Blog 2023/10/09
▸ ± Re 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Balaam was a prophet who was hired by Balac to curse Israel so that Balac could conquer them. God spoke to Balaam through a donkey warning him that he could not curse Israel, but only bless them. God was on their side. Balaam devised a scheme so that Balac would succeed. If Balac would send in the party girls, Israel would turn their backs on God in favor of the hedonism. The God would allow Balac to succeed.
We have the illusion that the Jews were monotheistic. This was rarely true. God was monotheistic, and it angered him that Israel worshiped false gods. It angered him so much that he says he divorced them. He allowed their enemies to prevail and take them into captivity. That's a nice word for slavery.
God brought them back from slavery and they were allowed to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Many of the Jewish leaders learned two lessons. But they were the wrong lessons.
They thought they needed to keep the law better. They built a hedge around it, making more laws so that they would not accidentally violate God's law. The law said not to work on the Sabbath, so they invented hundreds of laws defining what working on the Sabbath was.
God did not give the law expecting people to be able to keep the law. He gave the law to show them that they were not gods. God's don't lie, steel or covet. Before he created anything, the lamb was slain. He provided a cover before he gave the law that would condemn. God first loved us. Their fault was the same as Adam. They decided to define good and evil for themselves. This propensity to glorify man's reason as a god gained a cult following and later they became known as the Judaisers in Christianity. They infiltrated the church to add works to the gospel.
The second lesson they learned from their captivity was that if God was angry at you, he would not protect you. Israel was conquered by a new enemy; Rome. How do they get rid of Rome? God promised the a savior, but he wasn't coming through. They decided to help themselves. They could send in the party girls, but Rome was already having better parties. God wasn't mad enough at them yet. Maybe lasciviousness wasn't a big enough sin to get God's attention.
Rome was sucking up cultures of the people they conquered. The Jewish leaders did not want the Gentiles to suck up Judaism and maybe find favor with God. No, they were the chosen people. In creating the Old Testament in Greek for them, they salted in subtleties so that they would worship false gods, if they did read the scriptures.
One of the first confusions added was they said 'elohim' was plural but they translated it God rather than gods, except later they translated it gods. Then they translated 'mamonu' as plural when speaking of God, and singular in other places. Those Romans would never figure out how many gods there are. They were already predisposed to worship multiple gods, so they would not feel pressured to change. They would think the Jewish scriptures were confused on the matter.
But God uses what is intended for evil and turns it around for good. Sometimes we have a hard time seeing that. The high priest accusing Jesus declared that it was good for one man to die for many. He was using the saying to justify his murder. God used it to prophecy that Jesus would die for the sins of many.
When people who knew Jesus read the Greek translation, they were not confused about how many gods there were. They saw them as subtle hints of the trinity. It did not lead them after many gods, but revealed to them the nature of God. It only became a debate after the people who knew Jesus died and others, reading just the Greek Septuagint, would take up arguing about it.
This doctrine of Balaam found a cult following. It still exists today. The Jews who wish to keep others out of the 'chosen' group, seed laciviousness and false doctrines of God into the camps of their enemies. Hollywood was founded on the doctrine of Balaam. The 'wholesome' movies with Bob Hope were filled with seeds of fornication hidden in 'romance'. Even classic Bible movies were twisted doctrine. The Exodus was portrayed to be about 'freedom' rather than about God declaring that he alone was God. Christians have bought into the subtlety and regularly recommend the classics as wholesome entertainment.
The doctrine of Balaam is still alive in many churches where having fun is more important than doctrine. Worship is found to be little different than frequency biofeedback designed to give an experience. Lasciviousness is now colored in minority rights. The teaching of the knowledge of God is replaced with self-help and a soft ecumenism declaring that doctrine is not important. Doctrine IS the knowledge of God.
