Nashville Jubilee 99 - The Wineskin Creed of Error

update with Randy Harris Post Modernism

A popular theme of the book, The Second Incarnation, feeds Jubilee 99 and the church of Christ model of the WineSkin Movement. Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris claim that wine was Jesus' symbol of the gospel and kingdom. If neither kingdom nor gospel has fully developed it is because the wine is still bubbling. That is, Jesus put the impure fruit of the vine in a wineskin and it began to bubble and churn. It is still not yet ready for prime time. By supplying a new wineskin the sparkling in the cup gospel has room to develop to its full potential. This can only happen when the billy goat skin is big enough to hold everyone.

In trying to pare the Apple off the Core of essential truty, Rubel Shelly helped unite with musical churches at Abilene Christian University. He mentioned drinking wine as a second order doctrinal truth seven times. See a similar attack upon non-musical churches

First, we should note that churches of Christ are not organized as a denomination; each congregation is independant and therefore able to carry out the mandate of Christ to the local community by the use of local "body members." This body has no ambition outside of its sphere of influence unless it is evangelistic. This is the "yeast" or "leaven" model which Jesus established. That is, the church is not a giant tree with one "father" in control. The yeast model is like that of a mushroom: when it is mature and someone steps upon it it explodes and sends out spores into all the world. Each spore or little plant is able to plant itself on "foreign" soil and create another "mushroom."

The wineskin model is that the church is an outmoded "wineskin" not able to hold the ferment of pluralism. Pluralism or "undenominational" translates: we will take anyones money. In order for a second incarnation to take place someone (why not me) must provide Christ another wineskin so that He can ferment or rot.

This article is an attempt to look at some of the Biblical and historical evidence which may shed light on the sincere effort to bring churches of Christ away from just Sunday rituals to a fuller model of the indwelling Christ visible to the watching world. We believe that the considerable skills of the many movers and shakers could better be spent in just planting and watering and turning God loose to give the increase.

I am sure that being a preacher is frustrating. The "brethren and sisteren" are anxious for numbers and never allow Jesus to remove the burden which is defined as "spiritual anxiety from religious ritual." New creed writers, like most of us, are frustrated over the churches where we have to ask: "Church or Cave of the Bear Clan?" We are anxious because we expect the kingdom to come or to be saved by some effort of our own. We remember an earlier experience where Jesus warned us not to go out to the cities, the religious festivals or the desert:

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said,

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Lk 17:20

Neither shall they say, Lo here or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Lk 17:21

Therefore, the most outrageous judgmentalism is to look at my participation in an organization and judge that I am or am not host to the kingdom of God within my arms-reach.

Often we are so frustrated that we plant and we water and we just can't make the cabbage heads grow, that we try to revive Caneridge and erect Gilgals and call them Eben-ezers. God accused the ancients, often women prophesiers, of conceiving chaff and giving birth to straw. This anxiety is the worst form of legalism. If we are to permit God to do His work we must force everyone into a frenzy of meetings, movements and madness to "press into the kingdom" so that the watching world can see that our literal and symbolic steeple is erected higher than any other in the arena of civic price.

The symbols are: Jubilee, Feast of Tabernacles and the restoration of Passover with its Hallel praises sung with four part harmony instead of recited, is the result of breaking down the walls of the "skin" and allowing foreign leaven to come in.

"Today we tend to value tolerance so highly that we sometimes advocate indifference toward competing religious loyalties. We are likely to sympathize with Solomon's cosmopolitanism, or even with the compromising attitude of Ahab's generation, who hopped back and forth between opposing views. But, as we have seen, Israel's prophets attacked the tolerant syncretism of the time and insisted on a fierce devotion to Yahweh. It has been rightly observed that 'intolerance in religion was not a characteristic of ancient peoples, and was only introduced into Israel by the prophets.' The flame of their conviction was kindled at the ancient sources of Mosaic faith, and burst forth like a consuming fire at a time when the nation was in danger of being engulfed by Canaanite culture." (Anderson, Bernard, Understanding the Old Testament, p. 259).

Because of our knowledge of the ancient, pagan priesthood adopted by many Jews, The Kohan may have received their second incarnation as women.

"all those creatures generated as men who proved themselves cowardly and spent their lives in wrong doing were transformed, at their second incarnation, into women." (Timaeus, 90)

Because churches of Christ have celebrated as they have broken down the walls between the water of the Word, the gospel has turned to wine because the bacteria of Baal has danced its way into the sacred precincts of Christ's Holy Temple.

Revivalism a Sign of Spiritual Lostness

The change agents have also given the church its second incarnation created in the image of their own inability, like the prophets of Baal, to find the lost gods by their singing, lamenting, dancing and playing musical instruments. Didn't most of these revivers "spoil" the kingdom in the first place?

"Evangelicals are beginning to build their theologies around what it means for man to be in the presence of God [rather than around the objective truth of the Word of God].

"Influenced by the wider Christian world, evangelicals who have adopted either a relational (incarnational in his words) approach or a charismatic ("neo-pentecostal") approach to their theology are more and more challenging their fellow believers to

rethink the Gospel from the standpoint of their own experience with it.

Their claim is that traditional evangelical theology is largely irrelevant or inadequate." (MacArthur, John, Charismatic Chaos, p. 45, Zondervan).

The Water of the Gospel or the Blood of Atonement for the Jubilee redemption has received its second incarnation, as among the Jews, as bubbling, fermenting wine not quite ready for prime time.

Jesus said it would be dangerous to try to contain the new, fermenting wine of the gospel of the kingdom of God in the old wineskins of religious tradition." (Shelly - Harris, Second Incarnation, p. 11).

No. Bible 001AAA shows that Jesus said: "Take the pure fruit of the vine, boil it to kill the leaven, put it in a new, sterile wine skin or a ceremonially-pure earthen vessel, exclude the air (build a few walls), keep it cool to keep it from being girlishly giggly, exclude the foreign leaven of Herod or of the Pharisees and it will keep for years." I know that He said that because any Jewish school boy would have learned that, as I did, at my mom's feet pushing me to the wash tubs to clean the leaven out of the old jars. From a university course on winemaking:

"Step Two: SO2 Addition. The main purpose of SO2 addition at this point is to suppress growth of native yeasts and bacteria, most of which are very sensitive to sulfur dioxide."

The fermenting gospel and kingdom is a slick way to deny that Christ finished the work He came to do. This is classic premillenialism:

"That new bags were used in order to resist the expansive force of the carbonic acid gas generated by fermentation. This explanation necessarily admits that the new wine had not yet fermented; for, if it had been fermented, the old bottles would suit just as well as the new; but the new, it is pleaded, were required to resist the force of fermentation. They thus concede that the new wine had not yet fermented." (Patton, p. 78-78)

However: "Chambers, says: 'The force of fermenting wine is very great, being able, if closely stopped up, to burst through the strongest cask.' What chance would a goat-skin have?" (Patton, p. 79).

"The new bottles or skins, being clean and perfectly free from all ferment (and air), were essential for preserving the fresh unfermented juice,

not that their strength might resist the force of fermentation,

but, being clean and free from fermenting matter, and closely tied and sealed, so as to exclude the air,

the wine would be preserved in the same state in which it was when put into the skins." (Patton, p. 79)

"When it is desired to preserve a quantity in the sweet state, an amphora was taken and coated with pitch within and without; it was filled with the mustum lixivium and corked so at to be perfectly air-tight." (Smith, Greek and Roman Antiquities)

Vine shows that this is an ancient, borrowed, pattern which has always been popular and pops up on the Internet quite often. However, it is based on a total misunderstanding of Scripture which assuredly is not in demand around most churches:

"that the kingdom of heaven is likened to leaven, does not mean that the Kingdom is leaven. The same statement, as made in other parables, show that it is the whole parable which constitutes the similitude of the Kingdom; the history of Christendom confirms the fact that the pure meal of the doctrine of Christ has been adulterated with error."

"Leaven was forbidden in all offerings to the Lord by fire, (Lev. 2:11; 6:17). Being bred of corruption and spreading through the mass of that in which it is mixed, and therefore symbolizing the pervasive character of evil, leaven was utterly inconsistent in offerings which typified the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ." (Vine, Leaven, p. 667).

A WineSkins Gospel produces Poison

By breaking down the walls and taking the "wine" out of the "skin" Christ put the gospel into, the change agent of 10,000 yeast types will automatically be included, oxygen will be let in to kindle the fires of fermentation, the new wine might by accident taste good for three or four days but it will turn to vinegar or poison and it can kill you.

"We must bear in mind that there is a success, which, by fermenting, would make to itself a vires out of the must." (Pliny, liber xxii, cap. 24) The translator, F. R. Lees, says that "the strainer (saccus) separates the gluten; for in no other way can it break the forces, the fermenting power."

Modern Jewish school boys still understand that the bread cannot be pure because it is made from a new wine fermenting process.

"Change and newness did not end with his arrival. The wine is still fermenting. Tired forms will not work with an exuberant message. The deep ruts of customary practice are not adequate to be a highway of holiness. The gospel he left to inform and empower his church is 'a new and living way'. (Rubel Shelly - Randy Harris, Second Incarnation, p. 11).

The writer of the Book of Jubilees felt that the kingdom was already "fermenting" up to 200 years before Messiah Came. This may explain Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris saying that the "fermenting" did not end with the arrival of Christ. The festival of Jubilees involved an Old Covenant Day of Atonement looking forward to the time Messiah would come and complete the process. A modern Jubilee sends the terrible, but attractive, affect image that we are still waiting for the gospel and kingdom.

In this new, yet ancient, gospel Jesus seems to have failed to complete the gospel but it is still fermenting. Perhaps we are testing Jesus by your "pattern" and my "paradigm" and failing to ask whether the least of our flock found Jesus incarnated in a poor woman just looking for a cup of cold water -- or some Spiritual water. This paves the way to say that His kingdom has not arrived --

"The wine is the bubbling, churning gospel. It is the ever-arriving-yet-never-fully-realized-on-Earth kingdom of God. It is the powerful presence of the Spirit of God among believers. The wineskins are the points of contact between the wine and culture. They are the forms and programs we maintain, the organizations and institutions, or the patterns and procedures... (Shelly - Harris, Second Incarnation, p. 11).

If you break down the walls or open the wine skin between the church and its culture (that's the source of leaven) it will surely begin to ferment with halal (self praise) but not the quiet reading of Psalms.

I am not sure that wine will put you on the "highway to holiness,"

"Sour old wine is an abomination, praise it as a man will; the sweet new wine of Jesus remains sweet forever, it is changeless in its purity and excellence, beyond the praise of even those who realize this" (Lenski, Commentary on Luke, p. 320).

The Jews and New Wineskins

The ancient Jewish women built a wall between the crushed grapes and the new wine skins:

"The ancients filtered their wines repeatedly before they could have fermented, and thus the (leaven) which nourish the strength of the wine being taken away, they rendered the wine itself more liquid, weaker, lighter, and more PLEASANT to drink." (Delphian commentary on Horace, Book 1, Ode 17).

"The way to preserve new wine, in the state of must, is to put it up in very strong but small casks, firmly closed on all sides, by which means it will be kept from fermenting. But if it should happen to fall into fermentation, the only way to stop it is by the fumes of sulphur." (Patton, p. 39-40).

"The Lacedaemonians (Spartans) used to boil their wines upon the fire until the fifth part was consumed; then after four years were expired began to drink them." (Grecian Archaeology, Vol. 2, Pg 364, Potter)

"Wine is rendered OLD or feeble in strength when it is frequently filtered. The strength or spirit being thus excluded, the WINE neither inflames the brain or infests the mind and the passions and is much MORE PLEASANT to drink." (Plutarch, Symposium).

Fermentation, according to Jewish sources shows why a fermenting worship lead by musical worship teams takes place:

"Occurs faster in a vessel which isn't full: Bava Metzia 44a

Cold water halts/slows leavening: Pesachim 48b

Once someone drinks from the cup, it is not usable: Pesachim 105b, 106a

Blaspheming Jesus as a Wine Skin Merchant

"those who charge Jesus with manufacturing intoxicants are "eager to mar, if by any means they could, the image of a perfect Holiness, which offends and rebukes them." (Lenski quoting Trench)

"This is one of the most misunderstood, and misrepresented passages in the whole of the Gospels...The misunderstanding has arisen from imposing upon the ancient Greek text, and ancient Jewish habits of food and drink, and relying entirely upon the modern and Northern European conception, that the word 'wine' always means intoxicating liquor." Quoted by J. L. Kachelman, Jr. (unpublished paper)

Vine states what has always been the fact. Fermentation was a sign of evil and was not allowed for anything connected with religion. Therefore, to charge Jesus with introducing a fermenting wine gospel is to display a total misunderstanding of the Biblical parable or history:

"In the Holy Land they do not commonly use fermented wines. The best wines are preserved sweet and unfermented." In reference to their customs at their religious festivals, he repeatedly and emphatically said: 'The Jews do not, in their feasts for sacred purposes, including the marriage feast, ever use any kind of fermented drinks. In their oblations and libations, both private and public, they employ the fruit of the vine--that is, fresh grapes -- unfermented grape - juice, and raisins, as the symbol of benediction. Fermentation is to them a symbol of corruption, as in nature and science it is itself decay, rottenness'." (Dr. S. M. Issacs, a Jewish rabbi of the last century, quoted by Patton, p. 83).

Wine was often just unfermented juice unless the effect is drunkenness. However, fermented wine was really strong drink because it could intoxicate as a poison:

"Many Jewish writers say that the word here translated strong drink was meant nothing more than old wine, which probably had the power of producing intoxication" (Albert Barnes, Commentary on Luke 1:15).

If this is true, and there is a lot of evidence, then to suggest that the gospel and kingdom is a fermenting wine produced by God Incarnate is to claim that Jesus produced a strong drink religion.

Not to worry. It will still work for most people as Joseph Campbell says, "Until the mind kicks in."

Change Agents Add New Wine Skins At Passover

The new wine skin religion of Jubilee 99 has no foundation in Scripture. Rather, it is based upon the tradition of the elders which Jesus condemned. Yeast in bread, which came from wine, was absolutely prohibited when the Passover was observed:

"For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. Exo 12:19

Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread." Exo 12:20

"Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. "The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning. Exo 23:18

"There is no mention of wine in connection with Passover in the Pentateuch; but the Mishna strictly enjoins that there should not be less than 4 cups. Two of these are mentioned in Lk. 22:17,20. 'The cup of blessing' I Cor 10:16 is probably the latter of these." (Smith's Dictionary of the Bible).

To get out of Egypt the Israelites had to rise above the Egyptian forms of religion. However, later Jews corrupted the Passover to make it into a literal wineskins Passover. For instance, there was "the tradition of the clergy" and there was the teaching by Jesus. They always differed radically. The tradition of some of the Rabbis was that:

"a man is bound to get so drunk with wine at Purim as not to know the difference between, 'Cursed is Naaman and Blessed is Mordecai.'" (Talmud, Megillah 2:7)

But Jesus said that they were self-promoters, did more harm than good and "took away the key to knowledge." Music can have the same effect.

Wine was NOT used in the celebration of the Passover until Hellenistic times. Then, among the spiritually minded, it must be "boiled" wine or fresh from the vat. The faithful Jews understood this because--

"It may be possible that the use of wine replaced an earlier custom of offering blood; however this may be, wine was often treated as if it were blood,

and was thus poured out at the base of the altar (See Ecclus. 50:15; cf. Jos. Antiq. III.ix.4).

Therefore, the winekins gospel is based on a legalistic, bloody ritual which had already been replaced with wine. Shelly wants the church to bubble or "exhilarate" and others identify a live church as filled with joyful praise the Lords. However, if the wine is poured out at the altar it could have no intoxicating effect upon the sober worshiper.

Jesus is our Passover, His blood has been poured out at the base of the Altar in the True Tabernacle. Therefore, to observe any Jewish ritual is to deny the power of Jesus Christ and therefore to deny the power of God Who dwelled within.

Wine At Passover A Symbol of Bitterness and Slavery

Just as the celebration of Passover, Jubilee with the Day of Atonement and restored Levitical musical worship teams is living proof of the restoration of the worst sort of legalism: trying to find the lost gods and kingdom with music and ecstasy which will sexually attract them to "come to your offering like hungry flys." Passover and wine was connected by Jews who knew that their kingdom had already been lost as they broke down the walls:

"Modern Jews do not waste it. However, it is a symbol of the bitter slavery in Egypt. The wine is used much like a cooking wine where the alcohol content is highly diluted:

Maror: Bitter Herbs

"A blessing is recited over a bitter vegetable (usually raw horseradish; sometimes romaine lettuce), and it is eaten. This symbolizes the bitterness of slavery. The maror is eaten with charoses, a mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine,

which symbolizes the mortar used by the Jews in building during their slavery.

Sober Jews Rejected the Wineskins Rituals

Any reader who has not gone beyond redemption and had their eyes and ears closed understands that Jesus did not make the gospel and kingdom into a fermenting wine in new wineskins pattern. Yes, they accused Him of being a winebibber but He denied it!

The Incarnate God of the universe knows as much as the local highway patrolman who will put you in jail for being as drunk as some are as the result of charismatic preaching and loud, mind-altering vocal or instrumental music.

"The law forbade seor--yeast, ferment, whatever could excite fermentation--and khahmatz, whatever had undergone fermentation, or been subject to the action of seor." (Patton 85).

"The great mass of the Jews have ever understood this prohibition as extending to fermented wine, or strong drink, as well as to bread. The word is essentially the same which designates the fermentation of bread and that of liquors." (Patton)

The Wineskin Parable of Idolatry

Wine was never God's symbol of His rule. The Jews added wine, music and a lot more. However, it is clear that they were fulfilling their demand to worship like the nations.

"The restrictions on grape products derive from the laws against using products of idolatry. Wine was commonly used in the rituals of all ancient religions, and wine was routinely sanctified for pagan purposes while it was being processed. For this reason, use of wines and other grape products made by non-Jews was prohibited. (Whole grapes are not a problem, nor are whole grapes in fruit cocktail).

Note: there is even a remedy for a priest who ate grape seed!

"For the most part, this rule only affects wine and grape juice. This becomes a concern with many fruit drinks or fruit-flavored drinks, which are often sweetened with grape juice. You may also notice that it is virtually impossible to find kosher baking powder, because baking powder is made with cream of tartar, a by-product of wine making."

Wine Dilution: See Shabbos 77a

Strong Date Liquor is delicious at first, but painful in digestion: Pesachim 107a

Drinking Liquor instead of Wine is Wasteful: Shabbos 140b

Wine of a place named "Perogaisa" is of extra-fine quality; its addictive power helped seduce the Exiled Ten Tribes from the Mitzvos: Shabbos 147b

The End Time Wineskin Trap

It is common to hear those hired to preach the Word begin to make their living by lading on the burden that they can't, after all, uncage the word. We never had any doubt. However, the uncaged wine of the gospel will begin to ferment if we just take it out of its skin and play with it. For instance, Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris claim that:

Changeless divine truth is thus enmeshed in the ever-changing vehicle of human language. Perfect and eternal wisdom is wrapped up in the inferior medium of historical disclosure." (Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris, Second Incarnation, P. 23).

If God's will is enmeshed in an ancient language it is "entrapped, snared or captured." How, then, can anyone hope to untangle God's "mess?" Didn't the ancient wine and music gospels teach that the god is "enmeshed" or "going aside to relieve himself" and is not able to come to us at the moment? Shudder and double shudder! Read the contest between Jezebel's ranting, raving, dancing and music-playing prophets and compare it with the quiet spoken word of Elijah.

This sense of lostness is a sign that the existing order of Pastor Rule over the flock has reached its end prophesied when they divided the church in the first place:

"based on the concept of an organic pattern in the life course of civilization, a morphology of history: the idea that every culture has its period of youth, its period of culmination, its years then of beginning to totter with age and of striving to hold itself together by means of rational planning, projects, and organization, only finally to terminate in decrepitude, petrification... and no more life. Moreover, in this view of Spengler's, we were at present on the point of passing from what he called the period of Culture to Civilization, which is to say, from our periods of youthful, spontaneous, and wonderful creativity to those of uncertainty and anxiety, contrived programs, and the beginning of the end." (Campbell, Joseph, Myths to Live By, p. 84)

Apparently, about everything I read is wrapped up as historical disclosure. If God cannot get around His own creation then we have a problem. The problem seems to be just a new method of "pattern making" when God wishes that we read His letter to us without trying to tear it up to fit our pattern. If it doesn't make a new paradigm which will "bring em back Sunday night, dead or alive" then perhaps we should, as Justin, just read it for hours at a time and "leave the scolding and moralizing to us."

If we read Scripture as a love letter from God and dialoged it for its hidden value, the jots and tittles might become a better paradigm than we might believe. Isn't the Scriptures inferior and trapped only to the pattern-makers and paradigm-plotters? The sense of lostness experienced by scholars who have risen above the overwhelming Biblical illiteracy of most, arises solely because they have lost the lists of absolute dogma which makes the legalism so comforting.

Trying to Find the Lost Kingdom of Christ

Rubel Shelly seems to deny that the kingdom has come. That is, it is still fermenting and we must open up the wineskin or break down the walls to permit the fermenting wine to bubble and produce an inebriating effect on church worship. Revival movements have historically been accompanied with a legalistic lack of faith, the belief that the Messianic age was about to begin, and the certainty that they would help God accomplish what He apparently could not do the first time:

"Borrowing Kung's words again: 'Even though it is not the kingdom of God which is to come, it is already under the reign of God which has begun'; the church anticipates the kingdom by being 'its voice, its announcer, its herald.'" (Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris, Second Incarnation, p. 75)

However, as the Nashville Jubilee was discovered about the time the Pope called for a massive effort to usher in Jubilee 2000, the Dominion Theology movement seems to have given birth to the here but not yet kingdom:

"Followers of DT, like many charismatics, especially the Latter Rain Movement, look for a great end time revival in which the masses will turn to Christ. As a result, DT does not believe in the rapture. According to DT, the world should be, and is becoming, a better place through the efforts of Christians (cf. 2 Thes. 2:1-12). As with many others who follow the teachings of George Ladd, DT believes that we are in the Kingdom age, but the Kingdom in another sense is yet to come. We are in the Kingdom, and have Kingdom authority, but on the other hand, we are ushering in the Kingdom through our efforts. "The Kingdom is now, but not yet," is a popular slogan.

A test of your own role in Dominion Theology is based on your ability to sit down anyone who has ideas and promote programs to validate your worth. This makes one the king of the hill or Billy Goat Gruff. This, too, is as ancient as Babylon where the old gods must be ritually murdered to give room for another dominant but just arrogant ruler.

Everyone wants to see the premillenial kingdom established on earth as it is in heaven. However, Paul said that the kingdom had come and our citizenship is in heaven. The kingdom cannot be found in Nashville, "a city set on seven hills," so don't bother looking.

Like our kids who "couldn't find themselves" and the church of Athens, Paul would say that you don't have to go calling and looking for God because He is not far from any of us. This is what Jesus said:

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Lk 17:20

Neither shall they say, Lo here or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Lk 17:21

Therefore, no one is competent to judge whether the Legalism Church of One Cup is any less the kingdom in their place than the Church of New Wine in their place. We do know what Scripture says and "fermenting wine" or charismatically-induced "joy" is not the pattern.

The Wineskin Musical Worship and Women Entertainers

Wine from the wineskins and women with songs have always signaled the destruction of a nation. This is why it is blasphemy to claim that Jesus manufactured up to 160 gallons of intoxicating wine and fed it to a young woman probably becoming pregnant:

"The prohibition of intoxicating wines to women was enforced by the severest penalties. 'Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others have noticed the hereditary transmission of intemperate propensities, and the legislation that imposed abstinence upon women had unquestionably in view the greater vigor of the offspring--the 'healthy minds in a healthy body.' That indulgence in the use of strong drink by expectant mothers would be injurious to their offspring was known to the learned and wise among the ancients" (Quoted in Temperance Bible Commentary)

This was the Christ-ordained "wineskin." Sarah claimed that the charge of drinking wine accused her of being a "base woman." Women did not get involved with either wine or the theatrical performance of music which was always for the pleasure of the watching men who are enraptured (raped) by the drug-producing music and the exhilaration from the wine skin symbols.

Therefore, another word pointing to the "leap" and ancient music to replace the Word is "unplayable music" --

God is still calling together ragtag orchestras of amateur musicians to play music so great we 'can't quite play it. (Rubel Shelly and Randy Harris, Second Incarnation, P. 15)

There is always a parable or a magical code word to make change without letting you know the meaning of the magical affect image.

Rag = slang, tease, scold, practical joke

Rag-Tag = the lowest classes, rabble, contemptuous term.

Orchestra = The first meaning is "To dance, to rise abruptly, in ancient Greece, the semicircular space for the chorus. To compose or arrange music." The music at Jubilee will be self composed.

Amateur is "one who is not paid but does it for their own pleasure." Professionals need not apply.

This was the dance of the clergy "children playing their own little Jubals" trying to get Jesus to engage in the feminine fertility ritual to triumph over Him. Have you noticed that the only other person who was asked to do this dance asked for the head of John the Baptist?

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. Mt.11:17

Orcheomai (g3738) or-kheh'-om-ahee; (a row or ring); to dance (from the ranklike or regular motion): - dance

And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. Mk.6:22

God through Ezekiel proved that beautiful songs and instruments are defacto proof that we are speaking to ourselves with our own spirit and are not listening to Him. God utterly condemned an older wineskin gospel in Isaiah five. They were keen on wine (mental stimulation) enhanced with music but they died for lack of knowledge about God so that they could know Him.

While God discloses Himself in human languages, it seems that it was only good for one moment in time. "He had to work at a very minimal-for-him level." Why can't the God who made us with a mind communicate with that mind? Isn't this the common theme that God is incapable of disclosing Himself in human languages? "Nevertheless, for a price, I will do it for Him." Didn't Jesus discount His flesh (and certainly our flesh on talented display) and say:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. Jn 6:63

The gospel as "music" which "ragtag" orchestras are called upon to "play the unplayable" makes the same claim that God's truth is hopelessly entrapped because it was revealed in a historical context. This and the belief that the personal, third member of the "god family" literally lives in certain people to give them power to compose their own songs and sermons and then orchestrate them in the "pits" to try to triumph over the paying audience.

Who can say whether good will come from the Nashville Jubilee 99 or the hundreds of similar jubilee 98s held from the dark forests of militia groups to Rome to Jerusalem.

However, we know from history that it is a sign for those who have totally lost their way, their inheritance and are desperately seeking to find it by commingling with the natives.

Kenneth Sublett

Counter added 7.22.05 10a 1808 3.25.13 6000

Nashville Jubilee 99 - The Wineskins Creed of Error