The world is an unsafe place, ever since Adam and Eve sinned their way out of God's perfect protection of Eden. It does not matter how "good" or "wicked" you are, nor what your intentions are behind your deeds, or your motivations behind your thoughts or actions, nor what religion or not that you are, and certainly not how "gifted" or "enlightened" you think you are. The world remains an unsafe place because mishaps and death are a fact of life.
Having said that, the one way to be the safest possible in a physically unsafe world is to use one yardstick, one measure, in all your thoughts and deeds, and even your day to day actions. Do not do anything unless you dedicate your action to the greater glory of God first and foremost. If you do something based on your own pride, you are more vulnerable to mishaps and death.
Pride causes people to take chances that they do not need to risk. Pride causes people to crave money, power and media attention with public adulation. Pride causes companies and governments to not have the correct attention to the correct risks, dangers and problems that they and other people face. Pride causes people to mistrust other people's good advice.
Proverbs 16:18
Proverbs 18:12
If you pause before anything that you do, and ask yourself just very quickly, "Is God glorified in what I am about to do, or am I about to do something based on pride?" I guarantee that while death and mishaps still will occur, one's priorities will be more correct and many mishaps will be avoided.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Sirach 6:16-18
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds; for he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself. My son, from your youth embrace discipline; thus will you find wisdom with graying hair.
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goeth before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 18:12
Before his downfall a man's heart is haughty, but humility goes before honors.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
understanding spiritual warfare
I understand that many passages in scriptures have the power of sounding like a succinct rallying call, one that "cuts to the chase" and inspires people. However, you have to be very cautious about any particular scripture passage being your "motto," your "vow" (remember, Jesus most strongly warned against making any vows before God, ANY, no matter how worthy appearing) or having a passage be like your Cliff Notes (study summary) that gives you a "bottom line" for your spiritual life. The reason I am writing this is that I know many are fascinated with much of what Paul wrote, particularly Ephesians 6:10-18. (I'm not going to type it out because if you look it up yourself you really should read the whole short chapter 6 to have it in context).
Here's the problem. Whenever someone extracts one saying from the Bible, one is in danger of doing a transplant from the common understanding of the Bible authors and participants to the people of the time (which is what God intended) to reworking those quotes into a modern context.
First, a silly example for a smile. Suppose the Bible wrote about whales traveling in pods and how important it is to be like whales and travel in pods. Some modern people might think, "Whoa! The Bible is saying to always carry your IPods!" Yeah, I'm being silly but I want you to right up front understand what I mean about transplanting a valid scripture, but said in a certain understanding (that all observant Jews who were the early Christians, especially Paul, well understood about God and human life) into a modern cultural set of blinders that has trimmed away much of the richness of understanding of what they wrote about and lived within.
OK, so here is the problem with passages like Ephesians 6:10-18 taken out of context. Paul is writing about the need to "arm" one's self in spiritual combat, against the dark forces that rule earth. He is of course entirely correct. However, people of his time (and your own Christian and Jewish ancestors, and the Muslims too) would have understood this the way it was intended, and not the way moderns would view it. You see, moderns want "bad guys," especially "bad guy aliens" or "good guy superheroes." So many moderns see Eph 6:10-18 as validation that evil spirits walk the earth and manipulate people. Often moderns then view this as permission to shun or harm those they think are "on the other side." I mean, war has two sides, right? Combat is "against" someone, right?
OK, now, slam on the brakes. Who wrote this scripture? Where was the war at? How did Paul "know" there's a battle with dark spirits on one side against the good guys?
Well, here's the bombshell of understanding you have all forgotten. Paul was on "both sides." Paul was a Jew, a highly observant Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Ta da! When you forget that you have total misunderstanding of what Paul means as combat. Romans had enslaved the Jews. Paul "belonged" to both sides, as he was both a highly religious Jew (the slave) and a highly placed and favored Roman citizen being prepared for high secular office (the slave owner).
Remember, Jesus was crucified because he would not lead an armed rebellion (using his miracles as firepower) on behalf of the Jews against the Romans. Jesus was not crucified because he did not "wrestle....against principalities,...rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places..." This is why Paul emphasizes WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD (Eph 6:12).
PAUL IS POUNDING IT INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS THAT NO FLESH AND BLOOD IS "THE ENEMY" BECAUSE DUE TO THAT ERROR JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED.
Notice too that when he writes about battling principalities, powers, rules of darkness and spiritual darkness and spiritual wickedness, he is speaking of battling SIN and FAITHLESSNESS. He is not speaking of battling either evil "spirits" in the way that people think of them today NOR is he speaking of declaring a group of people (like Romans, the hot enemy at the time) as being either demonic or flesh and blood enemies. No one is more qualified to role model and speak of that than PAUL, who was both well placed Roman citizen AND Jewish/now Christian oppressed.
Paul did not stop being Roman and renounce it for Christianity. Duh, read the scripture, as he invoked his Roman rights to trial throughout his ministry and died in Rome (via the means of death given to Romans, the sword, not crucifixion, like Peter suffered.) Paul did not say, "Hey, crucify me just like the Lord was." He took advantage of being Roman elite right to the end and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, because he stayed alive longer to get the Gospel spread through his Evangelizing without being hypocritical.
So people well understood Paul's words in Ephesians and elsewhere as the battle being against the dark forces of SINS and UNBELIEF, not against evil "spirits" the way moderns think of them, or one group of humans against the other. Paul was against the bad spirituality (to use the modern terms) that is festering and spread in high places and principalities (places of authority, both secular and religious) via sin, hypocrisy and disbelief. Paul did not go to Rome to fight "against" them in "combat" to "defeat them." Paul went, like Peter, to Rome to defeat spiritual darkness (paganism and corruption) and CONVERT THEM. Spiritual combat aims at conversion, NOT fighting imaginary sources of power. No imagination is needed about the source of darkness if you read the scriptures and I don't mean just Satan. So I now need to explain the second part of this confusion, and let's use another example.
Let's use HIV/Aids disease as an example. No, I'm not causing grief by using this example but rather it is a perfect example to study. Sometime in the past century, scientists have a good idea but of course will never know exactly, the virus jumped from simian species like chimps onto a single human being. It then modified and changed as it adjusted to being in a human body and became the disease we are all too familiar with today.
So my first point is that Adam and Eve were the origin of the first sin, which was disobedience to God per temptation by Satan. Adam and Eve were tempted to "know as much as God," so to speak, so they ate the apple so they could know what evil was like. (There was nothing in the apple by the way. It was the sheer act of disobedience to the all good and loving God that opened their eyes to evil. I mean, if they had kicked God in the shins they would have also gotten the same info, the same 411, about good and evil because just being mean and disobedient to God is the initiation into sin and evil).
Now, once HIV/Aids jumped the one time to a human, it does not need to rejump from ape to human with each person who is infected, I mean, duh, right? Same with the flu or common cold. It does not need to be reinvented each time someone gets sick with cold or flu, right? Likewise is spiritual darkness. Satan only had to tempt Eve and her take it to Adam, and Satan can sit back in his lawn chair and watch. So when Satan is "at work" or there is spiritual darkness, it is not Satan running around reinventing temptation with each generation of each human being. Like Aids, it is out there and people spread it through contact with each other.
To misunderstand Ephesians 6 is like what happened with demonizing specific groups who suffer from HIV/Aids. Every type of person gets HIV/Aids, yet certain groups (like gay men) became demonized as the "causes." When one views Ephesians 6 in the wrong way, one is tempted to do likewise, to nominate yourself as the "clean" and "clear" "spirit warrior," and to thus thrust on the "other side" the "dark principalities" role and that is totally false to what Paul said AND LIVED.
Paul, following in Jesus' path, was condemning the unseen darkness of sin, disbelief, hypocrisy, spiritual slavery and corruption, while at the same time dampening down the tendencies to want flesh and blood warfare which he (as a persecutor) had also succumbed to, which is to kill the "enemy" in bodily form.
So Paul's inspiring words must be correctly understood as being against the dark invisible powers of sin, hypocrisy, corruption and disbelief, and not against invisible cartoon absurd imaginary "spirits" like so many modern dopes believe.
How to understand spiritual combat? Read about sin in the Bible. Start with these passages BY PAUL in 2 Timothy.
2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2:5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
2:9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. (Paul is saying he is treated like a bad guy, even put into prison, but despite what is done to him God's truth cannot be imprisoned).
2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.
2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I put 2:26 in bold italics because that's the heart of it. Satan has set the original snare and that is the combat, to EVADE THAT SNARE. Satan has no need to run around inventing new snares and sending evil spirits to go after each person in each generation, duh. That is the combat, to recover themselves (pull themselves out of the snare that, like slavery, humans are born into through sin and continual temptation.)
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
(Notice that Paul is referring to scriptures still being needed, and that is OLD TESTAMENT scriptures, as New Testament didn't exist yet as Paul wrote this).
3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
What is the remedy, the "armor," the "combat" that Paul orders, to deal with the worsening evil of humans over time (3:13)? Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament for wisdom, and as the training path toward perfected humans into obedient goodness to God. PAUL ENDORSES NO OTHER APPROACH OR WAY.
4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
You have to read page after page after page of what Paul truly instructs before one can enjoy, be inspired by, understand, and "follow" the much loved punch lines of Eph 6:10-18.
Here is further reading to understand the dark power is sin and disobedience, not imaginary sci fi aliens or evil spirits etc.
Separates from God Isa 59:2
Its wages: death Rom 6:23
Begets moral cowardice Josh 7:11-13
Hardens the heart Heb 3:13
Is very destructive Ps 34:21
Caused Israel's downfall 2 Chr 28:22-23
Causes misery Job 15:20
Brings reproach Prov 14:34
Enslaves the will 2 Tim 3:13
Excludes from heaven 1 Cor 6:9, 10
The forgiven warned "not to continue in sin" John 5:14, John 8:11, Rom 6:12
All have sinned Rom 3:23
All have gone astray Isa 53:6
To claim sinlessness is to lie Prov 20:9, 1 John 1:8-10
Jesus alone without sin 1 Pet 2:21-22
Through Satan's deception and subtlety Gen 3:1-13, 2 Cor 11:3
In the heart Matt 15:18, 19
Through lust of flesh James 1:13-15
Against the Holy Ghost Matt 12:31-32
Is destructive Prov 11:3
Is inexcusable John 15:22
Man obdurate in sin Amos 4:6-11
Here's the problem. Whenever someone extracts one saying from the Bible, one is in danger of doing a transplant from the common understanding of the Bible authors and participants to the people of the time (which is what God intended) to reworking those quotes into a modern context.
First, a silly example for a smile. Suppose the Bible wrote about whales traveling in pods and how important it is to be like whales and travel in pods. Some modern people might think, "Whoa! The Bible is saying to always carry your IPods!" Yeah, I'm being silly but I want you to right up front understand what I mean about transplanting a valid scripture, but said in a certain understanding (that all observant Jews who were the early Christians, especially Paul, well understood about God and human life) into a modern cultural set of blinders that has trimmed away much of the richness of understanding of what they wrote about and lived within.
OK, so here is the problem with passages like Ephesians 6:10-18 taken out of context. Paul is writing about the need to "arm" one's self in spiritual combat, against the dark forces that rule earth. He is of course entirely correct. However, people of his time (and your own Christian and Jewish ancestors, and the Muslims too) would have understood this the way it was intended, and not the way moderns would view it. You see, moderns want "bad guys," especially "bad guy aliens" or "good guy superheroes." So many moderns see Eph 6:10-18 as validation that evil spirits walk the earth and manipulate people. Often moderns then view this as permission to shun or harm those they think are "on the other side." I mean, war has two sides, right? Combat is "against" someone, right?
OK, now, slam on the brakes. Who wrote this scripture? Where was the war at? How did Paul "know" there's a battle with dark spirits on one side against the good guys?
Well, here's the bombshell of understanding you have all forgotten. Paul was on "both sides." Paul was a Jew, a highly observant Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Ta da! When you forget that you have total misunderstanding of what Paul means as combat. Romans had enslaved the Jews. Paul "belonged" to both sides, as he was both a highly religious Jew (the slave) and a highly placed and favored Roman citizen being prepared for high secular office (the slave owner).
Remember, Jesus was crucified because he would not lead an armed rebellion (using his miracles as firepower) on behalf of the Jews against the Romans. Jesus was not crucified because he did not "wrestle....against principalities,...rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places..." This is why Paul emphasizes WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD (Eph 6:12).
PAUL IS POUNDING IT INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS THAT NO FLESH AND BLOOD IS "THE ENEMY" BECAUSE DUE TO THAT ERROR JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED.
Notice too that when he writes about battling principalities, powers, rules of darkness and spiritual darkness and spiritual wickedness, he is speaking of battling SIN and FAITHLESSNESS. He is not speaking of battling either evil "spirits" in the way that people think of them today NOR is he speaking of declaring a group of people (like Romans, the hot enemy at the time) as being either demonic or flesh and blood enemies. No one is more qualified to role model and speak of that than PAUL, who was both well placed Roman citizen AND Jewish/now Christian oppressed.
Paul did not stop being Roman and renounce it for Christianity. Duh, read the scripture, as he invoked his Roman rights to trial throughout his ministry and died in Rome (via the means of death given to Romans, the sword, not crucifixion, like Peter suffered.) Paul did not say, "Hey, crucify me just like the Lord was." He took advantage of being Roman elite right to the end and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, because he stayed alive longer to get the Gospel spread through his Evangelizing without being hypocritical.
So people well understood Paul's words in Ephesians and elsewhere as the battle being against the dark forces of SINS and UNBELIEF, not against evil "spirits" the way moderns think of them, or one group of humans against the other. Paul was against the bad spirituality (to use the modern terms) that is festering and spread in high places and principalities (places of authority, both secular and religious) via sin, hypocrisy and disbelief. Paul did not go to Rome to fight "against" them in "combat" to "defeat them." Paul went, like Peter, to Rome to defeat spiritual darkness (paganism and corruption) and CONVERT THEM. Spiritual combat aims at conversion, NOT fighting imaginary sources of power. No imagination is needed about the source of darkness if you read the scriptures and I don't mean just Satan. So I now need to explain the second part of this confusion, and let's use another example.
Let's use HIV/Aids disease as an example. No, I'm not causing grief by using this example but rather it is a perfect example to study. Sometime in the past century, scientists have a good idea but of course will never know exactly, the virus jumped from simian species like chimps onto a single human being. It then modified and changed as it adjusted to being in a human body and became the disease we are all too familiar with today.
So my first point is that Adam and Eve were the origin of the first sin, which was disobedience to God per temptation by Satan. Adam and Eve were tempted to "know as much as God," so to speak, so they ate the apple so they could know what evil was like. (There was nothing in the apple by the way. It was the sheer act of disobedience to the all good and loving God that opened their eyes to evil. I mean, if they had kicked God in the shins they would have also gotten the same info, the same 411, about good and evil because just being mean and disobedient to God is the initiation into sin and evil).
Now, once HIV/Aids jumped the one time to a human, it does not need to rejump from ape to human with each person who is infected, I mean, duh, right? Same with the flu or common cold. It does not need to be reinvented each time someone gets sick with cold or flu, right? Likewise is spiritual darkness. Satan only had to tempt Eve and her take it to Adam, and Satan can sit back in his lawn chair and watch. So when Satan is "at work" or there is spiritual darkness, it is not Satan running around reinventing temptation with each generation of each human being. Like Aids, it is out there and people spread it through contact with each other.
To misunderstand Ephesians 6 is like what happened with demonizing specific groups who suffer from HIV/Aids. Every type of person gets HIV/Aids, yet certain groups (like gay men) became demonized as the "causes." When one views Ephesians 6 in the wrong way, one is tempted to do likewise, to nominate yourself as the "clean" and "clear" "spirit warrior," and to thus thrust on the "other side" the "dark principalities" role and that is totally false to what Paul said AND LIVED.
Paul, following in Jesus' path, was condemning the unseen darkness of sin, disbelief, hypocrisy, spiritual slavery and corruption, while at the same time dampening down the tendencies to want flesh and blood warfare which he (as a persecutor) had also succumbed to, which is to kill the "enemy" in bodily form.
So Paul's inspiring words must be correctly understood as being against the dark invisible powers of sin, hypocrisy, corruption and disbelief, and not against invisible cartoon absurd imaginary "spirits" like so many modern dopes believe.
How to understand spiritual combat? Read about sin in the Bible. Start with these passages BY PAUL in 2 Timothy.
2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2:5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
2:9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. (Paul is saying he is treated like a bad guy, even put into prison, but despite what is done to him God's truth cannot be imprisoned).
2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.
2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I put 2:26 in bold italics because that's the heart of it. Satan has set the original snare and that is the combat, to EVADE THAT SNARE. Satan has no need to run around inventing new snares and sending evil spirits to go after each person in each generation, duh. That is the combat, to recover themselves (pull themselves out of the snare that, like slavery, humans are born into through sin and continual temptation.)
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
(Notice that Paul is referring to scriptures still being needed, and that is OLD TESTAMENT scriptures, as New Testament didn't exist yet as Paul wrote this).
3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
What is the remedy, the "armor," the "combat" that Paul orders, to deal with the worsening evil of humans over time (3:13)? Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament for wisdom, and as the training path toward perfected humans into obedient goodness to God. PAUL ENDORSES NO OTHER APPROACH OR WAY.
4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
You have to read page after page after page of what Paul truly instructs before one can enjoy, be inspired by, understand, and "follow" the much loved punch lines of Eph 6:10-18.
Here is further reading to understand the dark power is sin and disobedience, not imaginary sci fi aliens or evil spirits etc.
Separates from God Isa 59:2
Its wages: death Rom 6:23
Begets moral cowardice Josh 7:11-13
Hardens the heart Heb 3:13
Is very destructive Ps 34:21
Caused Israel's downfall 2 Chr 28:22-23
Causes misery Job 15:20
Brings reproach Prov 14:34
Enslaves the will 2 Tim 3:13
Excludes from heaven 1 Cor 6:9, 10
The forgiven warned "not to continue in sin" John 5:14, John 8:11, Rom 6:12
All have sinned Rom 3:23
All have gone astray Isa 53:6
To claim sinlessness is to lie Prov 20:9, 1 John 1:8-10
Jesus alone without sin 1 Pet 2:21-22
Through Satan's deception and subtlety Gen 3:1-13, 2 Cor 11:3
In the heart Matt 15:18, 19
Through lust of flesh James 1:13-15
Against the Holy Ghost Matt 12:31-32
Is destructive Prov 11:3
Is inexcusable John 15:22
Man obdurate in sin Amos 4:6-11
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
charity example
Here is a follow up to the understanding faith, hope and charity and other concepts post, under label "saved by hope." I thought of this example of how to explain plainly through analogy the error in looking for copying human "role models" of the concepts of faith, hope and charity.
Suppose that you spot a person you think is really charitable and you decide to role model after him. He pays for the building of a hospital wing dedicated to some branch of medicine, such as child care, acute care, cancer, cardiology, etc. So you figure that if you raise money for a hospital wing that you are copying the "best in charity you could find." Logical but wrong. Here is why.
1) If everyone starts to copy the same concepts of charity, they are less likely to be listening to what one's own calling from God truly is.
2) You have no way of knowing what is really going on inside a person. Their outward charitable events are often the worst way to judge a person's innards. How do I know that? Heaven, according to Jesus, is packed with poor people, not those who do "good deeds" or human based charity.
How to apply this to scripture? Well, think about lepers, who are mentioned frequently in the Bible as being unclean (for a variety of reasons, including being contagious). But here's my point. Can you understand how people of the Bible, if they had misunderstood charity, might have poured all their money into charitable works aimed at lepers? There would be a leper hospital on every block. And yet medicine eventually overcame this disease. If people do the charitable copy cat thing they stop working on 1) the actual problem that requires charity and 2) their relationship with God, which all charity is actually directed on behalf of.
Suppose the Bible authors were busy building leper hospitals instead of writing the scripture? Maybe some Apostles would take a few hours a day away from Jesus while he was alive in order to "donate their charitable time at the local leper hospital?"
You see the point? I thought so.
Suppose that you spot a person you think is really charitable and you decide to role model after him. He pays for the building of a hospital wing dedicated to some branch of medicine, such as child care, acute care, cancer, cardiology, etc. So you figure that if you raise money for a hospital wing that you are copying the "best in charity you could find." Logical but wrong. Here is why.
1) If everyone starts to copy the same concepts of charity, they are less likely to be listening to what one's own calling from God truly is.
2) You have no way of knowing what is really going on inside a person. Their outward charitable events are often the worst way to judge a person's innards. How do I know that? Heaven, according to Jesus, is packed with poor people, not those who do "good deeds" or human based charity.
How to apply this to scripture? Well, think about lepers, who are mentioned frequently in the Bible as being unclean (for a variety of reasons, including being contagious). But here's my point. Can you understand how people of the Bible, if they had misunderstood charity, might have poured all their money into charitable works aimed at lepers? There would be a leper hospital on every block. And yet medicine eventually overcame this disease. If people do the charitable copy cat thing they stop working on 1) the actual problem that requires charity and 2) their relationship with God, which all charity is actually directed on behalf of.
Suppose the Bible authors were busy building leper hospitals instead of writing the scripture? Maybe some Apostles would take a few hours a day away from Jesus while he was alive in order to "donate their charitable time at the local leper hospital?"
You see the point? I thought so.
understanding faith, hope, charity & other concepts
I love when I hear people discuss the scripture, especially when they have a restored joy in their actual understanding. However, I am dismayed when a fundamental error continues to take place. So here is the error and how to avoid it.
The error: You correctly understand from the scriptures that God instructs that one must have faith, hope and charity. You get that part just fine. However, you then try to understand "how" to apply faith, hope, charity and etc. by looking at fellow human "role models." That is so fundamentally wrong.
For example, you look around you for people that you think have a "lot" of "good" faith, and or a "lot" of "good" hope, and or a "lot" of "good" charity, and then you try to copy them. There is a breakdown of both faith and reasoning when you do that. The first is that God is speaking of divine faith, hope and charity, not human based faith, hope and charity. So you misunderstand what God speaks of if you think human faith fully explains what God means by faith, that human hope fully explains what God means by hope, and or that human charity fully explains what God means by charity.
Quickly I will give examples of how in scriptures you know that is an error. Jesus points out the loudly praying Pharisee as a hypocrite (comparing him to the quietly humble publican who is praying for forgiveness). Yet in those times many people would have used that arrogant Pharisee as the "biblically accurate role model for faith." The odds are that if you are looking at someone who is highly visible in their faith that you are open to being misled inadvertently because you short circuit developing your own faith based directly on what the Bible instructs and speaks to your own heart, because you truncate your understanding by studying only a human who may or may not be actually a "role model of faith."
Second, "hope" means hope of being saved, not hoping for the things that humans "hope for," whether those are good things or not. I will hone in on helping you to understand that by writing more about it below. But to make the general first point Paul states that hope is for eternal life, and you need to notice that no one describes hope as being directed toward any earthly event or object, regardless how worthy it might be to hope for, in a human context. Biblical "hope" is reserved for salvation alone.
Third, "charity" is a highly individual concept, and cannot be viewed as "works," "acts" or some sort of heavenly accounting. How do we know that? Because if you read the Beatitudes you understand that tons of really poor people are in heaven, and if you think about that, how many poor people can really do "works" of charity? Most are lucky to feed their own children. Obviously middle class and wealthy people are very tempted to fall over the stumbling block of thinking that the more you "have" the more you can "give away in charity" and thus the more "works of merit" and "good deeds" you earn. Wrong! Remember Luke 16 where that rich guy ends up in hell not because he was not a worthy Jew and probably did all the right things, including charity, but he didn't help the ONE man that God wanted to help.
I'm going to copy a list from the index of my Bible of hope related passages. Sometimes reading an index or a table of contents really conveys the point succinctly and holistically. So here it is and then I will discuss some of the specifics. But I can well imagine that you will get my point after simply reading this index!
A gift of God 2 Thess 2 16
Saved by Rom 8 25
Should abound in Rom 15 13
Called "blessed" Titus 2 13
Inspires holiness 1 John 3 3
Helmet of salvation 1 Thess 5 8
Given by Scriptures Rom 15 4
A heavenly treature Col 1 5
For eternal life Titus 1 2
An abiding principle 1 Cor 13 13
Leads to patience Rom 8 25
Is not seen Rom 8 24
Of Christians, in death Prov 14 32
Deferred, makes the heart sick Prov 13 12
Prisoners of Zech 9 12
"Hope against hope" Rom 4 18
Maketh not ashamed Rom 5 5
Anchor of the soul Heb 6 19
Assures immortality Acts 24 15
Of wicked, shall perish Prov 11 7
Christians rejoice in Rom 12 12
Give a reason for 1 Pet 3 15
A triumphant Rom 8 38,39
A living 1 Pet 1 3
Amid trials 2 Cor 4 8
Here is the list for "hopelessness":
State of unbelievers Eph 2 12
Caused by apostasy Jer 2 25
Caused by affliction Job 17 15
The cure for Isa 49 13-16
You see the problem? None of these scriptures refer to either earthly hope (such as "hoping" that something will happen) or to role modeling people who seem "hopeful" aka optimistic, perky, uplifting, etc. People who are hopeful in an earthly sense are optimists about earthly things, and that may or may not be wise or appropriate, but teaches you nothing about God's concept of hope, which is only directed toward salvation and being close to God.
Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
You see, Paul is explaining one thing you might wonder in the list of scriptures of "hope" that I provided from my bible above. Why are so few Old Testament scriptures about "hope?" Because when the people of Israel lived within a theocracy (a king appointed and anointed by God and the Jews lived entirely within God's instructions and word) then they "have God," they are not "without God in the world." That's by the way why there is few references to hell or heaven for that matter in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a people of God, saved, or fallen away, as a whole. That does not mean that individual people are not judged by God on death, of course (Luke 16). But when one lives in a nation founded by God and compliant to God's will, then one does not need hope per se because one is living within the hope that God established for them. Christians, however, had to find their own hope individually as they went out into the world from the safety of the Old Covenant and into the assured, but invisible, New Covenant with God.
So Paul is explaining here that someone who is foreign to (not native of, and thus the word "alien" which does not mean imaginary space visitors) God's community, which was previously Israel and the Jews, is new to the concept of hope and, indeed, had been living in ignorance without hope.
In the Old Testament, therefore, you can now understand that hopelessness is not a state as moderns think of being pessimistic, being depressed, losing expectations of gaining some earthly object or event, but of being estranged from God and or thus risking loss of salvation.
Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst, but thou saidst, There is no hope: no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
When one abandons the true God for imaginary strange gods and concepts, then one loses hope through apostasy, whether one realizes it or not, or whether one goes through the motions of outward obedience or not.
Job 17:15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
Job has lost everything he had. But he is not hoping for restoration of his goods. He realizes that he had been blessed by God and now for some reason unknown to him (Satan) is unjustly estranged from God. So Job wonders where God is because God is his hope.
Isaiah 50:13-16
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me.
By the way, this passage about hope never mentions the word hope. This is one critical reason you must not rely on just looking up occurrences of certain words representing concepts you are researching in the Bible, because many times there is a wealth of information that is NOT actually mentioning the one word you are thinking about!!!!!!!!!! You learn about "hope" by reading the whole Bible (imagine that) rather than assuming hope is "discussed" or "explained" only where the translated word "hope" appears, like this is a legal text or a big old dictionary! The entire Bible is about "hope!"
God is saying that his people should rejoice in him, even in their misery of earth, because he has not forgotten them (unlike nursing mothers some of whom actually do neglect their children!) That is what is truly meant by God's hope.
Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Notice Paul does two things that are crucial. He explains that hope is found in the scriptures, reading, studying and following the scriptures using patience and for comfort. But he also continues to role model as hope being a work in progress, not a slam dunk assurance that someone has in their pocket! This is why he phrases it as "we...might have hope." None of the Apostles, including with them Paul, ever misleads people into thinking that "hope" means anything but forward looking hopefulness, not something that once gotten is never lost and never needs to be continually worked upon.
1 Thessalonians 5:8
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
OK, how many of you in sports who use a helmet take your helmet off after wearing it once and saying "Hey, I wore the helmet once, and I own one, so I don't need to wear it every time I race." Um, that would be dumb. A helmet needs to be worn all the time, not just "owned" but put in a closet. Likewise hope is an ongoing condition where one wears it as a helmet, just as one covers the chest with the breast plate of faith and love.
Why does Paul use this imagery? Faith and love (charity) are matters of the heart (the chest). Hope is a matter for the head (the brain, for thinking and remembering through logic).
I hope this has helped and do read the other scriptures I've listed. Understand that this is how to understand holistically a singular concept such as hope.
The error: You correctly understand from the scriptures that God instructs that one must have faith, hope and charity. You get that part just fine. However, you then try to understand "how" to apply faith, hope, charity and etc. by looking at fellow human "role models." That is so fundamentally wrong.
For example, you look around you for people that you think have a "lot" of "good" faith, and or a "lot" of "good" hope, and or a "lot" of "good" charity, and then you try to copy them. There is a breakdown of both faith and reasoning when you do that. The first is that God is speaking of divine faith, hope and charity, not human based faith, hope and charity. So you misunderstand what God speaks of if you think human faith fully explains what God means by faith, that human hope fully explains what God means by hope, and or that human charity fully explains what God means by charity.
Quickly I will give examples of how in scriptures you know that is an error. Jesus points out the loudly praying Pharisee as a hypocrite (comparing him to the quietly humble publican who is praying for forgiveness). Yet in those times many people would have used that arrogant Pharisee as the "biblically accurate role model for faith." The odds are that if you are looking at someone who is highly visible in their faith that you are open to being misled inadvertently because you short circuit developing your own faith based directly on what the Bible instructs and speaks to your own heart, because you truncate your understanding by studying only a human who may or may not be actually a "role model of faith."
Second, "hope" means hope of being saved, not hoping for the things that humans "hope for," whether those are good things or not. I will hone in on helping you to understand that by writing more about it below. But to make the general first point Paul states that hope is for eternal life, and you need to notice that no one describes hope as being directed toward any earthly event or object, regardless how worthy it might be to hope for, in a human context. Biblical "hope" is reserved for salvation alone.
Third, "charity" is a highly individual concept, and cannot be viewed as "works," "acts" or some sort of heavenly accounting. How do we know that? Because if you read the Beatitudes you understand that tons of really poor people are in heaven, and if you think about that, how many poor people can really do "works" of charity? Most are lucky to feed their own children. Obviously middle class and wealthy people are very tempted to fall over the stumbling block of thinking that the more you "have" the more you can "give away in charity" and thus the more "works of merit" and "good deeds" you earn. Wrong! Remember Luke 16 where that rich guy ends up in hell not because he was not a worthy Jew and probably did all the right things, including charity, but he didn't help the ONE man that God wanted to help.
I'm going to copy a list from the index of my Bible of hope related passages. Sometimes reading an index or a table of contents really conveys the point succinctly and holistically. So here it is and then I will discuss some of the specifics. But I can well imagine that you will get my point after simply reading this index!
A gift of God 2 Thess 2 16
Saved by Rom 8 25
Should abound in Rom 15 13
Called "blessed" Titus 2 13
Inspires holiness 1 John 3 3
Helmet of salvation 1 Thess 5 8
Given by Scriptures Rom 15 4
A heavenly treature Col 1 5
For eternal life Titus 1 2
An abiding principle 1 Cor 13 13
Leads to patience Rom 8 25
Is not seen Rom 8 24
Of Christians, in death Prov 14 32
Deferred, makes the heart sick Prov 13 12
Prisoners of Zech 9 12
"Hope against hope" Rom 4 18
Maketh not ashamed Rom 5 5
Anchor of the soul Heb 6 19
Assures immortality Acts 24 15
Of wicked, shall perish Prov 11 7
Christians rejoice in Rom 12 12
Give a reason for 1 Pet 3 15
A triumphant Rom 8 38,39
A living 1 Pet 1 3
Amid trials 2 Cor 4 8
Here is the list for "hopelessness":
State of unbelievers Eph 2 12
Caused by apostasy Jer 2 25
Caused by affliction Job 17 15
The cure for Isa 49 13-16
You see the problem? None of these scriptures refer to either earthly hope (such as "hoping" that something will happen) or to role modeling people who seem "hopeful" aka optimistic, perky, uplifting, etc. People who are hopeful in an earthly sense are optimists about earthly things, and that may or may not be wise or appropriate, but teaches you nothing about God's concept of hope, which is only directed toward salvation and being close to God.
Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
You see, Paul is explaining one thing you might wonder in the list of scriptures of "hope" that I provided from my bible above. Why are so few Old Testament scriptures about "hope?" Because when the people of Israel lived within a theocracy (a king appointed and anointed by God and the Jews lived entirely within God's instructions and word) then they "have God," they are not "without God in the world." That's by the way why there is few references to hell or heaven for that matter in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a people of God, saved, or fallen away, as a whole. That does not mean that individual people are not judged by God on death, of course (Luke 16). But when one lives in a nation founded by God and compliant to God's will, then one does not need hope per se because one is living within the hope that God established for them. Christians, however, had to find their own hope individually as they went out into the world from the safety of the Old Covenant and into the assured, but invisible, New Covenant with God.
So Paul is explaining here that someone who is foreign to (not native of, and thus the word "alien" which does not mean imaginary space visitors) God's community, which was previously Israel and the Jews, is new to the concept of hope and, indeed, had been living in ignorance without hope.
In the Old Testament, therefore, you can now understand that hopelessness is not a state as moderns think of being pessimistic, being depressed, losing expectations of gaining some earthly object or event, but of being estranged from God and or thus risking loss of salvation.
Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst, but thou saidst, There is no hope: no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
When one abandons the true God for imaginary strange gods and concepts, then one loses hope through apostasy, whether one realizes it or not, or whether one goes through the motions of outward obedience or not.
Job 17:15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
Job has lost everything he had. But he is not hoping for restoration of his goods. He realizes that he had been blessed by God and now for some reason unknown to him (Satan) is unjustly estranged from God. So Job wonders where God is because God is his hope.
Isaiah 50:13-16
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me.
By the way, this passage about hope never mentions the word hope. This is one critical reason you must not rely on just looking up occurrences of certain words representing concepts you are researching in the Bible, because many times there is a wealth of information that is NOT actually mentioning the one word you are thinking about!!!!!!!!!! You learn about "hope" by reading the whole Bible (imagine that) rather than assuming hope is "discussed" or "explained" only where the translated word "hope" appears, like this is a legal text or a big old dictionary! The entire Bible is about "hope!"
God is saying that his people should rejoice in him, even in their misery of earth, because he has not forgotten them (unlike nursing mothers some of whom actually do neglect their children!) That is what is truly meant by God's hope.
Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Notice Paul does two things that are crucial. He explains that hope is found in the scriptures, reading, studying and following the scriptures using patience and for comfort. But he also continues to role model as hope being a work in progress, not a slam dunk assurance that someone has in their pocket! This is why he phrases it as "we...might have hope." None of the Apostles, including with them Paul, ever misleads people into thinking that "hope" means anything but forward looking hopefulness, not something that once gotten is never lost and never needs to be continually worked upon.
1 Thessalonians 5:8
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
OK, how many of you in sports who use a helmet take your helmet off after wearing it once and saying "Hey, I wore the helmet once, and I own one, so I don't need to wear it every time I race." Um, that would be dumb. A helmet needs to be worn all the time, not just "owned" but put in a closet. Likewise hope is an ongoing condition where one wears it as a helmet, just as one covers the chest with the breast plate of faith and love.
Why does Paul use this imagery? Faith and love (charity) are matters of the heart (the chest). Hope is a matter for the head (the brain, for thinking and remembering through logic).
I hope this has helped and do read the other scriptures I've listed. Understand that this is how to understand holistically a singular concept such as hope.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Reason you must NOT consider suicide
This is for all of you who have had those thoughts, or who may know someone who feels or has felt this way.... and it is also for those of you who have never considered suicide, but might one day out of the blue be thrust into such thoughts.
I'm not going to list the usual reasons NOT to do so, to take one's own life regardless of the reasons. I am, however, going to tell you one FACT that should deter you from doing so.
Regardless of how hopeless your situation may seem, when you meet God in judgment, you will see how you could have handled the situation with perfectly clear eyes through God himself. In other words, if while alive you felt desperate, like in a maze with no exit, God will show you exactly how the exit would have been shown to you out of your dilemma and despair.
I've blogged about this before, about how if only Judas Iscariot had held onto life for three more days, he would have seen the Resurrected Christ and have sought forgiveness.
When you are judged by God, whether you are taken to heaven or sent to hell, you realize not only that there was a way to cope with your situation, no matter how hopeless or painful and, further, that even if you felt the most worthless person who ever lived, how someone in the present or the future would have needed you very much. Each and every person can save their own physical life and thus, through God, be open to Him saving his or her eternal soul also.
DO NOT BAIL OUT. Trust God and genuinely open your heart to Him and Him alone.
I hope this helps.
Through His Holy Name.
I'm not going to list the usual reasons NOT to do so, to take one's own life regardless of the reasons. I am, however, going to tell you one FACT that should deter you from doing so.
Regardless of how hopeless your situation may seem, when you meet God in judgment, you will see how you could have handled the situation with perfectly clear eyes through God himself. In other words, if while alive you felt desperate, like in a maze with no exit, God will show you exactly how the exit would have been shown to you out of your dilemma and despair.
I've blogged about this before, about how if only Judas Iscariot had held onto life for three more days, he would have seen the Resurrected Christ and have sought forgiveness.
When you are judged by God, whether you are taken to heaven or sent to hell, you realize not only that there was a way to cope with your situation, no matter how hopeless or painful and, further, that even if you felt the most worthless person who ever lived, how someone in the present or the future would have needed you very much. Each and every person can save their own physical life and thus, through God, be open to Him saving his or her eternal soul also.
DO NOT BAIL OUT. Trust God and genuinely open your heart to Him and Him alone.
I hope this helps.
Through His Holy Name.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Good Friday & Easter Thought
If you want to honestly proclaim yourself a God believing and honoring man or woman, boy or girl, and if in particular you wish to manifest your proclamation of Jesus Christ as your Lord & Savior, consider the following, on this Good Friday and Easter celebration.
Just because someone declares you to be his or her enemy, you do not have to nor should you declare the other person your enemy in return. Jesus did not.
Plenty of people have declared me (behind my back) their "enemy" because they believe in a totally messed up world view of reincarnation, evil aliens sneaking around, and "payback" and vengeance for real or imagined wrongs. I've never considered even a single one of those people my enemy in turn.
Sin is the enemy, not the people themselves. No matter what a person does to you or if he or she goes so far as declaring you an "enemy," there is no reason for you to accept the invitation to mutual enmity.
The longer someone is your enemy in a one sided enemy relationship, the further he, she or they as a group walk further and further away from God and their own salvation. If you remain just and righteous, believing only in God and fore swearing enmity and malice, you will in turn move closer to closer to God.
Do not proclaim yourself a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ and then, in turn, accept invitations (or worse, be tempted to issue) declarations of enmity or even withholding of blessings and prayers for the other side's betterment.
Just because someone declares you to be his or her enemy, you do not have to nor should you declare the other person your enemy in return. Jesus did not.
Plenty of people have declared me (behind my back) their "enemy" because they believe in a totally messed up world view of reincarnation, evil aliens sneaking around, and "payback" and vengeance for real or imagined wrongs. I've never considered even a single one of those people my enemy in turn.
Sin is the enemy, not the people themselves. No matter what a person does to you or if he or she goes so far as declaring you an "enemy," there is no reason for you to accept the invitation to mutual enmity.
The longer someone is your enemy in a one sided enemy relationship, the further he, she or they as a group walk further and further away from God and their own salvation. If you remain just and righteous, believing only in God and fore swearing enmity and malice, you will in turn move closer to closer to God.
Do not proclaim yourself a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ and then, in turn, accept invitations (or worse, be tempted to issue) declarations of enmity or even withholding of blessings and prayers for the other side's betterment.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Opinion about Lebanese sorcery man
I see the news story about the Lebanese man condemned to death for sorcery in Saudi Arabia.
Here is my opinion.
1. Despite opinions of secularists the death penalty for sorcery-in and of itself-is not surprising or inappropriate in a theocracy. Republics and other forms of government must remember that theocracies are a reality and should be respected if one is truly "open minded" and "liberated." Thus a theocracy is entitled to put to death those convicted of sorcery.
2. However, I am troubled by the lack of evidence that this Lebanese man entered Saudi Arabia and conducted sorcery. If he did not commit sorcery in the boundaries of Saudi Arabia then he cannot be judged guilty under Saudi Arabian religious law.
3. Further, knowing his identity, when he entered SA to attend Muslim religious observance, SA authorities should have used the opportunity to cordially dialogue to determine if perhaps he was having second thoughts about his sorcerous activities in Lebanon. In other words, this was an evangelizing opportunity, perhaps, of someone seeking to return to mainstream Muslim belief.
4. If he seemed to attempt to enter to cause trouble, he should have been turned back. As the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques SA would have the right to turn away a Muslim who wants to spread heresy or other trouble under the guise of Hajj or religious pilgrimage.
5. Thus without evidence that he came to SA in order to conduct sorcery, and was, perhaps, there to examine his own conscience, I recommend commuting the sentence, deporting him, and forbidding him re-entry unless orthodox Muslim authority approves his future intentions.
Allah is both All Knowing and Merciful.
Here is my opinion.
1. Despite opinions of secularists the death penalty for sorcery-in and of itself-is not surprising or inappropriate in a theocracy. Republics and other forms of government must remember that theocracies are a reality and should be respected if one is truly "open minded" and "liberated." Thus a theocracy is entitled to put to death those convicted of sorcery.
2. However, I am troubled by the lack of evidence that this Lebanese man entered Saudi Arabia and conducted sorcery. If he did not commit sorcery in the boundaries of Saudi Arabia then he cannot be judged guilty under Saudi Arabian religious law.
3. Further, knowing his identity, when he entered SA to attend Muslim religious observance, SA authorities should have used the opportunity to cordially dialogue to determine if perhaps he was having second thoughts about his sorcerous activities in Lebanon. In other words, this was an evangelizing opportunity, perhaps, of someone seeking to return to mainstream Muslim belief.
4. If he seemed to attempt to enter to cause trouble, he should have been turned back. As the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques SA would have the right to turn away a Muslim who wants to spread heresy or other trouble under the guise of Hajj or religious pilgrimage.
5. Thus without evidence that he came to SA in order to conduct sorcery, and was, perhaps, there to examine his own conscience, I recommend commuting the sentence, deporting him, and forbidding him re-entry unless orthodox Muslim authority approves his future intentions.
Allah is both All Knowing and Merciful.
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