12/31/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

We continue our series on the the seven signs that Jesus performed which are related in the Gospel of John. If you have just now joined us, we recommend reading the following for additional context:

1. Changing water into wine
2. Healing of the Official’s son
3. Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: parts I and II,
4. The Feeding of the 5000, and
5. A hard teaching at Capernaum, Jesus walks on water

Additionally, we encourage you to subscribe to or bookmark The Mint for updates as we move through this important series.

As expected, the intensity is building as we approach the sixth sign. We have stated here before that the disciple John, who witnessed perhaps more of Jesus’ miracles than anyone else during his earthly ministry, chose to include these seven miracles in his Gospel because, through them, we would be able to see Jesus as he had seen Him, as the Messiah, YHWH come to dwell among us.

After the feeding of the 5000 at Bethsaida and Jesus’ subsequent four mile walk on top of a stormy Sea of Galilee to join them in their fishing boat, His disciples, save John, who already knew, suspected that He was someone very special. The crowds who followed Him were also becoming aware that Jesus was no ordinary rabbi or prophet, and the speculation surrounding Him was increasing.

Also increasing was the ire of the Jewish religious authorities who saw Jesus as a direct threat not only to their religious system, but to the fragile Jewish state which they imagined that they had carved out through a series of compromises with Rome.

Jesus’ open declarations that He is YHWH served as the blunt instrument that the religious authorities used against Him in their religious courts. However, in order to kill Him, which was fast becoming their ultimate solution, they needed to employ the Roman capital punishment apparatus, as the Romans would not allow the Jewish authorities to execute anyone for obvious reasons. When it comes to Empire, the authority to kill must lie solely with the central authority.

Sukkot and the days of awe

Under these circumstances, Jesus announced that He would not attend the upcoming Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), or Sukkot, the Jewish Festival which follows Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, which was the holiest day of the year. Jesus’ initial reluctance to attend the Feast, and ultimate decision to attend, has great significance, both for our understanding of the sixth sign and for Jesus’ future second coming.

As you may recall, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, marks a new beginning. The Jews believe that on this day the fate of each person for the upcoming year is written by YHWH in the Book of Life. The days (approximately 9) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, known as the the days of awe, are spent in deep reflection, fasting, and prayer. It is a time of confession and repentance, it is a time of recognition that we are but dust, yet infinitely precious in YHWH’s sight.

The Jews believe that the fate which is written on Rosh Hashanah is then sealed by YHWH on Yom Kippur, at which point the Feast of Booths begins. It is our speculation that Jesus made the decision to ultimately attend the Feast of Booths to symbolically seal His fate. He would give His life for humanity on the upcoming Passover.

Yom Kippur is regarded as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, as such, it is only appropriate that the Jewish leaders who were looking for a reason to kill Him, would carefully observe Jesus in hopes of catching Him breaking their observance of the Sabbath.

The decision to go to Jerusalem

Jesus finally left the Galilee and went to Jerusalem, which was abuzz with rumors regarding Him, in secret.. We are told by John that Jesus began to publicly teach in the Temple in the midst of the feast, which we may assume was after Yom Kippur.

The Pool Siloam Map and the Temple in Jersusalem

With each man’s fate sealed for the upcoming year, the speculation surrounding Jesus erupted upon His appearance. Jesus began to publicly expose the hypocrisy of the religious leaders by openly questioning them as to why they were trying to kill Him, if indeed they agreed that He did the works of YHWH? A straightforward question which was met with accusations that He was a lunatic.

Still, we are told that many believed in Jesus on that day.

That night, rather than staying in Jerusalem, Jesus went up to the mount of Olives, a place that was to have great significance for Him just six months later.

The next morning, Jesus returned to the Temple to teach and finds Himself in the midst of the now famous incident regarding the woman caught in adultery. This incident, which John relates in Chapter 8:1-11, is revolutionary as, with one simple phrase, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” Jesus shares with them YHWH’s opinion as to what, on the surface, appeared to be a sentence carried out in His name.

For Jesus was making it known that apart from righteousness, “Go and sin no more,” YHWH requires us to forgive the trespasses of others.

Jesus then openly declares that He is God’s son, the Messiah, and further observes that the religious Jews do not even know YHWH, the God they purported to worship through their ceremonies and rituals. He then begins to offer all freedom from sin in His name.

Naturally, this further offended the religious Jews, who believed that, as they had made it through Yom Kippur, they were once again right with God for the upcoming year. Being told that they were in sin and did not know God went against everything they believed. As such, the rhetoric between them and Jesus became more contentious.

So violent was the debate that the religious Jews, some of whom had just set down their stones in recognition of their own unworthiness and God’s mercy, picked them up again, intending to stone Jesus.

Jesus then did what any peacemaker would do, he left the Temple.

However, this was not the end of the matter, for at the Feast of Booths, which Jesus was at first going to forgo attending, many were to come to know and believe in Him as the Son of the Living God, the Messiah.

The Blind man and the pool of Siloam, the sixth sign

Jesus had not gotten far when He and His disciples came across a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples, who were still trying to recover from years of religious abuse, dared to ask Him a question, one that they must have been anxious to ask for some time. Pointing to the blind man, they asked:

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?”

When one grows up in, or worse, is formally trained up in a religious system, it is natural to attempt to understand all natural phenomenon through a lens of obedience. If something goes wrong, or is not as it “should be,” it must be because someone has made God upset. As such, if we can understand what made God upset, we can hope to avoid upsetting God in the future. If we did this enough, everyone would understand what God expected and be able to do it. Armed this this knowledge, diseases such as blindness could be cured within a generation Conversely, the existence of such diseases means that the diseased have failed to please God and therefore deserve to live with their punishment.

This is how the many of the Jews, indeed, much of humanity, of the day thought. It is a scientific thought process which is the hallmark of a religious system. It is what Jesus came into the world to destroy.

To this question, Jesus replied:

“either did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

What is unique about the sixth sign, among other things, is that the man who was healed did not ask Jesus to do anything for Him. Indeed, as He was blind, and may not even have known that Jesus was near Him. It is significant that Jesus chose to heal the man in that instant to teach His disciples that the religious/scientific thought process they were using was invalid.

Here is what happened as it is related by John in chapter 9, verses 1-16 of his Gospel:

¹As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³Jesus answered, “Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him. ⁴ I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, ⁷and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing. ⁸The neighbors therefore, and those who saw that he was blind before, said, “Isn’t this he who sat and begged?” ⁹Others were saying, “It is he.” Still others were saying, “He looks like him.”

He said, “I am he.” ¹⁰They therefore were asking him, “How were your eyes opened?”

¹¹He answered, “A man called Jesus made mud, anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received sight.”

¹²Then they asked him, “Where is he?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

¹³They brought him who had been blind to the Pharisees. ¹⁴It was a Sabbath when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵Again therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, I washed, and I see.”

¹⁶Some therefore of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was division among them. ¹⁷Therefore they asked the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”

He said, “He is a prophet.”

As the man was not seeking Jesus, we can divine that he was not able to exercise faith, as those who had sought Jesus out in the earlier signs had done. The man’s healing depended upon his willingness to obey the command of Jesus to wash in the pool of Siloam.

The pool of Siloam, or Shiloh, was located outside of the city walls. It took a certain amount of discipline for the man to walk away from the entrance to the Temple, past any number of opportunities to wash the mud from his eyes, and to finally wash in the pool of Siloam. However, in doing so, He gained not only his sight, but played an important, and perhaps unwitting role in further exposing the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders.

For rather than marvel that the man’s sight had been restored, the Jewish religious leaders chose to lament the fact that he had been healed on the Sabbath, and declared that the man who was healed was born in sin. An extremely mature stance which must have made the man who could now see chuckle at their infantile reaction and seek out the true source of life, Jesus, whom he promptly confessed once Jesus found him, this time with his eyes open, looking for the Messiah.

The significance of the pool of Siloam

It is also significant that Jesus asked the man to wash in the pool of Siloam. The pool of Siloam was a stone, man made pool which held water which had been diverted from the Gihon spring, Jerusalem’s natural water source, via Hezekiah’s tunnel, which was presumably constructed before the year 701 BCE underneath the City of David.

Hezekiah ordered the tunnel, which at the time was an engineering marvel, to be built in preparation for an imminent invasion of Judah by the Assyrian army. While Jerusalem sits on cliffs and is naturally well defended, the Gihon spring was distinctly vulnerable, leaving the cities water supply an easy target in the vent of a siege. Hezekiah had the spring capped off and the water supply diverted covertly, via his tunnel, to an more defensible position. This position was the pool of Siloam.

It is not coincidental that the pool is mentioned by Isaiah, as we believe that Isaiah and John are kindred spirits.

Isaiah mentions the pool in chapters 8:6, where it is referred to as the “waters of Shiloah,” and in 22:9. The word Shiloh in Hebrew means “gift” or “he who is sent.” It is also charged with meaning in light of the prophecy revealed in Genesis 49:10:

“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. To him will the obedience of the peoples be.”

Jesus did not simply send the man away to the pool of Siloam on a whim, a detail that was not lost on John, who saw, as I hope we all do, that everything that Jesus did was charged with divine significance.

As the water from the Gihon spring in Hezekiah’s time, the spiritual fount had been covered at the Temple and was diverted to Shiloah, the pool of Siloam, so that all may drink and be filled.

Later, Jesus would say that He had come so that the blind may see, and that those with sight may become blinded. He performed the sixth sign as a living reminder of this truth, and it was not lost on John, or any of those who had witnessed it.

Let it not be lost on us either, as we enter an important new year, full of hope and thanksgiving.

Stay tuned for the seventh sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 31, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.58
Oil Price per Barrel: $91.82
Corn Price per Bushel: $6.98
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.76%
FED Target Rate: 0.17% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,675
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,104
M1 Monetary Base: $2,407,600,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,491,100,000,000

Events, Politics

JFK on peace

December 29, 2012 David Mint

Bible Teaching, Forgiveness, Jesus, John: The Seven Signs, Teaching, The Mint

A hard teaching at Capernaum, Jesus walks on water: The fifth sign

December 28, 2012 David Mint

12/28/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today, we continue our series on the seven signs that Jesus performed which are related in the Gospel of John. If you have just now joined us, we recommend reading the following posts:

Changing water into wine, Healing of the Official’s son, the Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: parts I and II, and The Feeding of the 5000 for additional context, as well as bookmarking or subscribing to The Mint for updates as we move through this important series.

As we observed yesterday, in feeding the 5000, Jesus was not simply solving a large-scale logistical problem, He was leading the crowd and His disciples into his most profound and divisive teaching yet:

The He is the bread of life.

This teaching was so profound that two of the signs which John recorded are associated with it. The feeding of the 5000 at Bethsaida and the sign that we will explore today, Jesus’ walking on water.

After the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, the people had tried to make Jesus King by force, and we can imagine that they may have openly discussed mounting a revolution. While those who were against Jesus believed these types of rumors, and ultimately used them to persuade the Romans to use their capital punishment apparatus against Him, the rumors were without basis.

As His Disciples would find out later, Jesus had no interest in becoming King of the Jews, the title which Pontius Pilate placed upon the cross where Jesus was crucified. Jesus’ sole aim was to bring the Kingdom of YHWH into the hearts of everyone.

For this reason, Jesus departed when the crowd began to plan a revolution on His behalf. They weren’t getting it. The kingdoms of men are less than nothing in the eyes of YHWH, they are, in fact, His mortal enemy. What use is an earthly kingdom to the One by whom all was created?

Jesus’ disciples were perplexed by this, so much so that, when evening came and Jesus did not appear, they decided to get into the boat and head to Capernaum. Little did they know, they were about to witness the fifth sign which John would later choose to relate in Chapter 6:16-21, for it was the first sign in which Jesus clearly revealed his divine nature:

¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷and they entered into the boat, and were going over the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them. ¹⁸The sea was tossed by a great wind blowing. ¹⁹When therefore they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia, they saw Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing near to the boat; and they were afraid. ²⁰But he said to them, “It is I AM, Don’t be afraid.” ²¹They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat. Immediately the boat was at the land where they were going.

By walking, yes, walking, on the surface of the Sea of Galilee from the shore below Bethsaida to a boat that was twenty-five or thirty stadia, which in today’s measures would be 5 to 6 kilometers or 3 to 4 miles, almost at its destination in Capernaum, Jesus allowed His Disciples to witness something that many, save John, had not completely understood before that moment:

That Jesus is YHWH

In the book of Job, chapter 9, verse 8, Job declares the following regarding YHWH:

He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.

However, in a moment of panic, the Disciples may not have been quick to make this connection. Jesus’ salutation, “It is I AM,” was what nailed this truth home for them.

It is interesting that John does not focus on the fact that they thought Jesus was a ghost, nor on Peter’s failed attempt to walk towards Jesus through the waves, as Matthew did. For John knew it was Jesus, and to him, Peter’s failed attempt to walk on the waves was not significant, for he knew that Jesus would save Peter.

John’s laser focus on the Messiah caused him to focus on something entirely different.

Ani hu and Ego eimi

Jesus’ salutation in John 6:20 allows us to highlight something astonishing about the Gospel of John. John’s intentional use of the Greek phrase “Ego eimi” when Jesus is talking of Himself. The phrase appears 24 times in the Gospel of John and is the Greek translation of the Hebrew words “Ani hu”, which appears in the original text of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah used the phrase “Ani hu” as a euphemism for YHWH Himself.

"Walking on Water" By Ivan Aivazovsky 1890 — “Walking on Water” By Ivan Aivazovsky 1890

John intentionally uses “ego eimi,” which parallels the translation of Isaiah’s “Ani hu” in the Septuagint {Editor’s note: The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament} to punctuate the Deity of Jesus. This Greek term was synonymous with YHWH to the Jewish listener, this is made obvious by the startled reaction of the religious Jews whenever Jesus used this phrase to refer to Himself.

Though Jesus may have actually been speaking Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic on any of the occasions that John inserts the pronoun ego eimi, in all cases the reaction of the Jews serves as proof that Jesus was declaring the He is God.

Just like Isaiah, 700 years before him, John saw the Messiah, and he knew that Jesus and YHWH are one. While it would take religious scholars centuries to define the concept of the Trinity, John simply knew God, knew Jesus, and knew the gift that Jesus left them. Above all,he knew that Jesus loved him, and theological details were rendered pointless in light of this truth.

The Bread of Life

Once Jesus had established the fact the He and YHWH are one to his Disciples, they were ready to learn a deep truth. The truth that would separate those who would believe in Him and accept the radical, life-giving forgiveness that He was offering freely to them from those who simply wanted to place Him at the center of their religious system.

The Disciples were beginning to understand that Jesus is YHWH, and that He was turning the system which was being carried out in His name completely on its head. It was exciting and terrifying all at once, Just like YHWH Himself.

This truth is so important that it must be read in its entirety, for it has great implications for the Church today. Will we cling to antiquated forms of worship and service, fitting Jesus in when possible? Or will we allow Him to transform our very souls, to remove the root of sin from us, and let Him make of us the Temple that He has desired to inhabit since the dawn of creation?

John 6:22-71:

²²On the next day, the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except the one in which his disciples had embarked, and that Jesus hadn’t entered with his disciples into the boat, but his disciples had gone away alone. ²³However boats from Tiberias came near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴When the multitude therefore saw that Jesus wasn’t there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. ²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
²⁶Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. ²⁷ Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
²⁸They said therefore to him, “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?”
²⁹Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
³⁰They said therefore to him, “What then do you do for a sign, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you do? ³¹Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven^‡Greek and Hebrew use the same word for “heaven”, “the heavens”, “the sky”, and “the air”. to eat.’”^✡Exodus 16:4; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalm 78:24-25
³²Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, it wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
³⁴They said therefore to him, “Lord, always give us this bread.”
³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But I told you that you have seen me, and yet you don’t believe. ³⁷ All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁰ This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
⁴¹The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” ⁴²They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven?’”
⁴³Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves. ⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ ^✡Isaiah 54:13 Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to me. ⁴⁶ Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
⁵²The Jews therefore contended with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
⁵³Jesus therefore said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves. ⁵⁴ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. ⁵⁶ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, he will also live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down out of heaven—not as our fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said these things in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
⁶⁰Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?”
⁶¹But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? ⁶² Then what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life. ⁶⁴ But there are some of you who don’t believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who didn’t believe, and who it was who would betray him. ⁶⁵He said, “For this cause have I said to you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father.”
⁶⁶At this, many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. ⁶⁷Jesus said therefore to the twelve, “You don’t also want to go away, do you?”
⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
⁷⁰Jesus answered them, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” ⁷¹Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for it was he who would betray him, being one of the twelve.

This was taught by Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum, which, as you may recall, is where the official’s son was healed in Jesus’ second sign, which he performed while physically present in Cana, roughly 20 miles away.

Capernaum was the place where Jesus showed us that blind faith is enough. Here, he was probing to see who amongst the crowd possessed this blind faith. We can see this in the way He continues to answer each request for proof of His Deity by the Jews with what seems an increasingly illogical claim, up to the point of declaring that unless they eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, they have no part in Him.

While at the time this may have seemed like an extreme bit of Jewish humor, it became charged with meaning in the context of the Cross. You see, it took the Cross for the Jews to understand how far God would go for them and for all of humanity, so that they might understand the God loves us and forgives us, unconditionally. All that He asks of us is to strive to love and forgive in the same way.

Will we take the assignment? All of creation is awaiting our response!

While God has made it clear that He abhors sacrifice, He agreed to sacrifice His own Son, so that we would understand, once and for all, that sacrifice is finished. There is nothing we can do to please God, apart from believing in Him and moving ever closer to Him.

It is safe to assume that many who witnessed these two signs and then heard Jesus’ teaching at Capernaum afterward had also heard the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus laid out God’s expectations for humanity. Most of them did not get it, or got it and were looking for an alternative, a list of concrete tasks and observances to absolve their conscience before the Holy One.

There are no alternatives. What God requires of us is something that only He can give us, a pure heart. The only way to accept a pure heart is to first realize that we need one, we need God to remove the root of sin from within us. Everything Jesus taught is pointing towards this.

While it is common to celebrate the communion, the truth of Jesus’ bread of life teaching had nothing to do with food, much less cannibalism. The truth is that the food we are to desire is God’s Spirit, which he was pouring out even then. All flesh is wasting away, but the Spirit of YHWH is the fountain of everlasting life. With God’s Spirit moving in us and through us, we can all become the bread of life for those with whom we come into contact, until they, too, look to the source, God Himself, made known to us through Jesus, who was the first to become the bread of life, and the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, so that we may “always have this bread and drink.”

Are we, like the twelve, still with Him? Are we starting to get it? Will we see the sixth sign?

Stay tuned for the sixth sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 28, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.57
Oil Price per Barrel: $90.62
Corn Price per Bushel: $6.94
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.71%
FED Target Rate: 0.17% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,656
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12,938
M1 Monetary Base: $2,407,600,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,491,100,000,000

Bible Teaching, Jesus, John: The Seven Signs, Teaching, The Mint

The Sabbath conflict and the Feeding of the 5000: The fourth sign

December 27, 2012 David Mint

12/27/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

The year is fast escaping us as we continue our series on the the seven signs that Jesus performed which are related in the Gospel of John. If you have just now joined us, we recommend reading:

Changing water into wine: The first sign, Healing of the Official’s son: The second sign, and the Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign, parts I and IIfor additional context, as well as bookmarking or subscribing to The Mint for updates as we move through this important series.

On the Sabbath

After relating the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda, John, who had a knack for such things, relates word for word what Jesus said to religious leaders as they rebuked him for healing the paralytic on the Sabbath. What is ironic about this rebuke, and all of the other instances where Jesus is accused of breaking the Jewish Sabbath, is that Jesus did not perform work in the sense that you and I may think of work.

For instance, he simply told the paralytic to get up, take his mat, and walk. To the Pharisees who observed this, they quickly saw that Jesus’ speech had caused something to “generate,” in this case, the paralytic’s ability to walk. In this strict sense, nearly any biological activity undertaken to sustain life would throw one into conflict with the fourth commandment.

As John’s careful choice not to name the specific feast which Jesus is intending implies, Jesus’ specific order to the man to pick up his mat and walk was done in direct challenge of what many rabbis of the day saw at the top of the list of Sabbath violations: Carrying something outside of one’s home.

The Hebrew words used in the Bible when the Sabbath decrees are given which are translated as “work”, kol-m’law khaw, mean “all and any kind of creative ‘generative’ endeavor, changes to the environment or any object.” Given this strict definition, it could be said that taking food or drink could lead to a change in the environment.

Given the impossibility of compliance, the Pharisees and other Jewish sects had taken to interpreting the Sabbath restrictions in a way that suited what they deemed necessary to maintain their particular lifestyle. What they were objecting to, then, was the way Jesus chose to observe the Sabbath.

It is the same today.

For any who struggle with how to obey the fourth commandment, Jesus gave the following advice in Mark 2:27, which is the final word on the subject: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”

At this stage in Jesus’ earthly ministry, John began to see what Jesus meant when he declared earlier, in Chapter 2:19 “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” For Jesus had come not to destroy the Jewish nation, but their misguided form of worship, of which the Sabbath observance had become a prime example.

As most agreed that everything Jesus did was good, those who opposed Him had to cling onto when He was doing it in order to prove that He was a traitor and working to subvert the Jewish nation. Yet Jesus did not intend to destroy the Jewish nation, nor to save it in its present form, rather, he came that we might know that YHWH loves us, and that His forgiveness is unconditional.

This was to prove exceedingly important when the Romans finally decimated Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Hailing back to Isaiah’s time, some 600 years earlier, the Jewish people had been nearly decimated. The Temple that Solomon had built had been destroyed and along with it, the central focus of the worship of YHWH. This blow would have meant the end of both a religious system and the ultimate loss of the national identity of those who worshiped YHWH. Had it not been for the rich Jewish oral tradition, the writings of Isaiah which were carried into Babylon, and rise of the synagogue system in the exile, the Jewish nation would not have survived.

Instead, the Jews quickly adapted to what amounted to, “the sudden disappearance of this avenue (the Temple) of communing with God,” which was a “tragedy of awesome dimensions,” (quotation of Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991) and came out of it stronger as a nation. Judaism took on a new dimension and flourished in the Babylonian exile with prophets such as Ezekiel building upon the understanding that YHWH desired mercy and not sacrifice.

600 years later, with a new Temple funded by Herod, the Jews were falling again down the slippery slope of sacrifice and confining YHWH to the trappings of a building.

Feeding the 5000

After the healing at Bethesda, we are told that Jesus again returned to the Galilee and this time went to the other side of the sea of Galilee. However, as we observed earlier, Jesus had attracted quite a following in Jerusalem. John observes that a great multitude” had followed him because of the healings that He had performed.

While many had been healed, Jesus seemed to be more concerned that people not sin rather than that they eat the the right foods and stay healthy. He did not even seem that concerned with their safety or how they spent their money. His focus was on avoiding sin, yet he seemed to know that people would have trouble doing this.

From a glance at all four the Gospels, it would appear that Jesus passed much time in the Galilee teaching on the mountains surrounding this picturesque sea. It is during this time that He preached the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ longest recorded discourse in which He laid out the central tenets of discipleship. This life changing discourse can be found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7, and must be read and understood by all humanity.

During this time, Jesus receives news that John the Baptist has been killed. This must have shaken Jesus, not because it surprised him, but because He knew that his time was short, and that the scriptures must soon be fulfilled.

In preparation, Jesus withdrew by boat to a solitary place near Bethsaida to seek YHWH. He knew that it was time to go deeper.

Predictably, many people followed him to this solitary place near Bethsaida. Those who followed had come not only to hear Jesus, but in many cases they were there hoping to be healed of a physical ailment, and His hasty withdrawal gave them, too, a sense of urgency. They hurried after him and many did not bother to make adequate preparations for the journey.

Again, it must be understood that curing physical ailments was not Jesus’ primary intention. His intention was to draw people to himself that they might be drawn away from sin. This is what took place at Bethsaida.

Jesus Feeding the 5000 by an unknown artist

It is during this time of deep teaching that Jesus brings out what at the time was his most divisive teaching, one so profound and challenging that it caused a great deal of his disciples to turn back in dismay.

As the multitudes approached Him, Jesus chose to approach this teaching via the fourth sign recorded by John in Chapter 6:5-14:

¹After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A great multitude followed him, because they saw his signs which he did on those who were sick. ³Jesus went up into the mountain, and he sat there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. ⁵Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?” ⁶This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
⁷Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that everyone of them may receive a little.”
⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these among so many?”
¹⁰Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in that place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. ¹¹Jesus took the loaves; and having given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to those who were sitting down; likewise also of the fish as much as they desired. ¹²When they were filled, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces which are left over, that nothing be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. ¹⁴When therefore the people saw the sign which Jesus did, they said, “This is truly the prophet who comes into the world.” ¹⁵Jesus therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

On the surface, the feeding of the 5000 is a miraculous answer to a grave logistical problem caused by the crowds haste to be near Jesus. Yet it had such a great impact that it is recorded in all four gospels. However, Jesus did not intend this miracle to be the focal point of the lesson, He wanted to teach His disciples, the 5000, and all who woul listen the following lesson:

That He is the bread of life.

They didn’t get it, and they tried to make Him King by force. Jesus withdrew again to the Mountain alone to be near to YHWH.

The lesson was so important that it would require a second sign and a challenge, one that would force his disciples to become the first ones to cross the watershed mark of human history.

They had to decide, then and there, who Jesus was to them. Was He a madman, a witch doctor, or the Son of the Living God?

Stay tuned for the fifth sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 27, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.58
Oil Price per Barrel: $91.43
Corn Price per Bushel: $6.91
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.72%
FED Target Rate: 0.18% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,663
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,096
M1 Monetary Base: $2,407,600,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,491,100,000,000

Uncategorized

‘Twas the night before Christmas

December 24, 2012 David Mint

“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”

By Clement Clarke Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONDER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Economics, Gold, Silver, The Mint

Open Debauchery of the Money Supply

December 21, 2012 David Mint

12/21/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

As the world carries on we offer a glimpse of what is to come. Two playful headlines that have appeared in the past two days which is essentially an advertisement that inflation has taken hold and will not soon go away:

U.S. Mint testing new metals to make coins cheaper

This article confirms what metals watchers have known for some time now, that the US Mint will have to change the content of pennies and nickels, at a minimum. The Nickel inflation hedge we’ve mentioned before is about to go into effect. You can read the gory details in the US Mint’s 2012 Biennial Report to Congress on the matter.

Next, we see that, strangely it seems, demand for $100 bills has begun to pick up.

Cash is King: Printing of $100 Bills Soars

It appears that the dollar debasement is hitting main street. To keep tabs on the matter, we refer you to the M2 money supply which we present below in our Key Statistics.

The debauchery of the US currency is now hitting the street, which may mean its days are numbered. Once the moronic Fiscal Cliff and the upcoming Debt ceiling redux in March 2013 are resolved, the party will begin in earnest.

We reckon that over the next few months there will be a narrow window to get precious metals at what, in retrospect, will be a bargain price. We look for the price to rise in fits and starts from early January through March, then take off through May. Part of this is seasonal, and part of it is the debauchery related above. However, it is the debauchery which will punctuate the upcoming move.

We would like to take this opportunity to send you all a big hug and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season from us here at the Mint!

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 21 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.55
Oil Price per Barrel: $88.66
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.02
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.75%
FED Target Rate: 0.17% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,657 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,190
M1 Monetary Base: $2,374,000,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,428,000,000,000

Bible Teaching, Jesus, John: The Seven Signs, The Mint

Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign, part II Jesus at the bathhouse

December 19, 2012 David Mint

12/19/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

If you have missed part I of the third sign, we recommend that you take a moment to read it to get a sense of the Setting in which Jesus was performing this sign.

Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign, part I

We have noted that Jesus was again at the Passover, and that his visit to the bathhouse, which was a healing temple dedicated to the Greek/Roman god of healing, Asclepius and may have been near the birthplace of Jesus’ grandmother, Saint Anne, was to lead to the first of many direct confrontations with the Jewish religious authorities.

As we approach the text, which can be found in the Gospel of John, chapter 5:1-18, it is important to ponder why Jesus was there in the first place. Was he not attending the most holy feast of the Jews? Would not setting foot on the site of what was a pagan temple on the Sabbath have defiled him and prevented him from entering the Jewish Temple? Was this some form of outreach, for which the Jews are not particularly noted? Surely, these questions were going through the minds of the Jewish religious authorities, who appear later in the story.

Yet, as surprising as it is that Jesus was even there, what is even more surprising is the way in which this miracle took place. For once again, rather than praying a certain prayer, reciting a spell, or laying hands on the affected part of the body, Jesus simply gives the paralytic a command, a command that demanded both a decision and action on the part of the paralytic. In the first sign, obedience was the key. In the second sign, blind faith. Is the key to the third sign action? Please read along with us from the World English Bible:

¹After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ²Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew, “Bethesda”, having five porches. ³In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; ⁴for an angel went down at certain times into the pool, and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. ⁵A certain man was there, who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”

⁸Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”

⁹Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked.

Now it was the Sabbath on that day. ¹⁰So the Jews said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat.”

¹¹He answered them, “He who made me well, the same said to me, ‘Take up your mat, and walk.’”

¹²Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat, and walk’?”

¹³But he who was healed didn’t know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in the place.

¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

¹⁵The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them,“My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” ¹⁸For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

After coming to terms with Jesus going to the bathhouse on the Passover, we must examine what happened carefully, and understand what it may mean for both ourselves and for those whom we are called to serve.

The paralytic had been sick for 38 years, probably most of his life, if we had to take a guess. We do not know how long he had been coming to the pool, hoping to step into the water first when the “angel” stirred up the water in order to be healed. Not unlike the healthcare system today (which takes its symbol from Asclepius), there seemed to be an interminable wait to be healed. Furthermore, due to the large demand for free healing which could only be had, it seemed, via the benevolence of the “angel” at the pool, it seemed that the paralytic may age to the point where it may have appeared to most that a perfectly good healing was wasted on someone too old to enjoy it. As such, there nobody at the pool was willing to lend him a hand.

Christ healing the paralytic at Bethesda, by Palma il Giovane, 1592.

The man may have become dejected by his prospects. However, at the pool, he found a strange sense of satisfaction knowing that indeed there were those there who were worse off than he was. In time, he had given up begging to be placed into the pool, and sat there, each day that spring, comparing his state infirmity to that of others. If he could not be well, he would gain satisfaction knowing that there were others worse off than he was. This is what the human mind resorts to when it has been robbed of all hope, and it is death.

Then, Jesus walks up and asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”

The man surprisingly answers, not in the affirmative, but with an excuse, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.” Again, when a person has been devoid of hope, they tend to spend their time creating emotional defense mechanisms, commonly known as excuses, to explain their inability to change their circumstances, usually by blaming the inaction of others.

Jesus understands from the reply that asking direct questions will only lead to more excuses from the man. Instead, he gives him an assignment, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.” Would the man accept the assignment?

It seems simple, right? But for the paralytic in Jerusalem on the Sabbath (the Passover, no less), it is an impossible task for two reasons. First, the man is paralyzed, he has not “arisen” under his own power for perhaps 38 years. Second, and more importantly, he had been taught from his youth that he was not to take up his mat on the Sabbath.

Jesus was asking the man to not only relinquish his internal defense mechanisms (and swallow his pride), but to do the impossible and break God’s command as interpreted by his religious leaders. This is an extremely difficult assignment.

The man takes the assignment, and is healed.

When considering healing in this instance, it is interesting to note not only what Jesus did to heal this man, but also what he did not do. He did not:

1. Lay guilt upon the rest of the people at the bathhouse for not helping the man get to the pool.

2. Ask people on the behalf of the man to please help him get to the pool.

3. He and his disciples did not take the man down to the pool themselves

4. He did not recommend that the man go to see a real physician

5. He did not pray for the man, lay hands on him, or send him to the religious authorities to be prayed over

What he did do, with few words, was to help the man to understand his problem. The man perceived that his immediate problem, beyond his physical ailment, was that he could not get into the pool. If only he could get to the pool, he would be healed. As getting to the pool proved elusive, he began to blame the lack of action by others for his inability to be healed.

The man’s real problem, as Jesus pointed out, was that he had given up on taking any sort of action on his own for his healing. In a world where there is always a medical solution if “we just had the money,” as well as someone else to blame for our personal problems, this lesson is especially poignant.

In doing this, Jesus not only healed the man of his physical ailment, he began to heal the Jews of the web of rules that they had weaved in a vain attempt to observe the Ten commandments and the myriad of other rules that they attempted to observe.

For the Ten Commandments can only be truly observed when one understands that they are completely incapable of living by them.

For abstaining from lifting certain objects under certain circumstances does not help one observe the Sabbath, but taking daily action to provide for oneself and others allows all to live eternity in the Sabbath rest that Jesus offers.

Denouement

Not surprisingly, the Jewish authorities, upon seeing the man walking with his mat, in complete obedience to Christ’s word; therefore completing his assignment, chastise the man for breaking the Sabbath rules.

Jesus later encounters the man and gives what would become a familiar command to those who he has made well, even today:

“Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

When the Jewish leaders discover that it was Jesus who made the man well, rather than marveling that such a thing should be done for a man lame for 38 years, they take the opportunity to deride Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.

This would be the first of many instances that Jesus would expose the moral impoverishment that in those days passed for observing Gods law. It was for this reason that the Jews sought to eliminate him. For the Golden Rule had no place in their economic or religious system as they played a dangerous balancing act of pleasing the Romans and protecting their heritage.

Jesus was offering them a way out, but they were to far down the road of compromise. They were a nation sitting by the bathhouse, waiting for an “angel” to stir the waters when Jesus walked up to them.

What would they do?

Stay tuned for the fourth sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 19, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.59
Oil Price per Barrel: $88.26
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.20
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.80%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,667 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,338
M1 Monetary Base: $2,527,700,000,000
M2 Monetary Base: $10,375,100,000,000

Events, Freedom

On gun control

December 18, 2012 David Mint

12/18/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

With the unthinkable tragedy that has taken place in Connecticut, it has become fashionable to once again to turn to a form of national gun control legislation as the answer. The nation has been down this road all too often in its brief history, as such, it is normal and proper that these events shock the public conscience into some sort of action.

However, even though we, at The Mint, advocate what we call “peaceful, non-resistance,” meaning that we believe that the most effective way of ending violence is to personally renounce it, to avoid confrontation where possible and, when impossible, to meet violent individuals with a spirit of peace, we also recognize that we do not live in the utopia that gun control advocates unwittingly presume when peddling their legislative plans to remove guns from the society.

We consider Portland to be one of the most peaceful places on the planet. This may or may not be true for everyone here, but it will help us to prove a point regarding Police to Citizen ratios.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the ideal Full time Police Officer ratio for a city the size of Portland is 2.5 for every 1,000 residents. Portland’s current force is roughly 940 for a population of 593,820, which is a ratio of roughly 1.58 officers for every 1,000 residents, or one officer for every 631 residents.

No matter how you slice it, 631 people is a lot for one man or woman to be responsible for protecting.

For perspective, this ratio is claimed to be closer to 5 officers per 1,000 in New York and Los Angeles. On the other side of the spectrum, we have heard that Santa Cruz, Bolivia, considered to be the wild west, the ratio is something like 1 officer per 1,000 residents.

To see if increased police protection is synonymous with lower homicide rates, we’ve compiled some rough data which maps homicide rates in major cities against their Police to citizen ratio. Here, we present a rough graph of our rough data for your perusal:

Homicide vs Police to citizen ratios

In addition to the cities above, we threw in London, England, which has combined both stringent gun control with a larger than average police force.

It is interesting to note that, while New York and Los Angeles have the highest police force to citizen ratio in our sample, they also have the highest homicide rates. As such, it is difficult to tell if a larger police force is the key to controlling urban homicides.

However, it is interesting to note that, in urban areas, it appears that gun control may be effective in controlling homicides. However, this theory is seriously impaired when a city like Chicago or Washington, DC is considered.

As long as human beings are imperfect, unpredictable violence is likely to remain a part of the social landscape. While it is even more shocking when it occurs in low crime areas, it should be clear that unpredictable violence is just that, unpredictable. Policy remedies are imperfect.

So why the second amendment? To explain why the right to bear arms is integral to the operation of any free society, we turn to video of testimony by Dr. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, who is a survivor of the 1991 Luby’s massacre and leading advocate of the individual’s right to carry a concealed weapon. In her famous closing words, which can be seen in the clip below, she articulately states that the second amendment (we paraphrase) “wasn’t meant to protect our right to hunt ducks, it was meant to give us a means to protect ourselves from y’all (the government)”

Is it right to categorically deny a population of nearly 400 million persons the right to defend themselves (or hunt ducks, for that matter)? Second amendment advocates and the peoples of the former Soviet Union, Turkey, and Cambodia, who were systematically exterminated after surrendering such a right, would say no.

On the other hand, peace loving individuals who live in dense, urban populations may have a different opinion, where ideological battles such as the right to bear arms are meaningless if the threat of urban warfare is too close for comfort.

Whatever the choice, it can only be made at the individual level, there is no policy prescription, save the to often ignored 5th commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” to which Jesus added, “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”

Perhaps rather than attempting to control anything, a greater respect for human life and the Golden rule should be espoused by all. This may be the only thing that everyone involved can truly live with.

May the victims of this most recent of tragedies rest in peace, and may we be shocked into peacefully renouncing violence against one another.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of the third sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 18, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.62
Oil Price per Barrel: $88.06
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.20
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.83%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,669
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,332
M1 Monetary Base: $2,527,700,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,375,100,000,000

Bible Teaching, GSM, Jesus, John: The Seven Signs, Teaching, The Mint

Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign

December 17, 2012 David Mint

12/17/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

If you have just recently joined us here at The Mint, we are exploring the seven signs that Jesus performed which are related in the Gospel of John. We recommend that you begin by reading Changing water into wine: The first sign, and Healing of the Official’s son: The second sign, for additional context, as well as bookmarking or subscribing to The Mint for updates as we move through this important series.

We are finding that each sign appears to have a central theme, an overarching lesson that Jesus was teaching. Perhaps this is why John chose these seven out of the seemingly infinite miracles of Jesus that he had witnessed. In Changing water into wine, Obedience appears to be central to the operation of the Miracle, in the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus, “Whatever he says to you, do it.”

In healing the Official’s son, the operation of blind faith, believing without seeing, is required, “Go your way. Your son lives.” is Jesus’s response as the Official pleads with Him to journey from Cana to Capernaum to heal his son.

Today, as we begin to examine the third sign, the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda, we must be attentive to the presence of an underlying theme, for it is becoming clear that John selected each miracle carefully, and is recounting each one in order to give us something of eternal value, something that we can use today.

In the book of John, the narrative of the third sign immediately follows that of the second sign, beginning in John, Chapter 5, verses 1 – 17. It begins with Jesus returning to Jerusalem.

The return to Jerusalem

As we pick up the narrative, we find that Jesus has gone to Jerusalem for the second time during his earthly ministry (we know that he went once before with his parents at twelve years of age, making it technically the third time). This time, Jesus goes to Jerusalem in full view of the religious authorities. The observant reader will recall that after His Passover first visit, Jesus and his disciples were run out of Jerusalem by the Pharisees for what may be called “excessive baptisms.” This time, Jesus would have the first of what would be many direct confrontations with the Jewish religious authorities.

Which Feast?

In relating this sign, John does something that at first appears to be an uncharacteristic oversight, he forgets to tell the reader which particular feast of the Jews that Jesus is attending. This apparent oversight has led come commentators to conclude that Jesus had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate Purim, which would have occurred in early March.

However, it is more likely that the feast that John referred to, or didn’t refer to, as it were, is actually the second Passover that Jesus attended during his earthly ministry. This can be inferred both positively, in that the Passover was referred to as the “Feast of the Jews” and that the explicit Passovers mentioned in John 2:13 and 6:4 require an extra year between them. This interpretation also allows for the harvest seasons mentioned in Mark 2:23 and 6:39.

It can be inferred negatively as well, in that Purim was not considered a religious feast of the Jews (it would be akin to the 4th of July, in a very stretched metaphor), and that it is unlikely that, due to the climate in Palestine in early March, that the sick persons by the pool would be lying in the open air.

The final arguments against the feast being Purim lie in the narrative itself. As Jesus performs the sign on the Sabbath, for which the religious take exception to Him, and the feast of Purim cannot be celebrated on the Sabbath.

The greater question, perhaps, is why did John, who meticulously recorded the name of the other Jewish feasts in his gospel, omit the name of this particular feast? For an answer, as well as beautiful insight into the importance of John, we turn to Dr. William Milligan in the “International Lesson Commentary”, who is here quoted in Volume III–John of B.W. Johnson’s “The New Testament Commentary,”

Why did John, whose custom it is to mark clearly each festival of which he speaks (see 2:13, 23; 6:4; 7:2; 10:22; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:39; 19:14), write so indefinitely here? The only reply that it is possible is that the indefiniteness is the result of design. The Evangelist omits the name of the feast, that the reader may not attach to it a significance that was not intended. To John,–through clearness of insight, not from power of fancy,–every action of his Master was fraught with deep significance; and no one who receives the Lord Jesus as he received him can hesitate to admit in all his words and deeds a fulness of meaning, a perfection of fitness, immeasurably beyond what can be attributed to the highest of human prophets. Our Lord’s relation to the whole Jewish economy is never absent from John’s thought. Jesus enters the Jewish temple (chapter 2:4). His words can be understood only by those who recognize that he is himself the true temple of God. The ordained feasts of the nation find their fulfillment in him. Never, we may say, is any festival named in this Gospel in connection with our Lord, without an intention on the author’s part that we should see the truth which he saw, and behold in it a type of his Master or his work. If this be true, the indefiniteness of the language here is designed to prevent our resting upon the thought of this particular festival as fulfilled in Jesus, and lead to the concentration of our thought on the Sabbath shortly to be mentioned, which in this chapter has an importance altogether exceptional.”

The significance of the Pool

The Pool of Bethesda. Up until the 19th century, when archeologists uncovered the site of the pool where Jesus performed this sign, there was no evidence outside of the Gospel of John that the pool existed. This lack of evidence caused some to argue that the Gospel was written later by someone who did not have first hand knowledge of Jerusalem and chose to use the pool in a metaphorical sense.

The discovery of the pool by archeologists in 1856 did wonders for the credibility of the Gospel of John.

As it turns out, the pool, which was first mentioned in the 8th century BCE, was formed when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta Valley, creating a reservoir. The pool is mentioned in two other Biblical texts 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 36:2, where it is referred to as the “upper pool”:

17 The king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

and,

2 The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.

As well as in Isaiah 7:3:

3 Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you, and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller’s field.

A second pool was then added on the south side of the dam around 200 BCE. In the first century BC, caves to the east of these pools were turned into baths as part of what was know as an asclepieion, a Roman healing temple dedicated to the god Asclepius. The symbol for this god of medicine, healing, rejuvenation, and physicians is used today as the symbol for the American Medical Association and is ubiquitous in medical settings.

The site was brought inside the walls of Jerusalem by the expansion of Herod Agrippa around 50 BCE. The pools, which had been constructed to bring living water into Jerusalem, had been turned into a pagan bath house whose waters are thought to have healing powers. Naturally, it was crowded with those hoping to become well.

Today, the site of these pools is in the Muslim East Jerusalem near the ruins of a Crusader church which was completed in 1138 CE on a site that what was thought to be the birthplace of Jesus’ grandmother, Saint Anne.

So Jesus, on the Passover, the holiest of all Sabbaths, goes to the pagan bath house, which also happens to be the site that representatives of the Assyrian army stood and publicly humiliated Hezekiah, the King of Judah, before Jerusalem was invaded by them in 701 BCE. Furthermore, according to later tradition, is near the grotto where his grandmother was believed to have born.

The pool at Bethesda ia a very interesting place, and Jesus has chosen to go there on the Passover. What would he do?

Stay tuned for more of the third sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 17, 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.64
Oil Price per Barrel: $87.48
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.24
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.76%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,698
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): -0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,235
M1 Monetary Base: $2,527,700,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,375,100,000,000

Events

President Obama’a brief, emotional Speech on Connecticut School Shooting

December 14, 2012 David Mint

The President shares the nation’s grief at the unthinkable act that occurred today. Decent people everywhere must be shocked into doing the right thing. Find someone, hug them tight, and let peace reign from now on.

Along with the President’s speech, we offer the words of Robert Kennedy in his infamous and oft forgotten speech entitled, “On the Mindless Menace of Violence” (read it by clicking on the link).

Healthy Habits

Advice on Securing your Financial Future

December 14, 2012 mint

The following is a guest post on a timely personal finance topic from Maria, a tech writer from the UK with a fondness for finance. We encourage you to follow her on Twitter at @financeport for more debt reduction and personal finance tips and information. Without further adieu:

Advice on Securing your Financial Future

Want to secure your financial future? Want to make your future goals brighter? want to save money?

The first step you need to take is to create a financial plan. Having a financial plan will help you to save money and make decisions consciously and accurately. It includes a list of your goals as well as a time frame, cost, anticipated rate of return, and the investment/savings method you will use to achieve the goal.

The formula that all the people should follow is “Bright Financial Future=Solid plan + Steady income.”

Create a Financial Plan:

In order to secure your future the first step is to have a financial plan where you put more interest in saving money. In order to make decisions financially you should have some type of plan, no matter how basic.

Set Goals:

You will have a better chance of having money if you plan for the things you want to do in future. Long-term goals may require five to ten years to accomplish. For example your goal may be to start a family, save money for a child’s wedding, college tuition, or purchasing a home. Short term goals are the things you would like to do next week, today, or in a couple of years. They may include getting marriage, changing jobs, taking a vacation, buying a car and so on.

Consider Investing:

In order to deliver regular interest payments you can count on, a savings account is a good start, but it will not generate enough interest to keep up with inflation. Investments in bonds and stocks have generally out performed inflation, but CDs and savings accounts have not. Investments in stocks and bonds contain more potential to earn profits than savings accounts do, they also have option to fall in value or generate a lower gain than you expected.

Other than government bonds, investments are never guaranteed in the sense if you loose money on investment you probably have no recourse. This is the biggest difference between insured bank accounts and investments.

Seek Advice:

Some people locate investments by searching the internet and reading magazines as a form of due diligence, others rely on the Advice of experts. A financial expert can help you select the investments that best fit your plan. Before selecting an investment expert, it is wise to conduct interviews with different licensed experts. This will help you to have knowledge on several types of services that are accessible to investors.

Start Saving Seriously:

Start by saving enough money to cover your urgent living expenses for many months. You should have easy access to your money in a savings account. A savings account is generally insured for losses up to $250000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

In any situation, if you are short of money and need an emergency loan, you can get a loan in order to secure those funds by purchasing Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). PPI is an insurance policy which is purchased with loans and credit cards in order to secure those loans for the lender.

About the Author:

This article has been posted by Maria, a professional blogger who is writing articles on PPI claims and shows keen interest in finance. You can reach her on Twitter: @financeport

Events, Rapture, Uncategorized

Famed Apocalypse Consultant sees wealth squandered as too little, too late as 12-21-2012 approaches

December 13, 2012 David Mint

12/13/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

On a rainy Thursday morning in Southeast Portland’s Bipartisan Cafe, we sit, slowing sipping our coffee with REM’s “The end of the world as we know it” playing softly in the background. The clouds and rain match the mood of our companion, Dr. Roger Doomsday, the world’s leading Apocalypse consultant. Dr. Doomsday, who has not even touched his mug since it arrived 10 minutes ago, stares quietly out the window at the traffic passing on SE Stark and only wonders what might have been.

After what seems like an hour, the famed Apocalypse Consultant breaks the silence,

“They just don’t get it,” he laments.

Flash back to 1999. Dr. Doomsday, who had previously helped groups such as the Branch Davidians, the Peoples Temple, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God prepare for the coming Apocalypse, was riding a wave of hope.

“I did a great disservice to my early clients,” Doomsday says, in the first of many understatements he would utter. “Back then, my advice was too practical, I thought ‘hey, if you don’t want to go through this thing and have a better place to go to, why wait around for the Apocalypse?'”

Unfortunately for those of the Peoples Temple, Doomsday’s advice had horrific consequences which led to the greatest loss of civilian life in the US prior to 9/11.

After freeing himself from a slew of civil and criminal charges related to the matter, with the help of a then relatively unknown lawyer named Johnny Cochran, he began to reconsider his methods.

“I thought, rather than telling people to evacuate the planet before the inevitable occurs, why not try riding it out in style?” He then lets out what we interpreted to be both a chuckle and a sob, “I guess Koresh took my advice a little too far.”

After the Branch Davidian fiasco, in which Doomsday claims his only error was “not counting on the FEDs showing up,” which was understatement number two of the morning, according to our count, the resilient Doctor, with the encouragement of his well paid legal counsel, again changed his approach.

“I began to wonder if counseling people to heavily arm themselves and live as gluttons in far away retreats was the right thing to do, so I dropped the firearms stockpiling from my standard Apocalypse preparedness program in favor of a greater allocation of funds towards revelry.”

Fast forward to Uganda in 1999. Again, on the advice of Dr. Doomsday, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God throws an epic party as what they deemed the end of the world as they knew it was approaching.

Unfortunately, a fire breaks out, enacting a heavy death toll on the revelers. Again, another one of Doomsday’s clients leaves a trail of shattered lives as time nonchalantly marched forward.

“What happened in Uganda was lamentable,” Doomsday explains, “but I felt I was finally getting it right, and my official recommendation never involved open fires.” Somehow, we felt that he was strangely giving a sales pitch and a disclaimer to us all in the same phrase, like the advertisements you hear on the radio.

With his approach strangely validated, albeit in his own mind, Dr. Doomsday moved from specializing in consulting obscure religious sects to taking his approach, which he called “Party like its 1999,” until The Artist, formerly known as The Artist Formerly known as Prince, formerly known as Prince, successfully sued Doomsday for copyright infringement, to both large corporations and governments.

“While the Apocalypse is always just around the corner, I had an incredible stroke of luck when the Mayan prediction began to be widely disseminated. With the year 2000 in the past and the Jewish Messiah’s arrival famously unpredictable, I needed something for people to latch onto, an end date they could all embrace.”

For the Apocalypse Consultant, the Mayan’s 12-21-2012 cryptic codex interpretations came like manna from heaven.

“What do they mean? No one can tell, but I can tell you what those native stone carvings and the wild imagination of the archaeologists who encountered them meant to me, about $1 billion, yes, billion in net fees over the past twelve years!” exclaimed the Dr. with more incredulity than joy in his voice.

For the past twelve years, Doomsday has travelled the globe helping both corporations and governments to squander what he estimates to be “Eight centuries of accumulated wealth” in just over a decade.

“Everybody wanted a plan, Citibank, JPMorgan, all the big banks, Cargill, GE, Xerox,” recalled Doomsday, “the Department of Defense even had something called Homeland Security created as a vehicle for passing wealth straight to the sewers of history. GW himself came up with the name, said it reminded him of home cooking, or something like that.”

“Some took my recommendations too far, too soon,” continued Doomsday, “Enron, Tyco, and Bear Stearns got all excited and blew up early, that was always the danger, blowing through the resources before the Apocalypse arrived.”

“‘How much is enough?’ everyone wanted to know, so I said “you know your retirement calculator? Just shift your life span to end on 12-21-2012,” he laughed, “worked like magic, and saved me a ton of accounting fees on the back-end!”

He now stares at the commuters passing down Stark on their way to work or school through the Bipartisan’s window as shakes his head. “I can only wonder what might have been,” he says, with a tone of regret.

While he believes much wealth has already been squandered, he can only wonder what might have been had the corporations fully implemented his recommendations. However, corporations, who seemed to eagerly embrace his ideas early, have been too slow to act.

Dr. Doomsday’s standard recommendations, which he calls “no-brainers” if the world is about to end, involved a number of disincentives for employees to work.

“Categorically, I told employers to slash benefits and freeze wages, something that many waited until a couple of years ago to do. Still, many employees saw the writing on the wall and retired, while others, notably union workers, clung to their jobs in the face of deep cuts…I didn’t see that coming!”

The idea was that, with such a disincentive to work, employees would do the math, retire, cash in their 401Ks and party or otherwise spend irrationally with 12-21-2012 in sight. Simple on paper, but in practice, Dr. Doomsday underestimated the influence of one key factor: The influence of the Apocal-skeptic.

It turns out, not everyone believed that the world would end on 12-21-2012. Even when presented with the temptation to spend an estimate 800 years of accumulated savings in just 12, some people just couldn’t take the bait.

“The Apocal-skeptics didn’t believe it. What was so clearly carved in stone by people smarter than ourselves some 3,000 years ago somehow didn’t register with them as credible evidence. Only now is my phone blowing up with calls asking how to fast track recommendations which were laid out to debauch the earth over a minimum of 7 years to be executed in a week. I threw my phone in the Willamette last night…I can’t take it, we had a golden chance and we wasted it, or didn’t, as it were.”

His sorrow is now evident, as a tear streams down his unshaven face.

“I mean, Citi just now laid off 11,000 workers? They barely have time to blow their 401Ks on unbridled debauchery. This isn’t how it was supposed to go down.”

Staring back at the window, he cries, “and these people look like they’re going to work!” as he slams his fist on the table, causing the half awake patronage to look in his general direction

“The only ones who truly got it are the Western Governments. I mean, in sheer numerical terms, they have hit the ball out of the park when it comes to squandering wealth,” He continues, “the Governments were already squandering an impressive amount of capital, I just gave them a reason to go all the way.”

While Doomsday still thinks the Government overdid it on things like defense spending, education, and cleaning up the environment, activities he says have no place in an apocalyptic mindset, he can’t deny the numbers.

“While I would have preferred to see my program of night club and amusement park development fully implemented, on net, they (Western Governments) have been the most proactive in encouraging leisure, revelry, and the ‘eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’ mindset that is they very core of my philosophy,” he pauses and shakes his head, “they’ve done their fair share, but the people have failed them.”

He blames the human tendency to plan for the future, a survival mechanism which, he admits, takes time to overcome, as well as the Fiscal Cliff, which he claims is a myth which is perpetuated by Apocal-skeptics in the US congress who have a vested interest in the status quo, for derailing many of his recommendations before they made it out of committee and into various spending packages.

“I admit,” continues Doomsday, “that parts of my program, such as converting ship yards to churn out cruise ships and one of my favorites, constructing fraternity and sorority houses, as well as subsidies for inflatable play structures, seemed a bit far-fetched even for those convinced that the Apocalypse was coming…but our differences were more about how to waste the money, not whether or not it should be wasted,” he sighs, helplessly, “now they are setting up rules for Obamacare!”

Obambacare is a sore subject for Dr. Doomsday. It was the antithesis of what he deemed a proper Apocalyptic health care system.

“For goodness sake, all you needed were some ERs to mend the thrill seekers. Primary and preventative care? Vaccinations? Treating people with pre-existing conditions? What are we trying to do, make people think they’ll live forever?!?!?!?!”

He shakes his head in resignation that a once in a lifetime opportunity was lost.

“I did my part, I told people how to properly waste money, gave them an endless bucket list, and the framework for the common man and woman to live out their numbered days in pure, shameless debauchery. I even led by example.”

{Editors note: In his last statement, Doomsday is referring to his lifestyle which, up until his personal fortune was exhausted last week, made Hugh Hefner and most gangster rappers blush}.

As the rain falls, we take a look at our iPhone, suddenly, as the digital display ticks another minute towards 12-21-2012, we realized that Dr. Doomsday, like the famous Gambler who spoke with Kenny Rogers, had given us an ace that we could keep.

We quickly thanked Dr. Doomsday, though he doesn’t respond as he stares blankly out onto Stark street, and bolt out the door, right past the thought of paying the tab. We didn’t even bother to take his pulse as our internal clock turned up the volume as the seconds began to tick away with an eerie clarity in our mind.

We dialed our 401k provider as we run out the door of the cafe, barely noticed by those half awake on this dreary Portland morning.

“Yes, I need my account liquidated and the funds delivered to me in cash as soon as possible…I know there are fees associated…just do it, I will be by to pick it up within the hour.”

As we begin to dial airlines, the voice of reason screams out, barely audible above the ticking in our head, something along the lines of, “Stop!”

That would be the last we heard from him, as we call our family and friends and invite them to an all expenses paid party in paradise.

Songs referenced in this satire:

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 13 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.63
Oil Price per Barrel: $86.33
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.12
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.73%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,697 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,171
M1 Monetary Base: $2,527,700,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,375,100,000,000

Bible Teaching, Jesus, Teaching, The Mint

Healing of the Official’s son: The second sign

December 12, 2012 David Mint

12/12/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today we continue our series on the Seven Signs of John with the second sign, Jesus’ healing of the official’s son. First, we must pause to remember the eternal lesson from the first sign, the changing of water into wine that the wedding in Cana of Galilee: “Do what he says,” for miracles are born out of obedience.

And now, the second sign.

The Journey

Jesus had just returned from Jerusalem, where he had educated Nicodemus on the mechanics of spiritual rebirth at the Passover feat. On his journey home, Jesus had done something that deeply troubled the Jewish religious establishment of the day, He had taken the more direct and mountainous route home to the Galilee by passing directly through the territory known as Samaria.

This was shocking, because the religious amongst the Jews in those days who resided in Jerusalem went to great pains to avoid setting foot in Samaria, which they saw as the epicenter of paganism and worse, a misguided worship of the One True God, YHWH.

For this reason, when travelling from Jerusalem to the Galilee, they would cross over to the east bank of the Jordan river and go north until they had passed by the Samaritan territory, at which point they crossed back over to the west bank and reached Scythopolis, where they would continue their journey into the Galilee. This religious quirk added up to 40 miles, or in those days what would have been a hard two days journey, to what was already a three to four day ordeal.

The religious take the long road, as Jesus shows us the straight and narrow

However Jesus not only took the more direct route, he encountered a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and engaged her in conversation, an utterly shocking breach of protocol that caused even His disciples to question what he was doing. We can only imagine that Jesus did not shake the dust off of His feet after reaching the Galilee, the custom of the religious Jews who were forced to tend to unavoidable business in Samaria, and therefore were forced to “defile” themselves by setting foot on Samaritan soil.

Blind Faith via Shock Therapy

Jesus was returning to the Galilee from Judea, where, as mentioned above, he had attended the Passover and, while there, began to turn the Jewish religious system on its head. In fact, so many people believed in Jesus as the Messiah as a result of His teachings during the Passover that his disciples were baptizing even more people than John the Baptist, who the Jewish religious leaders had previously seen as their main rival.

As a result of this, the Pharisees, a sect of the Jews who believed in the resurrection of the dead, were planning to come after Jesus, hastening His flight back to the Galilee.

After passing through Samaria en route to an imagined quiet retreat into the Galilee, Jesus found that a great number of people in the Galilee had witnessed the signs he had done during the Passover for they, too, were there. His reputation has preceded Him, and peace was to prove elusive for the rest of His days on earth.

Under these circumstances, Jesus returned to Cana as a type of rock star.

While in Cana, Jesus was approached by a certain nobleman who asks Jesus for a favor that would become known as the second sign which is related in John 4:43-54:

⁴³After the two days he went out from there and went into Galilee. ⁴⁴For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. ⁴⁵So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast. ⁴⁶Jesus came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.”

⁴⁹The nobleman said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” ⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. ⁵¹As he was now going down, his servants met him and reported, saying “Your child lives!” ⁵²So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. They said therefore to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him.” ⁵³So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” He believed, as did his whole house. ⁵⁴This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee.

Now the nobleman’s son was lying on his deathbed in Capernaum, a town on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and he encountered Jesus in Cana. Under the circumstances, we can assume that the nobleman made the 20 mile journey inland specifically to make this appeal to Jesus. The nobleman would likely have have been prepared to offer his life savings to Jesus if he would come to Capernaum and heal his son. In Jesus he saw his only hope of saving his son, and he was doing what any loving father would have done under the circumstances.

In this delicate state of mind, the nobleman was about to be shocked, for he was about to learn the difference between hope and faith. For hope, while poetic, leaves room for doubt. Faith is the opposite of doubt.

For this reason, instead of lovingly agreeing to accompany the man to Capernaum, He rebukes him, “unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.” The man, still in a state of shock, as were Jesus disciples, makes a last ditch effort, now with a bit indignation, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

Jesus then shocks the man, who has moved from hope to indignation, into faith as He replies “Go your way. Your son lives.” In this moment, through Jesus’ words, the nobleman understood that, if he believed that Jesus had the power to heal his son, it would follow that Jesus could do it without having to be physically present. The nobleman understood, at this moment, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Jesus was Lord.

The nobleman then knew Jesus in the same way the centurion in Matthew 8:5-13 knew that Jesus was Lord, through the operation of blind faith. The difference between the nobleman and the centurion was that Jesus offered to come to the centurion’s house, which was perhaps not coincidentally also in Capernaum, and left it to the centurion to profess his blind faith which was operating to heal his servant. The nobleman had no such faith to profess, until Jesus shocked him into it.

Where the nobleman needed his blind faith to be awakened, the centurion needed only ask Jesus and it would be done.

May it be said that in Capernaum, the Lord showed us that blind faith is enough. When faith and obedience are operating together, there is no limit to what can happen.

Stay tuned for the third sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 12 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.69
Oil Price per Barrel: $86.77
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.21
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.70%
FED Target Rate: 0.17% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,712
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,245
M1 Monetary Base: $2,457,800,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,275,200,000,000

Economics, Politics, The Mint

Federal Reserve Effectively Forgives US National Debt

December 11, 2012 David Mint

12/11/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Last week, we made a vague promise to provide data to back a claim that the US Debt at the FED had already been largely cancelled via the various quantitative easing (QE) operations that have been realized over the past several years. This fact makes any talk of solving the moronic “Fiscal Cliff” via extreme methods such as minting platinum coins with $1 Trillion face value unnecessary.

In an attempt to illustrate what amounts to an effective forgiveness of a portion of the US National Debt by the Federal Reserve, we offer the following graph, which plots the both the official US National debt as well as the official US National debt net of the Federal Reserve’s holdings as a percentage of GDP.

As you can see, the real US National debt to GDP is closer to 94% rather than the projected 105% which the official US National debt figures would suggest. The Federal Reserve, at last count, holds roughly $1.6 Trillion of US Treasury debt. While this debt is still theoretically on the books, it can essentially be removed from consideration when arguing about the need to solve the debt problem, vis-a-vis the moronic Fiscal Cliff debacle that is playing out in Washington.

94% is an alarming level, but according to our projections, the current US Government current account deficit cycle is about to end as the waves of new currency released into the global economy by the Federal Reserve and other central banks begins to run through the coffers of the US Government.

Despite the desperate proclamations by Congress that it will be difficult to solve their (yes, this is their problem) impasse, indicators such as an EFT that tracks the Defense industry, XAR, which would theoretically be the hardest hit were the US to fail to address portions of the Fiscal cliff such as suspending the sequestered spending cuts agreed upon as a result of the infamous Debt ceiling debacle, are not showing any signs of trouble.

In other words, the financial markets are assuming that the US Congress and Executive, when push comes to shove, will wind up and kick the can a mile down the road, as they did when the debt ceiling was bearing down on them.

According to our projections, there is no debate, the Fiscal Cliff does not even exist, rather, it is a figment of the collective imagination.

We do not believe in money, at least not in the form of money that is currently used in America today, and it appears that the US Congress is beginning to come around to our point of view. If the Federal Reserve will simply finance deficits ad infinitum, why even bother with the Fiscal Cliff charade? We are still working to answer that question, and leave it for you, fellow taxpayer, to ponder along with us.

The real question, the one which we wrestle with every day here at The Mint, is when will the faith in the Federal Reserve be destroyed? With the advent of the various QEs beginning in 2008, the Federal Reserve system effectively collapsed. The creation of credit was no longer self sustaining in the economy. The FED has been living on borrowed time.

As December 21 approaches and those who have misinterpreted the Mayan calendar wonder if December 22nd will come, we look forward to the 22nd of December, when the Federal Reserve’s charter is rumored to expire, and YouTube’s “Man of Truth” famously prophesied that the Federal Reserve would go bankrupt. Technically, he said “December 2012”, but, after 99 years, why split hairs?

Chances are that the world will wake up on December 22nd and carry on. However, if you see the words “Force Majeure” in the financial headlines, get ready to calculate prices in a new currency for 2013. For the US may swerve to avoid the Fiscal Cliff, but sooner or later it will drop off the currency cliff.

That is when things will get very interesting indeed.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 11 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.65
Oil Price per Barrel: $85.84
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.24
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.65%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,710 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,284
M1 Monetary Base: $2,457,800,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,275,200,000,000

Catala, Events

86! The incomparable Lionel Messi breaks the scoring record

December 10, 2012 David Mint

Watch the master at work netting 86 big ones. Amazing:

Gold, Monetary Theory, Of Money and Metals, Silver, The Mint

Perpetuation of the Trillion dollar coin solution to US Debt

December 7, 2012 David Mint

As our site name implies, we have more than a passing interest in monetary theory. As such, ideas for new types of coin and currency are of special interest. When the value of the coins proposed contains an insane amount of seigniorage, we are compelled to call it out.

The Fiscal Cliff melodrama playing out in the halls of US Federal Government’s Capital has given rise to the above mentioned monetary insanity.

As the so called, moronic “Fiscal Cliff” false alarm approaches, it becomes more common for those of a Socialist/Statist leaning philosophy to search for easy solutions to what amounts to enabling catastrophic policy failures, out of control spending, and unsustainable debt pacts.

This is not surprising, as Socialism and economics are incompatible philosophies. Anyone who claims otherwise either mistakenly applies small system theory to large scale systems or is a shill. From one of these insane theorists comes the idea of the US Treasury coining a trillion dollar platinum coin to deposit at the FED, who would then cancel the Treasury’s debts.

This will not happen, first and foremost, because the insane monetary system relies on debt as its lifeblood, as such, any debt cancellation by the underlying foundation of US Treasury debt is out of the question.

Second, it must be recognized that coining a trillion dollar coin, theoretically equal to 1/60 of global GDP, that anyone other than the FED would accept at face value, is impossible, it simply flies in the face of reason. The FED has been paying 100 cents on the dollar for the MBS toilet paper that banks have sold to them for years now, as such, any concept of value left the halls of the Federal Reserve years ago.

The third reason is that the US debt at the FED has already been largely canceled via the FED’s various QE operations over the past several years. For the reasoning as to why the official US Debt held by the FED hasn’t been lowered to better reflect its true drag on GDP, we refer fellow taxpayers back to reason one.

We will present more data to back this claim in the coming week. In the meantime, if someone offers you a trillion dollar coin, be sure to check the spot price of platinum before making a more reasonable counter-offer. In any event, you are better off holding the platinum, as someday it will be worth are least a trillion Federal Reserve notes, the shills at the FED and Treasury have assured it.

Bible Teaching, Jesus, Teaching, The Mint

The Gospel of John – Jesus’ seven signs

December 6, 2012 David Mint

12/6/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today, we shift gears a bit as we prepare for what will be a very important teaching coming up early next year:

The Seven Signs of John

The Gospel of John is unique in that it contains a plethora of dialogue attributed to Jesus, the Son of God, which are generally set apart in Biblical texts by using a red font. It is rivaled only by the Gospel of Matthew in this respect.

We have previously explored what we consider to be John’s unique trait and compared him to one of the prophets, Isaiah, who shared this personality quirk: He was eagerly awaiting the Jewish Messiah.

Today, we will begin to explore the material in the Gospel of John that we are to teach. The seven miracles of Jesus that John chose to include in His Gospel. The miracles are important, for John wrote the Gospel near the end of his long life, sometime between the years 90 and 100 CE (He is presumed to have died in 100 CE at 94 years of age), almost 70 years after Jesus had walked the earth.

John witnessed many miracles performed by Jesus, as he was with him throughout his earthly ministry, beginning with his (Jesus’) baptism by John the Baptist. John witnessed so many miracles that he saw fit to state in his Gospel,

“20:30 Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; 20:31 but these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

So why were these seven signs chosen by John, who perhaps knew Jesus better than anyone while He was walking the earth? It is the aim of this study to answer this question.

What are the seven signs?

The logical place to start, then, would be to identify the seven signs. According to most Biblical scholars, yours truly included, the seven signs refer to the following miracles which John chose to relate:

Changing water into wine in John 2:1-11
Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54
Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-18
Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14
Jesus’ walk on water in John 6:16-24
Healing the blind at birth in John 9:1-7
Raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45

From a quick glance at the list, we can see that three of the miracles involve various types of physical healing, two of them involve providing for material needs, and one is a supernatural physical feat.

The final miracle, the resurrection of Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, must stand alone, as it is the astounding and meaningful miracle that has ever been recorded. It is astounding not only for what took place, but for the fierce reaction which it brought from the religious authorities.

For with this Miracle, Jesus provided an irrefutable proof that He is the Son of God, and it was for this miracle that the religious authorities resolved to kill Him.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. As with any great journey, we must begin with the first step.

Changing water into wine: The first sign

Shortly after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, he called his first disciples, Andrew and John (the author). What is interesting is that Andrew and John actually followed Jesus on John the Baptist’s declarations. As such, they were not called, rather, they recognized who Jesus was, the long-awaited Messiah, and went after him.

Andrew then went and found his brother, Simon (who Jesus promptly renamed Cephas, or Peter). The next day, Jesus was determined to go out into Galilee, where he found Phillip, who then went out and found Nathanael.

At this point, we understand that Jesus had five men whom are called his disciples, yet the only one who he personally sought out was Phillip.

This is important, because it shows that, while Jesus did get up and pursue someone, four of his first five disciples started following him because others saw Jesus and recognized him as the son of God. Let us not diminish the task that Christians have been given in fulfilling the great commission!

Our teacher, Bettie Mitchell of Good Samaritan Ministries is fond of illustrating this by showing us that while we are looking up to God, crying out for Him to “DO SOMETHING!” God is shouting back down at us “DO SOMETHING!”

It is a profound truth that God does not want subjects, He wants partners!

It is not surprising, then, that Jesus almost never performed a miracle without requiring an action or actions which require the individual to exercise faith. In fact, in most of the signs, Jesus performs the miracles not as a helicopter parent who is making sure that everything is perfect for everyone, rather, he performs the miracles reluctantly, not because he does not desire a positive outcome, but because he is training those who desire and see in him the possibility of a miracle to walk in faith and courage.

Our first example, then, is when Jesus changes water to wine, a miracle that Jesus openly declares that he does not want to perform:

2:1 The third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. 2:2 Jesus also was invited, with his disciples, to the marriage. 2:3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”

2:4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come.”

2:5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” 2:6 Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews’ way of purifying, containing two or three metretes apiece. 2:7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” They filled them up to the brim. 2:8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast.” So they took it. 2:9 When the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and didn’t know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast called the bridegroom, 2:10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!” 2:11 This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Apart from Jesus’ reluctance to intervene and the faith it must have required on the part of the servants to take the water, which had been poured in what today may be been referred to as a kitchen sink or a wash basin, and present it to the master of the feast as wine, there is one other curiosity in this narrative which deserves further consideration.

Joseph and His Brethren Welcomed by Pharaoh, watercolor by James Tissot 1836-1902 — The first sign of Jesus, turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, has a harrowing parallel to Joseph saving many by providing for grain during the famine in the Near East, circa 1708 BCE
Painting “Joseph and His Brethren Welcomed by Pharaoh”, watercolor by James Tissot 1836-1902

This curiosity consists of the exact words that Mary uses to instruct the servants to listen to Jesus. While at first they seem trivial, “Whatever he says to you, do it,” we find in them both a simple requirement for the reception of a miracle, as well as an intricate link with the miraculous survival of the Jewish race some 1700 years earlier from a famine in Canaan:

For the words, “What he says to you, do,” are found not only in John 2:5 above, but also in Genesis 41:55. In Genesis, they are spoken under much different circumstances…or are they?

The phrase that Mary invokes parallel the instructions that Pharaoh gave to all of the Egyptians when they began to cry out to him for grain during the famine in the Near East. “Go to Joseph, What he says to you, do.”

As we cry out for a miracle, we would do well to pause, listen, and “Do what he says,” for miracles are born out of obedience.

Stay tuned for the second sign and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 6 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.61
Oil Price per Barrel: $86.40
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.48
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.58%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,700
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 7.9%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,074
M1 Monetary Base: $2,457,800,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base: $10,275,200,000,000

The Mint

Monthly Archives: December 2012

The healing of the man blind at birth during the Festival of Booths: The sixth sign

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JFK on peace

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A hard teaching at Capernaum, Jesus walks on water: The fifth sign

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The Sabbath conflict and the Feeding of the 5000: The fourth sign

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‘Twas the night before Christmas

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Open Debauchery of the Money Supply

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Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign, part II Jesus at the bathhouse

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On gun control

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Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda: The third sign

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President Obama’a brief, emotional Speech on Connecticut School Shooting

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Advice on Securing your Financial Future

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Famed Apocalypse Consultant sees wealth squandered as too little, too late as 12-21-2012 approaches

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Healing of the Official’s son: The second sign

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Federal Reserve Effectively Forgives US National Debt

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86! The incomparable Lionel Messi breaks the scoring record

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Perpetuation of the Trillion dollar coin solution to US Debt

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The Gospel of John – Jesus’ seven signs

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Fresh ideas on Economics, Monetary Theory, Politics, and Less Pressing but Equally Entertaining Matters for the English and Spanish speaking worlds

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Fresh ideas on Economics, Monetary Theory, Politics, and Less Pressing but Equally Entertaining Matters for the English and Spanish speaking worlds