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1st Corinthians 11 (Introducing the Tri-Binary Model)
August 12th 2018
(See Second Corinthians same date for more detailed notes for this preaching)
So, I started in a few weeks ago outlining our text for today from 1st Corinthians 11 and I was suddenly overwhelmed with something that I must cover in more depth before we push deeper into 1st Corinthians.
Much of what Paul talks about here in 1st Corinthians are topics that relate directly to the believers of that age . . . hair length for men and women and how women must be silent in church, the actual eating of meat actually offered to idols – and directions on what to do if you are hungry before going to church.
Now, though such things we have the opportunity to extract sound principles for our Christian walk today – like how to put the interests of others ahead of our own when it comes to what we eat or drink.
But the details of the rest of it are not so important . . . anymore.
I do not feel comfortable just randomly sharing this view if it were just an arbitrary opinion. I have zero interest in teaching things that cannot be supported by scripture and find opinion for opinions sake in the faith arrogant and usually baseless.
So before we continue on with our discussion about men and women in church and the covering of their heads and instructions on communion the rest I have been driven to present to you a new heuristic device.
You may or may not know that I develop (and then seek to employ) what are called “heuristic devices” to aid our investigation of biblical information – specifically, I use heuristic devices to help summarize large amounts of biblical data needing synthesis in order to be more fully understood.
Some of my earlier heuristic devices include the alphabet letters V O W X and Z (some of which I even have are tattooed on my skin to use in public teaching moments).
Today, I want to apply what I believe is a biblically supported heuristic as a means to illustrate and introduce a better view of this wonderful faith – start to finish.
Let me make this clear – this is a method that allows for all people to live their faith out according to the dictates of their conscience or denominational allegiances. It just explains where a persons praxis is relative to the biblical narrative
Before we get to it I have written a definition of heuristic devices on the board to get us going.
HEURISTIC DEVICE:
“Any procedure which involves the use of an artificial construct to assist in the exploration of phenomena. It usually involves assumptions derived from extant empirical research. It is typically a form of preliminary analysis usually employed for analytical clarity, although it can also have explanatory value as a model.”
God has gifted me to be a teacher. That is what I am. In our verse by verse study of the New Testament I have not felt the need to introduce a heuristic outside of what I have already developed because up to this point in Milk our studies have been of scriptural history (Acts and the Gospels).
However, as we delve into these epistles of Paul (which, I remind you, were written specifically to churches and believers in the nascent churches of that day and age), I have wondered about the value of a deep verse by verse analysis of the content when from what I can tell (and of what I am absolutely convinced) much of the epistolary books have zero material application to the Body of Christ today.
As a means to illustrate this view to our Milk audience (our Meat audience gets it clearly) before we continue to talk about whether a woman can speak in church today or have her head uncovered, I think the reason she CAN speak in church (and not have her head covered) must be illustrated by scripture and not just through opinion of the speaker.
Hence this new heuristic, which I am calling the
The Tri-Binary Model of Christian Praxis.
Now that sounds like a bit of a complicated name but it’s really pretty simple:
BINARY means “sets of 2” and in computer linguistics the two are 1s and Os. So a “tri-binary” would be a “three sets of two 1’s and Os model” for understanding Christian praxis or the Christian act of doing.
In other words, this model illustrates the three main ways readers of the Bible approach doing their Christianity.
At the end of this I am going to offer you what I feel is a better way to do the faith then what has been done in the past.
Hang with me as I draw this out as we go:
(DRAW IT OUT AS WE GO starting out with number 1)
THE TRI-BINARY MODEL of BIBLICAL PRAXIS
From the Archaic to the Sublime
Defining and Differentiating “Christaeon” and “Christaeonity” from “Christian and Christianity”
(CHRIST-AYE-ON and CHRIST-AYE-ON-ITY)
THE SEVEN POINTS OF THE TRI-BINARY MODEL OF BIBLICAL PRAXIS
4
1 2 3 5 7
6
THE MACRO-BIBLICAL MODEL (7 Points) (BOLD ON BOARD)
Creation
Begins with LOVE – God’s love – Creation is love expressed.
He expressed His love by Speaking. God “said.”
Heaven and Earth by God’s Word (He said, it was)
The Garden (there was an outside the garden – remember this)
Adam Dominion over all things
Eve from His side – one.
The Purpose of the Tree (KEY to all relations with Godchoice and freewill relationship with God)
The Fall (FIRST VERTICAL LINE)
A choice to believe and love God or not
The willful rebellion against Him (as if to say, “I want what I want” or “my way is better.”)
A propensity for evil PRIOR to Falling. Satan had no control of sway. Eve tricked, Adam chose
The biblical “present-age” begins – with Adam and Eve kicked out into the Fallen World
God’s Chosen People (establishment of external material religion – FIRST CIRCLE)
Abraham/Isaac/Jacob (Israel) COI
God’s people/nation “first” externality – circumcision instituted by Abraham
External Law given by Moses
External Prophets speaking for God
External Scripture written on stone
External Temple with external rites and rituals (animals, blood)
Promise of an actual external Messiah
He will be their God and they will be His people. (Choice and freewill but with blessings and punishments)
The anticipation of the Age to Come
(THIS IS THE FIRST BINARY MODEL OF BIBLICAL PRAXIS – the Old Testament)
It is the language of the Jews today and, in part, some Muslims, and is appealed to by Christians everywhere but selectively.
At this point we are introduced to a most miraculous gift given the world – the birth of God’s only human Son, Jesus of Nazareth (Add second vertical line)
Incarnation of the Word of God made Flesh (SECOND VERTICAL LINE)
This was the initiation of the Age to Come and “the beginning of the end” of the former age.
God so LOVED the World He Gave . . . His Word was made flesh . . . God with us.
John the Baptist, the “last of the Prophets” came baptizing with water (external rite tied to the first covenant)
Son of Man baptizing with “Spirit and with Fire”
His physical life (to fulfill all tenets of the external Law)
His miracles to evidence His arrival and power from God
His death to typify the former covenant of shed blood
His resurrection to evidence His overcoming of all things that held people bound.
Promises to return with judgement and reward within a generation
He called trained and taught apostles to take His arrival and message out to the world (ghay)
All of them warning and in growing anticipation of His return with His Kingdom.
This message was to receive the Good News and be saved from physical destruction and sheol.
The New Testament (ADD SECOND “O”)
Jesus birth launched us into the Age to Come.
We might consider the time intersecting between the Former Age and the Age to Come the Second Binary set – 1() from Jesus birth to the end of the Law and prophets and temples.
The New Testament as not completely Former Age nor completely the Age to come
Both worlds were clashing and in conflict
Sheol was a reality. Death was a reality. Separation from God a reality. Satan a Reality. This period was the tribulation and wrap of the end of that World! (age)
The Book of Revelation and Jesus worlds about the end of the world (age) match the secular events of this critical, difficult time of the end of the former age and the complete entrance of the Age to come.
Paul said the former must FULLY come down before the New could come fully into being.
This was the period when Jesus the Messiah would cull from His own (and some Gentiles) His bride.
This was the birth of the Bride, lots of first-borns, lots of First-Fruits.
These are they who God predestined as Paul describes in Ephesians and other places.
There was a strict set of guidelines for the Bride of Christ (the Church) laid out in the Material order of the NT by the Apostles.
They were all for that time then – they were Apostolically derived, ordered and commanded – as a means for them to come through victoriously as the Bride of Christ who He would come, save, take and reward.
His promised return, the End of the Former age (ADD THIRD LINE)
To take His bride (the church of the First-Born which the gates of hell would not prevail against)
With judgment upon the House of Israel who had been given the Law, Prophets, Scriptures and Messiah
With reward for all who were His and had gone through great tribulation.
The details described by Jesus when He was asked what the sign of His coming would look like, and the end of that age, and the contents of Revelation, are fulfilled and recorded in the secular histories of Josephus, Tacitus, Seutonius, and Cassius Dio. To a T.
And the signal we get from all of this is the Bible is a history of them-then, and how God orchestrated the saving of this world by and through the Nation of Israel, the Promised Messiah, and the Apostles left to guide and direct His bride.
This brings us to the end of the (former age) and the full and complete inauguration of “the Age to Come” or New Aeon
All things fulfilled in Christ through His Victory over sin, death, the grave, Satan and all of His enemies.
God is now all in all as Christ has handed the Kingdom over to His Father.
All things that could be shaken in heaven and earth have been shaken so the only thing remaining cannot be shaken.
It is a New Heaven, a New earth and a New Jerusalem (which is above) composed of God, Christ and His own (the 144,000 and others who make His bride). They form the governing economy of the New Heaven, earth and Jerusalem.
Since the wrapping up of the former age and ALL that it contained, the world has entered into a completely spiritual economy – and we all have the right to see ourselves and the faith we possess in one of the three binary formats:
First 1o – the Old Testament
Second 10 – the New Testament (and/or a combined Old and New Testament) OR
Third 10 – the New Aeon established by the End of that age.
utside the city walls, which are open night and day, are those who have yet to receive Christ.
Heavenly inhabitants are described as in the City or outside the City walls.
The operative term is agape love – all derived by the Spirit of Christ in those who are His.
The world is broken up into those who are freely choose to be His and those who freely choose not to be His.
He calls to all, has paved the way for all, and paid the price for all – none are under condemnation of God – the price has been paid, but the choice to seek God and His Son in Spirit and Truth is up to every individual. Since the destruction of the former aego – and we will reap what we’ve sown relative to reward in the hereafter and NOT in punishments. Sow to the Spirit, we will reap spiritual things in the Spiritual Kingdom. Sow to the flesh we will reap fleshly things where the flesh abides – here on earth. Hereafter, there awaits only spiritual poverty for those who sought only material gratifications here.
THE SEVEN POINTS OF THE TRI-BINARY MODEL of the PERSONAL CHRISTIAN WALK
(Rebirth)
(End of Aeon)
(creation) (fall) (OT) (NT) (New Aeon)
COLLECTIVE
VIEW
(N0w we add the line
PERSONAL
CHRISTIAN
WALK
1 2 3 5 7
6
4
Draw horizontal line
What is significant of this new heuristic is that while it actually represents biblical history it also serves to describe the individual Christian walk. Let me explain!
THE MICRO APPLICATION
We are all born natural creations, with choice to do good or not.
We all fail and fall in the choices – somehow and somewhere in our natural make-up – if not outwardly then in our hearts and minds and will and emotions. We will hate, we will covet, not forgive, give revenge, cause harm, steal, lie, be boastful and proud, and live selfishly and we will do this against conscience and what we know is right to do in our hearts. This fall is to be human and it will occur in our lives very early on.
At this point most of us are introduced as children to “religions” of some sort or another. Some are actually religions (and all that the religions demand) others are civic activities, scouting, scholastic and educational endeavors, occupational diversions, sports, clubs, governments – whatever. All of these impose their rules and ways on their followers often with results. This period of life represents Religion or Institutional life.
Internally, if honest and if we are reflective and introspective, many of us yearn for the birth of a Messiah or Savior in our flesh who will fill “the Hollow” in our hearts. We seek something to save us from inward and often outward selves. Some turn to more institutional guidance – more religion – others to independent expression in music, art, academia, violence, whatever – often as a means to save the self, at least in mind, from ourselves. We hate what we are in our heart or we adore what we are – but what we are is not what we were intended to be, and this fact will manifest itself in our lives at some point. What is being manifested is the failures in our flesh and the utter and absolute failure of all things earthly to satisfy. In many cases we learn that nothing is trustworthy, nothing can be trusted as infallible and wholly trustworthy – whether they be a spouse, children, religion, occupation, friend or anything else that is in this fallen world. Even tangible, inanimate objects like money, wealth and fame prove faulty. As so all other isms and ists failures. Drugs, the world, Law and Order – nothing satiates! As a result, some, desperate for truth and a rock upon which to stand, hear God’s voice and “constant call to all” – and receive His only human Son by faith who came as the solution to a world of failing saviors. Those who receive Him are “born from above,” (or are born-again (which is what Jesus said every person must experience in order to even see the kingdom of God).
At this point the individual enters into a relationship with God – which is akin to re-entering the world as a babe, but this time, spiritually and by Christ. As a babe, he or she will discover many instructors, all saying, “lo here” and “lo there!” Some will command “this rule,” that way, this denomination. As babes we learn line by line, precept by precept. We are told how to interpret things of the spirit and the Word itself. In reality, without our really realizing it, we have entered a wilderness of religiosity. It is a New Testament, but it too is rife with obstacles and tribulations. Many will cling to one way because the uncertainty of everything else is overwhelming. God uses it all but those who seek God in spirit and truth over the will of Men will, however, realize the problems with the views taught. It is at this point that a person moves from being part of a “Religious world” and enters into the fullness of the Kingdom of God which operates in Spirit and Truth. The result will be the same result as when Jesus pursuing His Father with all He had – loneliness and alienation from most of the religious world (and even friends in the faith) and we typically find ourselves hanging naked and beaten stuck to a cross outside the city gates.
After seeking and searching and holding fast to Him alone, seekers of truth will come to the end of their “religious age,” all-together. Within them everything that they built up will be shaken to the ground so the only thing that will or can remain will be things that cannot be shaken – spiritual truths and not material alliances or allegiances. Herein is when true emancipation from the things of this world occurs and the person enters into the last frontier of Christianity –
The New Heaven and New Earth, headquartered in the New Jerusalem above, which operates solely on light, and love, and the fruit of the Spirit. All referring back to Christ, all coursing miraculously through their hearts and minds. Only when ALL THE ELEMENTS AND ASPECTS OF religion have fallen will a seeker of truth be truly free to love as God loves. These are the Christaeons – they truly become part of His eternal Kingdom – by and through His Love flowing in and through them.
NOTE ON THE ARROWS
The arrows are indicators that all things revolve and point back to Christ.
They are also symbols of a crown of thorns with true ChristAeons wear in this world, a symbol of suffering, submission of the mind and life to God, of humility, of the fleshly self dying to the will of God in us. It is NOT a crown of gold or of honor. It is mortification of fame, wealth, power, influence – our Kingdom (therefore our crown) is not of this world honored. We are His in LOVE.
To remain in the First 10 BINARY is to remain under the Law.
To remain in the Second 10 BINARY is to remain in an Apostolic Man Lead Religion
To transcend to the Third 10 BINARY is to experience His Second advent within and begin to live by the Spirit in His heavenly Kingdom here and now – which is a Kingdom of LOVE.
Jews Messianic New-Aeon Christians
Muslims Jews / “Christaeons”
Legalists “Christaeonity”
Evangel
Christians
Old Test New “God in Us”
Old & New
Law written on Heart and Minds!
All things Spiritual
Part of His Heavenly
KINGDOM NOW!
Fruit of the Spirit= Love for all,
All the time, no exceptions.
