foundations – Perspectives

It is sometimes difficult to read Scripture and to make sense of it (sometimes?)… my reading yesterday included that of the lone prophetic voice of Micaiah who spoke in opposition to 400 other prophets:

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, four hundred of them, and said to them, “Shall we go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” They said, “Go up, for God will give it into the hand of the king.” (2 Chron. 18:5).

The vast majority of prophets were aligned with the political power of their day; their voice being unanimous that God is with you to bring you success. The story goes on that Micaiah comes reluctantly with a contrary word, and then also gives insight into the behind the scenes that took place in the heavens with a discussion between God and various spirits, including a lying spirit. I am not sure what to make of that part of the narrative and am aware of a move to take the ‘heavenly counsel’ as literal – I am really not sure about that. Regardless the outcome is that a ‘lying spirit’ comes into the mouths of the prophetic counsel. That is the sobering part.

Can God speak a word to power that contains ‘God is with you to bring you success’? Yes indeed, but at the heart of the prophetic has to be a challenge to power and when Scripture is read with regard to an inbalance of power the challenge is always to those who abuse power. The call is to ‘repent’ to those with the power and to those oppressed that the day will come when they will be rewarded.

Can a lying spirit come into the mouths of those who prophesy? Maybe. Lying spirit or not what seems clear is whenever we are bought (financially or emotionally) there will always be the possibility (the inevitability?) of declaring success to power.

Out of the mouth of 2 or 3 (or 400) witnesses let every word be established. Or maybe we could suggest something along the lines of align yourself to those who are in the power position and the echo chamber will be strengthened.

Some while back I had a dream in which there was a group gathered from a European context and they were discussing what should be the ‘protocols’ in place for a fresh wave of prophetic expression. Into the dream a prophetic figure from the USA materialised. He materialised as a 40 year old which would coincide with the time that he (with others) were laying foundations for a prophetic expression that is now being (rightly) critiqued. He knew that what they did was, with hindsight, insufficient. What is for certain one of the biggest flaws in any prophetic foundation is an uncritical alignment with power.

I kinda think – hence the title – that we are in a time of ‘collapse’. Much is shifting and here are a few perspectives I have held for some time… we are seeing a shift from west to east and from north to south. I realise once we have an interest in something we tend to get that ‘fed’ to us, so I need to be a little careful but every day I get feeds around ‘new currency’, ‘a shift from the dollar as global currency’, ‘the BRICS are planning xyz’. I don’t know if the term ‘collapse’ is too strong, and I don’t know if it is appropriate what that might look like. Certainly foundations are being shaken.

Jesus spoke into another time when foundations would collapse… and those foundations were understood to be ‘holy’ foundations:

Not one stone will stay upon the other.

If foundations are shaken / removed / they crumble then what they supported will not remain, the building will at best be filled with cracks if not something more devastating.

A time of shaking brings with it both threat and also opportunity. Threat to what has been and opportunity to embrace what is not fully known nor understood. I suggest we are right at that time. ‘End-time’ language does nothing for me as I think it is so mis-guided, but I do consider that we can legitimately use language such as ‘eschatological opportunity’. That is not for believers to own as exclusively theirs (eschatology is about the world, the planet, creation after all) but surely it would be incredibly helpful if a good bunch of believers were willing to welcome in the unknown and not to retract to a measure of self-preservation.

At a time of collapse insecurities surface and there will be a push to restore some old certainties. To hold on to old certainties might not be totally wrong, for there are values worth holding on to… however, we need to be sure those ‘old’ values are rooted in the irruption of the age to come, or as Paul puts it,

[B]ut a new creation is everything!

Everything!! Old values have to be rooted in new creation values if they should remain as foundational.

There is much talk of Judeo-Christian values and I understand that, but we cannot insist on that uncritically. I love the principles of the law such as it is illegal to maximise profits (come on you know that’s true!), but we have to be careful about what we read in the law – it was given to a nation not to the world, and God very early on clearly did not think the law on capital punishment was one he should follow, evidenced by his protection of Cain.

So I think we need to not simply receive every plea for a return to Judeo-Christian values… some of them are seriously sub-Christian! And… and there is a big and. Values that transform are values from the future. The whole aspect of ‘new creation’ being everything.

There is wisdom from the past, but if we are not careful we can embrace that which holds us back from bringing in the future. We are not looking to restore old certainties.

What would eschatological values look like?

Tag: foundations

Prophets all aligned

So, maybe, and I think very probable

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