Chapter 4
(Please read chapters 1–3 for context.)
Reading time: 8 minutes
Life is a gift, and a gift of an answered prayer is minutes away.
So many miscarriages. One stillborn. Like ships sent into the night ocean that never arrived to the waiting arms on a distant shore
They desired nothing more than to have children and to bring good seed onto the hard land. While others decided against bringing children into this cruel life, they saw a new light shining a new hope piercing the night world.
The expectant parents nicknamed their favorite doctor the “great physician.” The best hospital around paused and waited. The best doctors entered room 1776 to observe. The nurses prepared as they gave instructions.
They all knew this birth was going to be different from all the others.
Waves of painful cries came and went like strong ocean waves crashing harder and harder onto the rocks. The waves gained strength. The rocks cracked and seemed to cry out in anticipation.
Then the sun rose above the horizon water, and beautiful entered with a fiery first cry onto a new shore that turned every head outside of the closed birthing room.
Every jaw in the hospital room, except the physician’s, stuck wide open.
No one had ever seen a sun rise through dark storm clouds like this. This one was different from all the others.
The waves ceased.
Amid a pool of blood and everything sprayed red nearby, the great physician pulled the screaming beautiful out and handed her to the parents. Such a great cost paid for new life. So much blood was shed.
After several minutes, the baby stuck her head out of the blanket and said, “Get me another blanket—now.”
No one could move.
The baby girl wiped her face. “Father, Mother, you are no longer needed.”
The baby jumped down, wrapped herself in a small towel, and walked through the door. She waved to those at the nursing station as if waving a pesky fly away and said, “Bill my parents for everything. It’s their fault.”
She walked out of the hospital with a college diploma. A few steps later, she glanced at her latest investment portfolio statements and laughed. She saw a crowd and took a selfie with them, then pushed the admirers caressing her car out of the way and stepped into her Saturday car. She sped away in her self-driving car and spoke her message into the car to launch a message to her parents’ voicemail.
“I have ordered my lawyers to take all you have and to replace your name with mine. You now do not exist.”
Who could fathom these scenes ever happening?
Do we laugh? Do we shake our heads? Do we weep?
Can a baby rule and claim dominion over her parents?
In an article in The Founders’ Bible, entitled “The Ten Commandments: The Moral Law for Nations,” David Barton wrote about different spheres of jurisdiction outlined in the Bible. I would like to look at these and add some other thoughts that are pertinent to today.
There are different spheres of governance. The order of appearance moves from
1. God,
2. the individual,
3. the family,
4. civil government,
5. the church.
God is different from the spheres, as He alone is Creator, Father, and intimately involved in and rules over every sphere. It is His Story—He designed all parts of it—and as the Author, He can determine for himself His role in each sphere.
After God created a physical home for the stage of the unfolding Story, God created Adam and Eve and set them apart from the rest of creation as individuals. They were not like the earth, or the animals, or the plants. They were God’s offspring and His children.
As individuals, Adam and Eve united and participated in the next sphere and together started the first family of the human race.
Over time, through His children, God started the civil government sphere to play its role in governing over communities of individuals and their families.
God desired a deeper relationship between Himself and His children. He gave instructions for worship and utilized the tabernacle, temple, and the church to interact and live with His children.
God gave instructions for the spheres He created through His POV.
Each component was separate yet related to each other in the overall purpose of the telling.
He sometimes gave the same instructions for all of the spheres and other times for an individual sphere and not others. Barton provides examples, such as God not giving the individual the authority to wield the sword of civil justice to enact a society’s laws against those who break the law. An individual should not be a vigilante one-person police force. God gave the authority to wield the sword of justice to the civil government.
Churches were not given the government’s authority. The local church down your street should not have the authority to utilize the sword of justice to kill lawbreakers or to make treaties with other countries for their country. God gave that authority to the government.
The government was not given the authority to teach children family values. The government was not given authority to ground a family’s teenage daughter because she did not do her homework. God gave that authority to the parents.
The government was not given the directive to teach the Bible and equip the believers. God gave that authority to the individual, family, and those in the temple/church.
God gives roles, and when those in a sphere act outside of the authority given to them, things will go wrong.
A survey of history bears this out. The church engaging in war against citizens, or with another nation, or a government acting out a convenient state religion, are examples. A government preventing the church from worshiping God would be another all-too-common occurrence.
With God’s instructions for the different spheres, we see into part of God’s playbook for the preparation of the soil for the planting of His seed so His children can grow and thrive.
The other Story also gives us great insight into the playbook of the Adversary. In the garden, Satan seduced Adam and Eve into questioning God’s role and the sphere of the individual. Satan seduced them into believing their role was too limited and they could assume God’s POV and expand their sphere of jurisdiction into all the other spheres, like God.
This highlights Satan’s strategies against the children of God. Seduce, lie, and convince the human race of a switch from God’s POV and Story to one of our convenient choosing.
We are convinced to act beyond our appointed jurisdiction, essentially to pervert or do the opposite of God’s instructions and principles.
In our present and future course living the story we have been told, we will never get the roles right.
Through most of my education, most of the media, through almost every Hollywood production, to most of our politics, we have been trained to believe there is no God with full jurisdiction in the spheres of the individual, family, government, and even in many churches. Can we ever expect our future to be different from our history when we don’t know God and His various roles for us? Should we be surprised to see collectivism’s belief of the collective always over the individual and different convenient human-made definitions of God and all His spheres?
With insights into both stories’ playbooks, can we discern what is happening today in the battle for power? Can we even use these insights to predict future attempts of the abuse of our freedoms?
The characters within the spheres, created with specific roles in the Story, are seduced into believing they can usurp the Author.
It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Author and His Story.
And eventually might makes right.
But does might make right?
Through God’s POV, could we look like entitled, spoiled little babies convinced that we can steal all of God’s creation and claim and rule over it all as our own? I don’t know about you, but that makes me shake my head, laugh, and cry all at the same time.
Can God resist evil?
If God cannot stop evil, our track record begs the question: What chance do we have to resist and eliminate evil? What authority and success do we have of permanently eliminating racism and slavery? Is it safer to ignore the playbooks and just sit on the sidelines, watching us commit injustices against each other?
There has to be more to the Story.
We’ll talk about that next time.
Raise up the other Story,
Charles Anthony Solorio
The Author determines His roles for His Story.
top photo credit Erin Agius, Unsplash
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I write nonfiction (my blog) and fiction (The New Seed series) to learn and share insights into the other Story we all live in. Tell others about the blog. Meet me at charlesanthonysolorio.com to learn more and to receive part of the novella, New Seed and Hard Ground, for free if you sign up for my email list.
See you there.
