A First Look at "The First Lords of the Earth"

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

My book The First Lords of the Earth: An Anthropological Study is available on Amazon. Options include Kindle, paperback, or hard cover and all are priced to accommodate the book lover on a tight budget. 

The book identifies the social structure and religious beliefs of the early Hebrew ruler-priest caste (6000-4000 years ago), their dispersion out of Africa, their territorial expansion, trade routes, and influence on the populations of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East.

Readers say this book brings the figures of the Old Testament to life. 

The research took 40 years, but I was able to make a rather complex subject easy to understand. I hope you will buy the book and discover answers to some perennial questions, such as:

• Who were the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew?
• Where is the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship?
• Why did so many Hebrew men have two wives?
• What was the difference in status between wives and concubines?
• What types of authority did the biblical Hebrew recognize?
• What were some symbols of authority among the early Hebrew?
• How did their acute observation of patterns in Nature inform their reasoning?
• If Judaism is NOT the Faith of the early Hebrew, what did they believe?

I hope you will find the book helpful and informative.

Best wishes,

Alice C. Linsley

Shoeless Worship

 

By Hope Ellen Rapson


“…Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up”. When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

The He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said also, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” Gen. 3:1-9 (ESV)



In many cultures, it is a sign of respect, humility, and honor to remove one’s shoes or at least to ask the host or hostess what their preference might be, before entering their home. Moses belonged to one of these cultures. His religious life reflected traditional practices. Then, when he found himself in the very presence of Almighty God, the Lord gave him these instructions.

First, Moses had to present himself as other, and lesser, than God. Second, he had to fully recognize whose Presence he was entering. Third, Moses had to honor, submit, and worship, not a tradition, but the living Creator and Sustainer of all.

Moses was a prince, a skillful shepherd, a businessman, and a family leader in Midian. His successes and status perhaps gave him a sense of exalted self-importance. This had to be counted as nothing in the presence of Almighty God. It had to be set aside with his shoes.

C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that pride is the ‘anti-God’ state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God. “Shoeless Worship” is the position in which the ego and self are discounted and surrendered to glorify God. It is easy and common to attend church services with our ego-shoes on, and neglect to humbly recognize why we are there and Who we have come to meet.

In her poem “Aurora Leigh,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed it this way:

Earth’s crammed with heaven;

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,

And daub their natural faces unaware.

Let us not “sit, and pluck, and daub” unaware or ignoring God who deserves our “shoeless worship.”

Related reading: Risky Worship; Life-Changing Worship; Worship in Spirit and Truth