Banding Together Essay on Imposed Ekballo 4/10/2024

A Plea To Serve Ekballoed Believers

ἐκβάλλω G1675 (ekballō), drive out, expel, send out, take out.

ἐκβάλλωf: to cause a significant change of state by decisive action—‘to cause to be, to make become.’ ἕως ἂν ἐκβάλῃ εἰς νῖκος τὴν κρίσιν ‘until he makes justice to triumph’ or ‘until he causes justice to prevail’ Mt 12:20. In some languages, however, it may be extremely difficult to speak of ‘justice prevailing.’ The closest equivalent may be ‘until he causes all people to be treated justly’ or ‘until authorities treat all people in a just manner.’

A PLEA TO SERVE EKBALLOed BELIEVERS

“And a voice came from heaven: “You are my one dear Son;24 in you I take great delight.”25 1:12 The Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness. 1:13 He was in the wilderness forty days,26 enduring temptations from Satan. He27 was with wild animals, and angels were ministering to his needs.”

So much of the focus in American Christianity is on YHWH’s ‘soft side’ that we leave people wholly unprepared for YHWH’s very hard side. This ‘soft focus’ is so predominant that many or most believers have almost no awareness of YHWH’s and Jesus’ periodic profound hardness in executing the plan of salvation. If no one highlights, explains, preaches on the difficult passages? Sheep are shepherdless in their most desperate times of faith.

I believe this is wrong. Sheparding failure is fundamentally wrong. We leave people with a concept of blessing defined not by Biblical recorded reality, but by equating blessing to only comfort, success, and similar experiences. Is this “only” an accurate reflection of human experience as recorded in the Bible? No. Yet, we define “blessed” as situations provoking positive emotion. Rather than admit that biblically “blessed” is experiencing haunting need; often for an extended time.

Jesus himself defines “blessed” twice as haunting need via exemplary lists and sadly, very sadly, we do not focus on the realities he portrayed in those lists. Instead, metaphorically, we quickly walk by these Gospel passages while whistling as if the 2 lists are tombstone inscriptions in a graveyard. Why are we whistling?? What are we afraid of that we choose to distract ourselves, our family, our children, our friends, our congregations from the truth that the blessings in the lists were and are born from believers being dropped into severe or at least challenging hardship? Why do we set believers up for confusion and crisis.

Consider Mark 1:12. When and how did Jesus end up in the wilderness? What happened “immediately” before the wilderness? When these questions are answered via the text, it becomes obvious that Jesus experienced a plummet from the pinnacle.

I have said repeatedly to family and friends this week that “God gifted me with a medical trainwreck.” Is this statement true? Mark 1:12 makes me think that “Yes, 7 medical diagnoses in 9 months, plus now the potential of an 8th, are without questions a ‘gift,’ in fact they are 7, perhaps 8, ‘blessings.’”

Why? Ekballo, or the Greek term translated as “drove,” can be paraphrased as “to cause a significant change of state by decisive action—‘to cause to be, to make become.’” It is a term meaning decisive use of force. Force that was used on Jesus. Why did the Holy Spirit decisively force change on Jesus’ state from experiencing YHWH’s deep, public and resounding affirmation to prolonged, profound, difficult deprivation in an environment where Jesus would be repeatedly attacked by the enemy who today remains deeply committed to destroying the Trinity’s plan?? Why, metaphorically, did Jesus get a forced trip down an elevator freefalling from the 101st floor of the Twin Towers to and through the bottom of the tower’s basement? I think the answer is one word.

Experience.

Jesus experienced the profound impact, the life and soul reverberating impact, of the hard side of the Trinity. He directly experienced one person of the Trinity using force on him; another person of the Trinity.

His direct experience, his being forced into the wilderness, is extremely significant in my life. The Trinity via the Spirit decisively changed Jesus state from glory and affirmation to deep hardship “immediately.” Jesus pioneered my recent medical experience. He went before me.

My life has changed so dramatically that what I now experience is not a new ‘chapter.’ I have a new, different, difficult life. My state, my reality, was decisively changed on 5/31/2023 and in the 9-10 months that followed. I have non-fatal diseases that mean any path back to my former state before 5/31/23 is only through death in some distant future. I have a new state.

When we ignore the hard side of the Trinity? We ignore the people, the believers decisively dropped into the hard reality state and some of these believers are and were dropped “immediately” with no warning. I was. Millions of believers have passed through the decisive reality of ekballo. This. Happens. Every. Day.

How can you serve these people YHWH decisively drops into hard states if you do not invest in vicariously experientially knowing the hard realities documented in the Bible? To serve those ekballo dropped via YHWH’s decision you must, must deeply consider the full scope of Scripture and you must experience “the fear of the Lord” via seriously considering the human reality of YHWH’s demands on biblical experiences. Theology is a layer over humans who suffered deeply. The fear of the Lord is not reverence. The fear is deeply experiential understanding that YHWH invokes and imposes, yes, imposes incredibly difficult state changes that people do not, will not understand. YHWH’s ekballo invasions into our individual histories are often real, disruptive, confusing, bewildering.

They are also not new. These are not new things. The Bible records hundreds of ekballo YHWH imposed changes in lives. Should we not invest the effort to move beyond theology, to consider the texts and understand how to serve the ekballo impacted person so we may serve those fearing YHWH because of decisive state changes he imposes that are far, far beyond our personal control. The material needed to train to do Ekballo service well is right in front of us. We must stop whistling. We must improve our experiential reading. We must see the experiences of the people in Bible passages as what they were to each of them. Incredibly difficult experiences. Experiences that litter the Bible and our church like leaves on a forest floor.

My ekballo plea is this: Shepard your sheep fully.