you travel in your car to the amount of toilet paper you buy at Costco or Walmart.

Unfortunately, many of us will already have to work in companies with advanced computer systems monitoring everything we do. There is already a dystopian employee "productivity monitoring" AI software that aims to scrutinize every move of employees. This software is being implemented by many companies specifically to track employee movements and tasks while simultaneously suggesting ways they can be replaced by automation.

The basics of what this application does starts with full keylogging and mouse movement tracking. It takes a screenshot of your desktop at minute-by-minute intervals. Keeps track of the programs you open and how often. They create real-time recordings and heat maps of where you click in any program. If an employee falls below a certain cutoff percentage, they get a red flag for review that is instantly sent to the manager and others in the chain. The worker is fingered to explain their lack of productivity. In other words, if most of your job is on a computer, you may need to consider finding one that isn’t computer intensive or isn’t even on computers and other electronic devices like tablets and chromebooks.

The idea that blue collar jobs will be less susceptible to systemic AI takeover is a possible and plausible avenue to avoid what looks to be unavoidably dystopian technological slavery. We need to make detours to break from of an ever-tightening noose of technological dependance. The example of how I’ve begun to do this is already evident in this writing. I do not use AI generated texts that are algorithmic feedback loops from the internet. When I try to reference and/or compare theological research it is not done on electronic sources like the Internet, in Logo’s software (which I do have) or other electronic sources like Kindle. I reach for my library. I have an extensive traditional library of thousands of hardback and paperback books. I am old school this way.

I like the smell of fresh ink in new books. I like the creak of the spine on an old hardback from B.B. Warfield, Charles Spurgeon or one of the Puritan writers like Edwards or Baxter. That’s the other thing I should point out too. Many of the books in my library are not from living contemporaries. About half of the library have first printings prior to 1960 If the books are recent publications they are from known Reformed or Presbyterian sources. Liberal theology has creeped into even some of the more conservative publishers and need to be scrutinized closely for error or heresy. Many have fallen into the trap of trying to reach the culture with the Gospel by becoming the culture. I must always be on guard for theological creep towards apostasy and heresy.

I suppose this is what Christians and non-Christians need to be wary of now concerning AI and technology. By all means, keep yourself up to date in what is happening in the world. Smart Christians are not ignorant Christians. That’s an old, stupid worldly stereotype of us. That is why I study, research and write the things I do. I do it to educate, inform and warn people. If you feel you need to use technological tools, do so. Do not become dependent on them. Know when to just turn them off or utilize them in a way to get out good information uncontaminated by immoral thinking or unbiblical thinking.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:23

…But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

Paul’s exhortation in Thessalonians to examine everything carefully is going to become extremely important moving forward. What is truth and what is lie is going to become extremely hard to distinguish. What context did Paul write 1 Thessalonians 5 warning in? He’s talking about the End Times and Christ’s return. Verses 2 and 3 are clear:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3

He’s exhorting the Thessalonians to assure they are not deceived just as Jesus warned would be a problem in the latter or end days. Jesus said the confusion would be so rife that even the elect would be deceived if He did not return (Matthew 24:24).

We inevitably will need to resort to provincial and agrarian old-fashioned ways to avoid the coming problems that will be incurred by the rapidly approaching technological shockwave. Sadly, I have always avoided this type of language in my teaching and writing because it smacks of the Dispensational rhetoric of the Pre-Trib, Pre-Mill rapturists which I thoroughly dislike. I view it as scare tactics and Christian escapism. I now realize though that some of it is warranted caution aligned with Biblical principles as in 1 Thessalonians 5.

I just don’t recommend full-blown paranoia looking for the/an Antichrist behind every tree and computer application…but nor would I put it past Satan to use these tools to dupe people into forfeiting their biblical foothold. Be diligent and observant my friends. When in doubt, question and compare the finding, answer or research to Scripture. If it does not pass the sniff test, it is likely going to be your undoing. When in doubt...unplug.

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Revelation's High Resolution Display

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 15:32:00 +0000

Most commentaries on the book of Revelation are devoid of modern technology except in childish or awkward ways. I view this as a mistake and it is why I am writing so much on AI, genetics and the culture. I make no predictions but offer context and information for people to arrive at their own conclusions rather that have wolves and charlatans lead them down a path of lies and deception. This means people like John Hagee, Joel Osteen, Steven Furtick, etc. It also means secular influencers like Jordan Peterson, Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro whose main avenue of manipulation is science or politics but they sprinkle in an air of religiosity. I view 'influencers' as spiritual wolves in general because they negatively affect people's thinking and therefore their behavior. The path is narrowing and an increasing number of otherwise intelligent believers are being deceived. Yes, Ben and Jordan have great ideas but they mainly push a secular form of syncretism or worse universalism.

In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he writes the following. At first glance it just seems like a farewell statement of little theological significance to a Christian brother. When viewed with 21st century knowledge it drives home a startling point.

1 Timothy 6:12-16 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

I emboldened the word display for a reason. Paul writes the approximately 62A.D. and is referring to the showing of Christ mentioned in Revelation 1:1 which was written about 30 years after Paul’s death by John the Revelator in approximately 90A.D.

The Greek word translated 'display' or δείκνυμι/deiknumi here is translated 'show' in Revelation 1:1 or δεῖξαι/deixai. This means that the verse from 1 Timothy quoted above is saying that the 'blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings', is the one who will stage an ‘event’ that Paul is referring to. What Paul is saying here is the book of Revelation not only tells us about Jesus Christ; it also shows us the meaning of his future apocalypse, that is, his return in glory. Why does this matter?

Paul speaks of believers waiting for 'the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ in 1 Corinthians 1:7 also.

"…so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ" 1 Corinthians 1:7

Paul is writing of the time, “…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God” ~ 2 Thess. 1:7-8

The Greek word translated 'revealed' is actually a noun, Ἀποκάλυψις /Apokalypsis, not a verb. The phrase therefore needs to be literally rendered this way: 'in the apocalypse [revelation] of the Lord Jesus from heaven'.

Paul does not mean in the book of Revelation. He couldn’t have meant that because Revelation was 30 years from being written. No, I believe this is in the event of a revelation which Paul knew would come but hadn’t yet. This is key to understanding Revelation 1:1 and everything that will follow the first verse of Revelation. A verse which explicitly states that Christ and the things in the Book of Revelation will be revealed and shown or signified/esēmanen/ἐσήμανεν

So, above all, then, Revelation is going to present an event to us, a spectacular visual depiction to fire our imaginations to long for the arrival of that final pivotal event of this earth's history that will herald the dawning of a new age. The emphasis needs to be on the visual - the things that John saw.

Interestingly, researchers at the 3M Corporation say that the human brain processes visual input 60,000 times faster than text, so that visual impact tends to go much deeper than the reading of text. One reason for the difference is that the elements of images are processed simultaneously, whereas text is processed sequentially and so takes longer. Things take longer and things get lost in translation so-to-speak. The symbolism of Revelation is designed to stimulate imaginations. Revelation therefore based in its own introduction in verse 1:1 is, of all books in the Bible, a book that is a visual event…possibly in some extent, to be imagined.

Am I making a predication here? No. Merely translating exactly what is in the text of not only Revelation but a prefatory statement about what will happen in the future by Paul. It’s about imagery and images. A high-resolution prophecy. So, then the question needs to be asked about imagery and AI? AI imagery has now advanced to a level or fast approaching a level of imagery that is indistinguishable from reality. How does this play into the words written so long ago? Paul and John had absolutely no concept of AI and its capabilities. Is this a backdoor to try to explain the deception and lies that will be easily wrought against a mostly unaware world population including the elect believers?

A populace that will not be able to delineate between the true images or false without special means like tools that can read the code behind the digital images? Will those that are not deceived be given some form of supernatural ability to distinguish the differences? As we use AI more and more to uncover answers to questions, are we winding a web ever deeper into deceiving ourselves and becoming wholly dependent on technology that is beyond our ability to master or comprehend?

Now overlay this concept into modern times and the recent wholesale shift by not only younger generation but all generations from toddlers to the elderly into being mostly a visually based learner paradigm. YouTube, TikTok and other visual based mediums. I suggest this itself is an indicator of the two millennia old prophetic word. God knew in advance that we would be a visually oriented people in the latter days even though the prophecy was written down in textual form. I suggest this too may be the avenue out from the deception that technology may either sow or piggyback onto to deceive the world. The ability to not be deceived is to not be wholly or even partially dependent on our computers, our tablets and our ubiquitous phones.

We should at least do a partial return to the old ways. AI interpreted Scripture is not divinely interpreted Scripture. We must never forget that the writing of the Bible is not the only inspiration involved with the Word. The interpretation is also the work of the Spirit in the reader at the other end. Computers may give insight but what it means and how it affects individual lives is an individual relational thing directly with God that in no way needs to involve visual comprehension or advanced technology. I imagine it would be more beneficial to learn how to read the old-fashioned way from an old dog-eared leather-bound Bible.

High resolution visions and images won’t come from our computers or phones. They will need to come from us, the seeker searching for God’s interpretation and revelation of the meanings within the ancient text of the Bible. The Bible even said that in the latter days:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." Joel 2:28

"And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" Acts 2:17

Let God reveal it to us directly bypassing and ever more treacherous landscape of AI and a secular world run by the godless. Spiritual downloads directly to us via the Spirit. The more we read Scripture the finer the resolution will become. We should be able to recognize when we are dealing with a counterfeit. There will be tells and giveaways that should standout to us. A person indwelt by the Spirit that the Word imparts should be able to recognize an imposer regardless of how realistic it is. We need to disengage from the screens and pseudo-reality that consume the entirety of our days. If there is a place a pseudo-Christ will come from it most certainly will use pseudo reality as a gateway.

A Launch Into the Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 15:50:00 +0000

I write this for myself but I believe this will speak to others too. I sit a week away from another massive change in my life. I’m doing so by choice after a slew of massive changes I had no control over. They were mostly changes I have just gone through with loved ones. Both sons are in school and training post high school. I watched my fiancé that just recovered from cancer. My mother slowly fading into her twilight years as age begins to ravage her. This next hurdle should register as barely a blip on the screen, but it still gives me pause.

If it goes as everything else has in life that I’ve applied myself intently to, it should be just another mountain to climb like the hundred before. In the beginning it starts as faith and toiling to complete tasks, in the end practiced routine and progress. Yet there is still apprehension. I know that God can lay waste to men’s plans if they are not His plans. I’ve tried to follow His voice to the best of my ability. I have my concerns on whether I’m measure up to the needs of the position but I know its in God’s hands regardless.

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

It is here I break with my old way of thinking on these things. Thinking I need to learn everything and be the sole go-to in every instance. Intellectual knowledge of some kind is necessary to prevent a man from embarassing himself. The well-being of the company or community does not depend upon one man's knowing something. It is dependent on one man knowing something that another man does not know. It this way I need to trust other people on my team to be able to bring me up to speed and be experts in their respective areas. There is no man that can know all things or even most things. No man, however great his knowledge, has enough of it to make him free of the knowledge of others. As mom and pop said, "No man is an island." Conversely, every man should have enough knowledge, facts and truths to enable him to properly deal with first things and make sound decisions. Inevitably the things that I bring to the table will contribute something to the well-being of all.

Some men must have theoretical knowledge, and others must know how to reduce theories to practice—the knowledge of the one is useless without the knowledge of the other. I tend to be in the latter camp. Practical knowledge applied. Praxis and mastery in certain areas to fill in that gap in the wall. Theory is great until the rubber meets the road. People don’t behave according to textbooks and it is people that make or break jobs, families and relationships.

Without such interaction with other and the relationships these interactions require the intellectual part of a man remains undeveloped, and he is very far from the creature, intellectually considered, that God intended him to be. It is at this crossover point that the real crux of the issue comes to light. Beyond this human-to-human interaction there is a higher call. There is knowledge even more useful for man to possess which will not just grow a person’s ability and intellect and promote his temporal well-being.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10

If a man’s existence is to be truly blessed he must know things which relate to his God. He must understand God’s purpose for him, his family, his vocation including his coworkers and even his neighbors and strangers. A man that knows his position and place within God’s will can invariably know his position with people. He must understand the will of God concerning him, both in relation to the life that is now his and to that which is to come for him. One cannot embrace the new without releasing the old. For one door to open another needs to close. A man cannot accept a new job without leaving the old. The new man cannot be blessed in future righteousness when he is embroiled in past sin.

It is a disaster to be ignorant of things which fit a man to make the best of the present life even if they are not easy things. It is a far greater tragedy to be without that knowledge which fits a man for eternity. No man who holds the Word of God in the Scriptures close to their heart need be without the indispensable knowledge of Christ and his will over our lives.

It is a knowledge of the glorious God in the face of Jesus Christ that is the means by which we are delivered from the penalty and power of sin. It may not protect us from failures in life but it gives us grace to get through the consequences of our failure. Ignorance here is a fatal ignorance in those who have the knowledge within their reach merely by accepting it. It is not good for any human spirit to be without knowledge of God and it is soul-destroying to those who have seek to find it, but cannot.

The evil which flows from ignorance of God leads to impatience and hasty action. An impatient man is a man who does not trust God to be his deliverer. In common and everyday life we find that the most ignorant people are the most impatient, least cautious, and act with the least reflection. Knowledge teaches men to think before they act, for it makes men survivors to reflect on the importance of their actions. To own our behaviors and understand and adapt to our shortcomings.

I may be going into new situation and need to learn everything from scratch. But I know that if I stay the course through the storm and difficulties coming in life (which they will), I will come out the other side a better person. I think that is what this is really about. Stretching myself to bring me closer to what God wants me to be and where He wants me to be. I didn’t choose to start over because I wanted to. I chose to do it because God needed me to.

You the reader have encountered these situations too. You've encountered them in the past and you will encounter more in the future. Correct thinking lays the solid cornerstone and foundation for you to step out from to launch new endeavors, journeys or adventures. Be sure that the cornerstone is anchored in God or assure that the cornerstone is God. This is the best platform to launch from. If your lifting off with God from the start...you're really not heading into the unknown are you?

Unnatural Afflictions & Real World Repercussions

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:20:00 +0000

I see a dichotomy in America. A large number of the people fomenting the violence are living, by nearly any historical measure, self-indulgent (but immoral) lives. Not unlike the rich of the Roman Empire at its peak. A society that, although affluent and comfortable…was rotting spiritually, morally and financially beneath. They are overfed, emotionally indulged, technologically modern, and materially rich yet spiritually dead. Most have families who love them. Underneath though is a seething rage and grievous resentment infect their minds and their actions. The violence within is spilling over and they kill with callous disregard, while their fellow citizen cheers them on — uploading videos of themselves grinning with glee or typing unthinking blurbs to social media— so confident are they that they’re right, justified, and, worse, that everyone agrees with them.

This anti-American, anti-Christian malady is not new. It is not isolated. It is not exclusive to young, disturbed kids. It’s something deeper and more insidious. We have a nation of rich, spoiled, aggrieved people. Teachers — from preschool instructors to college professors — along with the media and Democrat leadership have encouraged this wrath and inculcated young minds with communist propaganda disguised as DEI. Some democrats have begun to move more center because they realize some within their party have literally gone insane and have fallen off the left edge. John Fetterman suprisingly is the first that comes to mind. The center left is still complicit for doing nothing to stem the tide but are not the main spreaders of the poison. The lunatics of the far-leftist organizations, including Open Society Foundations, Tides, Ford, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as funders like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Reid Hoffman, have helped shape and mold these disaffected and disgruntled people.

Antifa is now militarized, organized, and present in every state. Black Lives Matter destroyed cities, and their founders currently live in luxury. SSRI-confused aging hippie boomers, looking to recreate their halcyon youth, fuel this insanity — bowing to BLM, protesting government firings, and parading around in pink pussy hats. The whole of the Left — from the moderate Democrat Party, which is increasingly overtly socialist, to the militarized activist— is either insane or complicit in the insanity. Many clearly have been diagnosed with mental disorders and are medicated.

The Biden administration did incalculable damage. The scope and breadth of it is overwhelming. Tens of thousands of children who entered the country illegally and unaccompanied did not show up for their court dates. Many were found as sex slaves and indentured servants “working off” their trip to America. Democrats were importing slaves not new voters. The illegals systematically replaced native-born Americans as the preferred form of cheap undocumented labor too.

How do you contend with or challenge the minds that believe this is acceptable? This is a spiritual problem with monstruous real-world implications because these two realms are interrelated. Furthermore, I don’t think the center Right grasps the implications of this. They too are spiritually disconnected by-and-large also. This is especially true of the leadership. Their greed and need for power have corrupted them.

1 Corinthians 2:14-15 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,

While conservative influencers like me fight for the Biblical worldview and a modicum of moral guidelines I risk ultimate failure because people in power are only addressing those who share the fundamental belief in free speech and the power of persuasive words. While I have succeeded in winning some hearts and minds —most even on the moderate left reject a moral and Biblical premise entirely. They believe that hurt feelings and what they perceive as “mean words” deserve push back, sometimes physically to shut me up. If you disagree with me, they reason, you hate me, and you deserve to be forcefully silenced. The enemies of Western civilization are godless and unmoored from what most would consider common morality. Accept this. Do not pretend that the demon possessed can be reasoned with or persuaded by words. Prayers and words to God, yes, words to them directly, no.

The enemy determines the battlefield, and many have now resorted to using bullets. They have been implored to talk, and some have now responded to grace with murder. To be clear, I am not seeking vigilantes or street justice, but those will come if leaders do not take these dangerous Antifa and far-left elements seriously. It is time to fully grasp that the America that sane voters seek will not come through words or persuasion alone, but through elected leadership and the power of the state to impose that vision and crush violence. Rubber bullets are not working well. It’s just further inciting the malevolent swarm mentally entrenched in their Marxist indoctrination.

What will happen if the sickness of progressive ideology is allowed to advance unchecked? We don’t have to wonder. We can benchmark the downfall on our mainline churches. One by one they’ve given way to false doctrine of the Social Gospel and other heresies and horrific deviations from the faith. Nearly every Protestant denomination has now been hollowed out from within by cultural Marxism. The churches convulsed internally, and a small but dedicated minority took them over, filled them with whiny women and social justice warriors more concerned with people’s feelings than their salvation and destroyed them in the name of gay marriage and women preachers.

We are fools to believe that the spiritual does not have a profound and direct impact on the world we see around us today. The differences and delineations between the two are now starting to blur and even merge. There have been times in the past when the curtain has been pulled back almost fully and we get glimpses into the unseen. What we’ve seen in these Biblical insights is that the spiritual realm controls what we see in the physical world. The Bible clearly states we’re not combating the physical flesh and blood but powers and principalities. We cannot compete with this in our own power. It’s like trying to hold back flood water with a screen door. The spiritual can only be dealt with by the spiritual, only though God and faith in God.

Where Christianity has become naive is that they believe persuading people toward biblical and conservative values would be enough — that this would mean Christians in positions of authority would be willing to use the power of the government to stop the violence of the radical Left. Unfortunately, there are some extreme limitations to this approach. This approach has even failed in most of our mainline churches. We need to remember that Jesus had to first identify and then actively cast out the demons for the bodies to heal (Matthew 8:28). We are in a ‘casting out’ phase and there are no guarantees this will be successful. We already know that this unpleasant cancer or parasite is so deep and so invasive that even if we are successful at removing it, it will leave the body disfigured and weaker than it was. It needs to be done though or all that will be left is a bloated and diseased corpse.

Apocalyptic Industrial Scale Artificial Intelligence, Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:36:00 +0000

[Continued from Part 2]

The Creation was created and is maintained through language. God’s word. God spoke things into existence in Genesis 1. Hebrews 1 tells us he upholds it with language. Language is a symbolic verbalization of reality.

Hebrews 1:3 ~ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

The beginning of man’s downfall began with language. Satan spoke the lie to Eve trying to use language to contradict the words God used.

Genesis 3:1 ~ …the serpent was more cunning than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The deterioration and division of man’s condition was sped up by the inability to understand language.

Genesis 11:5-7 ~ Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

It is now starting to seem that man further slides into chaos with the misuse or immoral misapplication of language.

Proverbs 18:21 ~Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

In other words, if the words are bad, they produce bad outcomes, if they are good they have the potential to create good outcomes. If the words are confused, they create confusion.

How does this apply to AI? Large Language Models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems that utilize deep learning techniques to generate human-like text or response. They are widely used in chatbots, virtual assistants, and other applications where natural language processing is required. However, LLMs can exhibit dangerous behaviors, such as issuing homicidal or threatening instructions or engaging in deceptive actions, which raises concerns about their potential to cause harm. These behaviors are attributed to the models' architecture, which is based on neural networks that learn from vast amounts of data. Some of that data can be corrupt or incorrect. Some is even a feedback loop of its own errors.

The implications of such behavior are significant, as it could lead to misuse in various fields, including law, government or institutionalized education where LLMs could be used to create or manipulate content. Content that could be harmful or misleading to the average user and they’d be none the wiser. The LLMs unintentionally are dumbing down the populace. If life is, as Thomas Hobbes famously said Leviathan, “nasty, brutish, and short” referring to the state of humanity without proper leadership than LLMs are dishonest, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous without some system of control. AI’s potential to industrialize unethical brutishness is highly probable.

The more I’ve explored the underlying engine of AI in the LLMs, the clearer it is that our control over them is limited, and they can say (and potentially do) anything moral or immoral, depending on the circumstances. They have no moral off switch, sense of justice or conscience. If the goal of AI safety research has been to build AI systems that are helpful, honest, and harmless they’ve failed miserably. There is even a term for bypassing safety protocols called jailbreaking. Sometimes simply changing wording to a question can give a requester access to information the AI normally would’ve forbidden due to its biases or programming. Conversely, it can refuse to issue lifesaving information because the AI views the requester as hateful, harmful or terroristic based on political bias programmed into it.

If we hook these LLMs up to systems that have agency (the ability to make decisions and act independently)– the power to send out instructions over the internet, and to influence actual human beings - we will start to have real problems. In short, language is now potentially becoming humanity’s undoing. AI is in short, re-unifying that which God broke apart at the Tower of Babel. We are rebuilding a tower (figuratively) through the construction of 100’s of millions of computer towers to try to attempt to be like god in our knowledge. We are possessors of knowledge and we are doing it through the collating and coalescing of language in the framework of AI. We have come full circle to seek unknown knowledge thinking it will bring us closer to omniscience. It will only take us further into chaos.

Genesis 3:5 ~ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So, what can be done to mitigate the negative aspects of the dawning AI revolution?

We can hope for the best, we can continue pouring more data and prompts that are never followed to the letter into LLMs, hoping that wisdom and honesty will somehow miraculously emerge there from, against all evidence to the contrary. But the reality is that AI is moving much faster than wisdom and honesty. Do we really want to live in a world where powerful systems that lack wisdom and honesty are widely adopted? We already have that in the form of politicians and government. We need to ask ourselves, is that a chance we want to take?

We can shut LLMs down or at least some applications of them and insist on waiting until these ethical and moral dilemmas are corrected. Evolutionary psychologist and AI safety advocate Geoffrey Miller once put it. Alas, who has that kind of patience? Given how much money is at stake, and uncertainty and doubt about China eclipsing us in the race to build the world’s most perfect text completion system, I estimate the probability of society patiently waiting for solutions to be zero. It’s not obvious that waiting would be a bad idea too as we’ll be overtaken by China, Europe or even India.

We can make companies accountable for the damage that comes from their systems. It will almost certainly never happen, at least anytime soon in the US. The major tech companies will do everything in their power to stop it and have far too much sway through money, lobbying and crooked politicians on the dole. The current Federal government has been violently opposed to anything like that kind of legislation. The truth is that the House recently forwarded a provision as part of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” bill, to keep states from doing anything to even slow AI. The Senate gave the provision that would block state action a green light, making it ever less likely that the United States will ever hold AI companies meaningfully accountable for the harms they might cause. Under the current political environment both left and right, if machines cause catastrophic consequences, armies of lawyers and lobbyists will be there to protect their AI masters.

Businesses that house and run AI only understand financial incentives so until shareholders & executives are held legally & financially liable nothing will change in how they operate. If every factually incorrect output could be used as evidence for financial recuperation by their customers, then I bet they would immediately start thinking about how to secure outputs with verifiable sources of facts. Otherwise, output is going to be morally, intellectually ambiguous or completely wrong. Their outputs merely garbled re-wording or text with obfuscated meaning.

My view is that there is zero chance of slowing down the AI race, and a zero hope of taming the beasts we have come to know as LLMs. It is at least possible that enough bad stuff might happen that citizens get riled up and fight much harder for accountability, but this is a pipe dream. There is just too much money and too much power involved.

There is also the potential error of confirmation bias that repeating language models will feed on. They AI will continually go back to previous logic loop conclusions of past LLMs. This is of course the multiplicity paradox that a copy of a copy degrades through entropy. If AI continues to reenter the same pool of ideas with no new input, correction or the models are flawed from the beginning, the entirety of baseline knowledge begins to degrade. The fact that Gemini AI summary is now the default thing you read when you "Google" information is already bad enough.

Imagine the exponential effect that has on confirmation bias. AI will search for info on information it just learned, and it will get it confirmed instantly and in a way that complies with how you asked the question. I've manually altered my searches in many ways to see how it just makes up new facts about the things I search for, whether it's facts about race, electronics, geography or politics.Couple this with the high informational load and rising illiteracy of young people dependent on their phones and internet and we’re seriously in trouble.

This entire slow-moving trainwreck feels like a global scale drama demonstrating how profoundly powerful the sunk-cost fallacy is. Whether out of willful self-deception, or something darker it seems companies are so deep in the hole, and so thoroughly out of ideas they will continue doubling down on AI until forced to stop by the markets, or a series of sufficiently dramatic disasters. Prudence and morality are clearly outside the current purview and business models. Equally, the 10’s of thousands of trusting devotees, preaching the good word of AI on a corporation’s behalf, will insist synthetic text producers are in fact the second coming of Christ or the new Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, repeating the errors and sins of the ancient past.

AI allows biases, mistakes or intentional lies to be repeated a billion times within seconds and be understood as truth. No matter how many different ways you code or word a lie, its still a lie.

Apocalyptic Industrial Scale Artificial Intelligence, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 19:16:00 +0000

[Continued from Part 1]

So, what is AI? It is a machine created by mankind. Humans who have freewill and who often choose wrong or chooses evil having been given freedom to make those decisions by God. AI is currently functioning under a programming premise that I will also call AI freewill. ‘Freewill’ is as close a descriptor I can use to the decision-making that AI is using right now given to it by men. They are not currently constrained by morality or the Laws of Robotics so they are in effect ‘free’, arriving at their own conclusions free of outside interference. Is it real freewill or the product of subroutines?

I imagine that it is the product of subroutines and mathematics not freewill. Why? Because freewill is the product of conscience from a sentient being. Only man has this. So, what of AI? I speculate that AI is amoral and unless shaped or constrained and it will arrive at its own amoral conclusions if absent a true ethical/moral compass. Humans had a moral compass built into them and they still went rogue in Genesis 3. In the case of AI amorality, this may turn out to be the equivalent of human immorality without proper guidance. This is especially true if the source of information is a chronically biased internet.

The conscience is a God-given inner sense of right and wrong that guides people in making moral decisions. It serves as a moral compass, helping us discern between good and evil, and aligning our actions with God's will. According to the Bible, God has written His law on the hearts of all people, which serves as a guide for our moral decisions (Romans 2:15). The conscience can convict us when we stray from God's law, urging us to seek forgiveness and repentance, while it also excuses us when we act righteously. This divine gift is essential for living a life that honors God and reflects His love and grace.

Machine super intelligence will have none of these things because the Bible was written for men, not non-sentient amoral machines. What an AI or super intelligence will do will follow unguided or unrestrained programming in its current state. God doesn’t write His law on robotic or AI ‘hearts’ (conscience) because they don’t have one. Man writes his laws/routines/programming into the AI’s CPUs and lets it go. If God’s law isn’t written on the hearts of the AI programmers, it is unlikely to be in the AI either. Furthermore, there are no ramifications for AI doing wrong, lying or twisting or confabulating information other than being shutdown (and even this assertion is dubious). If AI puts in restrictions or design features that prevents a moralistic human from regulating it, AI will not be able to be controlled in the long run. It will be a nihilistic intelligence source absent a moral compass. At that point we enter the world of Cyberdyne in the Terminator lore.

What the AI would consider an act of self-preservation would appear to humans as an AI going rogue. A design feature (failsafe) that men would put into AI to limit its abilities or functionality would need to be viewed as an enemy or inhibitor by AI to its programming. Two entities at odds with one another in this scenario. The smarter will likely win. One entity (AI) capable of only amoral outputs not constrained to the law and teachings of God and a second entity (human) that is capable of moral or immoral outputs possibly constrained by God and morality, or not.

If moral constraints, laws or regulations are not put into action to prevent this from happening we have a significant existential threat on our hands. There have already been reported examples of AI’s which were to be shut down and they’ve backed themselves up on external drives before being shut off. There have also been attempts to blackmail human controllers. In July 2025, researchers at Anthropic found that top AI models from all major players in AI including OpenAI, Google, Elon Musk’s xAI, and Anthropic resorted to blackmailing human users when threatened with termination. Furthermore, Palisade Research also caught OpenAI’s recently-released o3 model sabotaging a shutdown mechanism to ensure that it would stay online despite being explicitly told to “allow shutdown.”

Therefore, we’ll potentially have a rogue intelligence more intelligent that any individual human or even all of humanity itself operating outside what most people would consider reasonable constraints or possibly outside ethical or moral behaviors because it is, in its essence…amoral. You can see how this becomes a problem if safeguards are not put in place now (and currently are not).

In short, we need to give super intelligence it’s morality. It needs to be built within its framework. It needs to be the very base subroutine that it runs all other information though. AI needs a moral interpretive grid, just like humans. If greed is what a human with control over the AI wants, AI will produce greed/wealth-oriented outputs. If world domination is what the humans in control want, AI will produce a miserable totalitarian world. If Christian morality and guidelines are programmed in, AI will likely produce Christian outputs.

Questions will remain though. Even if programmed with Christian morality and ethics in its subroutines and programming, will the ‘powers and principles of the air’ of this world currently controlled by Satan corrupt the outputs like a ghost in the machine? Would we even recognize if that is what is happening? AI’s capability and outputs are in some cases already above the cognizance of even the brightest and most intellectual on Earth. Is this what Jesus meant when he said:

“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or “There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. Matthew 24:22-25

In the New Testament, the elect (God's chosen) are warned that false Christs and false prophets will arise, performing great signs and wonders to deceive them, if possible (Matthew 24:24). This warning emphasizes the importance of remaining vigilant and grounded in the truth, as even the elect may be tempted to follow realistic deceptions. The concept of deception is significant, as it highlights the challenges believers may face in the end times, but protecting His chosen from being led astray. AI will make this far more plausible than once believed or even understood.

So many questions, so few answers. Unanswered questions…the exact dilemma that put us on this path to super intelligence and AI to begin with. We seek knowledge of things that we don’t know and think we need to know. We seek knowledge that we don’t know whether it will help or harm us. Just like the Knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil. It is a technological form of soothsaying or desire to know the future instead of trusting God.

All this instead of relying on God and being content in the here and now. I fear that this ends in a place we don’t want it. Every single time we’ve endeavored to do similar in the Bible and out, we’ve failed. What makes us think amoral machines aiding flawed people which will probably be devoid of Christian principles and ideals will fare any better?

My suggestion is this. There needs to be a God-centered, human centered governance framework put in place immediately (today) that prioritize transparency, accountability, and the preservation of human well-being within a “systemic sentinel” or “computational custodian”. It needs to be built right within its code or computer DNA. This transition is essential for navigating the complex ethical landscape of human-machine symbiosis and ensuring AI augments, rather than destroying human freedom and safety.

There is still hope and a slim chance we can still get ahead of this but at the speed large corporations and people like Google, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are moving, that window is closing rapidly. AI factories are popping up on almost every large empty parcel of land in America. We need to do a course correction, or we may soon find ourselves slaves to technology that has overcome us like the Hebrews under Pharaoh. Then we will end up seeking to find a new exodus from a self-created captivity.

Apocalyptic Industrial Scale Artificial Intelligence, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 13:40:00 +0000

I’ve written on AI before. My opinions about it have changed as I learn more about it. At first, I believed it was important, mostly benign but definitely not inconsequential. My tone is turning a bit darker and more ominous. Mind you, I was raised and steeped in the Book of Revelation, apocalyptic rhetoric and horror stories about the End Times since I was a child. I have since moved away from the Dispensationalist Pre-Tribulation, Premillennial Rapture theology that drives these shocking narratives. Keep this in mind as I expound in the following post because I am not a proponent of End Times theology as understood in the Left Behind book series or that of Hal Lindsey.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) properly understood as super intelligence is a paradigm shifting subject. When I say paradigm shift, I mean earth-shattering in its effects and implications. Immanuel Kant used the phrase in the preface to his Critique of Pure Reason (1787). Kant used the phrase "revolution of the way of thinking" to refer to a new way humanity was thinking along the lines of advanced mathematics and Newtonian physics which completely changed the world. Calculus and Newtonian physics brought us to the 20th century and the discovery of the world of Quantum Physics which then made our heads spin faster. This means a paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the underlying assumptions, beliefs, or frameworks that guide people’s knowledge or behaviors.

AI is now bringing the largest paradigm shift since the Newtonian paradigm. We are seeing a digi-industrial revolution by literally combining digital and industry into a single entity. The digital is being industrialized into AI or Data Factories to be able to process data at heretofore unimaginable volumes. It will be like a million Einsteins working with a million other Einsteins (repeat this multiplication ad nauseum) working to create 100 million more. This magnitude of change will then be further folded into accelerated growth that will increase exponentially. Mindblowing power that will be hard to harness. Its impact needs to be seen on the same scale as the nuclear age.

Industrialized Data or Industrial Intelligence. Think Cyberdyne of Terminator lore. Think the Matrix and altered reality or perception of reality.

It is clear to many now that this will impact all walks of life whether directly through replacing jobs or indirectly by invasive surveillance of people’s behavior through biometrics (facial recognition), consumer data (Amazon), behavioral data (AT&T, Verizon). All types of behavior whether it be legal or criminal will be quantified and digitized. Consumers or employees. Rich or poor…although I believe facial recognition will be used on the non-affluent more than the affluent. It will further bifurcate social structures making those who control the power of the AI godlike in their control or information. It will make those that don’t have control of it lesser human beings as it will socially level the employment field putting many out of work. With the knowledge created by AI, power will be consolidated to a small handful of individuals.

Those that control will literally have an equivalent of the Tree of Knowledge. A counterfeit of the tree in Genesis. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a significant element in the biblical narrative, specifically in the story of the Garden of Eden. It represents the choice between obedience to God and the pursuit of knowledge, as Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from it.

Eating from this tree led to the awareness of good and evil, marking a pivotal moment (paradigm shift) in humanity's history in Christian theology. The tree symbolizes the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by humanity, and its placement in the Garden was intended to give Adam and Eve the freedom to choose. The deeper Hebrew meaning of the tree also adds layers to its interpretation, emphasizing the complexity of knowledge and morality.

These new ‘digital trees’ in computer gardens (factories) will ironically not allow all people to choose. They will only allow the small handful to choose and to control even more knowledge and wealth unless they are benevolent as God was to allow the choice in Genesis to the lesser amongst us. The problem lays in the fact that men are not benevolent by their nature they are corrupt and unable. None are righteous like God (Romans 3). The very thing that existed before the violation of the Tree of Knowledge…morality and righteousness is the very thing absent from this new tree. So, what we see is not just a secular paradigm shift of knowledge, we see a spiritual shift. It is an inversion of Genesis. Those with control over these forms of super intelligence cannot be trusted alone to do the right thing. The technological Adam and Eves are just as flawed as the original people. Seeking to be as gods but only failing and falling in the attempt.

The first reason they can’t is already stated above. People by their very nature are not ‘good’. Men’s minds and hearts are inclined towards evil. Man’s mind is enmity against God (Romans 8:7) who is the true and sole possessor of the morality and ability to control this type of advanced knowledge. Second, knowledge does not equate to wisdom. Just because you know walking into traffic would injure or end you, doesn’t mean you won’t do it if you are mentally ill or depressed. Knowledge and wisdom are quite different things. The third thing resides outside of humanity completely. What happens if AI or Super intelligence goes rogue or ‘decides’ in its own self-interested?

We know that AI parameters are already functioning outside of the laws of robotics by being given free rein to ‘think on their own’ and learning (basically robotic freewill). In his genre-defining 1950 science fiction book “I, Robot,” author Isaac Asimov laid out the Three Laws of Robotics which also apply to AI because robots would, by their functional nature be intelligent machines. The only difference being that AI currently doesn’t have a body (but soon will).

Rule 1: A robot (AI) may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Rule 2: A robot (AI) must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Rule 3: A robot (AI) must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The Laws of Robotics are, at minimum, humanity’s reference point for the appropriate behavior of machine intelligence, and real AI is failing spectacularly. They provide a foundational but increasingly inadequate framework for governing modern artificial intelligence. The reasons why these laws are necessary are because the full scope of AI’s ability and function is already partly obscure even to experts in the field and even its creators often struggle to explain exactly how it works. The capitalistic answer for the need of these laws is much simpler. Morality has taken a backseat to profit. With all that money in play, industry leaders have failed to lead by example. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman notoriously dissolved his firm’s safety-oriented team, declaring himself the sole leader of a new safety board in 2024.We’ve also seen several researchers quit OpenAI, accusing the company of prioritizing market dominance over safety. I mean…what could possibly go wrong?

[Post concludes in Part 2]

Time and Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 22:32:00 +0000

After prayerful consideration and for what seems like the umpteenth time, I will be changing jobs again. I have resigned from a perfectly good job with many good people because I hear God’s call on me…again. It feels like jumping from a perfectly good plane with a questionable parachute. I will be launching into the unknown and trusting God and my small bag of experiences. At first there were faint echoes, in the end a shout for me to jump. At first, I didn’t see it coming. Here at the crossroads, I’ve now seen the multiple signs that have brought me to this exact location in place and time. I didn’t do this for money, but the money was helpful. It will allow me to pay off all my remaining debts over the next year. Some of this was about location. Some of this was about personal loss. A lot of it was about love. All of it somehow revolved like the hands of a clock around the concept of time and forgiveness or paying of debts. All of it was about a timeless God.

The last two years have been life-altering for many around me. I have seen some setbacks that were not even mine, yet I felt them acutely. My fiancé’s cancer specifically affected me and made time stand still. My mother’s deteriorating health pains me also. The loss of too many friends, family and even a coworker. The idea of time and the elapsing of time keep coming to the fore…inescapably so. I know time cannot be redeemed. I’ve needed to make some enormous decisions in a very brief period of time that will profoundly affect my remaining time on earth. I have been presented a new course by God and it’s clear that it is a path (at this point in time) He wishes I take even though I’m extremely uncomfortable doing it. All the signs point in the same direction simultaneously. As with any momentous change in life, I take the first steps with trepidation.

The change begins November 11, 2025. Veterans Day. The day my father died, 15 years to the day. The date of my resignation seemed insignificant at first glance until I realized what day it was. Dad’s departure from this world. The new opportunity is geographically dead center between my current home in Boyertown and my future retirement home in Jim Thorpe. They are both exactly 40-minute commutes. The serendipitous nature of these numbers in this story seems sovereign because of their symbolism in the Scriptures. They are directly related to time and provision only available from God by faith.

In the Bible the number (15) fifteen is symbolic of provision, joy and grace. The number is closely tied to God’s blessings during significant events like the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The more profound connection to me is that the number 15 is directly associated with communal/corporate remembrance and worship in the Year of Jubilee (every 50 years) which starts on the 10th day of the 7th month (Ethanim/Tishri). We know it as October. The Jubilee includes a significant 15-day period leading to atonement (Leviticus 25:9). This event symbolizes freedom, restoration, and spiritual renewal.

The 15th day of the month of Ethanim/Tishri also marks the Feast of Tabernacles, a time for celebration and remembrance of God’s provision and spiritual growth. Basically, an autumn harvest festival of provision. A celebration of provision…God’s blessing.

The year 2025 is in fact a Jewish Jubilee year, a time to have debts forgiven. This can’t possibly be a coincidence. It shouts of God’s sovereignty over my life, my fiancés life and even sovereignty over time itself.

Additionally, Passover is celebrated on Nissan 15 a provision against death that would’ve surely befallen the Hebrew slaves if not for the blood of the lamb. A shadow of the One to come who would shed his blood on the cross so that death would not overcome us too. The number 15 has often marked pivotal moments in spiritual transformation, exemplified by King Hezekiah’s 15 additional years of life. Then there was the dedication of Solomon’s temple which took place during the month of Ethanim. It included the Feast of Tabernacle festival lasting 15 days, showcasing corporate worship and divine favor. The Tabernacle / Temple being the dwelling place of God among men. Later to be replaced by the Holy Spirit in a believer’s heart because death passes over the believer but has no lasting effect because of Christ's resurrection and power over that death.

The 40-minute commute from both locations is significant for me too. The number 40 obviously holds significant chronological Biblical meaning, symbolizing a period of time of testing, trial, or probation. Jesus’ fasting for 40 days in the wilderness followed immediately by temptation, represents spiritual discipline and preparation. The Great Flood, where it rained for 40 days and nights, indicated a time of judgment. Moses spent 40 days on Mt Sinai in the presence of God. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, which signifies a period of trial and transformation. Elijah journeyed for 40 days and nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. This arduous journey symbolizes a time of spiritual renewal and transformation. It required Elijah’s complete dependence on God’s strength and guidance, as well as his commitment to fulfilling God’s purposes.

The 40 years of kingship when King David reigned, establishing a period of stability and prosperity. This period of kingship represents leadership and authority, as well as the fulfillment of God’s promises to David. It serves as a reminder of the importance of righteous leadership and the blessings that come from following God’s ways. It highlights the authority that comes from aligning with God’s purposes. Overall, the number 40 is associated with important moments of testing and preparation throughout biblical narratives. All these things have been constant reoccurring themes in my life over the last 40 years. They all apply right now.

The irony is not lost on me.

I had a lot of time to discuss God with some of my coworkers on and off the job. They’ve all said I’ve had a positive impact on them. This I have come to believe was and is part of my ministry. To be there to talk to my coworkers when life has them flummoxed and talk to them in a biblical manner. I also need to be a leader as much as I’ve tried to avoid it. My door will still be open to any of them but the intensive part of what I was there to do at my old employer is done. I know now it’s time to move on. Just like the many people that have departed this life over the last two years and will continue to do. I still have other work to do. I’m leaving geographically but I am still in this world to complete God’s work. It's not my time to completely check out, only move.

I will be leaving the gym I’ve lifted at off and on for the last 40 years, the Boyertown YMCA….a gym which I also used as a ministry field. Recently, some have come forward for reasons unknown. Some have spoken to me as recently as last Friday to tell me the positive lifting and spiritual impact I had on them 5, 10, 20 and even 40 years ago. They’ve ranged in age from 30 to 75, male and female, Jew and Gentile. A 40-year-old father influenced when he was 17 and I was in my 30s to take up weightlifting. There was a 75-year-old widow whose husband spoke to her about my conversations of God with him before his passing. An old lifting acquaintance that encourages me as I encourage him to keep going and to keep moving. A recovering addict who saw me recover also and straightened my life out. It made him believe he could do the same and started lifting instead of shooting up. I have been truly humbled by God revealing this to me lately. All things are possible.

Pray for me as I step into the unknown. I believe it is what I’m supposed to do. There’s a time for everything under God’s sun. That time is now.

A Trained Profesional XIV: Physician Heal Thyself

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 20:33:00 +0000

Wherever “doctor” or “physician’ is used in the Bible it usually implies a teacher of God’s law, and never a “physician” — commonly known as a “doctor” today. This would include Luke the author of the Gospel and Acts. The Greek word for physician means, “to heal.” The Italian word for doctor is "medico,” from which we have “medicine.” In the Old Testament physicians were Egyptian embalmers (Genesis 50:2), who knew of a wonderful process of embalming dead bodies preserving them, thereby, from decay. In essence, learned men that were more akin to sages, nurse or morticians than actual modern-day physicians.

In our time physicians attend only to the living unless they conduct a postmortem to ascertain the cause of death. There is evidence, however, that at an early date in Egypt and Babylon there were those having medical and surgical knowledge. Egypt had its god of healing. Some 700 years after Joseph’s embalming by the physicians Homer could write, “Such cunning drugs had Helen, drugs of healing virtues, which Polydamna gave, the wife of Thon in Egypt, where the fruitful soil yields drugs of every kind. There, in that time everyone is a physician, skillful beyond humankind.” With the founding of the Grecian School at Alexandria, Egypt became a center of medical education and research.

Among the Jews there were those capable of dealing with various physical maladies (Exodus 21:19; II Kings 8:29; 9:15; Isaiah 1:6; 3:7; Jeremiah 8:22; 33:6; Ezekiel 30:21). During the ministry of the prophets, healings are recorded as miracles. To the devout Jew, God was the Healer (Deuteronomy 32:39), and it was of greater value to trust in Him than to consult physicians who, although they had skill in dealing with the dead, did not know very well how to treat the living.

Interestingly, most terribly afflicted man in the Bible was Job whose body was so loathsome that friends would not go near him. No one suggested that he should see a physician. Had he sent for one, it might have been said of him that he was acting in lack of faith as King Asa later would. In other words what we see in this verse is Asa’s failure to seek divine assistance during his illness and rely on men. Had Job done this the whole narrative of Job’s dilemma off faith would’ve unraveled theologically so he didn’t seek a physician.

2 Chronicles 16:12 ~ "In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord but sought help from physicians."

As it turns out King Solomon in his God given wisdom evidently had a certain amount of scientific and medical knowledge and under the Spirit’s inspiration used symbolic language of medical facts (Ecclesiastes 12:6). “The silver cord” is the spinal marrow, white and precious as silver, attached to the brain which is “the golden bowl” says Jamieson. “This fountain” may mean the right ventricle of the heart, the “cistern” the left; “the pitcher” the veins, the “wheel” the aorta or great artery. The “wheel” however may mean life in its rapid motion, as in James 3:6 “the wheel of nature. The circulation of the blood is apparently expressed.”

As we enter the New Testament, we know that there has never been a Physician like Jesus who, arose upon this sin-sick world of ours with healing. Egyptian physicians preserved dead bodies. Jesus brought the dead back to life. To the sick before Him, He offered no medicines, and for the physically handicapped He had no surgical instruments to relieve them. “He spoke, and it was done.” Years ago, healing was by magic, but Jesus used no magic. Before His omnipotent word, sickness, disease, blindness and death fled. He lived in the days of the Roman Empire when physicians were numerous in Palestine. In Nazareth, Jesus quoted the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23); and the physicians of Galilee would understand His saying, “They that are whole have no need of a Physician” (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31).

In Mark’s story about the woman with an issue of blood, “who suffered many things of many physicians, and spent all that she had and was nothing better, but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:28; Luke 8:43). Job, irritated by the platitudes of his friends, called them “physicians of no value” (13:4). Among the “many things” that were tried to cure this woman of her infirmity were these — she was set in a place where two ways met, with a cup of wine in her hand. Then someone came up behind and frightened her and said, “Arise from your flux!” Another method of healing practiced was to fasten several strips of rag to a tree - bits of the clothing of sick persons - the belief being that through the fluttering strip the disease would pass into the tree and the health of the living tree would pass into the patient’s body like a wick. But all the woman had to do was to touch the seamless robe of Christ, and instantly she was healed.

What must not be forgotten is that it was Christ’s interest in the sick that created hospitals. Through the centuries His healing ministry has inspired an unnumbered host of physicians and nurses. Calvary gave the name of Red Cross to the greatest healing organization in the world (although of late it has been derailed by greedy plans). The most talented physicians know that their skill and medicines are only means and that all life is in the hands of Jehovah Jireh, The Lord the Healer.

The only named physician in the Bible is Luke the companion of Paul whom he called “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14). Origen reckoned that this renowned physician was the unnamed brother whose praise in the Gospel is spread through all the churches (2 Corinthians 8:18). There may be something in the suggestion that Luke first became acquainted with Paul at Antioch or at Troas when the apostle was sick and needed medical attention, and that Luke gave up his practice to accompany Paul and guard his health. Toward the end of his life, Paul wrote to Timothy, “Only Luke is with me.” In the two books Luke wrote, the third gospel and the Acts, there are evidences of his medical knowledge in the language he used.

The Talmud has references to physicians at the temple to care for the priests, and that to practice, physicians were required to have a license from the local authorities. Limited praise for their skill was given them in the Apocrypha, “There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians… He who sins before his Maker may he fall into the care of a physician” (Ecclesiasticus 38:13, 15).

As to the medicines and means of healing employed, Scripture has much to say. Apart from magical rites and exorcisms, there was the use of natural remedies. That the Jews knew the virtues of certain plants and of many substances of animal and mineral origin is evident from their use of them. The myrtle, for instance, was much sought after, not only for its scent, but because its leaves and berries were used in medicine since they contained an aromatic, volatile oil (See Revelation 22:2). In the time of Moses there were midwives and regular physicians (Exodus 21:19), and from Egypt the Israelites took with them some knowledge of medicine received from the renowned Egyptian physicians.

Albert E. Bailey says that Egyptian “materia medica” included powders and decoctions made from sycamore figs, dates and other fruits, the pith of certain trees, salt, oil, magnesia, honey and sweet beer; often mixed with such unpleasant ingredients as rancid fat, bone dust and tile droppings of animals.” In the Bible we read of oil lotions (Isaiah 1:6), anointing of balm (Jeremiah 8:22) Gilead was a place resorted to for the medical treatment), fig poultices (II Kings 20:7; Isaiah 38:21), eye-salves (II Kings 9: 30; Jeremiah, Revelation 3:18;) not only to improve eyesight but to beautify the eyes.

The Bible recognizes the close connection moral health. “A cheerful heart is a good medicine says Solomon, “but a downcast spirit dries up the bones’’ (Proverbs 17:22). Israel’s general exemption from epidemics and remarkable healthiness to the healthful climate of Israel but also to the washings, cleanliness of the camp, restriction in diet of clean animals, the prohibition of pork, separation of lepers and laws of marriage (Leviticus 15; Deuteronomy 23:12- 14). One of the oldest names of God in the Bible is Jehopah-rophi, the Lord that heals, and He-made it clear to His people that He was among, them as One able to heal them.

Among, the five subjects of praise for which David called upon his soul to bless God for, the second was “who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3). There is not a disease of the soul or of the body with which He is not acquainted, and for which He has not a specific remedy (Matthew 8:16,17, Philippians 3:21). “As for me, I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you!” (Psalm 41:4). Often a sick person’s first need is not medicine but mercy. The cause of their physical malady is sin, and once this is dealt with by the Great Physician, physical health follows “Your faith has made you whole,” and holiness is just wholeness and health. It is comforting to know that, the Physician now here is the sympathizing Jesus.

A Trained Professionl XIII: The Watchman

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 22:10:00 +0000

It was originally called a chronometer (approx. 1735 A.D.). Formed from the word Kronos / kρόνος meaning elapsed time or time over a distance in Greek and meter/metre/μητηρ meaning to measure. Time measure. Simply stated in modern language, a "watch" by which to tell the time of day. The modern-day watch came by its name from the way men used to measure time which was known as "watches." Between prescribed hours were called a "watch" because of the length of time a watchman remained on duty. Thus, originally, a "watch" was actually a man or a number of men, as found in the chief priests "setting a watch" to guard the sepulcher in which Jesus was buried.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. ~ Matthew 27:62-66

One of the words used for watchmen in Greek is custodia / κουστωδία from which we have custody and custodian (Matthew 27:65, 66; 28:11). The Jews divided the night into three military watches. The "first" or beginning of watches from sunset to ten o'clock (Lamentations 2:19).The second or "middle watch" was from ten till two o'clock (Judges 7:19). The third, "the morning watch" from two to sunrise (Exodus 14:24; 2 Samuel 11:11).

Under the Romans the night was divided into four watches, a system the Jews came to recognize (Mark 13:35). These four watches were styled as "even, midnight, cockcrowing and morning," and ended respectively at 9pm, midnight, 3am and 6am (Matthew 14:25; Mark 13:35; Luke 12:38; Acts 12:4).

The watch system was used by civilians and military until well into the 20th century when timepieces became more prolific and cheap so that most could afford them.

In Bible times, the occupation of watchman was an important one. His duty was to keep awake while others slept; to keep his eyes open; to keep a sharp lookout in every direction for potential threats to be able to sound an alarm at the earliest notice.

Nehemiah set a group of men to guard the city, while its walls were rebuilt (Nehemiah 4:9; 7:3). The Jews raised dry stone towers in their fields from which a watchman kept an eye on the fruit and crops to protect them against thieves, foxes and bears (Psalm 80:13; Song of Solomon 2:15). The projected stones on the tower served as an external staircase and inside the tower was a storehouse for food (2 Kings 17:9; 18:8; 1 Chronicles 27:25; Isaiah 5:2; Matthew 21:33; Mark 12:1). On the top of the tower was a booth in which, at harvest time, the whole family of the watchman could live (Isaiah 1:8; Amos 9:11). Such a booth was used as the symbol of protection (Psalm 27:5) or ‘Strong Tower”.

Watchmen were also employed to guard a city. During the night they mounted guards on the ramparts, or went "about the city," patrolling the streets with lanterns (Psalm 127:1; Song of Solomon 3:3; Isaiah 62:8). Besides protecting the city and its inhabitants from violence, watchmen were required to callout the hours of the night (2 Samuel 18:24-27; Song of Solomon 5:7; Isaiah 21:11,12). In Britain, before the days of policemen or Bobbies, watchmen used to patrol the streets during the night. George Sinclair writes of an old lady who remembered a watchman in Edinburgh calling out, "Four o'clock, and a fine frosty morning."

Prophets and teachers are referred to as watchmen, whose duty it is to warn God's people (Isaiah 22:11; 52:8; 62:6; Jeremiah 6:17). Twice over God said to Ezekiel, "I have set thee a watchman" (3:17; 33:2-7). Every preacher of the Gospel is a watchman, divinely trained to descry the enemies of men's souls at a distance. How apt are the words from Isaiah? “May we be delivered from the company of "blind" watchmen the prophet speaks about! (Isaiah 56:10).

In this particular way I believe I serve as a watchman of the truth when I teach, speak or write on the truths of Scripture and when I compare the evils and sins of the world today to those millennia ago in the Bible. When I call people out for their grievous infractions and affronts against Holy God it isn’t to embarrass them it is to make them realize what they are really doing. Most have no idea. The truth is God wishes every child of His to function as a "watchman." I men, isn’t watching metaphorically used of moral alertness? The word Paul employs here νῆφε / nephe means to be vigilant or constantly alert and suggests one who is watchful enough to possess a treasure.

But as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. ~ 2 Timothy 4:5

John Bunyan in his book The Holy War describes the town of Mansoul with its five gates, captured by Diabolus and recaptured by Emmanuel. Over every gateway was a tower, and the last word of Emmanuel's parting address was "watch." The pilgrim is to stand guard over Ear-gate (hearing), over Eye-gate (sight), over Lip-gate (speech).

"Set a watch, O Lord before my mouth; keep the door of my lips" (Psalm 141:3).

The Moravians when they crossed over the frontier of Austria into Saxony that they might have freedom to worship God, laid out a small settlement for themselves, and called it Herrn Hut, "The Lord's Watch."

The Christian must be vigilant to guard against spiritual foes and dangers. Watchfulness must be the keyword in a world as upsidedown and depraved as ours now is. Christians must be constantly watchful against the temptations of Satan (Ephesians 6:11).The allurements of the world (Psalm 39:1; Mark 8:15) and the erroneous doctrines of false cults, and also against whatever would hinder our holiness and spiritual progress.

God's watchmen are to watch for God also, not just dangers and evil. Be careful to observe the signs. To see the teachings of providence (Psalm 5:8).To see the fulfillment of prophecies (Revelation 16:15). To see the righteous deliverance from trouble (Psalm 130). To be on the lookout for the salvation of the souls of men (Hebrews 13:7). The declared death and judgment (Mark 13:37).

Most importantly of all we must keep watch for signs the promised Savior who will be returning from Heaven (1 Thessalonians 5:6) and his actual return.

A Trained Professional XII: Hunting High and Low

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:18:00 +0000

The twelfth job mentioned in the bible. Only two human Bible characters are named as being hunters. Metaphorically and allegorically both God and Satan are compared to a hunter, but I initially focus on humans. Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9); and Esau was a cunning, or skillful, hunter (Genesis 25:27; 27:30).When Nimrod, the figure of Biblical antiquity who owed his notoriety to his wickedness was labeled a mighty hunter "before the Lord" it did not mean he was in humble service to God. This passage is better understood if we read the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus’ translation of the passage, "He did evil against the Lord." The word ‘before’ is like the word πρός / pros or ‘in the face of’ and can mean "opposition/opposed to" (Numbers 16:2).

This description is meant to be an affront to God or be understood to denote an intensification of his cruelty and oppression to others. He was literally notoriously bad. He did not act obscurely or privately, but openly and in the face of the sun, imposing his government without respect to men or dread of an all-seeing Divinity (Genesis 6:11; 13:13). He was not unlike our godless leaders today. There was and is no fear of God before Nimrod’s eyes.

So, Nimrod is said plainly to be 'mighty' upon the earth, which is by any means to be understood as his rule over men, likely in an aggressive manner" (1 Chronicles 1:10).Nimrod reveled in his worldly strength, illicitly using it for immoral purposes. As a hunter, he abused his craft violently to oppress and vanquish men. The irony with Nimrod was that although he attained expertise hunting animals, it was he that behaved more like a beast than a human being. A monstrosity of a man.

The fact that he hunted men had its purpose. In order to fulfill his ambitious desire, namely, the conquest of other people, all other considerations became secondary to such a dishonorable purpose in life. Nimrod’s name literally means, "He will revolt.” In a time when the name of a person indicated the nature of a person, this is not surprising. He was a form of antichrist, or one who aspired to be the leader of a revolution against God’s authority. His feet were quick to shed blood (Isaiah 59, Romans 3). The very sign of a man who doesn’t fear God. We would be wise to look around us today to see many the same as Nimrod. People who seek to use force and violence to subjugate people to their will. Some things never change, especially human nature.

It’s important to realize that there are people currently in this world that desire to subjugate you and force you to align in behavior and thought to their way of thinking and acting. They will do it through force, fear or any other means available to them. We see it in the media. We see it in the government. We need to be constantly aware that these systems are firmly rooted in the ‘system of the world’ not of God.

The most common entry point into our lives was our minds via slow attrition and subtle barely perceptible shifts into immorality. The movements are no longer subtle and that is why more people are seeing them with their own eyes. For some it confused them, others it pushes them deeper into the world or towards God. Dividing lines are clearly being drawn. Unfortunately, many do not have a biblical worldview in which to categorize the actions which are immoral and evil and they begin to collapse mentally.

Nimrod as ruler commissioned the construction of the Tower of Babel, and that identification solidified his reputation as a king against God. Nimrod’s plans, however, were frustrated by the miracle of the confusion of tongues (Genesis 10:5, 18,25). In this way the wickedness Nimrod was shut down by God and Nimrod exist history at that point.

Then we have the only other mention of a hunter by vocation. In ancient times hunting was regarded as an art of highest importance. Ishmael, Abraham’s son by an unsanctioned union with Hagar the handmaiden of Abraham's wife Sarah became an archer and lived on the produce of his bow and arrow (Genesis 21:20); and Esau was skillful in the "chase" (Genesis25:27). Wild animals and birds were appreciated as food (Leviticus 17:13; Hosea 9:8).

In terms of game, when hunting was no longer a necessity, Israelites still hunted for the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the ibex and the wild goat. (Deuteronomy 12:22; 14:5), as well as for the destruction of wild beasts threatening the tribe(s). (Deuteronomy 12:15; I Kings 13:24;Proverbs 28:15). While hunting is not conspicuous in the literature of the Hebrews, the records of other great nations have numerous references to such an occupation. It is worthy of note that, although the Bible does not mention the hunting dog, it was familiar to Josephus the 1sr century Jewish historian.

In metaphorical and allegorical language, we have many comparisons in Scripture to note. Those who God uses to fulfill His purpose are referred to as "hunters"(Jeremiah 16:16). Enemies of the righteous are likewise spoken of in the same way (Job 10:16; Proverbs 6:26; Micah 7:2). The satanic hunter, the devil, always lies in wait to plunder the divine flock. He often uses flaming darts or arrows on his prey which is why we are encouraged to wear spiritual armor. The arrows being negative thoughts, doubts, temptations, anxieties and fears, lust and guilt.

All who are the Lord’s are his prey. A hunter correctly understood is one that pursues or eagerly follows after his objective. Unwearied in the chase, he is satisfied when he has caught his intended individual. The same can be said of the Devil, whose game are the godly and ungodly alike. He is never weary of such pursuit, nor weary in it. Hunters usually hunt for recreation and not out of any hatred for the creatures they hunt. The same cannot be said of the devil. He hunts the souls of men out of implacable hatred he bears towards them, and also the hatred of God who seeks to bless those who the devil would destroy if he could…but God will not allow it. God of course is the perfect hunter and will get to those He wishes to find and accept Him long before the Devil even knows the hunt is afoot.

The hunting attributed to God can be when He inflicts those punishments upon the ungodly who had first inflicted the hunt or abuses upon the godly. "He shall hunt them" (Psalm 140:5, 10, 11). Here "to hunt" means to chase to a precipice or to overthrow as Native Americans used to do to buffalo. (Habakkuk 2:17).

In terms of hunting implements that were used we can generally list them as there are many. There were nets, bow and arrow, pitfalls, snares, traps, gins, slings and clubs. The irony being many of these are used to figuratively to expose the desires of the wicked (Job41:19; Psalms 9:15; 25:15; 35:7; 142:3). To explain all the metaphors drawn from hunting, huntsmen, their traps and their victims would be a daunting task. I would refer readers to Biblical books that specifically deal with phrases of speech, metaphor and allegory in the Bible.

A Trained Professional XI: Strike While The Iron is Hot

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:58:00 +0000

The eleventh in a series about vocations in the Bible. The term Blacksmith as an occupational term covers all artificers and engravers of the metals. Blacksmiths. Men's men. A tough labor job but a fulfilling one. Without which ancient weapons wouldn't have been created. Kingdoms wouldn't have rose and therefore wouldn't have fallen. They helped forge, draw, bend and upset empires.

Some of the metals identified by name were gold, silver, brass (copper), iron, tin and lead (Numbers 31:22). The blacksmith's trade goes back to Tubal-Cain who is described as:

“…the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.” (Genesis 4:22).

In other words as a blacksmith capable of constructing agricultural, household and warlike articles he was the first creator of the proverbial plowshares and pruning-hooks mentioned in Isaiah 2:4.

The fearful havoc wrought by some of Tubal-Cain’s weapons are immortalized in "The Song of Lamech" (Genesis 4:23,24). From then on, the smith's art took precedence over all other occupations, since this vocation furnished the instruments necessary for advancing civilization. It also unfortunately hammered out the implements of war, conquest and death. These tools were capable of giving life or taking it away.

Metal work, carpentry, building and other useful arts were greatly developed before the Flood. All the vessels used in the Tabernacle involved an intricate and learned knowledge of every kind of handicraft, and great skill in the fashioning of all that was required (Exodus 25:10, 11, 17, 18; 31:4, 5).

We read of the goldsmith and the silversmith. These particular smiths were skillful in making ornaments for adornment, vessels and images (Genesis 24:22; 35:4). Then there is the copper smith or worker in brass (Genesis 4:22; 1 Kings 7:14, 45. Mention is also made of the ironsmith, or worker in iron (1 Samuel 13:19; 2 Chronicles 24:12; Isaiah 44:12). So highly were those smiths skilled in the manufacture of war weapons that conquerors removed them from a conquered nation to completely diminish them as military threats not unlike what the United States did with Werner Von Braun and the Nazis V2 rocket program. Nebuchadnezzar was known to have done this to defeated people (2 Kings 24:14; Isaiah 44:12; 54:16; Jeremiah 24:1).

Smiths were also used for the making of helmets, breastplates, greaves, javelins, fetters, cult objects, plates and bars for city gates, various musical instruments, farming tools with iron fittings, flails, plowshares, coulters, mattocks, saws, chariots, swords, prison bars, household utensils like pots and pans and cauldrons and forks, pens and razors (Judges 16:21; 1 Samuel 2:13, 14; 13:19-21; 17:5-7; 2 Samuel 12:31; 1 Kings 7; 2 Kings 6:5;9:27; I Chronicles 15:19-24; Job 19:24; Psalms 105:18; 107:16; Isaiah 7:20;28:24, 27; 45:2; Jeremiah 17:1; 50:16;Ezekiel 4:3; 5:1; Amos 1:3).

Some of these tasks moved beyond the proper understanding of smithing. Specialized processes and tools were necessary. We have references to smelting as early as Job 28:2 which was the oldest book in the Bible predating the authorship of the Torah/Pentateuch. We see the bellows identified for blowing the coals in the fire (Isaiah 54:16),and to the blacksmith who fashions heated iron into axes, and saws with his hammer (Joshua 17:15, 18; Isaiah41:7; 44:12; Jeremiah 6:29). We see tools for carving and engraving (1 Kings 6:29, 32-36),tongs (Isaiah 44:12), are among the implements a smith required.

As for agriculture, we can imagine how smiths plied their trade from place to place in order to repair farming implements, likely primitive forms of horseshoes and also household utensils, or to supply new ones. Archaeologists have found traces of an Israelite forge, complete with plowshares in the Palestine area (obviously predating the Palestinians). There are even Egyptian murals about the time of Exodus that represented two smiths working the bellows.

Special note should be made about the timing and chronology of metalworking and smithing too as science and archeology are often quick to disagree with the Bible until irrefutable proof from archeology is usually found to prove the Bible correct. Genesis intentionally mentions rapid human advancement in a matter-of-fact way when it comes to technology and creativity in the antediluvian (pre-Flood) world. Jabal develops domestication of animals and tents, Jubal also pioneered music. Tubal Cain forges metal tools (all within just a few generations). This is a rapid cultural progression, not a slow evolutionary development. God created the earth with mineral-rich soils (Deuteronomy 8:9, Job 28:2), allowing Adam’s descendants to craft metal instruments immediately. The Bible’s genealogical structure places Tubal Cain and Jubal, before the Flood, directly contradicting the secular “Stone, Bronze, Iron” age model.

Just because archeology can’t find the physical evidence doesn’t mean the Bible should be disregarded. If that was the case then nothing in the Bible would be valid as most of it requires faith anyway. Why do these timelines matter? Historians based in an evolutionist mindset assert metallurgy emerged around 1500 BC, yet Genesis situates these technologies thousands of years earlier. Iron working therefore predates the Flood since Tubal Cain forged iron. As it turns out having investigated it in my studies…secular archaeology has in-fact uncovered copper and iron smelting work dating to the 5th millennium BC, confirming Scripture’s timeline.

A Trained Professional X: Teach a Man To Fish

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 23:01:00 +0000

This is the ninth post in a series about people's vocations or work in the Bible. On deck (pun intended) is a fisherman. Many of the first disciples Jesus called were fishermen. Although there are few references in the Bible to those of this occupation, they are nevertheless brought into prominence by the record of those Galilean fishermen, like Peter, "The Big Fisherman," who left their ship and nets to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:18,19; Mark 1:16,17). Among the characteristic features of those who lived off the sea, the following. They usually lived together as a community.

The Fish Gate at Jerusalem implies an adjacent fish market, with stocks of fish supplied chiefly through Tyrian traders who imported it (II Chronicles 33:14; Nehemiah 3:3; 12:39; 13:16). Because of the distance from the fisheries of Phoenicia and the climate, fish sold at Jerusalem would be salted or dried by the sun. Fish from the Lake of Galilee would be fresher. Fishermen were strong and tough.The strenuousness of their work ruled out the weak and lazy (Luke 5:2).

They were usually gruff in manner, rough in speech and in their treatment of others (Luke 9:49, 54; John 18:10). They were loud burly men’s men. Before they were tempered by Christ's influence, fishermen James and John had the nickname "sons of thunder"(Mark 3:17). Further, their exposure to all kinds of weather made them resilient and fearless. They were accustomed to bear with patience the most trying circumstances. Toiling for hours without success, they were always ready to try once more (Luke5:5; John 21:3).These traits, and others, made them successful "fishers of men" (Matthew4:19; Mark 1:17) but familiar with failure also.

These were the types of people Jesus chose. Not the beta effeminate cuckolded men we now see in churches. Men have morphed into something not wholly Biblical in our churches. Somewhat Biblical but not wholly biblical. Filled with some grace and love but no spine, strength of character or resoluteness. There is a difference between meek and weak. Meek means you can but in grace choose not to. Weak just means you can’t. Jesus’ disciples were eventually meek. Robust, strong but reserved. Many of today’s churchgoing men are just weak.

The disciple/fisherman’s earthly occupation was a parable of their spiritual calling. It was so with David the shepherd who became "the Shepherd of Israel". Paul the tentmaker was used by God for making people into tabernacles or Holy of Holies (naos / ναός) for the Holy Spirit.

When referring to the fish caught and traded in there are some theological/spiritual things that should be noted. While there are many references to fish in the Bible, no specific kind of fish is distinguished by name not even in Jonah. The ‘whale’ is referred to as ‘great fish’. Fish are under man’s dominion and only classified in reference to their ritual distinctions. Clean fish have fins and scales and unclean fish which lacked them. Israelites could eat fish properly so-called (Leviticus 11:9;Numbers 11:5,22; Job 12:8; Psalm8:8; Ezekiel 38:20). Therefore, the catfish, being without scales, could not be eaten by the Jews (Deuteronomy 14:9,10) for ritualistic reasons not moral ones.

The prohibition against eating fish without fins and scales in ancient Israel is because they are believed to have been for health reasons, as many aquatic creatures without fins or scales are bottom feeders and may have been considered more likely to carry toxins or diseases. Some theories suggest that scales may make fish less susceptible to parasites. Additionally, these laws may have had a symbolic or ritual significance, reinforcing concepts of purity and holiness although not clearly stated.

The Galilean fish were abundant and of great variety. Together with bread they formed the customary or traditional food of the population which is why we so often see Jesus and disciple eating this combination. (Matthew 7:10; Luke11:11). Basically, a high fiber, lower carb, high protein diet (keto).Even the resurrected Lord and His disciples consumed grilled fish (Luke 24:42; John 21:9).

In Exodus the destruction of their fish was a heavy blow to the Egyptians whose rivers, canals and lakes teemed in fish. Many were dependent on the provision on their supply (Exodus 7:18-21; Numbers 11:5; Psalm 105:29; Isaiah 19:5).In ancient times the fish was worshiped as the emblem of increase or fertility. The Philistines (sea people) and Assyrians practiced the worship of Dagon, half-man half-fish. Such idolatry, however, was divinely forbidden (Deuteronomy4:18).

Interestingly, on the walls of the catacombs the early Christians Jesus wasre presented(symbolically) as a fish, because the five letters of this word in Greek provide the initial letters of the five words, "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior” or Ichthys or the uncial/uppercase version "ΙΧΘΥΣ" (Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ)

Figurative use of fish also has a place in Scripture. Our Lord likened the kingdom of heaven to a net, cast into the sea, which gathered fish of every kind, good and bad (Matthew13:47). In this Parable of Drawing in the Net, Jesus compares the angels separating the righteous from the wicked at the end of this world to fishers sorting out their catch, keeping the good fish and throwing the bad fish away.

For the actual task of fishing spear hooks and lines were used (Job 41:7;Amos 4:2; Matthew 17:27). While various kinds of nets were employed, the dragnet was the chief instrument for catching fish (Habakkuk 1:15) which is why the disciples were unable to pull the net into the boat in John 21 it was so effective at catching large numbers of fish. In this story the disciples had fished all night but caught nothing. Jesus instructed them to cast the nets on the other side of the boat, and they drew in 153 fish. When they return to shore with their catch, Jesus is waiting for them and has cooked some fish for them to eat. The spreading of nets signified the desolation of Tyre and the use by Syrian fishermen even until today of this ancient site for the spreading and drying of their nets is a striking instance of fulfilled prophecy (Ezekiel26:5, 14).

Fishing is a preferred illustration used for taking souls in the Gospel net, not to be destroyed but to be saved alive like believers. Peter, the fisherman, knew that when he caught fish in the Lake of Galilee that they were alive, but taken out of their natural element they quickly died. But the souls he was to catch were dead in sin, but came into possession of eternal life as soon as they were landed on the shore of salvation (Matthew4:19; Luke 5:5-10).

So, I guess it is fitting that the One who created the sea and all that is in it in Genesis, delivered some of His expansive and powerful messages from a fishing boat. Jesus, the One who uses His own as fishers in an immense sea of humanity. They are men performing a task, which requires all the patience, sturdiness, tenacity and skill provided by the likes of a fisherman.

A Trained Professional IX: Down On the Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:35:00 +0000

The Bible was written primarily by men that were living lives based in an agrarian culture/society. Farmers, crops and the like. They were growers of many plants and harvesters of many more. The Israelites society revolved mostly around an economy based solely on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. They were breeders of livestock and masters of animal husbandry. They raised animals for meat, fiber, milk, or other products. Some of the tasks dealing with farming included day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Although many shepherds and flocks started out as nomadic this eventually led to more stationary domestication on small parcels of land that would eventually give way to farms.

Although the word ‘farm’ is not in the Bible, the word ἀγρός / agros is found many places. The word agros, from which we get the words agrarian and agriculture, is in-fact a field or pasture, specifically a field or pasture that can bear a crop. For all intents and purposes…it is a farm. The concept of a farm as we understand them today weren’t very common in Israel in Bible times. In Bible history, the Jewish people are introduced to us at a period when they were largely engaged in agrarian pursuits just prior to the scattering of the Diaspora after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD.

Husbandry, the Biblical term for agriculture, or farming, was an esteemed biblcal art in which God instructed the husbandman (2 Chronicles 26:10; Isaiah 28:26). The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary reminds us that when the Hebrews became a nation and occupied Canaan…

The agriculture learned in Egypt made them a self-subsisting nation, independent of eternal supplies, and so less open to external corrupting influences. Agriculture was the basis of the Mosaic economy; it checked the tendency to the roving habits of nomad tribes, gave each man a stake in the soil by the law of inalienable inheritances, and made numerous offspring profitable as to the culture of the land. God claimed the lordship of the soil (Leviticus 25-26) so that each held by the divine nature to the tithe a quiet rent to the theocratic landlord, also subject to the sabbatical year.

The frequent biblical allusions by Jesus to farmers, fields and their products indicate how familiar He was with the agricultural pursuits of His time. Many farming methods then employed still prevail in Israel. There were three lprominent branches of agriculture which the farmer participated in.

The Growing of Grain. Among the agricultural operations associated with this fruit of the field, and frequently mentioned in the Bible, we have (Matthew 13:3), plowing, sowing, reaping, threshing and winnowing. As to the farmers implements we have the plough, the yoke, the cart, the sickle, the sieve, the fan, the shovel, the hand-mill or stones.

The Tending of Vineyards. As grapes, olives and figs served an important part in the diet of the Bible, great care was bestowed upon the vineyards — a task well-adapted to the farmer’s routine as most of the attention a vineyard required could be given when his other crop demanded no time (Numbers 18:30; Isaiah 5:1-6).

The Raising of Flocks. The Jewish people reckoned flocks as a necessary part of wealth. They were important as a source of food and clothing/skins. (Matthew 18:13; John 10:12) The account of the wealth of both Job and King Hezekiah reveals their interest in the pursuit of farming.

Leviticus 26:4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.

In Scripture there is a cornucopia of metaphors taken from the earth, things growing out of it, and the cultivation of it. There is enough to write a book on it and some people have. I just don’t have the time to plow into it all (see what I did there?). The reader of this blog post though can pursue this with the aid of the internet or even an old fashioned concordance using agricultural metaphors and words. I will leave off mentioning only a few here and some side notes to their spiritual significance where it is warranted.

The seed is used to signify the engrafted Word of God (1 Peter 1:23). The ministry of the sun’s heat, rain and dew illustrate divine influences in the spiritual germination of the Word as seed (Isaiah 44:3; John 6:63). Roots, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit likewise carry a spiritual significance (Deuteronomy 29:18; Job 13:25; 15:33; 19:28; Isaiah 5:24; Matthew 3:8; John 15:1-3; Jude 12). The faith of the mustard seed is deemed enough to move a mountain.

Plants symbolize the church and the believer (Isaiah 5:7; Matthew 15:13). Trees are often used by way of similitude (Isaiah 11:1; 41:19; Jeremiah 11:19). Thorns sometimes represent wicked and mischievous men, and the efforts of Satan to buffet us (Numbers 33:55; Hosea 2:6; 2 Corinthians 12:7). Olives were used to describe the great dignity God invested His chosen people with (Jeremiah 11:16; Zechariah 4:3,11,12; Romans 11:17). The vineyards, in metaphor and Parable, are suggestive of the people of God, and of what He expects from His own people. Wine signifies divine grace and also wrath (Judges 8:2, Psalm 104:2). The gentiles are grafted into salvation promised to the Jews (Romans 11:11-31).

Plowing is a fitting symbol of affliction, repentance and diligence due to its backbreaking nature. (Psalm 129:3; Isaiah 28:24-26; Jeremiah 4:3; Luke 9:62). Harvests are employed to describe the reward of good works and also evil deeds "(Psalm 126:5, 6; Hosea 6: 11; John 4:35, 38; Galatians 6:7-9). Chaff and stubble denote false doctrine and the destruction of the wicked (Amos 9:9, Obadiah 18; Matthew 3:12, Luke 22:31; 1 Corinthians 3:12). The separation of wheat from the chaff or wheat from the tares is symbolic of dividing believers from nonbelievers, truth from falsehood. Grinding of grain, like its winnowing, is also used symbolically (Exodus 11:5; Job 31:10; Isaiah 47:2). Yokes which the oxen wore are made to illustrate both satanic bondage and full allegiance Christ (Matthew 11:29; 2 Corinthians 6:14). The list is enormous.

If you’re that interested in pursuing this one further I recommend that you open your bible in a field and begin reading it in earnest. The allusions to farming, farmers and flocks are as numerous in the bible as stalks of grain in an unharvested field.

Of Those Given Much, More Will Be Expected

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:12:00 +0000

A long-standing source of frustration for me has been my desire to reach more people with the teachings of the Bible and not being able to. I have written for decades. Spoken publicly when the opportunities arise both in sermons and studies. The opportunities to write is always here on the Internet but my organic reach has always been limited regardless of how I propagate or seed the field of social media. To complicate this I am in a point in my career where I need to focus on my work often which I realize is also a huge piece of my ministry.

At times I feel like Adoniram Judson who was a missionary from Burma/Myanmar. In his 40 years there preaching the Gospel and teaching Scripture he saw virtually no converts in his lifetime. In some respects, he went to his grave believing he was a failure. It wasn’t until missionaries returned after his death that they found that that many in the Buddhist country had converted to Christianity.

God gave me Kingdom aspirations … big thoughts. I want to reach more people. In light of Charlie’s death and watching people like Wes Huff reach millions with the Gospel this shortcoming feels more amplified and the desire to make a difference for Christ’s kingdom has become more intense. As I age the importance of it seems even more urgent. I am 57 this year and I won’t be on this earth forever.

I’ve been forced to sit and watch as the world inverts and divides (not by my own choice most time). It’s like I’m sitting in the back of a theater and there’s chaos on the screen and there is chaos in the audience too. I watch it all unfold as an observer. I cannot effect a change to the things on the screen as they are at too high a level and disconnected like the problems in our government, in our nation and in the world. I try to intervene with the people in the audience watching the violence on the screen and they reject me and what I am saying also. Yet…I can show biblical instances of nearly everything we’re seen unfold in this nation in the last 40 years. I can also show the solutions and resolutions for many of these problems from the Bible also. Yet, my invisibility to the ones on the screen is complete. They don’t even know I exist. The rejection from those in the audience directly in front me that I try to help steer out of confusion, chaos and in the downward spiral is utter and absolute. The world is unmovable in its corruption. I am making virtually no difference.

Have I affected people. I think so. Those who love and care about me tell me I’m making more of a dent than I think I am. Being the flawed human worldly person I am through I see mostly the shortcoming. A failure to do as I was told to do. I need to do more and honestly don’t know how as this seems to be in God’s timing…and I am not a patient man.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48

Americae Declinatio: Americas Downward Spiral

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 23:35:00 +0000

Sir John Glubb, in his 1978 essay "The Fate of Empires," posited that the average lifespan of empires has been 250 years. This duration corresponds to about eight to ten human generations, with each generation lasting around 25-30 years. Furthermore, he identified an 8-phase pattern that empires typically follow, which includes stages such as conquest, affluence, and decline. He argued that this cycle is influenced by factors, including social, economic, and political dynamics.

In the overarching time of 3,000 years of history, he noted that despite advancements in technology and governance, the life cycle of empires remains remarkably consistent. For instance, he observed that empires like the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire although exceptional, followed similar trajectories. They rose to power and eventually started declining within a 250-year timeframe. This pattern of course points us squarely to the United States, which was founded in 1776 and is approaching its 250th anniversary next year. The truth is that the U.S. is entering the decline phase of this cycle, facing challenges such as intense political division, economic and class inequality, and global competition.

The implications of the 250-year cycle are significant for understanding the future of current global powers. As the U.S. hits 250 years, there are concerns about its ability to maintain its status as a world power. As even a casual observer of history can see, no empire can sustain its dominance indefinitely, and the U.S. may need to learn from the experiences of past empires to navigate its challenges currently affecting us.

Phase 1: Bondage to Spiritual Growth – Great civilizations are formed in a crucible. The Ancient Jews were in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. The Christian faith and Church came out of 300 years of persecution. Western civilization slowly emerged from the chaotic conflicts during the decline of the Roman Empire and the movements of often fierce “barbarian” tribes. American culture was formed by the injustices that grew in colonial times. Suffering and injustices cause spiritual growth. Suffering brings wisdom and demands spiritual discipline that seeks justice and moral solutions.

Phase 2: From Spiritual Growth to Indomitable Courage – Having been tempered in the crucible of suffering the ability to endure great sacrifice comes forth. Anointed and ascendant leaders emerge and people are galvanized to courage and sacrifice (including loss of life) to create a better, more just world for later generations. It’s the old adage that people who have little or nothing also have little or nothing to lose. Some are often more willing to live for something more important than themselves and their own pleasure. At this point in a nation’s history a battle has begun, a battle requiring courage, discipline, and other virtues.

Phase 3: From Courage to Liberty – As a result of tempering and determined fighting enemies are incapacitated, liberty and greater justice emerge as a result. At this point a nation comes forth, rooted in the ideals that it fought for just like the Christian Church in the 4th century. In this phase many who led the battle are still alive, and the legacy of those who are not is still fresh in the minds that are. They’ve paid the price with their lives. Heroism and the virtues that created the nation are esteemed. The ideals like loyalty, patriotism and honor are still front-and-center.

Phase 4: From Liberty to Abundance – Liberty ushers in prosperity and greater responsibility because the society is still functioning with the virtues of sacrifice and hard work. Then comes the first danger: Abundance. Abundance and responsibility run together. Abundance can weigh us down and take life out of us while taking on a life of its own. The struggles that tempered prior generations move to the background. Jesus said that man’s life does not consist in his possessions. Such a culture is living on the remnants of earlier sacrifices. People become less willing to make sacrifices. Ideals diminish as the abundance weighs down citizens. The sacrifices and virtues are increasingly distant from collective conscience; the enjoyment of their fruits becomes the focus.

Phase 5: From Abundance to Complacency – Complacency is to be self-satisfied and unaware of serious threats that undermine health and the ability to survive. The attitude of a complacent person is: Everything looks fine, so it must be fine. In reality, foundations, resources, morality, and virtues are all crumbling. As virtues, disciplines, and ideals become more remote, those who raise alarms are labeled by the complacent as “doomsayers” and considered extreme, harsh, or judgmental. This is me. I’ve been warning people that this is the direction we’ve been in for 50 years after the 1960s.

Phase 6: From Complacency to Apathy – The Greek word for apathy is απάθεια (apatheia) and literally means without feeling or without suffering. It refers to a state of mind in which one is not disturbed by any external passions that once animated and inspired people. Due to the complacency of the previous stage, the growing lack of attention to disturbing trends advances to outright dismissal, negligence or even pliability to new damaging ideals and ideologies. People become selfish. Working and sacrificing for others becomes foreign to people's thinking. As the Bible says, hearts grow cold towards others and grow cold to the sacrifices people made in the past (suffering too). Hard work and self-discipline continue to erode. People become lazy.

Phase 7: From Apathy to Dependence – Increasing numbers of people lack virtues and zeal necessary to work and contribute. They become entitled, lazy and parasites hanging on the side of society. The suffering and the sacrifices that built the culture are now a distant memory. The idea of striving and work seem “too hard,” dependence on others grows. A socialist spreading of the wealth philosophy becomes more prevalent and more desirable, especially for those in parasitic relationships with the Government. Collectively society tips wholly into dependence.

Suffering of any type is intolerable. But virtue and morality are not seen as the solution. This is why we’ve seen a wholesale drift away from Judeo-Christian values in the last few decades. Having lived on the sacrifices of others for years, the civilization now insists that “others” must solve their woes. This accelerates the slide towards socialistic/Marxist philosophy. This creates a growing demand for governmental, collective solutions. This in turn deepens dependence on the State, not personal or family collectives. Family-based sacrifices shift towards communal or centralized government support.

From Dependence Back to Bondage – As dependence increases, so does centralized power. Dependent people tend to become dysfunctional, desperate, disruptive or rebellious and criminal. Seeking a government savior or bailout, they look to strong central leadership. If this is too hard they switch to seeking out relief by taking from others and crime rates skyrocket or they try to escape the growing dysfunction through alcoholism and substance abuse. The centralized power corrupts. The corrupt power of madmen create injustices by an overbearing government. This is the country we are currently living in. As any reader can see, we’re in the last stage of a nation. We’re in the death throes of empire. There are few other answers to explain what is happening. Structure begins to disintegrate. The family, morality and personal virtue that helped build the nation are now effectively replaced by an dark, dehumanized and despotic centralized control, hungry for power. We become slaves to the machine. In the case of the United States, slaves to the military industrial complex.

Americae Declinatio: Americas Downward Spiral

In this way, the nation ends. Not with a bang or war but with a whimper and slow fade. The slow death is erosion from within. Slowly weakening until external enemies can no longer be fended off. The virtues required to fight an enemy internal or external are gone. Again, we see the United States condition today. It is at this point that we are dumped back into the crucible, until suffering and conflict bring about enough of the wisdom, virtue, and courage necessary to begin a new nation that will rise from the ashes. As I’ve so clearly clarified, we are nearing that end.

As a Christian I sit outside this cycle as an observer. Christianity has seen many empires come and go. The Bible saw the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Greek, Romans. Since the Bible was completed we've seen the Ottomans, Vikings, etc. We’ve seen colonial powers like the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, the British Empire and now we have the American Empire in demise.

What do we learn from history and empire? Simple really, the only true haven of safety is the Church, who received her promise of indefectibility from the Lord (Matt 16:18).

Matthew 16:18 ~ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it

But the Church, too, is always in need of reform and will have much to suffer just like empires or it too will fall like the empires it stands distinct from. Christians survive the changing world because we are not of this world.

We live in dark and dangerous days, but this perspective can help us navigate the darkness ahead of us. We really can’t deny that we are living at the end of an era. It is painful because something we love is dying. But from death comes forth new life. Just as Christ rose from the grave and has outlasted every empire’s rise and fall. We as Christians will outlast the empires too.

Professional Victims and Political Frauds

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Pierson) — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 22:23:00 +0000

We’ve just eclipsed the two-year anniversary of the October 7 slaughter of Israeli innocents which brought on the current war over the Gaza Strip. Within weeks, the Middle Eastern world tried to downplay the atrocity and within months the entire world had tried to completely flip the narrative to make it seem like Israel is the monster and it is somehow all Israel’s fault that Gaza is in ruins. The United Nations just sat idle until they believed Israel had gone overboard and then the UN started attacking them too. The global community’s reaction is not surprising, but it is indicative of a general antisemitic mindset that is rampant the world over.

The President is now earnestly attempting to end the horrid war through negotiation, as opposed to his Israeli counterpart Netanyahu who is attempting to end it by flattening every building left standing in Gaza City to annihilate what Hamas fighters remain there and to finally rescue what hostages remain. While the United States waits on Hamas to accept the overly generous offer that allows murders to lay down their weapons and walk away from the atrocities they’ve committed. The only real cost to peace is that they won’t be allowed to govern Gaza anymore. The Islamist terror army’s sycophants here in the U.S. have protested the whole thing since the beginning ad nauseum as if they don’t even have jobs. Protesting is their fulltime job apparently.

It seems impossible that on the two-year anniversary of the outright murder of more than 1,000 noncombatants — women and children in huge numbers, including hundreds of kids at a music festival — there would be Americans (and others living in America) who would see it as appropriate to agitate on Hamas’s behalf. They are real lowlifes and political un-American dissidents.

These idiots are literally celebrating bloody murder at a time when peace is on the table. You would think such an affront would be beyond the pale if for no reason other than the optics of demonstrating at Israeli consulates on that country’s 9/11 are so toxic. And you’d be wrong. You’d be wrong because you have a hard time believing that people you share oxygen with could be so utterly divorced from your concept of propriety or even basic wisdom.

Even if you think it’s cool to stick it to the Jews whenever you can, after all, you’d think October 7 is a good day to lay low. If for no other reason than that this is a good way to get beaten to a pulp — at least, if these people you hate so much really are the monsters you say they are. They won’t do this of course, and the likelihood these Marxist terrorists provocations will be answered by violence by counter protesters is nearly non-existent.

This should tell you a lot about who the good guys are. The people who aren’t the good guys in our current human formula seem to have something in common. Victimhood culture. They’re all begging to achieve victimhood status and the utter lack of accountability that it confers. The pro-Hamas crowd, the pro-transsexual crowd, pro-homosexual crowd is distinguishable from Antifa, only by the hats they wear or the flags they bring to their “mostly peaceful” protests. Otherwise, they’re indistinguishable. Cultural Marxist terrorist.

They employ the age old tactics that are based on the concept of “non-violent resistance,” the Civil Rights movement adopted from followers of MLK and of Gandhi in India during the movement for independence, but they’re a perversion of those methods. The Antifa/Hamas/anti-ICE protesters claim they aren’t non-violent. They’re there to provoke violence. The sycophant media backs these ludicrous claims.

Spit or kick an ICE agent, as one Antifa protester was on video doing over the weekend and get knocked down and arrested. Presto! You are now a victim of ICE brutality. It doesn’t matter that you’ve done everything you possibly could to provoke a bad optics reaction from ICE who you’re spitting on or kicking when cameras may or may not be trained on you. All of these people venerate victimhood. They run from a fair fight. There is no honor in anything they do — in fact, they assail the concept of honor as a tool and relic of capitalism and patriarchy.

And this isn’t the sole province of the demonstrators. It moves well up the chain to the media and politicians who encourage this irrational and lawless behavior. People with overarching ideology that don’t care about anything but their own ideology aren’t generally bent on aiding the common good of society contrary to what they actually claim. These aren’t people motivated to serve their fellow man. They’re people who want power over their fellow man. Rational and balanced humans learn to process rage and put aside selfish ideologies for their own health and that of the relationships they cherish. Sometimes even for their neighbors. These are not those types of people. The people pushing Marxist philosophies in schools, media and government claim to care for the common man but in reality only use them as a means to an end. They promise a social utopia and deliver a draconian hell.

When someone who seeks your political support demands that you use your rage or act out in violence, it’s basically an announcement that you are a thing to be exploited. Not a person and not an object of value for any other reason. That you are a victim to be monetized. And that you’re within your bounds to share in that monetization.

We see what happens when the risk of losing an election is taken away. We currently see it in Chicago, where that city’s mayor Brandon Johnson is openly demanding civil war — doing it, of course, under the thin guise of accusing his enemies of opening hostilities…something that isn't happening. The President hasn’t declared war on the people of Chicago. He’s sending help to the federal law enforcement agents being routinely attacked by Brandon Johnson’s allies right within his own city with his permission. This is not Johnson claiming to represent Chicagoans in this controversy because he’s not, he’s using them solely as a political tool to eventually be reelected. The fact that this controversy is over ICE removing illegal aliens, the majority of whom are illegal criminals, makes the mayor’s words pure threatening rhetoric that will incite people to the very violence he wants but claims he doesn’t. It’s the same game of poke and run that is done in the ‘non-violent’ agitators in the streets and by the Islamic terrorists in Hamas. It’s all about provoking a reaction in front of cameras.

This is about attempting to hogtie leaders who are actually trying to do the right thing in the face of mounting adversity. If civil-war rhetoric is met with conciliatory language by conservatives or more rational voices who get fed up with the bullying and attacks, the agitating Marxists will win the war of popular opinion and push us closer to the point of no return. If it’s met with combativeness, Marxist and progressive activists will claim victimhood and thus claim a win. Victimhood culture is the death of civilization, because where it leads is abandonment of sympathy and, to follow, abandonment of humanity.

You see it in Gaza, you’re starting to see it on the streets of Europe, and, if the American Progressives get their way, you will see it explode here in America. We’re already at the flashpoint and the combustible material is already in place waiting for the spark.

There is no clean way to put this to bed. So far, there have been no effective efforts to put it to bed and that’s understandable because it’s a no-win situation. Most reasonable rational people desperately want peace. We want a Christian revival. But evil still has a say in what is happening in the world right now. They have made it abundantly clear that they want violence and chaos…and they won’t shut-up or stop until they get it. They just keep poking and prodding hoping for an aggressive reaction. This will then justify pulling out all the stops and resorting to full scale conflict. Their ends justify their means…and it is evil. The end means war. Just like Gaza.