The Texture of
Scripture
When the heavens opened and the prophet Ezekiel saw visions of God, he saw four living creatures, each with a wheel on the earth beside the creatures (Ezek 1:15)—and the appearance of each wheel and their construction was as "a wheel within a wheel" (v. 16). Their construction were as gyroscopes used for navigation. And the texture of Scripture is as wheels within wheels, or as shadows in a hall of mirrors. It is this texture of Scripture that navigates disciples into the promised land of Christ’s rest.
Texture (as opposed to text, both terms used in their literary sense) purports that the meaning of a particular text or narrative isn’t necessarily contained within the narrative, but resides within the context in which the narrative is received. Texture recognizes that meaning is assigned to words and to passages of words, that the literal or denotative meanings usually assigned to the words are not the intended assignments of meaning. In this, reading texture differs from reading symbolism that has been placed within the narrative. Texture is not contained within the narrative; it isn’t in the text. It is always in how the text is received, and it is conveyed through the use of certain literary conventions.
In Native American narratives, the primary devise used to convey to the intended audience that meaning resides in the texture of the story is the storyteller’s use of archaic language. The unintended auditors (i.e., auditors being the audience for the text) hear the usually simplistic story, assign a child-like meaning to the story, then either dismiss the story or collect it to show the simplicity of the culture. The unintended auditor simply doesn’t understand the story even though this person understands the meaning of each word; whereas the intended auditor recognizes that in a story about Raven bringing the Sun then gathering seaweed every day instead of hunting seals that a person cannot rest on his or her past deeds but must work every day. No deed that the person has done in the past exceeds that of Raven bringing the Sun. And if Raven bringing the Sun didn’t secure his place within his society, then the person’s past deeds will not secure that person’s place within his or her society. Texture, therefore, serves to separate the narrative’s audience into intended and unintended.
Jesus said that the ‘"sheep hear his voice"’ (John 10:3, also v. 16). His disciples are His intended audience. The hirlings—those individuals who have been tending His flock—are not His audience. They do not hear His voice. They have never heard His voice even though they have been both shepherding and preying upon His flock.
The Eureka!-now-I-have-it biblical pundits (those who sincerely believe they understand what they do not) that grasp a concept or two see one wheel of many wheels within a wheel; they see one shadow darkly in a hall of mirrors; they recognize that seaweed is not good food. They then proceed to build spiritual houses for themselves based upon the wheel or shadow they identify as the meaning of Scripture, of the Gospel, of prophecy. The disciples born in their spiritual house usually remain loyal to the pundits throughout their childhood. These disciples are then financially hamstrung and spiritually starved; for inevitably, the pundits teach that the only road to salvation runs through the houses that they have built.
We all see darkly, or see shadows. No human being can bodily cross dimensions and enter the third heaven. Until a disciple receives a glorified or incorruptible body, entrance can only be made by vision.
But Jesus told His disciples that knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven had been given to them (Matt 13:11), that to the person who has knowledge more will be given, but to the one who has not even what the person has will be taken from the person (v. 12). Jesus fulfilled what the prophet Isaiah said about speaking in parables to utter what had been hidden since the foundation of the world (vv. 34–35). Thus, through parables Jesus revealed to His intended audience what had been hidden from the beginning, while His unintended audience heard interesting but simplistic stories.
Those things that have been hidden from humanity since the foundation of the world have been revealed in the texture of Scripture, for Jesus spoke the words of the Father. He didn’t speak His own words. And the hidden things that He revealed aren’t in the text, but are in the context in which the text is received.
Anyone can read the parable about
the wheat and the tares (or weeds), and can understand that, figuratively,
seaweed isn’t good food, that genuine disciples grow and mature with
false disciples until the judgment when the genuine disciples receive
immortality and the false disciples are cast into the lake of fire. The person
who has raised wheat will additionally understand that the tares or weeds grow
faster than the wheat, that when overlooking the field the tares look like the
planted crop and the wheat appears as weeds. But the texture of the parable
still alludes either of these auditors. The texture is
in the typology. Both the Psalmist and the writer of Hebrews link the
geographical Promised Land to God’s rest (Num 14:30; Ps 95:10–11
& Heb 3:19). The hill country of
The parable of the tares and the
wheat, now, must be placed in context with the hill country of
The tares can be read—since the tares probably reference darnel, a wheat-like weed—as those disciples who rebel against God because they didn’t love righteousness enough to walk uprightly before Him either during the Tribulation or during their lifetimes if they lived and died earlier. They look like the intended crop, but they were planted by an enemy. And the texture of Scripture has these tares growing both before Christ returns as well as during His millennial reign when the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon all flesh, the logic for why Satan is released for a short while (another three and a half years — from typology) after the thousand years (Rev 20:7–10). The angels do the separating of who is for God and who is opposed to God (Rev 14:14–20). Loyal angels do this separating at the beginning of Christ’s rest; disloyal angels do this separating after a thousand years. And the juxtaposition of who separates wheat from tares extends to the marking of who is for God during the first half of the Tribulation with who is for the antiChrist in the second half of the Tribulation; i.e., observance of the seventh day Sabbath marks who is for God during the first half (marks these individuals for death from the man of perdition and the fourth horseman), while taking the mark of the beast (chi xi stigma) marks for the second death in the lake of fire those who are for the antiChrist.
The Breath of God corresponds to
rain in
Jesus, in the parable of the tares, uses the narrative to quickly identify Satan as the deceiver of those disciples who do not love righteousness enough to practice walking blameless before Him under the cover of Grace, of those disciples who will come under the great delusion sent by God upon them, of those disciples who will join with Satan after a thousand years of Christ’s reign over humanity. We now can see ourselves in this field of wheat and tares. Would we, after living a thousand years under the reign of Christ, join with Satan to rebel against God?
No, you say.
Well, will you now practice walking blameless before God? Of course, you say.
But if you are not today striving to live within the laws of God, all of them, including the Sabbath commandment, are you really practicing walking blameless—or are you like the person during the Millennium who will live year after year immersed in the Holy Spirit before joining with Satan by deciding to determine for him or herself what is right and wrong when Satan is loosed to again deceive humanity? Your determination today of whether you will strive to live within the laws of God truly marks you, just as assuredly as accepting the tattoo of the Cross will mark you during the second half of the Tribulation.
What is not in the narrative of the parable of the tares but in the texture is that each disciple chooses whether to be a tare or a stalk of wheat, chooses whether to be of the Adversary or of God. The choice made by the early barley harvest will be revealed when Christ returns (1 Co 4:5). The Spirit of God rains on the just and the unjust. You will grow as one or the other. About that, you don’t have a choice.
Abraham as the father of the
faithful "obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to
receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By
faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in
tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise" (Heb
11:8–9). Today, the Apostle Paul’s new man dwells in a tent of
flesh in a land of promise; he dwells as in a foreign land. He dwells in
spiritual
Jacob wrestled with God when he
returned to the land of promise. He grappled with God—and he prevailed
not by defeating God, but by struggling and being defeated. He won by losing.
He didn’t quit. He held on, he fought on, he wouldn’t let go. But
in the end, he was no match for God. He knew this. He knew that God could have
ended the match at anytime. And it is the same for each of us. We wrestle with
God when we return to spiritual
When called by God, my spiritual
ancestors, like the patriarch Abraham did physically, moved from where they
dwelt mentally as sons of disobedience to the land of promise where they lived
as spiritual Judeans. The Apostle Paul tells us that this is how Peter taught
Gentile converts to live (Gal 2:14 — the passage is usually poorly
translated into English). But my immediate ancestors left
If I didn’t lose, I would be a tare.
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