Selah.

The kinds of drugs and psychedelics we’ll be looking at are the kind that give a user a “trip” and often, because of feelings of euphoria or enlightenment, create a desire to experience the trip again. Trips, in particular, are often described by feelings of euphoria, oneness, enlightenment, and sometimes even voices, beings, angels, or even demons, who sometimes even communicate.

We start with, perhaps, an easy one, a topic that is not a difficulty for most to permit but is likely a difficulty for most to justify. How does smoking fit into the New Covenant moral order, or the Old Covenant Law and Prophets, for that matter? It doesn’t seem to be related, at all.

We’ll begin with some hopefully easy moral choices to ensure that we are rightly oriented so that we set off in the right direction. In each of the Ten Commandments, it is trivially seen how we fulfill Love God and neighbour, as we are obeying God’s command and treating our neighbour as we would like to be treated.

Universal patterns are descriptions of reality as such and how reality and being play out fractally at every level. Their value is not just in showing us how reality plays out but in showing which patterns produce optimal results. one you see them, you can’t unsee them.

It took much uncomfortable rumination and discussion for the Church in Jerusalem to settle on the requirements for the new Gentile Churches. For the Christian Jews, it must have been extremely displacing to agree to a belief which would no longer follow the Old Covenant Law…

Before we get into the meat of things, we must get our heads around one thing: The New Covenant is simpler than the Old Covenant but it is also far more demanding. We are to judge angels, remember

This is going to get uncomfortable. There are existential ramifications coming into the fullness of the New Covenant. Speaking to Jewish converts, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” (John 8:31). These Jewish converts were still struggling to let go of the idea that they needed the Old Covenant Law to live rightly before God.

I see a time coming when most, even Christians, will lose confidence in our ability to make sense of Christian morality in the ways that we have done so up until now. We find ourselves in a position where we want to defend Christianity, again, but we have lost confidence in in our ability to justify it. This, I see, is the challenge for the next era of Christianity. It is a challenge to which I believe I can offer a vision for a path forward.

As outside observers, who are of different cultures than either of the parties in conflict, it is admittedly difficult to know how we should respond. Israel is justified in wanting to eliminate Hamas while Gazans are caught in-between and are justified in wanting peace and protection. How, then, should a Christian respond? This is my attempt at looking at the conflict through the lens of the principles of the New Covenant.

This is a cheatsheet of notes I’ve been taking and practicing in my own fitness journey. My goals are not to get jacked but to be generally fit and capable, lose weight, decrease overly high BMI, and reduce body fat percentage. Here’s what’s been of help to me on this journey.