Jed Wrote..‪.‬ Jed Brown

This is a common question, and it must be answered with the data of Scripture, but then that data must be digested devotionally, that is, in a way that helps us endure in faith.
I say this because this is how Peter answers this question, in 1 Peter 3:18 - biblically, and devotionally.
The biblical data goes like this. Jesus was (17) "put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." In the spirit, then, verse 18, Peter says that Jesus a) went somewhere and b) proclaimed something. The original word for "proclaim" is different from the word for "preach" in 4:6. There the sense is that the gospel was "preached" to those who were once alive but have now died, that though they died, they will one day live, in the resurrection, because of their faith in that message.
Here, in 3:18, something else is going on. Jesus "proclaimed" something. This word is more an announcement. There is no call to faith and repentance - only the news that, in this case, the war is over; I won.
Who does he say this to? "The spirits in prison, [who] (verse 20) did not obey, in the days of Noah, when the ark was being prepared . . ."
Now here is a place where God calls us to do spiritual push-ups, and remain faithful to His Word, even if the answer seems strange to modern, unsupernatural ears. The only biblical explanation for what Peter is referring to is Genesis 6, and what precipitated the Flood.
Not only was the wickedness of mankind malignantly metastasizing on the earth - this was also happening in the heavenly places. The "sons of God" - another word for heavenly beings - angels - saw the beauty that God bestowed on the women of earth. And they looked at God, and looked and those women . . . and chose the women, creating a great rebellion in the heavenly places. This was large-scale, gross rebellion, for angels see the face of God.
This gives us greater understanding of what precipitated the flood and why God thought it good and right. God is not a cosmic grump, flying off the handle at a few folks running off into the bushes (though that is sin, too.) But this was rebellion spanning the breadth of the created order. These fallen angels were trying to hijack God's good creation for themselves, by creating a new race, one forbidden by God, and one meant to live without need for God. Their offspring were called the "Nephilim" - mighty men of old.
It's possible that Goliath was a descendent of the Nephilim, at least that's what the spies said when they returned in Numbers 13:33. This would mean that one of Noah's sons took a Nephilim wife or child, which is unlikely. It may very well mean that the sons of Anak and Goliath were like those of Noah's day. Regardless, all this casts a different light on what was happening then between David and Goliath. Here is the "offspring" of the Great Rebellion, wanting to stamp out God's anointed king and his "offspring," God's chosen race, whom He leads, provides for and protects via His anointed David. It is also no coincidence that Goliath's armor is like that of the scales of a dragon. Here is the cosmic battle, which began in the Garden, and broke out in Genesis 6. So it is no coincidence that David kills Goliath by crushing his head (Gen. 3:15). He is a living parable, of God's gospel.
Thus Jesus is called the Greater David, God's Anointed One, the Messiah and King, who came to slay the great giant of our age:
Luke 11:21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; 22 but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
Just as David beheaded the "dragon" Goliath and took his armor, so did Jesus, when he went to the cross. There he beat death by death - by absorbing on himself in death all the condemnation and wrath due to God's people, for our sins. It turns out that when his cross went into the ground at Golgotha, he was doing what David could only picture. The word "Goliath" is deeply related t

Introduction
Christians have celebrated a variety of feast days throughout the centuries. Some movements have celebrated no feast days, other than the weekly Lord’s Day - for example, the Puritans, and the Church of Scotland. Others have celebrated a large number of feast days throughout the year, following a liturgical calendar. Let each be convinced in his own mind, with charity towards others (Romans 14:5).
I am convinced that our church should follow a simple calendar that celebrates the great days of the faith, and those celebrations should be characterized by feasting. In this article I want to demonstrate why this seems right to me. Secondly, I will lay out which feast days we ought to celebrate. Lastly, I will describe what this feasting should look like.
In Step With the Old
Feasts have always been at the center of God’s working. After all, the first command of Scripture was to feast:
Genesis 2:16 “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden . . .”
History will end with a great, restored Eden, and a feast at the center:
Revelation 19:9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Those who are invited to that great feast are those who feast on Christ along the way:
John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
Thus we celebrate on the first Sunday of every month the Lord’s Table:
Matthew 26:26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
And this great feast of the Lord was prefigured by the feast of the Exodus and the Passover. After all, on the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah wanted to discuss Jesus’ “exodus” (Luke 9:31), and on his cross, not one of his bones were broken (John 19:33):
Exodus 12:46 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. 47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. [speaking of the Passover]
Of course, before Christ, Israel was commanded to enjoy great feasts. The three Great Feasts (summarized in Exodus 23:14-17) were:
* The Passover (otherwise known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits) - Exodus 12:1-2. As was already mentioned, in this feast Israel was to remember the Exodus, how God passed over their sins, all by His grace, and delivered them from slavery, into His dominion.
* The Feast of Weeks (otherwise known as Pentecost or the Harvest Feast) - Leviticus 23:15-21; Deuteronomy 16:9-12. Celebrated 50 days after the Passover, this feast celebrated the wheat harvest in the spring.
* The Feast of Tabernacles (or the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Ingathering) - Leviticus 23:33-43; Deuteronomy 16:13-15. This feast remembered Israel’s 40-year trek through the wilderness, and more centrally, how God dwelt among them, with them, in His tabernacle, providing for and preserving them.
It is no coincidence that that these major feasts map over to the

I’ve noticed a widespread difficulty with Christians knowing how to pray for Israel, in the aftermath of being attacked by Hamas. Perhaps it’s because we are awash in propaganda, and we know it, and that causes reticence. After all, as the old phrase goes, the first casualty of war is the truth.
So how to pray, for Israel, and about a war and evils occurring halfway across the world? I would like to offer a few suggestions.
Well, Pray
First, if you want to know how to pray, get to praying. Like most things in life, we learn to do it by doing it. We learn to pray by praying.
This reminds me of the story that Corey Tenboom told of when she and her sister were jammed into a room with 700 other concentration camp prisoners - a room designed for 200 people. Some of them fought with each other, and soon the room became jittered with nervous tension. Corey said that they needed to do something, and her sister said we must pray. And so she prayed, and she prayed, and she prayed, and she prayed, and then the room finally went silent and was at peace. How to pray? Sometimes we just need to get praying. It happens after prayer.
Pray with Dirt and Blood
Secondly, we must pray with dirt and blood. What I mean is that in times like this, and in all other times, we must pray in specifics. We must forsake all pie-in-the sky generalities, and instead get dirt and blood on our prayers. When you’re watching the news and you see some atrocity, remember that those are real people with real families. Get rid of all generalities and pray, pray, for the victims and their friends and families, and for those who did it, that God would stop them and bring justice.
Doing this may also have a practical benefit: it will slow down the velocity of your doom-scrolling. You won’t have the ability to move onto the next awful atrocity on your screen, because you’ll be too busy praying for real people.
Pray Like the Bible
Thirdly, we need to pray out of the Bible, because the Bible teaches us how to pray both for the specific case of Israel, and for the general problem of atrocity-level evil.
Let’s begin with evil. When atrocities happen, we learn how to pray by turning to the psalms, specifically, those that have come to be known as the imprecatory psalms. The word imprecatory has a lot of overlap with the word curse. That’s what it is: asking God to bring something bad on someone else who’s doing something bad.
We may, for instance, put the words of Psalm 140 into our own words, on behalf of the innocent in Israel:
Psalm 140:8–11 (ESV): Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked;
do not further their evil plot, or they will be exalted! Selah
9  As for the head of those who surround the nation of Israel,
let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!
10  Let burning coals fall upon them!
Let them be cast into fire,
into miry pits, no more to rise!
11  Let not the slanderer be established in the land;
let evil hunt down the violent man speedily!
Go ahead, pray this. Or, if you are so moved, pray along these lines:
Would you strike them on the cheek? Would you break their teeth? (Psalm 3:7)
Or, if you are so provoked, you may echo the words of Psalm 58:
Psalm 58:6–11 (ESV): O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
7  Let them vanish like water that runs away;
when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
8  Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
9  Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
10  The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11  Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.”
Note that the psalmists are not taking vengeance into their own hands. They are leaving vengeance with God, as we are commanded to do, and praying to Him is h

We are now entering #PrideMonth,1 when companies like Target form a great crowd, especially on social media, to pander to those who follow LGBTQ ideology. In June they roll out their chest binders and glow-up their social media logos - but only in their western hemisphere units, not in the Middle East. Crowds are funny that way - headstrong they always are, but not necessarily consistent. Loud and boisterous they are, but not necessarily courageous. Powerful they can be, but not necessarily for good.
The Axiom
This is an axiom you and I must remember, especially in June: just because a crowd exists doesn’t mean it’s for a good reason. We can easily think of examples of crowds assembled for bad reasons. Crowds thronged to hear Hitler speak. Sodom met Lot’s guests with a huge crowd - that wanted to rape them. I’m aware of a town in Nevada with a large number of young people coming down with cancer. No one wants to be in that crowd. In the 1980’s, a “swarm” of people in the US became fixated on self-amputation and becoming handicapped. Just because a crowd has gathered around something doesn’t tell you anything about whether that thing is good or not.
This is especially important to remember if you are a student surrounded by friends and peers who tell you they are gay, bi, poly, cake-gender, or any of the other 267 “genders” popping up. You’ve found yourself in a crowd, and a lot of the people in that crowd you appreciate; you perhaps love some of them; you at least care for them, and you want the best for them. It’s hard for you to conceive in your brain that this crowd, with this many people, this crowd that I’m in, could be wrong. How can that be? How can God be angry or judge them?
Understandable Questions
This is an understandable question. Yet consider this fact: that in each of the “wrong” crowds that I mentioned above, those people would have concluded the same thing. Those Nazis listening to Hitler, those rapists in Sodom, those self-amputators would have all asked the same question: but how could my friends that I’m here with, whom I like and care for, how could they be wrong?
Consider also how you got to that crowd. The impulse to be “in,” inside the “inner ring”2, however you define “inner ring,” is really strong with each of us. We each of us want to be inside a group, a crowd, that we admire and esteem and enjoy and care for. Life can be cold and cruel, and such “crowds” promise comfort, care and respite. But note that the reason you therefore entered that crowd has more to do with your own desires, and certain features of that crowd that you find admirable. But in seeking your own desires, you may have looked past certain features of that crowd that are less than admirable. It’s easy to do, and oh so common - easy for the Nazi (before that name was bad) to look past that comment about the Jews, cuz he!, zee economy’s booming, gut!
Lessons from History
When you look at the history of the Third Reich, or Stalin in Russia, it is a dark wonder, how one man could lead so many - such a crowd! - into such malignant evil. So many people in that crowd would have said in the moment - surely not these, my friends! Surely these people, my friends - surely they’re not evil! How could God be angry and judgmental to them?! So, so many would have said that. And later regretted and disavowed any and all participation in that very crowd.
So again, being part of a crowd, and being close to a crowd means nothing. Mankind’s best and brightest have often been so deceived. The existence of a crowd tells you nothing about whether it’s there for a good reason or a bad one. Nor do your feelings. Our feelings are not a good standard by which to judge whether we participate in a good crowd or a bad one.
Note again: we all want to be part of a good crowd, not a bad one. Even people who rebel against “the man” find it good to be part of the “bad” crowd. Everyone is looking fo

Introduction
We listened to the news, stunned . . . Stunned at the murdering of children in Uvalde. Stunned at the seeming senselessness of it - as if some sense could be made of it. We humans are “sense makers”, after all. But we were also stunned that the “good guys” . . . stopped. And waited. And waited. And waited, while the killer killed, again and again.
Of course our elites have responded with political grandstanding; they ask, “How can I use this against my political opponents?” Meanwhile the folks in Uvalde wonder how one of their own could kill like this - or wait at the door, while it happened. That is the question. Asking how we might harden school security or harden gun laws won’t answer that question.
But that is the question.
Axe the Axioms
Christians understand that man is fallen - each one of us. God has made each of us in His image. Thus man is capable of magnificent good. But sin has defaced that image, and parasitically twists it. Thus man is also capable of the most grotesque evils. And yet we don’t all do such things. This basic understanding of the fallenness of man is essential to understand, but it does not explain Uvalde, not entirely, not in a satisfactory way.
We Christians also like to say, “There go I, but for the grace of God.” That’s true. As Solzhenitzyn once wrote, the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. All the world’s barbarities lie in seed form in every lust and sinful desire. But again, as soon as we say, “There go I, but for the grace of God,” we instantly feel something inside us that says, “No, I never would go there.” Not to that place. Not to killing children.
But perhaps, if we are honest with ourselves, we might wonder, if I were in that hallway, gear on, gun loaded . . . Would I run into the line of fire? Would I have the courage to sacrifice myself? Would I have inside of me whatever is necessary, in that moment, to risk, to sacrifice, for others?
This is the question of every man who enlists and waits for the first day of boot camp. Do I have what it takes? To both endure the trial and do my task with honor?
The Failure of Failures
Uvalde was a failure of true masculinity - the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. Standing on this definition, we can see its two ditches, both operating at Uvalde: the first being a brutal, violent masculinity, where the man becomes the devouring dragon; and the second ditch being an impotent, cowardly masculinity, where the man refuses to unsheathe his sword and fight the dragon. But true masculinity, whatever else it is, gladly the assumes responsibility for the well-being of others, to lead them to green pastures, and protect them from wolves. Manhood failed at Uvalde.
To which many have pointed out the importance of fathers, and fatherhood. This gets closer to the heart of the problem. But it assumes the question, What should be at the heart of fatherhood that would have changed this? That would result in true masculinity, in the classroom, and in the hallway?
The Heart of the Problem
As is often the case, C.S. Lewis could see down into the heart of the problem, a long time ago. There may be no other book that explains our present age better than his “The Abolition of Man.” You can sense the point by the title: that we have abolished manhood. How?
He could see it happening even in the 1940’s: it began when we jettisoned any connection to objective, unchanging truth. This rejection of objective standards then leads to the rejection of making any kind of value judgments. When there is no standard, then there is no basis for saying that this thing of greater value, because of its superior beauty and goodness, than that thing.
Thus art is art, and one cannot say whether a Van Gogh is of any more artistic value than a solitary dot painted on a white canvas. Because what is beauty? And thus life is life - who can say whether this life is of more value than that life? W

It’s been said that the thing that really made America exceptional in the history of nations is that we were the first great superpower to say that we are not great. What made America great is that we said you should never trust an American. Not any farther than you can throw him. 
But that does not mean that America has not been populated by exceptional people. It has, abundantly so. The foolish royalty of Europe gave away their greatest treasures when they chased off our forefathers across the Atlantic. Though our founding fathers said you should never trust an American - and thus our political system of checks and balances - this nation has been lavishly blessed with forefathers and foremothers that children and towns could trust and build around, for their flourishing.
What They Knew
These men and women knew of goodnesses and beauties that are objectively true, unchanging, and full of life and glory. These were people who could look at a sea of amber grain, waving at them in the wind, and see the beautiful goodness inherent in the scene. These people knew the difference between good poetry and bad; between good entertainment and trash; between a good tree and a useless bush; between truth and a lie; between a good man and a dangerous fool; between a priceless woman and a cheap harlot. They knew the difference. These were people that knew that right is not just right; it’s the pathway to life. 
And when you know that these glorious realities exist, and you know that they are your way to life, you are willing to sacrifice for them - to expend blood, sweat and tears, to see these glories be born, mature, and then to protect them from threats. Our forefathers knew how to live, because they knew of things so good and glorious that were worth dying for. 
Die they so often did - on ships getting here; during countless plagues that swept the New World; in our first wars, and in many since; and in the social battles for societal justice - our forefathers died, for unchanging goodnesses and glories. 
Today we live a different storyline. We are so secure and rich, and yet depression and suicidality and drug use are rampant. We don’t want to live, ironically, because we have nothing worth dying for. We’ve discovered the hard way that a vapid, superficial life of ease and security is no life at all. Thus the question: what changed? What did our forefathers have that we lack?
The Answer
The answer is God. We lack God. When any people, no matter their prior greatness, tries to become their own kings, living by their own logic, apart from submission to the wisdom of God, out from under His rules and Word, that people will mess everything up - relationships, economies, sexuality - you name it, we will muck it up. As Chesterton put it, when a people stops believing in God, it’s not that they then believe in nothing - it’s then that they will believe in anything. Anything but the truth. And when a people stops believing in the most high God, it’s not that they stop looking for great power - they just look for it on earth. And often it will land on the strong-men of earth. Thus it’s no coincidence that we have ceded so much power to our state. 
But the way and the truth that leads to life is only found beyond us, in Another. Jesus proved that he himself is the unchanging wisdom of God, by his resurrection from the dead. He proved therefore that there is an unchanging good, an unshakeable beauty that exists. It exists and it can be found. In Him. Our forefathers knew that beauty, at least in part, because they knew him - or at least a worldview that grew from him. 
They possessed this wisdom because they were taught the Bible in school, at the dinner table, before bed, in church, in Sunday School, and along way, to and fro. They were taught a “biblical worldview,” to such a degree that that phrase would have been incomprehensible to them. Isn’t that, like, the water we swim in? They were taught, and they were