Bread and Stone

The interplay between the terms bayt and heykal in biblical Hebrew is simple. So simple that it can be explained to a child. A heykal is a building made of stone that serves as both a temple and a palace for the king. The writers of the old TV series Stargate SG1 got the basic premise correct: people are fooled into worshiping their leaders as gods—and the bloody Pharaohs didn’t even have to be aliens. Just ordinary humans. That’s how gullible we are. Wear some flashy gold bling; execute a few poor people; build a shiny tower with your name on it, and everyone thinks you are the bomb. In contrast, the term bayt can refer either to a constructed house or a household, as in the biblical bayt ab, the Father’s house, filled with flesh-and-blood sons and daughters. In Ezekiel and Isaiah, instead of having land and a capital city with a building constructed by men, Yahweh, your Elohim posits himself as the only point of reference for his household, the bayt ab, which looks nothing like anything of human construction, let alone the houses we build.It is so simple. Yet we persist in pushing against it. It is so simple, yet we still insist on our own agendas and human dynasties because deep down inside, we love Pharaoh and want to be like him.“Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.”It’s the people, not the steeple. Even your Anglo-Saxon nursery rhymes are more honest than your false teachings and your lying teachers. Thank God that Scripture cannot hear you. Thank God that in the story of Scripture, Jesus did not listen to the Devil. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:3-4 (Episode 491)

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