Friends, this will probably sound a little critical, but do not take it to heart, as I am not criticizing scripture citers, and in fact I enjoy very much even the free wheeling citing that takes place on Twitter. I am, however, going to finally address two errors that many make in citing scripture.
1. Many err by approaching friends (or foes) and cutting loose with their opening statements as scripture citations. Instead of being person-person and then citing scripture as the conversation develops IF NECESSARY, scripture is used as the "opening salvo" as if a war or prosecution weapon. That is Satan's role modeling, not Christ's (Matthew 4:1-10).
2. Many think that you cite scripture first, then "understanding" will follow. It is the other way around. You must understand God before you cite scripture, and that means the entire context. You do not fire, aim, ready with scripture, you ready (understand), aim (discern appropriateness) then fire (cite). Rev. Billy Graham in his daily question column is an excellent role model for the correct order, by the way.
But above all, look to Jesus and how he spoke so you can understand what I mean, and you can follow his scriptural direction with worthiness. Let's go to the positive example of his Sermon in Matthew 5, before analyzing the negative example by Satan as I pointed out to you in Matthew 4.
Matthew 5
1. And seeing the crowds, he went up the mountain. And when he was seated, his disciples came to him. 2. And opening his mouth he taught them, saying,
[Notice that Jesus is on the mountain, seated, and surrounded by disciples. These are three postures of authority, understanding and discernment. Previously in Jesus' life as documented in the Gospels, you realize that he has authority from God, is in communion with God and thus receiving direction and understanding, and he has assumed the teaching role, thus demonstrating discernment. You must likewise develop your own understanding and discernment before you put yourself on a mountain, be seated, surround yourself with disciples, and then even open your mouth!]
3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
[Does Jesus "cite scripture here?" No.]
4. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth."
[Does Jesus wow them with citing scripture? No.]
5. "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
[Does Jesus finally whip out all that scripture to cite yet? No.]
6. "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied."
[Still waiting for the scroll & verse?]
7. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
[Hey! I'm not gonna listen anymore cuz Jesus doesn't say where God says that in the Bible."]
8. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God."
["That Jesus sure gonna be in trouble if he doesn't provide us with where God defines in the scripture what "clean of heart" means, sheesh!"]
9. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."
["I thought God didn't have children? Where's that in the scripture?]
10. "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
[Hey! "Where's that listed in the redeemable rewards index in the Bible???!!!?"]
11. "Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you, for my sake. 12. Rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets who were before you.
[Wow, Jesus will surely be in trouble now because he then goes on to teach that disciples are compared to salt and light in the world, without listing by citing in scripture exactly which prophets were persecuted!!!! Goodness, why isn't that Jesus Christ citing scripture!!!]
By the way, Jesus could have cited scripture from Psalms for Matthew:4, Isaiah for Matthew 5:5, and again Psalms for Matthew 5:8. Early Church scholars spent a lot of time analyzing Old Testament scripture to identify and footnote the New Testament to identify scripture that Jesus would have been well aware of.
Now, let's look at the negative example, of what I am teaching you about today, Matthew 4.
Matthew 4
1. Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil. 2. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
[Many people jump right to the dialogue between Satan and Jesus, and miss the huge point that Jesus was fasting, and thus in contemplative prayer, for forty days before they spoke! Again, you must understand that the point is not that "Jesus was sure real hungry" but that Jesus spent forty days of spiritual preparation before opening his mouth and citing scripture!]
3. And the tempter came and said to him, "If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread."
[Satan opens the conversation and you might say, "Hey, he's not starting with scripture." That is true but he is referring to Jesus being the Messiah, promised throughout the Old Testament! So Satan is starting the scripture based accusing first. This is the mistake that SO MANY supposedly pious Christians make today; they walk up to someone and immediately accuse or assume based on scripture, without even asking as much as "Could you explain to me what you are doing and why?"]
4. But he answered and said, "It is written, Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."
[Notice two things. Jesus, knowing that Satan is correctly accusing him of being the promised Messiah, does not even bother to confirm that via scripture. Jesus does not dignify the "IF" that Satan starts the accusation with, by confirming the truth of that accusation, that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus addresses the temptation with scripture, knowing full well the thoughts of Satan, who is going to engage in dueling scripture with him, and who started it by alluding to Jesus "if" being the Son of God, the promised Messiah. Secondly notice that Jesus paraphrases the scripture, not getting hung up in citing every single word in the 'original' order nor citing the book and verse.]
***
In Matthew 4:5-7 they again duel in scripture, with Satan citing first. In Matthew 4:8-10 Satan does not cite or allude to scripture at all (except to imply that he is the fallen prince who is able to supply all worldly things to Jesus) and instead, directly tempts, which Jesus replies to with scripture, and Satan departs.
Jesus' authority is once again confirmed as being from God the Most High and Holy in Matthew 4:11 where "behold, angels came and ministered to him." Angels did not have to "help Jesus out" by sending him "spiritual guide messages" to "tell him what to say to Satan." This is another delusion of modern people, even those who seem to be good Christians, that there is "coaching" going on from heaven. There is not and that is a total misunderstanding of being infused with the Holy Spirit.
To remain, however, with my main point. Study how many times Jesus could have cited scripture, and did not. Further, study how perfectly appropriate Jesus is when he does choose to cite scripture, and how he does it with patience and never as a rebuke with people.
With some people, many, actually, *sigh with sadness,* about all the scripture one hears from a human is when they are rebuking or trying to shame or embarrass another person. Where's that in the Gospel? Where does Jesus role model that?
When you go up to someone and immediately spout a Ten Commandment to someone, or some other scripture in order to discomfort them, all you do is copy the enemy, Satan, not Jesus. You further yourself, and probably the person you are speaking to, from the Kingdom of God, not drawing closer, through love and plain ordinary truthful every day speech, as you would use if you were really following Jesus. You rely on the scripture for your own understanding and discernment, you don't use it as your opening salvo, as the punches you exchange in the ring. You don't hope for that "killer scripture" that will "sucker punch" your "opponent." How much farther from Jesus could you be with that? Any farther would take you into the dangerous realm of not being a genuine believer, but an agenda driven utilizer of script.
Again, do not be alarmed about sharing favorite scripture, such as on Twitter, or in conversation. Be warned, though, that if you are using scripture to fire sniper bullets, you are going to hit yourself with them.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Showing posts with label gift of Understanding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gift of Understanding. Show all posts
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Fruits of the Holy Spirit (2): Continence
When I discussed with you the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, I presented them in a particular order because there is an order from foundational to ultimate that is a logical progression in likely receipt of the gifts. For example, one is not likely to receive any of the gifts if one is not first in receipt of and in appreciation of Fear of the Lord. The scripture teaches that Fear of the Lord is the foundational gift.
I'm going to present to you the different way that one must use understanding (a gift of the Holy Spirit! :-) to perceive the fruits of the Holy Spirit. That is I am going to follow closely in the scripture the actual development (or failure) of people to receive and develop the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Thus the first fruit of the Holy Spirit we will discuss, and understand to be the foundational fruit, is not Charity, as one might guess, but Continence.
The definition of Continence is the ability to contain something successfully, and in behavior terms it is often best understood as the ability to have "self control." Most people have heard the term continence in the medical context, where to have incontinence means that one cannot control one's bladder or bowel movements. But naturally as you would expect the term continence has a traditional meaning that is much more spiritual than whether one can wait to go to the lavatory!
Continence can be best thought of as the ability to exercise self control of one's needs and desires, and not in a repressive and suppressive way. Continence has the tone of a person who is also able to be moderate and temperate in their needs. So Continence is not to be understood as someone who can, for example, jab needles in their arms and not flinch from the pain because they are "in control." Rather, Continence means to be serene and moderate in the satisfaction of both one's good desires, but also to rebuff temptations. To use a simple example, someone is demonstrating Continence if they really, really, REALLY enjoy a particular item of food, beverage, or activity, such as a sport, yet you would not realize that unless they told you because they do not hoard or over-indulge in anything, even if they really enjoy it. As you can imagine people with the fruit of Continence are not addicts because no substance or activity overcomes their discernment of 1) whether it is good or bad for them and 2) even if it is harmless, it does not ever have control over these people by immoderate usage. A person with Continence can indeed have one piece of a favorite food once in a while, but does not need to tuck into that food in huge quantities on every occasion. A person with Continence might even love a food, sticking with these secular examples, yet not even indulge in it at all, or maybe once a year for special occasions!
Thus a person with spiritual Continence is moderate and in self control in not only secular matters but also spiritual matters. People with the fruit of Continence are not power hungry, for example. And now I imagine you know why I started with this fruit to be in discussion.
Genesis 3:1-6
Now the serpent [Satan] was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, [Eve] "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" The woman answered the serpent, "Of the fruit of all the trees in the garden we may eat; but 'Of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden,' God said, 'you shall not eat, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
But the serpent said to the woman, "No, you shall not die; for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for the knowledge it would give. She took of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband [Adam] and he ate.
Naturally generations of preachers have spoken about the great tragedy and fall of humankind, just as it had been created in the forms of Adam and Eve, through simple disobedience of an almost incomprehensible foolishness. Here Adam and Eve had everything they needed, including the actual presence of God in the Garden, and they had the promise of children, of dominion over the world, and of peace of mind. With everything that modern humans cannot even imagine having been given to Adam and Eve, how on earth could Eve have been with a single sentence of suggestion been so easily fooled by Satan to eat of the one fruit tree that had been forbidden to them by God? Eve lacked Continence, and so did Adam.
There is no more striking example of a lack of Continence than Eve and Adam in all of human history, of course. It is the classic example of "wanting more" when one already had absolutely everything that there was to have. This is so far from someone just being greedy and out of control over something that one really wanted and/or needed. Adam and Eve had everything that a human could possibly have, promised by God, within their reach and their destiny (ample food, shelter, dominion over the world, the presence of God by their side, and peace of mind), so it's not like Eve wanted for example "more" food, or "more" dominion, or "more" of God's company, or "more" peace. They were the starting point of having it all. Yet within hours of creation Eve at only one sentence from Satan threw it all away, starting with peace of mind.
You see, when a human has knowledge of good and evil, that human loses peace of mind. While Eve believed Satan thinking that she and Adam would "gain" something to be "like God," what they did not realize is that what God can "handle" is a net loss to humans. When Adam and Eve learned about evil, they lost their peace of mind. Rather than having "more" of God, they lost what they had, which was already the most and everything that a human could have!
Contrast this, now, and I'll discuss it later under a different fruit of the Holy Spirit topic, with the sin of Satan and the angels who followed him when they were created by God and then given the choice to serve God or not. Eve followed by Adam made a sin of lack of self control. The angels who refused to serve God did not lack self control, they lacked humility. At a glance you might think these are similar, but they are not, and that is why I will explain them as being linked to the lack of two different fruits of the Holy Spirit.
So Eve and Adam did not have inflated egos as did the disobedient angels. At first glance one might think that as it seems as though both Adam and Eve and the disobedient fallen angels want to be "like God." But Eve did not think she would be completely like God in every way. Eve thought that she would gain a talent, some knowledge, that being the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve did not have a clue what evil was at all. They thus thought it was something that they could own, that knowledge, just "like God." They never dreamed that they would through this knowledge supposedly be "like God" in total. No, Eve and then Adam lacked Continence. They already had everything imaginable yet they lacked even the tiniest will power to just say no to Satan who offered them something they didn't even understand, when they already had everything that humans could ever have desired or possessed, including the day to day presence of God by their side. The disobedient angels, on the other hand, refused to serve God, but like Adam and Eve they did not of course kid themselves that they would ever be like God or equivalent to him. That is something Adam and Eve and the fallen angels share: they knew full well that they would not become God or godlike. Adam and Eve thought they would have a piece of knowledge (what evil is) that God had, and thus be like him in that respect, while the disobedient angels thought that they were "as good" as God in the sense that they did not have to humble themselves to him and serve him. Neither thought they would actual be step-ins or mini versions of God himself in any way, shape or form.
Adam and Eve simply could not push themselves away from the table that was already groaning under the weight of everything good for humans imaginable, and say "No" to Satan offering to put the one forbidden thing on their plate, which would be knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve of course already knew what good was because they were in the presence of God and God gave them everything good already. So how does one best understand the knowledge of "good and evil?" Here is an analogy. Suppose that you were created and lived in a world that was only one color, let's say blue. You would not understand that blue is "blue" because you don't even realize that it is only one of a choice of thing called "colors." So such a person would of course know totally the experience of being "blue" as they and everything around them is blue, but they don't realize that it is "blue" because they do not know a second color at all, and that color choices exist. Thus Adam and Eve did not need to find out what "good" was since they were living it; they just did not realize it. Once they ate the fruit and knew that there is a second choice, called "evil," now it all snapped into place where they realized that everything they already had was "good," but they now also know what "evil" is and how it can be achieved. They saw and were the victims of the first evil, which is human deception.
Adam and Eve would never have heard a lie or have been deceived, since they lived within the goodness of God's total truth. Their children would have been born, and their children, and their children, never even thinking of the concept of lying or deceiving. Once Eve and then Adam ate the fruit they got a crash course in 1) what evil is 2) that they had good all along and didn't realize it since they knew nothing of evil to compare it to and 3) the first example of evil, being the willing victims of Satan's deception. Then, in immediate hindsight, they would have realized the second evil to happen in sequence, which is disobeying God.
So the fruit of Continence springs from several gifts of the Holy Spirit. Before we list them, let us recap what Continence means and implies:
1) self control
2) a preference for all things in moderation
3) understanding the genuine value of limitations
In both secular and spiritual matters, therefore, you can see that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is born and yielded by a tree of the Holy Spirit that is comprised of the gifts of Fear of the Lord, Piety, Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom.
It is not a one-to-one match where a certain given "gift" of the Holy Spirit yields a certain or given specific matching "fruit."
You can understand this by looking back at Adam and Eve. What would have prevented them from listening to Satan? If they had great Fear of the Lord, the fundamental gift of the Holy Spirit, they may well have trembled at the very first mention of disobeying God's order not to eat fruit from that one tree of the many they had. In other words Fear of the Lord alone may well have been enough to yielded the fruit of Continence, and thus given them pause to have self restraint. Suppose they did not have Fear of the Lord (since there was no reason for God to have given them that need, since he was as yet not having to demonstrate any admonishment or punishment in righteous wrath, since they lived in the perfection of the place he had created for them as humans)? They had the gift of Knowledge because God explained not only all the world to them but they also were given the Knowledge of the one unbreakable rule, which is not to eat of the fruit of that one tree. So Adam and Eve were not gift-less, they did not lack the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They had an abundance of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Knowledge.
Those of you who followed my series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, though, remember that one rung up from Knowledge is Understanding. By one rung up I mean that one can have Knowledge as the groundwork but still lack Understanding and Wisdom, and that was the stage of development that Adam and Eve were at. If they had asked God, "Please tell us why you do not want us to eat from the fruit of the tree," God would have truthfully answered them, and they would have gained the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding. Thus even if they did not have Fear of the Lord (and may never have needed it), if they added Understanding to the abundant Knowledge that they had, they would have through this second scenario avoided disobeying God and losing it all by eating the fruit from the one tree that was forbidden to them.
If they had by one scenario or the other avoided disobeying God, they would have had children in Eden. They then would have raised and taught their children about God. That would have been the third rung, which is they are now the sources of Wisdom, as one cannot have Wisdom without first Knowledge (the "facts") and then Understanding (the "comprehension.") Wisdom is the synthesis and the culmination of facts plus comprehension plus experience and inspiration. If Adam and Eve had reached within Eden the gift of the Holy Spirit of Wisdom, they would have fully understood why not to disobey God without ever having to "know" what evil actually is and the literal pitfalls of knowing about evil. To go back to our color analogy, they would have known and understood that "blue" is their totality of experience, and that to expand that experience would be a diminishment rather than a gain. They'd never have needed to lose their peace of mind by actually knowing what evil is and that it exists. Imagine what the world would have been like. *sigh,,,,*
So the most fundamental, the "first fruit" of successful receipt and cultivation of any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is Continence.
I'm going to present to you the different way that one must use understanding (a gift of the Holy Spirit! :-) to perceive the fruits of the Holy Spirit. That is I am going to follow closely in the scripture the actual development (or failure) of people to receive and develop the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Thus the first fruit of the Holy Spirit we will discuss, and understand to be the foundational fruit, is not Charity, as one might guess, but Continence.
The definition of Continence is the ability to contain something successfully, and in behavior terms it is often best understood as the ability to have "self control." Most people have heard the term continence in the medical context, where to have incontinence means that one cannot control one's bladder or bowel movements. But naturally as you would expect the term continence has a traditional meaning that is much more spiritual than whether one can wait to go to the lavatory!
Continence can be best thought of as the ability to exercise self control of one's needs and desires, and not in a repressive and suppressive way. Continence has the tone of a person who is also able to be moderate and temperate in their needs. So Continence is not to be understood as someone who can, for example, jab needles in their arms and not flinch from the pain because they are "in control." Rather, Continence means to be serene and moderate in the satisfaction of both one's good desires, but also to rebuff temptations. To use a simple example, someone is demonstrating Continence if they really, really, REALLY enjoy a particular item of food, beverage, or activity, such as a sport, yet you would not realize that unless they told you because they do not hoard or over-indulge in anything, even if they really enjoy it. As you can imagine people with the fruit of Continence are not addicts because no substance or activity overcomes their discernment of 1) whether it is good or bad for them and 2) even if it is harmless, it does not ever have control over these people by immoderate usage. A person with Continence can indeed have one piece of a favorite food once in a while, but does not need to tuck into that food in huge quantities on every occasion. A person with Continence might even love a food, sticking with these secular examples, yet not even indulge in it at all, or maybe once a year for special occasions!
Thus a person with spiritual Continence is moderate and in self control in not only secular matters but also spiritual matters. People with the fruit of Continence are not power hungry, for example. And now I imagine you know why I started with this fruit to be in discussion.
Genesis 3:1-6
Now the serpent [Satan] was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, [Eve] "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" The woman answered the serpent, "Of the fruit of all the trees in the garden we may eat; but 'Of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden,' God said, 'you shall not eat, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
But the serpent said to the woman, "No, you shall not die; for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for the knowledge it would give. She took of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband [Adam] and he ate.
Naturally generations of preachers have spoken about the great tragedy and fall of humankind, just as it had been created in the forms of Adam and Eve, through simple disobedience of an almost incomprehensible foolishness. Here Adam and Eve had everything they needed, including the actual presence of God in the Garden, and they had the promise of children, of dominion over the world, and of peace of mind. With everything that modern humans cannot even imagine having been given to Adam and Eve, how on earth could Eve have been with a single sentence of suggestion been so easily fooled by Satan to eat of the one fruit tree that had been forbidden to them by God? Eve lacked Continence, and so did Adam.
There is no more striking example of a lack of Continence than Eve and Adam in all of human history, of course. It is the classic example of "wanting more" when one already had absolutely everything that there was to have. This is so far from someone just being greedy and out of control over something that one really wanted and/or needed. Adam and Eve had everything that a human could possibly have, promised by God, within their reach and their destiny (ample food, shelter, dominion over the world, the presence of God by their side, and peace of mind), so it's not like Eve wanted for example "more" food, or "more" dominion, or "more" of God's company, or "more" peace. They were the starting point of having it all. Yet within hours of creation Eve at only one sentence from Satan threw it all away, starting with peace of mind.
You see, when a human has knowledge of good and evil, that human loses peace of mind. While Eve believed Satan thinking that she and Adam would "gain" something to be "like God," what they did not realize is that what God can "handle" is a net loss to humans. When Adam and Eve learned about evil, they lost their peace of mind. Rather than having "more" of God, they lost what they had, which was already the most and everything that a human could have!
Contrast this, now, and I'll discuss it later under a different fruit of the Holy Spirit topic, with the sin of Satan and the angels who followed him when they were created by God and then given the choice to serve God or not. Eve followed by Adam made a sin of lack of self control. The angels who refused to serve God did not lack self control, they lacked humility. At a glance you might think these are similar, but they are not, and that is why I will explain them as being linked to the lack of two different fruits of the Holy Spirit.
So Eve and Adam did not have inflated egos as did the disobedient angels. At first glance one might think that as it seems as though both Adam and Eve and the disobedient fallen angels want to be "like God." But Eve did not think she would be completely like God in every way. Eve thought that she would gain a talent, some knowledge, that being the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve did not have a clue what evil was at all. They thus thought it was something that they could own, that knowledge, just "like God." They never dreamed that they would through this knowledge supposedly be "like God" in total. No, Eve and then Adam lacked Continence. They already had everything imaginable yet they lacked even the tiniest will power to just say no to Satan who offered them something they didn't even understand, when they already had everything that humans could ever have desired or possessed, including the day to day presence of God by their side. The disobedient angels, on the other hand, refused to serve God, but like Adam and Eve they did not of course kid themselves that they would ever be like God or equivalent to him. That is something Adam and Eve and the fallen angels share: they knew full well that they would not become God or godlike. Adam and Eve thought they would have a piece of knowledge (what evil is) that God had, and thus be like him in that respect, while the disobedient angels thought that they were "as good" as God in the sense that they did not have to humble themselves to him and serve him. Neither thought they would actual be step-ins or mini versions of God himself in any way, shape or form.
Adam and Eve simply could not push themselves away from the table that was already groaning under the weight of everything good for humans imaginable, and say "No" to Satan offering to put the one forbidden thing on their plate, which would be knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve of course already knew what good was because they were in the presence of God and God gave them everything good already. So how does one best understand the knowledge of "good and evil?" Here is an analogy. Suppose that you were created and lived in a world that was only one color, let's say blue. You would not understand that blue is "blue" because you don't even realize that it is only one of a choice of thing called "colors." So such a person would of course know totally the experience of being "blue" as they and everything around them is blue, but they don't realize that it is "blue" because they do not know a second color at all, and that color choices exist. Thus Adam and Eve did not need to find out what "good" was since they were living it; they just did not realize it. Once they ate the fruit and knew that there is a second choice, called "evil," now it all snapped into place where they realized that everything they already had was "good," but they now also know what "evil" is and how it can be achieved. They saw and were the victims of the first evil, which is human deception.
Adam and Eve would never have heard a lie or have been deceived, since they lived within the goodness of God's total truth. Their children would have been born, and their children, and their children, never even thinking of the concept of lying or deceiving. Once Eve and then Adam ate the fruit they got a crash course in 1) what evil is 2) that they had good all along and didn't realize it since they knew nothing of evil to compare it to and 3) the first example of evil, being the willing victims of Satan's deception. Then, in immediate hindsight, they would have realized the second evil to happen in sequence, which is disobeying God.
So the fruit of Continence springs from several gifts of the Holy Spirit. Before we list them, let us recap what Continence means and implies:
1) self control
2) a preference for all things in moderation
3) understanding the genuine value of limitations
In both secular and spiritual matters, therefore, you can see that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is born and yielded by a tree of the Holy Spirit that is comprised of the gifts of Fear of the Lord, Piety, Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom.
It is not a one-to-one match where a certain given "gift" of the Holy Spirit yields a certain or given specific matching "fruit."
You can understand this by looking back at Adam and Eve. What would have prevented them from listening to Satan? If they had great Fear of the Lord, the fundamental gift of the Holy Spirit, they may well have trembled at the very first mention of disobeying God's order not to eat fruit from that one tree of the many they had. In other words Fear of the Lord alone may well have been enough to yielded the fruit of Continence, and thus given them pause to have self restraint. Suppose they did not have Fear of the Lord (since there was no reason for God to have given them that need, since he was as yet not having to demonstrate any admonishment or punishment in righteous wrath, since they lived in the perfection of the place he had created for them as humans)? They had the gift of Knowledge because God explained not only all the world to them but they also were given the Knowledge of the one unbreakable rule, which is not to eat of the fruit of that one tree. So Adam and Eve were not gift-less, they did not lack the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They had an abundance of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Knowledge.
Those of you who followed my series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, though, remember that one rung up from Knowledge is Understanding. By one rung up I mean that one can have Knowledge as the groundwork but still lack Understanding and Wisdom, and that was the stage of development that Adam and Eve were at. If they had asked God, "Please tell us why you do not want us to eat from the fruit of the tree," God would have truthfully answered them, and they would have gained the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding. Thus even if they did not have Fear of the Lord (and may never have needed it), if they added Understanding to the abundant Knowledge that they had, they would have through this second scenario avoided disobeying God and losing it all by eating the fruit from the one tree that was forbidden to them.
If they had by one scenario or the other avoided disobeying God, they would have had children in Eden. They then would have raised and taught their children about God. That would have been the third rung, which is they are now the sources of Wisdom, as one cannot have Wisdom without first Knowledge (the "facts") and then Understanding (the "comprehension.") Wisdom is the synthesis and the culmination of facts plus comprehension plus experience and inspiration. If Adam and Eve had reached within Eden the gift of the Holy Spirit of Wisdom, they would have fully understood why not to disobey God without ever having to "know" what evil actually is and the literal pitfalls of knowing about evil. To go back to our color analogy, they would have known and understood that "blue" is their totality of experience, and that to expand that experience would be a diminishment rather than a gain. They'd never have needed to lose their peace of mind by actually knowing what evil is and that it exists. Imagine what the world would have been like. *sigh,,,,*
So the most fundamental, the "first fruit" of successful receipt and cultivation of any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is Continence.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Bible Reading: Proverbs 4:1-9
Hear, O children, a father's instruction, be attentive, that you may gain understanding! 2. Yes, excellent advice I give you; my teaching do not forsake. 3. When I was my father's child, frail, yet the darling of my mother, 4. He taught me, and said to me: "Let your heart hold fast to my words: keep my commands, that you may live!
5. "Get wisdom, get understanding! Do not forget or turn aside from the words I utter. 6. Forsake her not, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will safeguard you; 7. The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom; at the cost of all you have, get understanding. 8. Extol her, and she will exalt you; she will bring you honors if you embrace her; 9. She will put on your head a graceful diadem; a glorious crown will she bestow on you."
5. "Get wisdom, get understanding! Do not forget or turn aside from the words I utter. 6. Forsake her not, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will safeguard you; 7. The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom; at the cost of all you have, get understanding. 8. Extol her, and she will exalt you; she will bring you honors if you embrace her; 9. She will put on your head a graceful diadem; a glorious crown will she bestow on you."
Thursday, December 4, 2008
7 gifts of the Holy Spirit: (6a) Bible citations
The gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding, as cited in the Bible.
1 Chronicles 22:1
Only the Lord give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God.
Psalms 119:104
Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
Proverbs 14:29
He that is slow of wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
1 Corinthians 14:20
Brethren, be not children in understanding: how be it in malice, be ye children, but in understanding be men.
[St. Paul is saying that one should not cultivate the understanding of malicious ways, but to cultivate understanding to be “men,” as in honest, just and upright.]
1 Chronicles 22:1
Only the Lord give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God.
Psalms 119:104
Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
Proverbs 14:29
He that is slow of wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
1 Corinthians 14:20
Brethren, be not children in understanding: how be it in malice, be ye children, but in understanding be men.
[St. Paul is saying that one should not cultivate the understanding of malicious ways, but to cultivate understanding to be “men,” as in honest, just and upright.]
7 gifts of the Holy Spirit: (6) Understanding
If one, therefore, has a solid and humble grounding in these gifts of the Holy Spirit, Fear of the Lord, Piety, Knowledge, Fortitude, and Counsel, one is now able to cultivate the next gift of the Holy Spirit, which is Understanding. Understanding means that one is able to comprehend the actions of God, and also by extension to comprehend fellow humanity. Understanding does not mean that one understands God himself, for that is impossible, due to the limitations of any life form, including humans, to understanding the all knowingness and thus the perspective of God. But this is why the Bible uses this phrase: that one is able to understand “the ways of God.”
A way of God is a particular manifestation of his will. Thus the “way of God” can be identified and discerned in everything from God’s “decision” to structure the universe with gaseous and energy filled bodies called stars, all the way to how God had a specific communication with a Prophet in the past. Each time that God creates, allows or wills something to happen, that provides insight into “His Ways.” The gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding, allows the believer who has cultivated the previous, foundational gifts, to begin to understand God’s ways.
Also, by better understanding God, one better understands God’s creations, including the mysteries of the human mind and heart, soul and their behavior (both good and deplorable, as bad behavior comes from misuse of one of God’s gifts). When one understands God’s ways as in, for example, better understanding one of his gifts, one can better understand why fellow humans fall into temptation of misuse of those gifts, and how to remedy that sinful situation.
Further, when one understands God’s ways, one can better understand the universe, the earth, and the ecosystems upon it, and be a better steward of the gifts of creation. When one does not understand God first, such as certain scientists who are “secular” plus personally unbelieving, they risk misunderstanding even the factual measurements that they observe of their studies, for they project the way and motivations of humans onto the behavior of plants and animals, even if they are unaware that they are doing so.
When one has grounded themselves in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as preparation, and then cultivates receipt of the gift of Understanding, it brings great joy and even the most mysterious and difficult concepts of the Almighty can be comprehended by anyone, regardless of background or education. There is a very subtle but moving example of this in the Gospel, where Jesus is teaching in the very Temple of Jerusalem itself. The Temple was always busy and crowded, with holy people, priests and scholars and also many crowds of the ordinary people who have come to either worship or to learn.
Mark 12:35
And while Jesus was teaching in the temple, he addressed them, saying, “How do the Scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? For David himself says, by the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thy enemies thy footstool.’ David himself, therefore, calls him ‘Lord’; how, then, is he his son?” And the mass of the common people liked to hear him.
Jesus is here teaching one of the most complicated of the theologies, which is to understand the nature of the Messiah according to the mysterious prophesies of King David. The prophecies were difficult even for the Scribes to understand, and Jesus “calls them out” on their lack of understanding of what they themselves preach and teach. In this excerpt from what was the longer teaching, Mark preserves a real gem, actually two gems. One is that Jesus, without providing the “answer,” forces the Scribes to see that they cannot use simplistic assumptions in interpreting and understanding how God will manifest his will in raising the Messiah. The second gem is that Mark records that “the common people liked to hear him” teach these complicated theologies in the Temple.
So Jesus demonstrates the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding in three ways here. The first is that he affirms that King David’s capability to prophesy and the exact specifics of what we prophesied were provided “by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus thus helps people to understand the reality of the Holy Spirit by being very clear as to the Holy Spirit’s potency and moments of intervention. So Jesus provides an example of the gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit that occurred in the prior times. Second, Jesus role models for the Scribes how to manifest genuine gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was doing, rather than false proclamation of Understanding, as the Scribes were doing. Third, Jesus demonstrates that through receptivity of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding that the common people of all types and education can and did very much comprehend and appreciate the implications of the learning, and the love of Understanding of God. Mark records in this simple sentence that the common people not only “got” the complicated teaching of Jesus, but they loved it.
Receipt of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding is properly felt in small pieces that one at a time just “click” into place. One comprehends one example of God’s ways or his will, and suddenly “get it” at both an intellectual and a heartfelt level. The feeling is like, “Ah, so this is ‘why’ God requires this, or this is ‘how’ God allowed that to happen.” True Understanding as given by the Holy Spirit is sometimes as small as appreciating for the first time the fullness of meaning and implication in several words or a phrase in the Bible, or in prayer, or in something that a saint or prophet of God once said. God cannot be understood “holistically” or “as a whole.” That is one of the mistakes of “New Age” and other mushy thinking and philosophy. God cannot be reduced to a holistic understanding that fits within a human brain, or can be characterized by a human at the keyboard or holding a pen. God can only be comprehended by the gift of Understanding of one small example of his ways and his will at a time.
This is why the great Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy men and women can often meditate upon just one aspect of God, as experienced through a single line of prayer, a Jew bowing ("davinging") at the Wall, calligraphy of the name of Allah, the writing and contemplation of an icon, or meditations upon the cross. These holy people are studying and comprehending with the mind and the heart “one way” of God’s will. It is not a self centered and self denying pretension, such as “New Age” “meditation.” All true uses of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding focuses on comprehending and appreciating God’s ways and will, not turning “inward” or “outward” in “detachment” and self gratifying control over one’s own mind and senses. Cultivating one’s own “control” over whatever is hardly the route to the gift of genuine Understanding, which is only received when one turns directly toward God. An analogy is that “New Age” “meditation” is like being a student in the classroom and cultivating how many ways you can block out the sight, sound and words of the teacher and instead, focus only on some trivial aspect of your own self and glorify it. That becomes quite a problem when it is final exam time. One also shortchanges one’s self on experiencing the genuine joyousness of Understanding, of comprehending the ways and the Will of God. Further, such misuse and misunderstanding is obviously detrimental to understanding one’s fellow creations of God. Humans were made in the image of God, not in the image of the strongest human meditation ‘expert.’
Far from being a barrier or a diversion, fuller use of the gift of Understanding as given by the Holy Spirit enhances one’s success and insight in even secular subjects, such as science, mathematics, physics, biology and human behavior. Secularists inadvertently close off in their mind consideration of alternative hypotheses due to their conditioning to be only “factual.” By trying too hard to be “factual” one misses interpretations and facts that are fact based, but simply would not have occurred to a mind that attempts to be so self focused and rigid. Humans are very limited due to the facts of being a physical being with a given life span. God has no limits. Thus God can envision and will scientific facts and solutions that humans cannot. Thus, one who is rigidly anti-God is also truncating their mind’s own flexibility, as they unconsciously assume that nothing in science can exist except what can be understood by one’s self. This is an especial danger and blinders of people who are “high achievers” “at the top of their field of study.” They not only unconsciously shut out a scientific fact that seems to “far out” for them to ever have considered, but they unconsciously shut out the voices of their colleagues, who are “secondary talents,” in their minds. When one receives with humility the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding, one enhances, rather than reduces, one’s own understanding of mundane life and the scholarly studies of it.
Understanding combined with Fortitude gives each human the resiliency that they need to cope with the realities of life. This is something that young people have been robbed of by their negligent parents, faith instructors, and profane society. It is no wonder that so many young people cannot cope with any heartbreak without turning to drugs or guns, or falling into depression or other mental disorders and sufferings. Young people used to be very faith and reality based, and thus grew to be adults that were rocks, were the salt of the earth. The past generations are filled with young people who were blessed with Understanding and Fortitude from the youngest ages, and they grew into the remarkable men and women we both read about in history books, or never hear about because they were the quiet folks who kept life and society going. There is no education system, no pharmaceutical or street drug, no science fiction or meditation, and no entertainment that can take the place of Understanding and Fortitude. It is not only the salvation of the soul that is at risk without the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also the health and sanity of the individual and society as a whole. If one needs air to breathe and in order to continue to live, attending classes that tell you that you do not need air, taking a drug so you can imagine that you do not need air and to help you ‘forget’ that you do not have, reading a book about ‘aliens’ who do not need air, chanting ‘I am air itself; I do not need earthly air,’ or playing a video game where you shoot people who may or may not need air, none of those will save one’s life and prevent one from dying a death due to lack of air.
That is why the holy people, and the ordinary people, have great joy in the genuine gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding, because is it comprehending reality, not fiction.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
A way of God is a particular manifestation of his will. Thus the “way of God” can be identified and discerned in everything from God’s “decision” to structure the universe with gaseous and energy filled bodies called stars, all the way to how God had a specific communication with a Prophet in the past. Each time that God creates, allows or wills something to happen, that provides insight into “His Ways.” The gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding, allows the believer who has cultivated the previous, foundational gifts, to begin to understand God’s ways.
Also, by better understanding God, one better understands God’s creations, including the mysteries of the human mind and heart, soul and their behavior (both good and deplorable, as bad behavior comes from misuse of one of God’s gifts). When one understands God’s ways as in, for example, better understanding one of his gifts, one can better understand why fellow humans fall into temptation of misuse of those gifts, and how to remedy that sinful situation.
Further, when one understands God’s ways, one can better understand the universe, the earth, and the ecosystems upon it, and be a better steward of the gifts of creation. When one does not understand God first, such as certain scientists who are “secular” plus personally unbelieving, they risk misunderstanding even the factual measurements that they observe of their studies, for they project the way and motivations of humans onto the behavior of plants and animals, even if they are unaware that they are doing so.
When one has grounded themselves in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as preparation, and then cultivates receipt of the gift of Understanding, it brings great joy and even the most mysterious and difficult concepts of the Almighty can be comprehended by anyone, regardless of background or education. There is a very subtle but moving example of this in the Gospel, where Jesus is teaching in the very Temple of Jerusalem itself. The Temple was always busy and crowded, with holy people, priests and scholars and also many crowds of the ordinary people who have come to either worship or to learn.
Mark 12:35
And while Jesus was teaching in the temple, he addressed them, saying, “How do the Scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? For David himself says, by the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thy enemies thy footstool.’ David himself, therefore, calls him ‘Lord’; how, then, is he his son?” And the mass of the common people liked to hear him.
Jesus is here teaching one of the most complicated of the theologies, which is to understand the nature of the Messiah according to the mysterious prophesies of King David. The prophecies were difficult even for the Scribes to understand, and Jesus “calls them out” on their lack of understanding of what they themselves preach and teach. In this excerpt from what was the longer teaching, Mark preserves a real gem, actually two gems. One is that Jesus, without providing the “answer,” forces the Scribes to see that they cannot use simplistic assumptions in interpreting and understanding how God will manifest his will in raising the Messiah. The second gem is that Mark records that “the common people liked to hear him” teach these complicated theologies in the Temple.
So Jesus demonstrates the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding in three ways here. The first is that he affirms that King David’s capability to prophesy and the exact specifics of what we prophesied were provided “by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus thus helps people to understand the reality of the Holy Spirit by being very clear as to the Holy Spirit’s potency and moments of intervention. So Jesus provides an example of the gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit that occurred in the prior times. Second, Jesus role models for the Scribes how to manifest genuine gift of Understanding from the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was doing, rather than false proclamation of Understanding, as the Scribes were doing. Third, Jesus demonstrates that through receptivity of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding that the common people of all types and education can and did very much comprehend and appreciate the implications of the learning, and the love of Understanding of God. Mark records in this simple sentence that the common people not only “got” the complicated teaching of Jesus, but they loved it.
Receipt of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding is properly felt in small pieces that one at a time just “click” into place. One comprehends one example of God’s ways or his will, and suddenly “get it” at both an intellectual and a heartfelt level. The feeling is like, “Ah, so this is ‘why’ God requires this, or this is ‘how’ God allowed that to happen.” True Understanding as given by the Holy Spirit is sometimes as small as appreciating for the first time the fullness of meaning and implication in several words or a phrase in the Bible, or in prayer, or in something that a saint or prophet of God once said. God cannot be understood “holistically” or “as a whole.” That is one of the mistakes of “New Age” and other mushy thinking and philosophy. God cannot be reduced to a holistic understanding that fits within a human brain, or can be characterized by a human at the keyboard or holding a pen. God can only be comprehended by the gift of Understanding of one small example of his ways and his will at a time.
This is why the great Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy men and women can often meditate upon just one aspect of God, as experienced through a single line of prayer, a Jew bowing ("davinging") at the Wall, calligraphy of the name of Allah, the writing and contemplation of an icon, or meditations upon the cross. These holy people are studying and comprehending with the mind and the heart “one way” of God’s will. It is not a self centered and self denying pretension, such as “New Age” “meditation.” All true uses of the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding focuses on comprehending and appreciating God’s ways and will, not turning “inward” or “outward” in “detachment” and self gratifying control over one’s own mind and senses. Cultivating one’s own “control” over whatever is hardly the route to the gift of genuine Understanding, which is only received when one turns directly toward God. An analogy is that “New Age” “meditation” is like being a student in the classroom and cultivating how many ways you can block out the sight, sound and words of the teacher and instead, focus only on some trivial aspect of your own self and glorify it. That becomes quite a problem when it is final exam time. One also shortchanges one’s self on experiencing the genuine joyousness of Understanding, of comprehending the ways and the Will of God. Further, such misuse and misunderstanding is obviously detrimental to understanding one’s fellow creations of God. Humans were made in the image of God, not in the image of the strongest human meditation ‘expert.’
Far from being a barrier or a diversion, fuller use of the gift of Understanding as given by the Holy Spirit enhances one’s success and insight in even secular subjects, such as science, mathematics, physics, biology and human behavior. Secularists inadvertently close off in their mind consideration of alternative hypotheses due to their conditioning to be only “factual.” By trying too hard to be “factual” one misses interpretations and facts that are fact based, but simply would not have occurred to a mind that attempts to be so self focused and rigid. Humans are very limited due to the facts of being a physical being with a given life span. God has no limits. Thus God can envision and will scientific facts and solutions that humans cannot. Thus, one who is rigidly anti-God is also truncating their mind’s own flexibility, as they unconsciously assume that nothing in science can exist except what can be understood by one’s self. This is an especial danger and blinders of people who are “high achievers” “at the top of their field of study.” They not only unconsciously shut out a scientific fact that seems to “far out” for them to ever have considered, but they unconsciously shut out the voices of their colleagues, who are “secondary talents,” in their minds. When one receives with humility the gift of the Holy Spirit of Understanding, one enhances, rather than reduces, one’s own understanding of mundane life and the scholarly studies of it.
Understanding combined with Fortitude gives each human the resiliency that they need to cope with the realities of life. This is something that young people have been robbed of by their negligent parents, faith instructors, and profane society. It is no wonder that so many young people cannot cope with any heartbreak without turning to drugs or guns, or falling into depression or other mental disorders and sufferings. Young people used to be very faith and reality based, and thus grew to be adults that were rocks, were the salt of the earth. The past generations are filled with young people who were blessed with Understanding and Fortitude from the youngest ages, and they grew into the remarkable men and women we both read about in history books, or never hear about because they were the quiet folks who kept life and society going. There is no education system, no pharmaceutical or street drug, no science fiction or meditation, and no entertainment that can take the place of Understanding and Fortitude. It is not only the salvation of the soul that is at risk without the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but also the health and sanity of the individual and society as a whole. If one needs air to breathe and in order to continue to live, attending classes that tell you that you do not need air, taking a drug so you can imagine that you do not need air and to help you ‘forget’ that you do not have, reading a book about ‘aliens’ who do not need air, chanting ‘I am air itself; I do not need earthly air,’ or playing a video game where you shoot people who may or may not need air, none of those will save one’s life and prevent one from dying a death due to lack of air.
That is why the holy people, and the ordinary people, have great joy in the genuine gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding, because is it comprehending reality, not fiction.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
7 gifts of the Holy Spirit: (3a) Bible citations
Here is a selection of Bible passages regarding the gift of the Holy Spirit "Knowledge." The first citation does not mention knowledge, but lists some of the formats of spiritual knowledge, such as law, decree and precepts. Notice the mention of "Fear of the Lord." This demonstrates once again the constancy of the need for that gift to be the basis of all of the other gifts.
Psalms 19:8-12
The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The statues of the Lord are true, all of them just;
More desirable than gold, than a hoard of purest gold,
Sweeter also than honey or drippings from the comb.
By them your servant is instructed; obeying them brings much reward.
Proverbs 8:10
Receive my instruction in preference to silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold.
Proverbs 9:10
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,
And knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 12:1
He who loves correction loves knowledge,
But he who hates reproof is stupid.
Proverbs 19:2
Without knowledge even zeal is not good; and he who acts hastily, blunders.
Proverbs 21:11
When the arrogant man is punished, the simple are wiser;
When the wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.
Ecclesiastes 1: 12-18
I, Qoheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my mind to search and investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun.
A thankless task God has appointed for men to be busied about.
I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is missing cannot be supplied.
Though I said to myself, “Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge”; yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that this also is a chase after wind.
For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief.
[Despite his self identification, we do not know who is the author of this book of wisdom because Qoheleth is a pen name, a literary name, meaning “one who convokes an assembly.” However this is a valuable citation on the subject of knowledge because this divinely inspired learned man warns that the search for secular knowledge (“under the sun” means earthly human knowledge in comparison to heavenly or Holy Spirit provided knowledge) sometimes brings a lot of unhappiness. This is as I discussed with St. Paul’s observations in the previous posting that true knowledge is spiritual, while much of secular human knowledge leads to temptation and the seamy sides of life. This is what this author is describing that he experienced when he made it his calling to seek out human based “wisdom” and “knowledge” and ended up storing a lot of grief. When one goes looking just for human based knowledge, one sees a lot of human behavior that they wish they had not seen, and also, as we see today in modern times, there are slippery ethics slopes, seeking knowledge that is based in technology and power over life and death that gradually becomes a grief filled burden rather than a blessing.]
Wisdom 1:16, 2:13
It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death, considered it a friend, and pined for it, and made a covenant with it, because they deserve to be in its possession… [who]… professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the Lord.
[In a long list of the attributes of the wicked, the learned sage who is the unknown author of this book mentions that one of the things that the wicked claim is that they have “knowledge of God.” This is yet another warning to discern between true “Knowledge” that is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the many false prophets and secularists who claim to have “knowledge of God” through wicked or occult means].
Wisdom 7:17
[God’s true wisdom] For he gave me sound knowledge of existing things, that I might know the organization of the universe and the force of its elements.
Sirach 3:24
Where the pupil of the eye is missing, there is no light, and where there is no knowledge there is no wisdom.
[The author, Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach, a sage who lived in Jerusalem, is explaining here that one must be humble to achieve wisdom and enlightenment because one must start with gaining true knowledge before one can be wise. Knowledge is like the pupil of the eye that gathers together the law and the facts in order to shed light on a matter, and thus be part of gained wisdom. This is yet another Biblical reference that shows knowledge to be the lowest and essential foundation of what will later be wisdom and understanding.]
Psalms 19:8-12
The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The statues of the Lord are true, all of them just;
More desirable than gold, than a hoard of purest gold,
Sweeter also than honey or drippings from the comb.
By them your servant is instructed; obeying them brings much reward.
Proverbs 8:10
Receive my instruction in preference to silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold.
Proverbs 9:10
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,
And knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
[This proverb is structured so that the reader understands that "Wisdom" is the highest gift, the culmination of the "intellectual gifts" followed by "Understanding" and "Knowledge." One has to first start with "Knowledge" about God, which leads to "Understanding," which then leads to "Wisdom."]
Proverbs 12:1
He who loves correction loves knowledge,
But he who hates reproof is stupid.
Proverbs 19:2
Without knowledge even zeal is not good; and he who acts hastily, blunders.
[This proverb is an essential reminder that it is worse to be a zealot for God and go charging off in arrogance in his name without having any of the true "Knowledge" given by the Holy Spirit than it is to have the true "Knowledge" and appear to the zealot to be "lukewarm" in your faith. The zealot blunders and does much damage based on lack of the gift of "Knowledge," that authentically only comes from the Holy Spirit.]
Proverbs 21:11
When the arrogant man is punished, the simple are wiser;
When the wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.
[Many of the proverbs are phrased in thought stimulating ways. This one is saying that simple people who lack an education or much understanding understand role models, including negative ones, very clearly. So when simple people see an arrogant man punished for his arrogance, they have an infusion of "Wisdom" because they immediately comprehend the overall pattern and spiritual lesson. The next line is not a contrast to the first, but another perspective of how knowledge is gained. Here the holy author is observing that a man who already has "Wisdom" can still gain "Knowledge" by instruction, having no need for the role modeling since he already has "Wisdom." There is a lot in the Bible that is instructive in observing and comprehending everyday human nature in addition to the spiritual].
Ecclesiastes 1: 12-18
I, Qoheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my mind to search and investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun.
A thankless task God has appointed for men to be busied about.
I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is missing cannot be supplied.
Though I said to myself, “Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge”; yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that this also is a chase after wind.
For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief.
[Despite his self identification, we do not know who is the author of this book of wisdom because Qoheleth is a pen name, a literary name, meaning “one who convokes an assembly.” However this is a valuable citation on the subject of knowledge because this divinely inspired learned man warns that the search for secular knowledge (“under the sun” means earthly human knowledge in comparison to heavenly or Holy Spirit provided knowledge) sometimes brings a lot of unhappiness. This is as I discussed with St. Paul’s observations in the previous posting that true knowledge is spiritual, while much of secular human knowledge leads to temptation and the seamy sides of life. This is what this author is describing that he experienced when he made it his calling to seek out human based “wisdom” and “knowledge” and ended up storing a lot of grief. When one goes looking just for human based knowledge, one sees a lot of human behavior that they wish they had not seen, and also, as we see today in modern times, there are slippery ethics slopes, seeking knowledge that is based in technology and power over life and death that gradually becomes a grief filled burden rather than a blessing.]
Wisdom 1:16, 2:13
It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death, considered it a friend, and pined for it, and made a covenant with it, because they deserve to be in its possession… [who]… professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself a child of the Lord.
[In a long list of the attributes of the wicked, the learned sage who is the unknown author of this book mentions that one of the things that the wicked claim is that they have “knowledge of God.” This is yet another warning to discern between true “Knowledge” that is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the many false prophets and secularists who claim to have “knowledge of God” through wicked or occult means].
Wisdom 7:17
[God’s true wisdom] For he gave me sound knowledge of existing things, that I might know the organization of the universe and the force of its elements.
Sirach 3:24
Where the pupil of the eye is missing, there is no light, and where there is no knowledge there is no wisdom.
[The author, Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach, a sage who lived in Jerusalem, is explaining here that one must be humble to achieve wisdom and enlightenment because one must start with gaining true knowledge before one can be wise. Knowledge is like the pupil of the eye that gathers together the law and the facts in order to shed light on a matter, and thus be part of gained wisdom. This is yet another Biblical reference that shows knowledge to be the lowest and essential foundation of what will later be wisdom and understanding.]
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