The verse that everyone recognizes as the Song’s theme (8:6) gives the poem a cosmic scope. Love’s strength is comparable to relentless forces of decay and destruction—death (Hebrew, mot) and Sheol. Love is no ordinary fire, but a flash from the very “flame of Yah.” “Mot” is the name of a Canaanite deity, so the conflict of Love and Death is a war of gods.

Most modern construct has no place for “war of the gods”, but we do have something similar; a war of ideology. Yet, in the midst of all speculations about what happens after death, we do know that we are made of dust, and to dust shall we return (ecc3.20). In other parts of scripture, “Sheol” is the designated place where all who died will enter; a “grave”, a “death” so to say, regardless of who you are, what you do in life; a place of weakness and inexistence (isa14.10) where there is nothing to be done (Psa6.5).

Is this surprisingly agnostic?

Perichoresis deals with a life-inside-life, a spatial transcendence. and this omnipresent transcendence, is manifest in His solidarity. Where the trembling heights of the furthest heavens did not deter His being here with us, fighting death till death so life will live. Where spatial distance are not ignored, but pulled in the gravity of embrace.

this is why God is not a god of the gaps, not a god of the death, nor a creator ex nihilo. He operates in space, orchestrate living, and created order out of the wicked chaos. His being here, is His perfect speed.

if the enfleshment of the incarnate son is truly human, then the faith that arranges itself around his life is too, a faith of humanity.

when, instead of the Son, an abstraction such as “salvation” and “personal relationship” becomes the christianity’s defining lemma, the god in that faith is no longer human, no longer in-carnate.

without the enfleshed christ, i wonder what are the “salvation salesmen” trying to sell anyway? a empty bubble? maybe they are trying to trigger Occupy Pews.

the very humanity of incarnation: that mary was pregnant before marriage- is the solidarity of God to His creation; and the faithfulness of the fellow human to the marginalized people.

KJV borrows heavily from Tyndale’s translation; who famously said “If God spare my life, before many years I will cause a boy that drives the plough to know more of Scripture than you do.”: a liberation of Scripture from its exclusive clergy use to the masses, or laity. So the reformation brought both liberty and responsibility of interpretation to all belivers, not just clergy.

Yes, learning is needed to read the scriptures deeper, but especially in this era, that does not even constitute as a valid excuse to leave all responsibilities to the pastoral seat, neglecting to participate in continuous scripture interpretation.

And, deeming laity engagement of theological tenets as “scary”, or “trying to diminish pastoral calling” is, at best, an irresponsible remark. scripture interpretation by laity does not indicate independence, or rebellion to the church and clergy, but instead; it presents another dimension, another vantage point, in which will enrich the whole body of believers.

Tyndale was executed when he translated the bible, which was only avaliable in Latin, the clergy language, to english, the language of the masses. His was a spark of reformation as bright as Luther and Calvin. If ever, the church of reformation acts like the laity should not have anything to do with scripture maturity; leaving it all for the clergy to feed them: let this be far from us, instead let us forever remember to press on the spirit of reformation.

1. so we went to cambodia to see angkor wat. (and vietnam, to see ha long bay- cool stuff!) probably all our future trips will be unesco heritage-related? we’ll see.

2. so the temple complex’ architecture design follows the cosmology of a hindu world- not just ‘heaven’ per se, but the whole cosmos. wall(mountain)-moat(sea)-wall(mountain)-garden(mortal abode)-wall(mountain)-garden(sea)-temple(meru/heaven). the inclusion of heaven/abode of gods inside the world of men is not unlike the greek gods who live off the mount olympus. is this a proto-indo-european thing?

3. following walton’s reading of genesis 1 as a temple text, solomon’s temple architecture is, too, follows the hebrew cosmology. brazen sea(the deep)-courtyard(land)-boaz&yachin(pillars of the earth)-holy place(sky)-purple veil(firmament)-most holy place(shamayim), the temple symbolizes the cosmos, in which God enters and resides, making it the offices of His work.

4. as per 1cor, a man’s body is a temple: we are microcosms of the world, where God works. also, as the church(temple) is the body of Christ, the world is a macrocosm of God’s workers.

5. the juxtaposition is this: when we say we abide in Him and He in us (john15), it is through ekklesia; our body is a temple, the temple(church) is the body of christ:
it is precisely inside this ‘world-cosmos’ that God enters, making it His abode;
it is this ‘temple-church’ that symbolizes it;
and it is through His people’s ‘body’-their flesh and bones, arms that work, and feet that carries the good news;
that His work may truly manifest.

“A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” (Proverbs 12:10).

If we take the life of an animal, then, it is an act of reverence and penitence, and it contains an implicit appeal to divine redemption. Indeed, Barth argues that the killing of an animal is always a religious act, an “offering” in which we sadly and reluctantly take another life in exchange for our own. It is a priestly act: “A meal which includes meat is a sacrificial meal.”

2. besides the obvious issue, what was interesting is barth’s quote. in a fast food world, this sombre, priestly reluctance is outsourced to the mass producers, gashing an even deeper gaping contrast between the ignorant glutton and the bloody slaughterhouses. When the bloody process is out of sight, it is easy to overconsume- ignoring the true costs of life.

3. in this culture of slaughter, the first eucharist did what could be the reversal of the levite act: instead of the world being slaughtered to sustain man, a man is slaughtered to sustain the world.

4. and it follows to the resurrection: that the slaughtered sacrifice; in the end, is not consumed by the earth. like the burning bush of moses: nec tamen consumebatur; “yet it was not consumed”.