- The Living Book
The Bible is a strange living book, with its fathomless wells of puzzles. No matter how many times you have read it, you never finish reading it. Sometimes you come upon a freshness as if you had never read the passage before.
- Of Symmetrical Paradoxes
In Acts 12, for example, I find an intriguing symmetry. It opens and closes with similar and contrasting actions. It opens with one death and closes with another. It opens with the Church apparently vanquished; it closes with the same Church in triumph. It opens with Herod the killer gaining grounds, from one mischief against James to the next against Peter; it closes with him stopped, then the further reversal of fates in the speedy advance of the same Church that he had sought to stop. It opens with Herod being hailed, which urged him on; it closes with Herod being hailed, but that became his obituary. That wicked king seemed to love the praise of men. It fired him on, and it fired him down.
The chapter opens with a prison scene, and closes with a palace scene. Freedom from one, death in the other. At one end, Peter is freed, despite the levels of security to keep him in the prison; at the other end, Herod is dead, despite the opulence and security to keep him going. It opens with Peter escaping the wrath of an earthly king, it closes with Herod not escaping the wrath of the Heavenly King. Acts 12 opens with the apparent defeat of the Church to the pleasure of their enemies; it closes with the public defeat of their arch enemy and the triumph of the beaten Church. It opens in tears; it closes in vindication and joy. And on and on and on … by the pen of the Divine.
In the first few verses, Apostle James was killed, and the enemies were happy, then Herod proceeded to arrest Peter also, to kill him. In the end, God gave Herod a public embarrassment. He died on stage during a public bilateral oration, and decayed on the spot with maggots sprawling out of him. History was made in how differently God handled the proud killer.
- And the Drinkers of Blood
What interests me in that story is something else: “And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also” (Acts 12:3). How could one person’s bitter tears be another’s sweet wine? How could the pain of one be the pleasure of another? Why does the blood of good men gladden the wicked? James was killed. His family and friends wept bitterly. Meanwhile, there were those who were “pleased” at what terribly grieved good men and women. They probably threw a party. It reminds one of the Mystery Woman of Revelation 17:6, whose wine was “the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs,” who fed on the pain of others. She sustained her life by the brutal extermination of purer lives than hers. She derived her pleasure from bleeding others. It is royal witchcraft, which preys on the blood of the pure to sustain its abominable self; which derives pleasure from the pain of the pure.
- And my Prayer for You and Me
Herod and his hailers, with the Mystery Woman of Babylon – they stir one prayer from me: O God, may every Herod and his fans who take pleasure in my pains be repaid in their own currency. May the chapter that has opened with my sadness not conclude but with my vindication and their public shameful reward with the same gifts that they so freely give to others. Blood may be their wine, but not my blood, not the blood of my people, not the blood of the reader here. As they have loved the smell of blood, the blood of saints and prophets, O God, according to Revelation 16:6, “give them blood to drink”; their own blood in abundance. May they that rejoice in the tears of the Church be silenced in the midst of their boasting. May joy return to the threatened and trodden Church, in Jesus name. Amen.
23 And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.
24 But the word of God grew and multiplied (Acts 12:23-24).
From The Preacher’s diary,
May 25, 2025.
5-DAY FAST
This is Day-2, for everyone on the 5-day fast until May 29, against the drinkers of blood in the land. Shalom.
Amen and Amen
Amen
Amen 🙏