#And the set up for why they think Paul is the messiah is so messed up

[mad-raptorzzz]

Just saw Dune part 2. The music and sound design for this series is stellar. Gave me chills.

Now I have the overwhelming urge to draw dune characters as WOF dragons. Because that’s just what I always want to do.

Fremen are SandWings with super cool blue eyes

Atreides I get SkyWing vibes from. With Paul and his mom being hybrids, but not super obvious ones

Harkonnen would be IceWings

The spooky witch like ladies would be NightWing at their base, but very well hybridized because of all the weird schemes they have. They also arrange marriages and pairings to perpetuate the animus gene.

Emperor and his people are RainWings

will I actually have time to do this, probably not. But those are my thoughts

[impercre]

Paul is Not Well or how putting an emotionally traumatized teenager who grew up in an emotionally toxic environment in a position of both political and religious power was . . . a BAD IDEA

To discuss Paul Atreides’s issues we have to go back to his childhood. The Duke Leto Atreides while noble in many respects could be emotionally cold and distant. A fact Jessica herself comments on this in a conversation with Dr. Yueh:

“ . . . The Duke is really two men. One of them I love very much. He’s charming, witty, considerate . . . tender- everything a woman would desire. But the other man is . . . cold, callous, demanding, selfish- as harsh and cruel as a winter wind . . . “ pg. 42

As his son, Paul was no doubt affected by not only this duality but also the fact the Duke would have been frequently absent due to his political duties. Leaving Paul to not only idolize his father but also constantly hold himself to this idealized standard. After all, he named both of his sons after his father.

Adding to Paul’s sense of personal anxiety is his training by his mother in Bene Gesserit ways. It's very clear though not specifically stated in the book that the Sisterhood often relies on emotional and psychological abuse not only as part of their training but also to keep their members in line. The Bene Gesserit are also viewed ambivalently in the Dune universe with him even making this comment to his mother shortly after they arrive on Arrakis:

“When my father is bothered by something you’ve done he says ‘Bene Gesserit!’ like a swear word.” pg. 49

So Paul would have not only been affected by the abuse inherent in Bene Gesserit training but it would also affect his sense of self in that its a skillset many look down upon in the Imperium. This surrounding attitude and what such training entails likely ties into his later backlash against not only his Bene Gesserit training but also the sisterhood themselves.

I think to the sense of being pulled between two very different worldviews also creates a kind of subconscious need to please or at least fulfill others expectations of him which reaches its apex when he lives with the Fremen and falls into the role of their messiah. This is also why I think he views Chani as stronger than he is because her sense of self isn’t as dependent on others but that’s the subject of a whole other headcanon.

Now I’ve covered Paul’s inherent insecurity but I also want to address how he treats people. Which is awful. Quite frankly he treats them as pawns and frequently makes decisions for them without seriously considering how it would affect them.

While this has obvious roots in his Bene Gesserit training, I think it also is influenced by his being the heir to a noble house, his being viewed as a messiah figure and as well as his being trained from infancy to be a Mentat.

“ . . . I thought Mentat training had to start during infancy and the subject couldn’t be told because it might inhibit the early . . . “ He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. "I see.” pg. 31

While we never explicitly told/shown what goes into Mentat training we do know Mentats serve as human computers. Effectively they’re trained to see people and experiences as mere data. All too frequently Paul acts like something of a sociopath, even at points with Chani.

And to top all these issues off its important to remember Paul is a teenager during the course of the first book. A lonely teenager eager to be allowed to make friends his own age for the first time who then has to endure the trauma of seeing his father (who I remind you he idolizes) and a majority of the people he knew to be killed before being thrust into not only a religious role but also the trauma of his first prescient visions.

So Paul at the end of Dune is not a triumphant hero but something horrifying. A severely messed up young man at the head of an army who is set to force a woman to marry him (Irulan) and have his Fremen lover/actual wife negotiate said marriage treaty right after they’ve received news their son has died.

The horrors Paul dreaded were inevitably the moment he was conceived and then set foot on Arrakis. Because he had it in him, inherited it even. After all:

There is no escape. We pay for the violence of our ancestors.

[momentsbeforemass]

Perfect

(by request, my homily from Sunday)

I’d like to talk with you about being perfect.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about doing things well. About trying harder. Or rising to the moment.

There’s nothing wrong with being the best that you can be. There’s nothing wrong with pushing past your fears to do something you didn’t think you could do.

When you’re doing that kind of above and beyond with God. When you’re following God’s lead, giving that extra in obedience to God’s will, it’s going to take you to the best moments in your life.

That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the illusion of perfection.

One of the greatest weights you will ever carry is the illusion of perfection.

Here’s what I mean. If you see yourself as better than everyone else. If you have to have the last word. If you’re always right.

That is what I’m talking about. That is the illusion of perfection.

And you’re thinking, that’s not me. I don’t have to worry about that. I can check out for the rest of the homily.

Don’t be so sure.

When someone says you made a mistake, or calls you out on your BS, or says you’re wrong. What’s your first impulse? What you do without thinking?

Do you stop for moment? Consider whether what they’re saying could be right? And even if it isn’t, do you think about why it might seem that way from their perspective?

Or, do you immediately launch into an impassioned defense of whatever you said or did?

Right. Of course you’re defending it. It’s a personal attack. You’re not going to let that go.

Maybe you go after them right then. Maybe you seethe with resentment. Maybe you let it go for now, then pay them back later. With interest.

If that’s your response, then whether you want to admit it or not, you are working from the illusion of perfection.

And you’re thinking, I know people like that. But that’s not me. I don’t do that. I can check out for the rest of the homily.

Don’t be so sure. Because there’s another way it happens.

What do you do when you see someone who doesn’t measure up? Someone who’s struggling?

Maybe they got fired from their job. Maybe their marriage is on the rocks. Maybe they’re fighting an addiction. Maybe they’ve got a child who’s headed off in the wrong direction. Maybe they’re holding a cardboard sign.

What’s your first impulse? What you do without thinking?

Do you talk with them? Do you help them? Do you pray for them?

Or do you find yourself rattling through a list of everything they did to get themselves into that mess?

Right. You know exactly who to blame. You’ve seen the same thing so many times. These people bring it on themselves. They’re beyond help.

If that’s your response, the truth is that you can’t admit that they’re just like you. That you don’t want to acknowledge that you’re only one bad decision, only one bad break away from being them. Whether you want to admit it or not, you too are working from the illusion of perfection.

Whichever way it plays out in your life, one of the greatest weights you will ever carry is the illusion of perfection.

Why do I say that? Because if you’re spending your time defending every perceived attack on your illusion of perfection, pretty soon everything is going to look like an attack.

That illusion takes a lot of work to defend. You won’t be able to let up. Not for a moment. You’ll be exhausted from your constant effort to maintain and defend the illusion of perfection. You’ll find yourself increasingly miserable.

And increasingly cut off, because you’ll be making everyone else miserable. They’ll either avoid you entirely, or interact with you as little as possible. And the ones who can’t get away from you, will be walking on eggshells to avoid setting you off. Again.

This is why one of the greatest weights you will ever carry is the illusion of perfection.

It’s one of the most subtle forms of the sin of pride. And one of the most toxic.

So what can you do about it? How do you admit that you’re wrong? What will people think if you’re not perfect?

Trust me, they already know.

Everyone knows you’re not perfect. Because none of us are, myself included.

With the illusion of perfection, the only person you’re fooling is you. It’s time to let go of that dead weight.

It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to not have it all together just yet. It’s okay to be a work in progress.

This is what St. Paul is talking about in the second reading. About being patient. Patient with ourselves. And patient with each other.

This is why he’s so adamant about not complaining – about ourselves, or about each other. You’re not going to plant a seed, and have a tree the next afternoon. Much less an apple. This stuff takes time. And that’s okay.

Don’t worry about what other people think. There’s only one opinion of you that matters. And God isn’t going to think any less of you for not being perfect.

How do I know this? It’s in today’s Gospel.

John the Baptist is having doubts. Wait, what?

If anyone should have been absolutely convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, it’s John the Baptist.

John was 6 months older than Jesus. They were cousins. They grew up together, with John hearing all of the stories about Jesus’ birth. John baptized Jesus. John heard the voice of God say, “this is my beloved Son.” John knew everything about Jesus.

And yet, John had doubts.

But notice what John does. John doesn’t worry about what people will think, if they find out he’s got doubts. What will his followers say, when they find out the greatest of the prophets isn’t perfect?

What I love about John the Baptist is what does with his doubts. He doesn’t try to hide them. Or explain them away.

What I love about John the Baptist is that he owns his imperfections. First, he lets his friends know about them, so that they can help him. And because they’re real friends, they do.

By the way, this is the quickest way to find out who your real friends are. And to find out who you need to drop from your life. Anybody who doesn’t step up for you in a moment like that, isn’t worth your time.

But John doesn’t stop there. John goes straight to Jesus, with exactly what’s weighing on his heart. John. Holds. Nothing. Back.

Look at how Jesus responds. Jesus isn’t angry or disappointed with John. Jesus doesn’t say, “John, you’ve known me your whole life. You know all about the angels and the shepherds and the wisemen. You heard what God said when you baptized me. What is wrong with you?”

How Jesus responds shows us His love for John. Jesus goes right where John is hurting the most. With an answer that rings true in both his head and in his heart.

It’s the same love that God responds with every time. Every time we’re honest with Him. Every time we go to straight to God with what’s weighing on our heart. Every time we hold nothing back.

What am I saying? It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to be a work in progress. Give yourself  break. Drop the illusion of perfection. Instead, take whatever is making you feel less than perfect, whatever is weighing on your heart, whatever is hurting you most – and take it to God. Hold nothing back.

It’s the only way to receive God’s best. To receive the Love that’s been waiting for you, since before you were born.

Sunday’s Readings

[withinycu-arch]

Paul is Not Well or how putting an emotionally traumatized teenager who grew up in an emotionally toxic environment in a position of both political and religious power was . . . a BAD IDEA

To discuss Paul Atreides’s issues we have to go back to his childhood. The Duke Leto Atreides while noble in many respects could be emotionally cold and distant. A fact Jessica herself comments on this in a conversation with Dr. Yueh:

“ . . . The Duke is really two men. One of them I love very much. He’s charming, witty, considerate . . . tender- everyting a woman would desire. But the other man is . . . cold, callous, demanding, selfish- as harsh and cruel as a winter wind . . . “ pg. 42

As his son, Paul was no doubt affected by not only this duality but also the fact the Duke would have been frequently absent due to his political duties. Leaving Paul to not only idolize his father but also constantly hold himself to this idealized standard. After all, he named both of his sons after his father. 

Adding to Paul’s sense of personal anxiety is his training by his mother in Bene Gesserit ways. It's very clear though not specifically stated in the book that the Sisterhood often relies on emotional and psychological abuse not only as part of their training but also to keep their members in line. The Bene Gesserit are also viewed ambivalently in the Dune universe with him even making this comment to his mother shortly after they arrive on Arrakis:

“When my father is bothered by something you’ve done he says ‘Bene Gesserit!’ like a swear word.” pg. 49

So Paul would have not only been affected by the abuse inherent in Bene Gesserit training but it would also affect his sense of self in that its a skillset many look down upon in the Imperium. This surrounding attitude and what such training entails likely ties into his later backlash against not only his Bene Gesserit training but also the sisterhood themselves. 

I think to the sense of being pulled between two very different worldviews also creates a kind of subconscious need to please or at least fulfill others expectations of him which reaches its apex when he lives with the Fremen and falls into the role of their messiah. This is also why I think he views Chani as stronger than he is because her sense of self isn’t as dependent on others but that’s the subject of a whole other headcanon.

Now I’ve covered Paul’s inherent insecurity but I also want to address how he treats people. Which is awful. Quite frankly he treats them as pawns and frequently makes decisions for them without seriously considering how it would affect them. 

While this has obvious roots in his Bene Gesserit training, I think it also is influenced by his being the heir to a noble house, his being viewed as a messiah figure and as well as his being trained from infancy to be a Mentat. 

“ . . . I thought Mentat training had to start during infancy and the subject couldn’t be told because it might inhibit the early . . . “ He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. "I see.” pg. 31

While we never explicitly told/shown what goes into Mentat training we do know Mentats serve as human computers. Effectively they’re trained to see people and information as mere data. All too frequently Paul acts like something of a sociopath, even at points with Chani. 

And to top all these issues off its important to remember Paul is a teenager during the course of the first book. A lonely teenager eager to be allowed to make friends his own age for the first time who then has to endure the trauma of seeing his father (who I remind you he idolizes) and a majority of the people he knew to be killed before being thrust into not only a religious role but also the trauma of his first prescient visions.

So Paul at the end of Dune is not a triumphant hero but something horrifying. A severely messed up young man at the head of an army who is set to force a woman to marry him (Irulan) and have his Fremen lover/actual wife negotiate said marriage treaty right after they’ve received news their son has died. 

The jihad Paul dreaded was inevitably the moment he was conceived and then set foot on Arrakis. Because he had it in him. 

[dailyaudiobible]

06/17/2019 DAB Transcript

1 Kings 18:1-46, Acts 11:1-30, Psalms 135:1-21, Proverbs 17:12-13

Today is the 17th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it's great to be here with you, great to be here with you today as we settle into the flow of this week out in front of us, kinda get back to work and move through the middle of the month here. So, we began reading from the Amplified Bible yesterday because it was the beginning of the week and some pretty monumental things going on in the Scriptures. We met Elijah the prophet in the Old Testament and in the New Testament the apostle Peter had seen a vision, had been summoned by a Gentile Centurion, he has gone into the house of a Gentile, which is…which is frowned upon at best, and he has seen the Holy Spirit fall upon Gentile people, which is messing with him pretty good and is definitely going to mess with the early church as we will see going forward. In fact, it's so monumental, this shift that's taking place, that it it's going to change everything. And it'll take some time, we’ll see this over the course of Paul's writings and so forth. So, we’re gonna be spending some time with this sub theme before us. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We are right here, right now and the Scriptures are going to lead us today in the next step and the next step will take us into first Kings chapter 18.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of first Kings we’re seeing why Elijah is a famous prophet now, and we’re seeing the power of God that's being displayed through him, especially here at this show down on the top of Mount Caramel with the prophets of Asherah and Baal versus basically Elijah, the God of Israel. And, so, when we saw this dramatic story…I can read this story now and see it so vividly in my mind because we've been to the top of Mount Carmel so many times and just exploring this story. I mean, it would seem like the stories over, right? The prophets of Baal and Asherah, they’re no longer with us. The people's hearts have turned back to God and God is now sending rain on the land. So, it would seem like end of story, good job, but it's not the end of the story and it's got a bizarre twist to it and we’ll get to that tomorrow.

Then in the book of Acts, I mean I’ve said this a couple times as we've gotten into this story, that these are fundamental formation things in the early church that are taking place that affect us until today. And that's not an understatement in anyway. You see the Peter was in Joppa and then he went down the coast to Cornelius's house where the Holy Spirit fell upon a Gentile family and they received the Lord and they were baptized in the name of Jesus. Once Peter got back to Jerusalem and the mother church, right, the Jerusalem church, there were plenty of people going, “wait…wait…that's against the rules. We don't do those kinds of things. We don't associate with those kinds of people. We don't want those kinds of people in our church.” And we might think, “well that stuff doesn't really happen these days” but that's not true. It happens all the time. I was talking to a pastor friend the other day who was helping strategize for another church who wanted to plant a sister church, plant a new church in a different part of the community and he was basically just saying, “your strategies fine, but you have this beautiful building you are using for two hours a day, one day of the week basically and why…like why wouldn't you plant the kind of community you're wanting here in this beautiful building.” And he said one of their deacons was like, “because we don't want those kinds of people in our church.” I was surprised that would be spoken out loud in that kind of environment, but this kind of stuff happens all the time. We segregate ourselves into like-minded people where we can all be right, and we can all convince each other that we are right. And, so, Peter’s coming back to the Jerusalem church with information that is absolutely and completely disruptive because now Jesus, the Hebrew Messiah that they are believing in that He came and offered them new life and hope for the people, well now this isn’t exclusive. Now this is open to all of the world, whereas originally the people were thinking, “well, Jesus was Jewish and he taught the Torah and you follow the customs. He certainly critiqued the religion without a doubt, but he was never saying like you shouldn’t be Jewish or Hebrew, I mean, like you shouldn’t do this anymore. He was just unveiling how it had gotten sidetracked and He was setting things right, but we were never thinking like everybody in the world could get in this.” The first believers in Jesus were Hebrew people who were following a Rabbi. They were following his teachings. They were following the Way. They were processing His critique on their traditions and their rituals and their religion. They were following the Way. They weren't leaving one faith and converting to another faith. And, so, for Gentile people to begin to convert or follow Jesus teachings without first converting to Judaism was messing with their minds and we will certainly see how this plays out, but we will eventually be able to see how this faith in Christ that was borne out in this little patch of land within a Hebrew context grew to become far and away beyond the Hebrew context and it is largely made up of Gentile people. We’ll see this story before our eyes and the implications of it because there are significant implications for us to examine today and we’ll be examining this stuff for the rest of the year whenever the Bible brings it up. And it brings it up often.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us into this new week. We invite You fully and we see that there is disruption happening in Old and New Testaments and we realize that disruption is a part of life. And, so, Father help us this week that as we are disrupted, before we immediately label it a bad thing, help us to take a breath and to consider, “Are You in this? Are You shaking things up? Are You pulling us forward?” Come Holy Spirit we pray. As You did on the family of Cornelius, fall upon us we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi DAB family, It’s James here from the UK. Haven’t called in for a while but just coming in this morning. Heard the prayer request from Marcella from Brisbane. And Marcella you really touched me, you really triggered something in me that just compelled me to call in. I heard in your voice the burden that you’re carrying right now and the financial hardship that mentioned that you’re facing into. And there’s a few things that just really triggered in me, things that I wanted to convey to you. And I think this is the Spirit’s work. Marcella, you talked about starting afresh, and I know that right now that is very hard thing to contemplate. What the future looks like is really uncertain and as a provider, as a man, there is a burden on you regarding your family and how you’re going to care for them. And you need to know that God is going to care for you Marcella, that God has got plans for you and that when you start afresh and when you start to move into this new space, albeit that it’s going to be a painful process to go through, He will provide riches that you’re not…you’re not envisioning right now. It might not be financial riches, but they will be things that you can’t comprehend at this moment in time. And I just needed you to hear that Marcella. Thank you so much for your call and I’m praying for you.

Good morning brothers and sisters in the Lord. Thank you so much for your continued faithfulness and praying for each other. This is Southern Belle from Canada. My children who farm have been living in a drought the summer and it’s ironic that the people in the states in the Midwest who are drowning in mud and up here in Canada we are dry as can be. I’m asking for prayer for them. They are so fragile in their relationship due to extended circumstances with my daughter who passed away and they’ve been looking after for her estate for four years already and an abusive ex-husband that my daughter had and the children and the estate. I just don’t even want to go into it, all the convoluted mess of it all. But my son and daughter-in-law with three children of their own who are trying so hard to be faithful in their walk with the Lord and they try putting the seed into the ground and we all know what it’s like to put seed in, into our lives and to not have anything come from the fruition with it Lord. I just pray in the name of Jesus that You would send rain for their crops, that You would protect their harvest and that You would bring it to such an abundance that they wouldn’t be able to realize it. Not only my children God but for all the farmers out here in Midwest Canada. And Lord, for all those around the world God who are facing their own drought whether spiritually or relationally or whatever. We need You Jesus to be in our life, we need You to pour out Your rain. Come Lord, fill our hearts overflowing that we would reflect You, that we would be faithful regardless of the circumstances. And I pray for…

Hi, my name is Roslyn. I live in Louisiana. I have a very, very important prayer request. This is my first time to ever call and I’ve been listening since 2006. But we have a newborn, she was born a little bit early. And this week she was picked up. An ambulance came from Vanderbilt to take her up there to do heart surgery. And they couldn’t do it until she weighed 4 pounds. And she’s at 4 pounds right now. So, I’m just praying that everybody that listens to the DAB would pray for Willow. And thank you so much. I love you all. I listen every single day and I’m not going to mention any names but everybody that calls in on the prayer request, your prayers are heard and I’m sure a lot are answered in some way or another. Thank you so much for praying for Willow and I love you all. Thank you, Brian and Jill. And it has been wonderful to have this, and I hope…and I told my Bible study teacher that people around the world would be praying for Willow. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Bye.

Hi everyone, it’s Doug from Alabama. I meant to call in the past several months because it’s been a while. I always have that urge and then for some reason I don’t. But I’ll go ahead and get to the point because I only have my two minutes here. Please keep me in your prayers as far as my mental health. The last two or three months, I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t been really sleeping well or what, but my anxiety has really just been through the roof. I’ve been having a lot of anxiety, __ attacks, I think that’s really what it is. I’ve just been really sensitive the last couple months. I’ve been trying to get into see a doctor. My psychiatrist had to cancel for an appointment on Monday because he had to go to back to India where he’s from. So, I can’t see him for a few months and I have to make a separate appointment to see a new therapist, which is money I really don’t have. So, there’s a lot of different things. I’ve got a bedbug infestation too. And, so, I wonder if that’s why I’m not sleeping very well and maybe that’s the root of it, but please just keep me in your prayers as far as my mental health because there are some days I feel like I’m going crazy, where, you know, I feel like I just need to be locked up in a room __. And also a couple of other points. Please keep me in your prayers as far as jobs because I’m extremely burned out at this current job I work at. I work as a donation tenant for a food store. So, I sit outside in the heat all day and take donations and it’s very lonely. And I haven’t really been able to handle the heat well. And, so, I’m still looking for a job too and I feel like a job would really help me. __ about up here. So, I really appreciate all your prayers. I listen to all of yours and I try to pray…like when my mind allows me. So…

[valenshawke]

Identity Ask- 1&3!

identity asks… oh shit

3. list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

I’m limiting myself to five.

Claymore - Clare

Death Parade - Chiyuki

My Hero Academia - Izuku Midoriya

Violet Evergarden - Violet

And not to be an anime/manga-cliche-riddled-mess

Deadwood - Al Swearengen

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

I’m answering these as to what I was watching/reading/listening to during my late teens/early adulthood as they either proto-formed most of political and social ideology while other things better informed me later. But without these, probably would have turned out different.

Watch: Uh… man… this is gunna be terrible. But probably watch The X-Files, Law & Order, and the first two seasons of The West Wing. The X-Files kinda got me somewhat deep into conspiracy theory circles for a bunch of years before the right wing really got deep into it and it became a mess of fascist white supremacy. Law & Order cause I wanted to be Jack McCoy for a lot of years and he is an influence as to how I lectured when I was teaching. Plus, his righteous sanctimony is something identify with since people do consider a sanctimonious prima donna and drama queen. The West Wing is probably a shocker because that show first about 4 seasons (when Sorkin wrote it) was fucking idealistic as hell and a nice counterbalance to the Bush administration. I’ll also toss in Stargate SG-1 because I loved that show and it replaced The X-Files as must-see-TV after the movie.

Listen: Metallica. If you’re a male, and you like heavy metal, at some point… you listened to Metallica a lot (or Megadeth if you hated Metallica and thought Dave Mustaine was the superior guitarist and songwriter). This WAS the band of my high school years. And Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and … And Justice for All were all great in terms of social commentary on politics, corruptions, religion. I listened to Metallica a lot, and I mean a lot, while I was reading what I’m going to talk about in a bit.

The Black Album also means a lot to me since my first girlfriend in high school actually introduced me to the band and told me her all time favorite song was “The Unforgiven.” I listened to it and it’s still my all time favorite song by Metallica and, AND, I got to see them play it live in December. A moment I will never forget (I also recorded it and bought the official live recording of that concert).

Read: I give this answer a lot but it’s been awhile and I’ll give a why on what someone would read: Dune, specifically the Dune Chronicles. The original six books. I was actually going through my replies one night and someone @thetwistedmentat asked my thoughts on the fourth book, God Emperor of Dune. So I’ll try to cover it all briefly here…

Still going under a cut.

When I was 16 and read the first four books, it really did change how I viewed the world. About 2.5 years earlier, I became an atheist, which went over real well in Catholic school. I was already the ostracized kid in Catholic school, so this added to it. I guess I had a lot of questions on morality and how things really were.

When I read the first book, it really opened my eyes. No, I didn’t get the subtlety or all the commentary the first time I read it, but I got the broad strokes and I got older and learned more, I started to understand the references and the complexity of what Frank Herbert was saying.

Messianic figures are, by-in-large, a bad idea. Either because they become a prisoner to their ideas and mission or don’t have the courage to do what it is needed if they’re smart enough to realize, “Hey, being a single ruler with religious devotion is a terrible thing.”

Dependency on a single resource to move a system’s economy is… a terrible thing as well.

Social engineering (a more complex and devious form of socialization) is a terrible thing and can lead to terrible outcomes.

Religion and government being one and the same… is a terrible thing with terrible outcomes.

Cultural and evolutionary stagnation is… A terrible thing.

Complacency is… A terrible thing.

The ecology of a planet can give us clues and inform us of what a society holds sacred or important. Which also ties into #2.

People tend to drop Dune after the second book or criticize the first book for pretty much the same reason. Dune has been criticized as a colonial white-man’s fantasy because the “hero” wins at the end of the first book. As one gets closer to the end, Paul Atreides makes more more comments about a terrible decision he has to make, a Jihad that is coming, and billions that will die. People will die under and because of his name. When you get to book 2… Frank Herbert takes a wrecking ball to the entire notion that Paul is a hero. Paul compares himself to Hitler for love of Teresa of the Faint Smile. And no, this isn’t Frank Herbert was a Nazi or a sympathizer. For Frank Herbert, this was the clearest way for him to say Paul Atreides was evil, a coward, and weak. Frank Herbert literally said Paul is someone who “thinks he is God. “

And he leaves those terrible decisions to his son, Leto Atreides II.

In the third book, Leto and his twin sister, Ghanima, have the same power Paul had, the ability to see the future and the ability to tap into both sides of their genetic memory and Leto struggles with the decision to take on the skin of the Sandworm.

What is the decision? Save humanity. Because on it’s current path as outlined by points 1, 2, 3, 4, & 6… humanity will meet its end. Again this is a galactic empire but it can be controlled by one person who controls one resource.

Which actually leads into the second criticism I actually read very recently. That the books still fall into the strong-man political leader/fascist leader to solve the problems. And I’ll admit, that is a strong criticism if you discount the nuances Frank Herbert brings and the ultimate goal Frank Herbert apparently had in mind (According to Norman Spinrad, Frank Herbert actually detested the royalist politics he wrote about, which is pretty clear, and that the universe would eventually move to some kind of true democratic confederation).

Yes, both Paul and Leto (especially Leto) were strong man/fascist dictators for all intents and purposes. But both clearly could see into the future and had pretty much all of human history in their heads to realize humanity, as a group of people, naturally fall into the trap of charismatic leadership and authority. It’s actually rather easy to do if you examine just how Paul becomes a messiah to the Fremen (which is an explicit criticism of the Catholic Church and its role in European Colonialism).

And this gets into an overall theme in many of Frank Herbert’s work: Harsh social and environmental conditions can produce genius or people able to survive. At the micro-level, you have the Fremen, who can best the imperial militaries best.

At the big, macro-level, Leto’s oppression is meant to foment rebellion, is meant to make people angry generation after generation, is meant for people that want freedom, to never be under the rule of one person ever again, is meant to make him the ultimate symbol of evil everyone can agree upon (sound familiar anime fans?). They must call him Shaitan. He must be remembered as a Tyrant. As evil. He must die in a certain way. The problem with humanity, and you can see it to this day, is we forget the mistakes of the past. Leto’s goal:

“When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto’s peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.” - Leto Atreides, The God Emperor of the Known Universe.

It only takes 3500+ years.

There’s also just a lot of gems about leadership, bureaucracy, and the idiotic repetition of history in God Emperor of Dune. The Dune Chronicles aren’t very action-based, there aren’t prolonged battles that are written out. Dune ends with a duel, Dune Messiah has a few moments of violence with stone burners, and a few deaths at the end, Children of Dune has a very sad written death of one of my favorite characters. God Emperor of Dune probably is the closest something heartpounding as Leto’s goal is ultimately achieved. Heretics of Dune again has some moments of violence. Chapterhouse: Dune actually has a battle sequence written out. After that, there are no more Dune books.

“But-”

THERE. ARE. NO. MORE. DUNE. BOOKS.

Why I became a sociologist? Why I ended up reading Marx & Lenin? Why I’m so critical of the intersection of politics, economics, and religion? Here you go.

This isn’t to say stuff HASN’T influenced me later. I’d also suggest reading books by Mira Grant and Ann Leckie, as well as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and mangas such as Claymore by Norihiro Yagi and Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa or watch Code Geass, M*A*S*H, and The Wire. Just that the Dune Chronicles was the first, and probably, most important step.

[comunityministry]

Blessings. What a beautiful rain and thunder we had last night. Hope all is okay with the wind and hail! God gives us what we need, no matter what happens. He is there for us with all his Mercies and Grace. Time of Grace talks of the Holy Bible. When Pastor Navotnie was a kid he had lots of questions about God, so as a teenager he challenged himself to read that book! Cover to cover! Afterwards he had a lot more questions about God. ? ? Can I trust the Bible? When he asked his pastor these questions his pastor did not turn away! He discussed every question with him. Where the world came from? With all evil and suffering? Famous atheists? Former pastors who turned into atheists and former atheists who turned into pastors!

There is something beautiful about Christianity Some pastors would have dismissed people with so many questions but not Mike Navotnie's pastor! This is unstoppable love of Jesus and Grace from God. Emotional and Spiritual people, think and pray and discuss. In Acts 17: 16; a flexible approach-- in places like Thessalonica and Beroea, Paul went first to the synagogues, where he tried to convince fellow Jews that Jesus Christ was the messiah promised in the old testament. In Athens he took the same approach and soon began comparing his God to the many gods they worshipped.( The ancients use to say , it is easier to find a god than a man in Athens. ) The Holy Bible is Set apart, different, unique! ! Why would we open this every day? Reasons to believe in the Bible. 1- it's the Prophets Knowledge. They lived 700 years before Jesus was born. How did the prophets know all of this that they wrote? Maybe they had a connection to God. 2--The Appostles Witness. --What Peter, James and John saw and heard. Paul said, when in chains, in Acts: 26: 21; To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here , testifying to both a all and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place. And that the Messiah must suffer, and that by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles. What are the odds that these people weren't helped by God? We trust the Bible because Jesus did! The Word cannot be broken. --3. Jesus Uniqueness. God is still with me. God knows all about me, Everything! How will we clean up our mess? Grace! Isaiah 53: 5; Peter explained it this way. When Jesus died on the cross, his suffering and death " healed " us of our sins, enabling us to live for righteousness. (1st Peter 2. 24) This makes Christianity different. God so Loved us as He Gave His Only Son. We have Hope, Confidence, Peace, Joy and everything God wrote. Dear God, Thank You for Your Gift of Grace! Amrn.

[eksbdan-blog]

New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/10/23/christ-hermeneutics-death-spiral-pt-4/

Christ vs. Pannenberg vs. the Hermeneutic Death Spiral, pt 4:

This is an article in a series. Please see:

Christ vs. the Hermeneutical Death Spiral, part 1 Christ and the Hermeneutical Death Spiral Part 2 Christ and the Hermeneutical Death Spiral part 3: Corrupt Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics: What’s in a Word: Revealing Revelation

I want the reader to meditate on Hermeneutics, the branch of knowledge that deals with biblical interpretation, but I want to keep doing it asymmetrically, not directly laying out one position against another and arguing for one or a combination. I’ll close this chapter by recalling Wolfhart Pannenberg’s history of the development of the concept of “revelation.”  All of this may not seem like the usual presentation of Christian hermeneutics but, after all, if a study of how the meaning of a word can change does not relate to hermeneutics then nothing does. The insight that comes from this will tell you all you have to know that is important on the subject.

“Revelation” means something, and it means something biblical and original to Christ and the Apostles, and If we know anything for sure it’s that the way they use it in the Church and by our scholars it’s not the original.

It’s quite shocking that many Christian theologians don’t have a problem with the assertion that the Bible is not necessarily the only point of its accessibility, what is in it, or the raising of it to a superlative revelation. That the Bible in so many ways is subservient to perception, culture, method, and presupposition and the entirety of its relevance and power is determined by the time we spend rehabilitating it in so many possible ways. It’s about a slow change in the idea of the possibility of ultimate informational sources that makes the “Bible” dispossessed of its own message and vision, and this is because we have a sublimated problem with invasive (subjective) authority (objective) that lives and operates beyond us.

It is especially a wonder that those who profess to be conservative and careful in their approach and claim the Bible as their sole rule of faith and practice also insist on a stridently anti-biblical conception of revelation, confidently disposing of the one taught by Christ was the divine knowledge given for salvation. This anti-biblical conception runs far deeper than you might think it does in a Southern Baptist prayer meeting in Mobile Alabama or St. Matthews Catholic Church in Jacksonville, Florida, not to mention the Unitarian Universalist Association. Liberal groups have cast away the centrality of the Bible and Christ upfront and unashamed, but conservative groups, no matter their stripe and no matter how much they protest about it not being true have just as much guilt in this as anyone else.

There is nothing like a biblical word study for those disposed toward the Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice. It’s a cleanser and an astringent for wiping away all the fetid mess by which contamination and infection by causal contact occurs with a theology that aspires only to produce something, anything, as long as it’s a new and status attaining revelation. Something like from a Heidegger, or with the clout of Hawking. But that injurious effect is nowhere near us in this because we are not trying to facilitate in any way the attainment of anything that this world can offer our effort, to tell the truth. What we attain can be of no greater reward than the blessing of knowing that the salvific subject in which we are trying to divine is the same as what we get out of it. If we claim that we are products of this subject, a word study, which establishes by our ultimate authority the meaning of a crucial word, is the best hermeneutics we can engage in, and no reward of meaning is greater than the results if it’s done honestly.

A Revelation of Revelation

Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις (apokálypsis) is first used in the NT in Luke 2:32 when Mary presented to Simeon the baby Jesus in the Temple. He says this Messiah is: “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.”

The word “lighten” is “reveal,” that Jesus is the light which reveals. This is a play on words. Light is φῶς phōs, and ἀποκάλυψις are related. Light reveals, uncovers. ἀποκάλυψις is the content of revelation, the particular truth(s) exposed. In case you are missing the species of truth(s) revealed, Barnes clarifies this:

Verse 32. A light to lighten the Gentiles p. This is in accordance with the prophecies in the Old Testament, Isa 49; 9:6-7; Ps 98:3; Mal 4:2. The Gentiles are represented as sitting in darkness–that is, in ignorance and sin. Christ is a light to them, as by him they will be made acquainted with the character of the true God, his law, and the plan of redemption. As the darkness rolls away when the sun rises, so ignorance and error flee away when Jesus gives light to the mind. Nations shall come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising, Isa 60:3.

But after this, Simeon was suddenly not full of happy thoughts, but his words turned very dark and grave: “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” What did he mean?

Only that his death would make his mother sad?  Why will he be spoken against, and how can he be the fall and rising again of many? Just because people will reject what he preaches and what he claims for himself?

Or is Simeon’s subject not only Jesus but his Truth, equating Jesus with that prophetic light, a light which is ordained to be the sole illuminating influence and rule over religion? That for some the appearance of God in this light is the same as the religion, then a mustering point for an entrance into Heaven, but for others the usurpation of man as King is the cause of a mob of tradition worshippers, status seekers,  intellectual and emotional hedonists and symbol fanatics that attempt to snuff out that light? Yes, indeed, this sword of the spirit will pierce many hearts just by its existence, revealing who we really are. The pain of knowing that either causes repentance or a doubling-down in Satanic thought.

It’s the first sign in the New Testament that this Messiah will replace mans’ opaque formulations of religion and faith, unfounded by and open demonstration of God, with one that will be synonymous only on a demonstration and its immanent Agent.

Simeon does not refer to some general conception of revelation, but he speciates it exactly as messianic prophecy, and therefore Jesus is himself the enfleshment of messianic prophecy in fulfillment. How does Barnes, above, so easily pick up on this? Because of the context of “light” and the spiritual sword that pierces the heart which, like this, a simple word brings out without many other alternatives. All disclosure of this secret divine information is carried on the prophecies of the Messiah in which Jesus will fulfill.

There are 18 uses of the word apokálypsisa in the NT, including the one just mentioned:

Romans 2:5: the revelation is the “day of wrath,” for which man treasures up sin. This is a prophetic future.

Romans 8:19: we wait for this revelation, complete on the last day when the Angels and Christ are revealed. Again, all expressions of a future state are prophetic utterances.

Romans 16:25: the “revelation of the mystery,” the revealing, the elucidation of the prophets concerning all things Messiah, establishes a person in faith through the gospel, its equivalent, and the content of this gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is the same as this OT revelation.

1 CO 1:7: the faithful wait for the revelation of Jesus Christ on the last day, the full disclosure not only of the Person but the explanation how the entire corpus of scripture he fulfilled and applies to him,.

1 CO 14:6: Paul puts revelation with knowledge, prophesying, and doctrine as that which edifies as opposed tongues. The previous verse identifies all the content of these three dominated by the concept “prophesying.” “Revelation” is a special and unexpected insight given to the receiver of God pertaining to Messianic Truth, something not possible for him without God. “Knowledge” is learned information pertaining to God’s promises and their fulfillments in Messiah. “Doctrine,” didachḗ, is the universally accepted and established teaching of such knowledge, identical to messianic revelation, and is not subject to change. Prophesying is the preaching of this revelation, knowledge and doctrine, all relating to a sharply messianic, prophetic knowledge alone.

1 CO 14:26: “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.”

Here, in the lease two verses, but particularly the last, is the seam where the definition of revelation begins to be ripped from its context and applied idiomatically.

1 Corinthians 14 is in context about gifts of the Spirit. Since God gives the gifts to an individual who identifies him as of a higher spiritual responsibility, they become something highly coveted. But besides a change in the meaning of “revelation” by us for religious self-aggrandizement, it is here that subsequent theology could also change it to destroy the entire possibility of revealed faith. It could then be said that the Old-Testament prophet did not receive his prophecies by direct contact or theophany of God but by hallucination, auto-suggestion or just personal insight of the Scriptures because of learning and wisdom. This happens when there is an apathy or disbelief toward the suggestion of historical facts, or any evidence, existing to prove the God of the Bible, as in the revelation by the prophetic scriptures. Moving revelation to personal insight removes this epistemic threat for the desired disbelief in a God which exits far beyond a mere philosophical idea or religious claim.

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But, more to the point, since the Old Testament prophetic template is that because the message is intended for a public and free disclosure of previously secret and divine knowledge with implications to all, proving and explaining God, it’s not going to be about things that pertain only to the prophets finances, happiness, family, job or other like matters.  True, it is also understood here, correctly, as applying to the individual and his circumstances. It’s a revelation that is given is on rare occasions as an unverifiable divine experience and personal edification. But the difference between how revelation is emerging and how it was laid down prevents its content and its carrier to be treated apart and from the revelatory motivations of God and man for the revealing of a knowledge which is of the greatest conceivable importance. First, we point out 2 Corinthians 12:1:

2 CO 12:1: “It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Paul refers to a revelation he received being transported to Heaven. Seeing things so glorious that he can’t speak of them, making a boast of himself of his work on earth would be puerile and vain. The message is that no work for Christ that we can perform, no matter how obedient and righteous, is a source of pride, but the “lifting up of the head” (Ps 110:7), his success, is in the of pure love and joy in knowing the otherwise impossible knowledge of God in his plan of redemption through the prophets. The carrier of this revelation is the insight of the directly contacted prophet and the content is for the education of the greatest evangelist that the world has ever known.

I would point out that Paul was given a heavenly revelation that was as unique as to the normal function of revelation as the manner in which God took a violent unbeliever and revealed himself to him on the Road to Damascus. Christ has done these special things because he knew Paul and knew that he would be ideal for his ministry, giving him both the blessing of seeing and talking to him and seeing with his own eyes what awaits him for serving him. It was needed to break through the mental calcification that pharisaical tradition worship created in his soul that prevented him from seeing Christ in the Old Testament, which was the only other place he could have seen him if he were to come to faith. Although a special blessing, it’s not to be taken as anything that could be given to us unless the world’s spiritual condition was so needful, such as the need for a specially equipped gentile evangelist, that there was no other way. Under normal circumstances, we have the completed corpus of scripture and have all we need for faith to see Christ as the only miracle of history.

2 CO 12:7: Same thought, but to prevent him from thinking of himself too highly he was given a “thorn in the flesh” by God to keep him humble. This revelation is designed by God to be depreciating, by comparison, not exhaling to the individual who receives it.

At this tear at the seam of the meaning of the original historical revelation opened after the deaths of the Apostles, Paul was given a very personal revelation of Heaven. It was not a public revelation except through Paul’s public testimony. The OT prophet utters a revelation from God that is meant to be written down and carried through the ages, receiving its positive confirmation of a real revelation from God when it is historically fulfilled. The crucial point is that revelation, whether public or personal, a matter of seeing or only believing,  is still not decoupled from that of the OT Prophet, among which the Apostles and the early Church are the ultimate examples, because revelation is still for the sole purpose of public benefit for the furtherance of the prophetic Gospel. The Prophet receives knowledge only for the purpose of the dissemination and explanation of the Gospel, never for the main purpose of giving the prophet happiness or to satisfy curiosity. It has a content that is always intended for future expansion of the knowledge of God, and, in all but rare circumstances, must always be verifiable and true, at least through prophetic realization, given to a person chosen by God whom he knows will not interpret it as a means of personal glory.

Gal 2:2: Paul went up to Jerusalem by revelation, by a special communication by God.

Notice that this revelation was for the specific purpose of meeting with James, Cephas, and John who confirmed Paul as one of them with the specific mission to the Gentiles. This is missionary, not merely personal. It’s a gift to further the prophetic Gospel.

Ephesians 1:17: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.”

Clearly wisdom and revelation as gifts pertain to the acquiring only of knowledge about or for the Messiah: “revelation in the knowledge of him.”  The context and content of this information are locked to the Old Testament prophets. It is disclosed and understood in the spirit, but it applies only to the understanding of this prophetic Truth about Jesus Messiah which was at the time of Paul manifested openly to the world.

But, backing up to v. 4, Paul uses the prophetic language of past and future fulfillment, that before the foundation of the world the faithful were chosen by God to be redeemed. This is prophetic language. In v. 5 the prophetic word is “foreordained” or “predestined,” the same prophetic language. In v. 7 and 8, the benefits were forgiveness of sins, wisdom, and prudence, and v. 9 identifies the source of this information in the Prophets: “the mystery of his will.”

The Mystery

We should pause here to focus on the word “mystery” which is so closely tied to revelation.

This is the μυστήριον, the mystḗrion. In the 27 occurrences of this word, it is first applied to the mystery of the Kingdom of God/Heaven (Mat 13:11, Mark 4:11 and Luke 8:10). This is a present, spiritual kingdom of believers in the fulfilled oracles of Christ, and a future kingdom prophetically promised for them which they believe will come to realization because of those past fulfillments.

In Mat 13:11, Jesus speaks of the mystery hidden in his parables. The reason people don’t understand this is because they don’t know or understand messianic prophecy, for which Christ gives an example:

Matthew 13:14 (KJV) And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

What Isiah the prophet specifically refers is not a general conception of not hearing and a general conception of not seeing, or a general conception of “Bible,” or some voluntary choice, but specifically of God’s promises for the future of which his book in its entirety is the greatest example for the predictions of Messiah.

In Mark 4:11 is the same thought, presenting the Parable of the Sower as the mystery which is not understood but is revealed by those who are looking for it. This is not just the meaning of the Parable, but the whole parable is a prophetic trope that is expected to be taken as a symbol of the New Covenant rule of faith and religion, which is not a man and not merely the imagination. Its God’s fulfilled, historical Word. That is religion because that is Jesus Christ.

Luke 8:10 presents the same teaching. We should pause and consider this parable briefly.

The Sower is Christ or his evangelist and the Seed if the “Word of God.” This is not a matter of speculation, but Christ gives it to us for free. However, it’s a hint, and he expects you to connect the dots. It must be remembered that the New Testament was not written at this time. This “Word of God” refers only to the Old Testament, and if to the Old Testament this Word of God that Messiah casts is prophetic of Jesus Messiah. There is not another kind of seed. There is one kind of seed that is sown in evangelism, which is the “good news” of gospel promise and fulfillment by Messiah Jesus. There is no possibility to make “Gospel” mean conclusions events or propositional statements but not their predicating prophetic promises which prove them as coming only from a transcendent being. Leave that out and you have nothing but religious statements.

The mystery is the blindness of Israel pertaining to the true Messiah (Rom 11:25). This was predicted and revealed.

The mystery of the Gospel kept secret from the beginning of the world (Rom 16:25). This indicates the Gospel is a prophetic Gospel, a Word once foreordained by God and revealed by Christ.

Again, we see the hidden wisdom of God kept secret from before the world began in 1 CO 2:7.

As knowledge of which the apostles as stewards, that it may be known, but must be propelled first by a love of Truth (1 CO 13:2). Love must love truth before it is a love of people or else there is no love to give them that is of eternal benefit and is therefore useless.

Mysteries can be spoken to God for which no one understands but God and the speaker (1 CO 14:2). However, this is still for the furtherance of the prophetic revelation, not for the satisfaction of personal curiosity, happiness or pride.

The mystery is a prophecy revealed pertaining to the resurrection (1 CO 15:51).

The prophetic mystery of God’s will to gather all who are in him, implying Jews and Gentiles (Eph 1:9). This is future prophetic.

The prophetic mystery which is “revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph 3:3) pertaining to the Gentile ingathering. This is future prophetic.

Paul preaches the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8), the content of preaching, and the reason for the Church, which is the meaning of the phrase “fellowship of the mystery” (v.9). This is prophetic knowledge of Christ that is promised in the OT and confirmed in the New.

The mystery again of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32), which is set forth in the prophetic scriptures of the OT.

The mystery of the Gospel (Eph 6:19), the mystery hidden from ages and generations and made known to the saints (Col 1:26). Again the equal to “messianic prophecy.”

Again, the mystery now revealed of the ingathering of the Gentiles (Col 1:27). Future prophetic.

The mystery that comforts and binds believers together in assurance (Col 2:2). This is nothing other than the assurance of faith that can only come from messianic prophecy.

Again, referring to the prophetic mystery of Christ of the Old Testament (Col 4:3).

The prophetic mystery of the nature and agent of sin (2TH 2:7).

The mystery of a new faith which was prophesied (1TI 3:9).

The “mystery of Godliness” (1TI 3:16) which is the Messiah prophetically fulfilled in the flesh.

1 PE 4:13: the revelation of Christ in this sense awaits the last day in his parousia. It’s not going to happen now, it’s a mystery coming to fulfillment.

The rest of the occurrences are in Revelation (1:20, 10:7,17:5, 17:7), which is entirely apokálypsisa, a prophecy of the future.

None of these occurrences of “mystery,” the hidden knowledge that is revealed in “revelation,” applies to idiomatic applications and all apply either directly to messianic prophecy or knowledge used for the fulfillment of its service of dissemination and explanation.

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It goes without saying that this revelation is God’s proprietary knowledge given to man which he passively receives, which engenders faith, making this faith a unique kind and not of a flattened, contextless, prosaic, voluntary conception.

Revelation comes to man today in the receiving and experiencing of something objectively divine to any casual observer, what I can phenomena, which is either his personal appearance or his appearance in an act of history, both of which are not subject to a moral denial except if it can be proven that the information revealed did not come to pass or was not true.  A personal appearance of God is integrated into the historical prophetic word of demonstration when its corpus is complete, as in the age post-apostolic. In this appearance is witnessed the reality and nature and plan of God in the prophetic cause and effect, which produces his theophany within the spirit as man realizes that God exists objectively and beyond mere conception.

It does not come from man, it’s not created by him, it’s not through a feeling, it’s not from spending hours in a library and finally coming to a conclusion about a thing. These are human-revelatory.

This revelation is either coming directly from an encounter by God, as in the like reception of the Word by the Old Testament Prophets, which is made known by speech or writing and subject to future confirmation, or it refers to historical events known by all which could never have been precisely anticipated by man of the historical realization of these past divine promises. This revelation establishes the reality and nature of God and his plan of redemption to faith, expressed in the movement of the prophetic cause and effect of history.

It’s not a matter of our work or intuition. This is what we do with it after it has been established and exposed. Revelation through study, logic, emotion, dreams, desires, calculation, will and its other personal forces, anything that man performs, is not a revelation, its personal insight as part of the personal sanctification process. They are possible kinds of a righteous revelation, but only an insular kind by man’s own efforts that follow obediently after God’s. God’s revelation is not determined by what man does or feels, but what man does is to be motivated by what God wants and reveals in his historical act of revelation, which begins and ends in the prophetic, oracular revelation of Messiah.

Although “revelation” is without the slightest question a matter either directly of Messianic knowledge from prophecy and his fulfillment or the encounter with God by faithful members for the purpose only of furthering the prophetic Gospel (the “good news” of prophetic fulfillment by Christ), this changed radically over time. Christian faith came to be said having no exclusive motivating power in messianic prophecy, as this would imply the need for proof, and this is thought a symptom of lack of faith, not one of a person that sees truth as objective and demonstrated before it can be subjective. Instead, faith is feeling, private experiences, doctrinal and propositional conclusions, tradition, and a myriad host of other subjective alternatives that are great for self-actualization but worthless as revelatory means of the biblical sense.

The lack of interest by Christ and the apostles of deliberately defining “revelation,” except through interpretation of subject context which the hearer is expected to know, speaks the loudest in the search for an explanation of the degeneration of the concept of “revelation.” What Christ and the Apostles made no effort to define what we, on the other hand, have found crucial is telling us this concept is not in need of such definition before the sincere searcher of Truth. It is because it is so precious it is left as a decision for the reader, the outcome of which exposes the inner quality and nature of their motivational faith center and their fitness for a future life in divine Transcendence. The meaning of “revelation,” as it applies the kind of biblical information that is to rule faith and the Church, will be hidden from all who would operate as revelatory receivers outside of it. Because we have lost that 1st-century understanding or never wanted it to rule over us we have created our own.

There is an important fact of the revelation of Jesus and its expressions by the apostles that actually began it is own destruction of revelation into predominantly human experience, but this is an evidence of its honestly rather than its tacit agreement as to that direction. The pre-cross Judaic world had only a provisional, future hope that what God said would happen in respect to the redemption of the Jews and, with some interpreters, the world. The Post-cross nature of revelation changed then from what became a fulfilled past prophetic vision in Jesus Christ to one that also included an eschatological one. There was always a heavy apocalyptic strain of OT prophecy, which predicted events that would occur from the prophets time and completed at the end of history, and this was maintained by Christ. There was left a hope for the final chapter of God’s plan to unfold, and uncertainty, but this uncertainly was undergirded by the certainty of what Christ had already completed. It was the first time in a religious theology that the truth of the pronouncements of its founders and leaders were not entirely dependent upon the faith or efforts of people, for what they said to be true of the gods and their intentions could never have positively verified either backward or forwards. Christ deliberately injected an element of uncertainty and dubitability into the future aspect of the revelation at the very moment when there was none, in the act of delaying it and removing himself from the earth. This made a new provisional layer to ride on top of proven one: Christ never completed God’s vision, but left a space of time between the fulfillment of the epistemic means of redemption and the final application of that means objectively. This is in perfect accord with the idea of revelation that both reveals and conceals. This was left so for the purpose of giving an incentive to those who received the revealed knowledge and operated on it to continue an upward expansion of their understanding as that studied the word, without which there would be a tendency for laziness and to remain only in the past.

But uncertainty also encouraged the choice for seizing on this unfulfilled and uncertain aspect to deny revelation and God. Sin is quintessentially expressed not only in the spirit, in the mind, which is the most private place in existence, but when there is no external pressure on it, which pressure Christ removed by not subjecting the world immediately to judgment for what they were. It was left for choice with no possibility for anyone to claim compulsion. If an idea is debatable, and it’s something not viscerally desired, then you take the uncertainty, doubt, and enmity toward it because, well, because you can. It’s an epistemic trap that only God could have devised an implemented, and the effectiveness of a good trap for a smart and circumspect subject is that it is so camouflaged that one does not even know its there to do its work.

The trap worked and continues to work as designed.

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s History: How the Trap Works

Wolfhart Pannenberg is my favorite theologian, thought by many to be the greatest living. He insists that revelation is history, roughly the equivalent to the” prophetic word of demonstration.” In the first volume of his systematic theology, he brings from his massive erudition and deep learning a compact review of how the concept of revelation changed through the ages that are very eye-opening.

The following is my condensation of Pannenberg. I claim deliberate plagiarism throughout, insofar as I take his words unless otherwise noted, and tell you their meaning without using quotes, using his vocabulary and some of his phrases. Pannenberg obviously holds views that track closely with my own, but if this is not true then they should be, given his consistent offering of the prophetic as the point of departure on the way to error. But no one wants to misrepresent anyone. I encourage the reader to take up this the first volume of his Systematic theology instead of taking my word for being what I believe is his accurate interpreter. Even if I do misinterpret him, this would stand as an excellent example of how even the best scholars come close to the real meaning of revelation but refuse to go the distance.

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He begins by noting that the patristic fathers never thought it a need to define the concept of revelation, and I mentioned that this was in accord with Jesus and the apostles before them.

The Shepherd of Hermas, however, showed signs through semantics that the Greek conception of revelation was beginning to influence the biblical one. The writer speaks of revelation both as future and apocalyptic and the disclosure of the prophetic content of scripture, he also speaks of revelation as manifesting or manifestation. Quoting Pannenberg, this was used as in “the manifestation of the Lord,” “the manifestation of the order of the Cosmos,” and the “future judgment that is now hidden.” “Epiphany” was used to cover revelation in the end-time discussions and in respect to the incarnation, perhaps to soften the difficulties presented by the paradox of proleptic revelation.

In the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians chapter 8, the self-revelation of God, the epiphany, was said to be Jesus who revealed the Father, brought in to clarify the meaning of the incarnation, “that only the Son could reveal the Father (Mat 11:27) with the manifestation of the Son in the flesh.” Then, Iranaeus in Against Heresies on Mat 11:27 could say that “the Son reveals the father by his own manifestation to us. Then, with Justin Martyr, “the preexistent son revealed the father,” making him visible because the Father is impossible to be known otherwise. In 2 Clement, “In Him (Jesus) the one invisible God sent us the Savior and the Author of immortality through whom he has revealed truth to us and heavenly life. Also in Athanasius: “the Logos appeared in the flesh in order that we might attain the knowledge of the invisible God.”

It is not the point if these phrases are theologically right or wrong.

Pannenberg says that because the revelatory function of the revelation of Jesus is only implied, the Hellenistic idea is peeking through of deity in human form. By misuse of the common concept of the Logos found in John but also in Greek philosophy, where John strictly presents it literally, as Christ as the (prophetic) Word of God, we see the mere philosophical divine ordering principle of the cosmos is modifying and erasing the biblical one by transferring it to theological ideas. Revelation and the apocalyptic vision of the outworking of the divine plan of history in Jesus and his informational entity, the prophetic word, is retreating. Its to be replaced by an idiomatic one that applies to the individual, where reflection on the revelatory function of the logos is taking its place. As Pannenberg says:

“Once the Logos came to be seen as the Mediator of knowledge of the invisible father, it was obvious what form he had to take to make himself intelligible to us. Thus, the concept of revelation and that of the incarnation merged.”

What happened, which is not stated explicitly by Pannenberg, is that the revelation of the Christ of history in “the prophetic word of demonstration” was replaced by a pagan philosophical concept to explain the incarnation paradox. This done regardless of the fact that “Logos” means, literally, “Word,” or Word of God, the prophetic Word put as Jesus Christ himself. Here, messianic prophecy as revelation, and the sole source of illumination and the knowledge that leads to salvation is being replaced by un-attestable, insular, personal ruminations.

Origen related the theological function of revelation to the Holy Spirit, which mediated the Son by the inspiration of the prophetic writings. This is quite true. Although a good expression and Origen also taught that only the proof of Jesus Christ appearance and fulfillments proved this revelation, there are consequences to saying that the prophetic scriptures which predicted Jesus Christ were inspired by the Spirit without carefully qualifying it repeatedly, it or it will come to mean that inspiration essentially means revelation, and the concept will break off its attachment to the Prophetic Word and be joined only to a revelation to a philosophical concept, which may be true but an isolated theological proposition without an indispensable hard link to a supernatural prophetic phenomenon. Therefore propositions become the epistemic conduit through which the divine is seen, not the equivalent of the divine himself.

Pannenberg says that, for Christian doctrine, “the concept of revelation never had for the fathers any basic function in its systematic presentation.” There was no attempt to break off “Revelation” as having its own theological power than its attachment to the Prophets or Christ which were taken for granted.  But speaking of “revelation” as only the equivalent of Christ, which was common in all the Patristic writings, has severe consequences, since even that separates a grounding and essential qualification, the proof of revelation, from its object, and will make it subject instead to a “Person” idea as Christ.

Then we have another predictable change:

“Only in the Middle Ages, and especially under older Protestantism, did the emphasis in the understanding of revelation, or at least in its theological function, shift to “inspiration”.

In the Middle Ages, after the Church became the essential definition of a present, sensible authority, the source of “authority” then became an important theological football.  Although the sense of “authority” was pre-apostolic always tied to Christ and the prophetic revelation of Him, not an idea, the importance of the authority of the scriptural revelational demonstration was spoken of connected to the emerging, independent (in the way I have described) religious ideas of revelation and inspiration.

Pannenberg does not go there, perhaps because he is greatly involved in the ecumenical movement and is averse to antagonizing Catholicism,  but Catholicism’s hardening as the locus of authority meant that, although revelational authority is still found in the Scriptures, the Scripture’s distillation went in Church dogma (theological conclusions), and then in the Pope and his priests by the authority of their exclusive sacramental application of the means of Grace. Therefore, salvation was mediated by authorities that were further independently un-attestable and man-made in comparison to what was once thought a proven and divine, prophetic one. Protestantism objected to this, and rightly so, and the link of biblical revelation to authority was debated by them as given to scripture alone, but through any biblical exposition that could be mustered to contradict the Catholic error of man-centered authority, not necessarily to the apostolic and patristic prophetic revelation alone. Sola scriptura as the authority is rightly singular, but it’s not sola if the scriptures are conceived as one of a whole authority marshaled to fight ill-conceived dogma and one a particular being minimized as only an apologetic for a faith taken for granted. Its duo scriptura. The cultural controversies of the age were the main focus of theology as with emerging science. They involve the investigation and resolution of immanent concerns, not transcendent ones.

When Authority is argued from the easily assailable and general conception of biblical exposition while not identifying it necessarily as the prophetic scriptures, and the “Bible” is not captured by its only means of showing and resolving God, the “Bible” concept, with “authority,” follows the sump and is flattened. Then pick anything you want from that grab-bag from which you can use to fulfill your personal needs, which are paramount. Then, the prophetic scriptures become progressively under attack by being left as an ancient and disposable curiosity to theology as prosaic concepts become the new epistemic contact with Christ.

It is no wonder then why in the Enlightenment the shift was made from a focus on the Church as the authority of revelation and transferred to a debate on the verbal inspiration of the Bible as a whole, and “this became a starting point of the discussion of revelation in modern theology.” It will now be argued, and rightly so, that there is no verbal inspiration possible, or inspiration of any kind if argued on the basis of the human experience of revelation, but if revelation becomes only a divine idea or revelation as a human authority, revelation now is no indispensable fact or means.  The subject could now progress and be taken up of a revelation “by word and revelation by deed,” by Pfaff and Fichte, rather than the older idea and slightly better notion of inspired communication still held by Kant, Lessing, and Semler. Revelation, having been questioned possible on the basis of the straw men of the church and through biblical exposition could now only be spoken of as general ideational categories which further place the Prophetic Word distant from it.

“Revelation” was then suggested as being bound biblically if at all to only the inner, private version toward “inspiration,” initiated by Fichte and Carl Ludwig Nitzsch. As with Kant, both dismissed the prophetic writings for the bible’s moral teachings. Nitzsch did so by distinguishing the matter from the form of the promulgation of revelation, who allowed the miracles and prophecies in the Redeemer story, while Fitche would not accept them because, astonishingly, they could not be verified! Still, they pointed to God as a “moral” lawgiver.

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Pannenberg still does not make the claim, but my comment here is that it surely could be said they pointed to God as lawgiver, but only a spiritual lawgiver who sees all physical morality as only a reflection of the inner morality of how the Truth is received and handled and a decision is made over its claim. That claim and our challenge are around the Prophetic Word since it is the only means of proving God and giving any legitimacy at all to the idea of any kind of morality.

The Outer revelation of history was then spoken of differentiated and interrelated to an inspiration of the effect and interpretation of these events in the subjectivity of the biblical witnesses in Protestant theology of the 18th and 19th centuries. As with Schleiermacher, “the content of revelation is viewed as independent of both practical and theoretical religion,” “related to religious awareness of the personal God regarded as the basis for awareness.”

“At this point the idea of the historical revelation that is distinct from inspiration linked up with the notion that revelation has God not merely as its subject but also its exclusive content and theme.” That is, “God” the concept, we must remind ourselves.

Pannenberg states that this is virtually the first time there was the suggestion that God is the central theme of revelation, “the self-revelation of God, while not making any serious attempt where this takes place. But since God is manifest to us and not just to himself, how does this revelation take place?” You see, that God is the theme of revelation seems very pious and correct, but not once we realize that these people are speaking of a revelation of concept and a revelation of demonstration, the former of which in the carnal mind always takes preeminence since if one isolates it one can determine for himself its demonstration which for which he will become morally responsible.

The decay of the protestant doctrine of the authority of scripture viewed as divine revelation continued, which predictably led to Kant who then found serious doubt in the reality of God, finding no possible positive basis.

In concluding this condensation of Pannenberg, I remark that in each occurrence it is an idea, a chosen symbol, that is taking the place and function of the prophetic symbol of God and the prophetic predicate in the Prophetic Word. “Inspiration” or “revelation,” no matter how biblical, are devices used only for tagging and carrying what substantiates them which, if divine,  is beyond the choice of manipulation. These divine symbols are supposed to be the result of an appearance subjectively of the reality and nature of God where natural lawless subjectivity is set in moral order and guard by a historical truth by the God of Truth. ”Truth” is a concept, a symbol, which is known subjectively, but subjectivity does not determine it. It is the sinful place which nevertheless invites the divine fact of prophetic cause and effect into a space that also loves Truth and is searching for truth beyond subjectivity which can make an identification of natural subjective influences from transcendent ones.  The divine fact that is accepted there determines subsequent subjectivity. Any talk of “morality” is a morality of the handling of the prophetic word of demonstration in the way it was intended by God, the only cause for which Christ, as its equivalent informational entity, can be the only mediator between man and the Father. Our theological topics and concerns, all our doctrines and dogma, all our systems, all our faith and practice and the way we form our dominant conceptual points of contact with God, come from this Prophetic Word or else, at least in time, they will come only from us and tainted by our less than holy hands.

This is why one idea always decays and another is taken up, with the same results. Since this historical miracle of promise and fulfillment is not believed or used as the biblical vital center and found a fundamental theological use, we are only left to the vicissitudes of and labor of the creations of the inner and outer temporal world to squeeze out any conception of divine revelation. Our problem is externally our obsession with opaque and prosaic language in general, but more pointedly a problem of ability or willingness to be moved in our thinking about eternal things by any fact or phenomena to which we will be locked and morally judged for our handling.

You will find Pannenberg’s book here:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Systematic_Theology.html?id=ontO0BIwVJUC

The next article in this series is here:How Can a Man Be the Atoning Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Only One Way. Part 5. The Man and Symbolism.

What is the Word of God?: A Prophetic Think Tank

When I Survey the Wondrous Nace, part 1: A Prophetic Think Tank

Christ and the Noun Norming of Transcendence: Passing by Nehushtan

[pastorcowboy]

Is God love?

Who is God: The Old Testament God of Love

 Why on earth would I have you look into laws, commands, and rules in the Bible. I might as well have you read and recite the lists of generations. I could also have you eat dry toast breakfast, lunch, and supper. It’s probably not the best way to sell God and the Christian life. It sounds boring, burdensome, and bogged down in religious mumbo jumbo.

The reason I went that route is because of the example of a car. I just read an article that says women voted along party lines more than because Hillary was a woman. The democrats targeted female voters but the female voters targeted the party over gender. That was very interesting. I bet buying a car is the same way.

I was a Chrysler dude for a long time. At some point the dealership began not acting like the Chrysler I once loved. By chance someone asked me to give Mazda a try. I was skeptical and visited the old Chrysler stomping grounds first. Something was out of place so I snuck into the Mazda lot just to see. Within minutes the dealer had me sold. I loved Mazda. So much so that I now own 2. I think we are devoted to what works. I think we are devoted to what we love. I also think we are devoted to who loves us. What are you loyal to? Think of these questions while you reflect on your answers.

1.       Am I loyal to my job?

2.       Am I loyal to women or a certain type of gender?

3.       Am I loyal to a phone brand?

4.       Am I loyal to my principles?

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I loved my Chrysler cars and trucks until they broke down. I disliked the service so I left. To an outsider it appears I fell out of love with the dealership because of how they treated me. In the Old testament, we get a strange reaction. At times God asked the people to behave. They did not and the wrath of God was kindled against them.

Deuteronomy 32:22 “For a fire will be kindled by my wrath, one that burns down to the realm of the dead below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains.”

Seems like scorched earth to me.

 1.    Is God a being of love or anger to you?

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If God of the old testament is just wrathful, angry, and scorched earth then where could there be love? How could there be love? It’s a real shame if Christians only talk about Jesus and the new testament. It’s a shame if Christians ignore the God of the Old testament. To begin someone’s journey with God only in the new testament is a travesty. All of the new testament exists because of the work done in the old.

It’s like this. If I find out a co-worker is hard to work with I could easily fire them. It’s so simple. I hate you, your gone. Take this lesson. Abraham Lincoln had an adversary in debates. Lincoln appointed him to command his army because he knew the man’s character. Although there was tension and difference of opinion. Lincoln knew above all else he could trust the character of that man.

Let’s begin to know the God of the Old testament and see how the people viewed him. If we’re going to trust him then we need to experience his character. Look at the verses below and think about who is writing them. Why are they loyal to God? They have a respect for God because of his consistent approach to them in love beyond all else.

Read these verses below for next week.

Extra reading for fun. Look up these extra passages to see how much the supposedly God of wrath is adored. 1 Kings 8:23, Psalm 52:8, Daniel 9:4

1.       I have watched kids playing with Play-doh. They rip it apart and mash it together. Us parents buy the colors separately but within minutes’ kids will have mixed them into a colorful mess. Kids love playing with that stuff. They also always want to show you what they have made. The Bible goes out of its way to say God delighted in creating. There is no anger in the first two chapters.

We expect God to be angry. Do you know why you expect that? In these first two chapters of Genesis, God says what he made was very good. He is concerned for the man and tries to make him a suitable helpmate. God lets man name the animals. God provides all they need. Is that the actions of an angry God?

Genesis 1: 31 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

2.       The people in the old testament saw the wrath of God. He closed the sea on pharaohs army. He flooded the earth and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet these very people sang songs of praise to God. They described him in glowing reports as compassionate and loving. These people witnessed the mighty power of God. They saw his pillars of fire. They saw him split the sea. He rained down fire and brimstone on the wicked. Still they praised him.

 The flip side has God negotiating with Abraham to save a town. We see Moses negotiating with God to save his people. God puts his hand over Moses to protect him. The people are warned to stay away from God because his power is too great. God provides manna and water in the desert. God goes before them to fight their battles. This powerful God even helps them build a tent so he could dwell among them. Yet again, the people praise him.

Genesis 24:27 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”

Exodus 34:6 “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

 3.       These verses in Deuteronomy are famous (Duet 6:4-9) This is called the Shema in the Middle East.  When you here that famous yelling or singing in the Middle East they are using this piece of the Bible. To this day, Muslims, Jewish, and Christian people sing songs of praise. They say the story of the Bible is about 6000 years old. There is no proof how old really. The ancient story is so old that nothing remains to correlate a time frame. To worship one God for that long must mean something. Certainly, businesses and traditions come and go. Why do these three religions still claim to worship one God?

 In our world, we can worship anything. I know that one group wants church status to worship the force from Star Wars. They say that from Jesus time and further back there were no atheists. True or not, Gods were part of their lives. People sold idols or images of Gods. They made temples. There were human sacrifices. We are examining this God. Why does he claim to be love? Why does he claim to be one? Why does he refuse idols and human sacrifices? This God in the Bible was different. They worship him then and today because he is constant and different.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

 4.       Joseph was sold by his brothers into Egyptian slavery. He became a powerful ruler in that powerful kingdom. The God of the Hebrews humbled and trained Joseph to be compassionate and kind. He had the power to kill those responsible for his sorrow, yet he chose to love instead. Does that reflect the teaching of a wrathful God?

 I am stunned really. Abraham must have despised Sodom and Gomorrah. They were not best allies. Why negotiate to save them? His brother Lot was there. They had parted ways. Why try and save him? King David had several opportunities to kill his enemies. On more than one occasion he refused out of respect for them. What made Moses fight his fears and speak to Pharaoh? This God induces his character in those who love him. It seems that if you want God then his character becomes your character. There is something strange and curious within that.

Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

The Jesus Connection

To know Jesus is to know God. To know God is to know Jesus. I purposely began this study of God in reverse of most introductions into Christianity. Almost 100% of them begin with Jesus. I feel that is putting the cart before the horse. Christians have been trained to promote Jesus. They are trained to tell you Jesus is love. They are supposed to ask you to trust in him from day one. Isn’t Jesus a stranger to you at this point? Oh, you have heard stories. People tell you he is the good news. He is the way to God. Yes, yes indeed he is the way to God. Yet, God is also the way to Jesus. The People in the old Testament did not know Jesus. All they knew was that God promised a messiah or Christ to save them. To understand Jesus is to understand how we get to Jesus. Jesus is everything God is. The people in Jesus day knew God but they did not know Jesus until they could see that they were the same person. Jesus carried the character of their God. That is the key.

The Jesus connection is in these verses below. This study of God will open your eyes to God. Within that you will see Jesus very clearly by the end of 13 weeks. Look at the passages below. Proverbs comes from the Old Testament. God says he loves those who love him. 1 John repeats this theme by proclaiming that God is love. Ephesians 3:19 was written after Jesus died. The writer Paul attaches the Christ to God in a bond of Love. Finally, read John 3:16. Jesus is connected to the God of the Old Testament in the eyes of those who met him. That is the Jesus connection.

Proverbs 8:17 “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.”

1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Ephesians 3:19 “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.



[dfroza]

all of creation is pregnant for its rebirth, a beautiful promise of things, to be…

something the seed of my heart often reflects upon, its original intent, also mirrored by Today’s chapter from my daily reading of the Scriptures in Romans 8, a portion of which was read when i was first married in ‘94

(and yet these pages seek the heart of another to befriend)

“i offer my heart as your open book”

the hope of the question mark (?) painted Anew each day, and the key to my own door. just as grace and faith is the key to God’s Heart as seen in the letter sent by Paul to the Romans nearly two thousand years ago:

[The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms]

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

The Book of Romans, Chapter 8 (The Message)

[dmmowers]

The Gospel transforms Nazis too

The Gospel transforms Nazis too A sermon for Trinity Episcopal Church, Baraboo, Wis. and St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Portage, Wis. Tenth Sunday After Pentecost | Year A, Track 2 | August 20, 2017 Isaiah 56:1, 6-8 | Psalm 67 | Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 | Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28

Kyle Quinn is a professor of engineering at the University of Arkansas. He is in his late 30s. He has brown hair, a short, full beard, and is of an average build. At the university in Fayetteville, Dr. Quinn runs a lab to develop new ways to promote the healing of wounds. Last Friday night, Dr. Quinn and his wife were having a pleasant date night: they went to the art museum and out for dinner near their home in Bentonville, Arkansas. Saturday afternoon, he and his wife were having a quiet afternoon at their home when the phone rang. It was an official from the university, asking him if he'd heard about what was going in Charlottesville. He said he was vaguely aware, and then asked why. "The school official told him that his weekend 'was about to get a lot worse.'" 

A mob of internet users had been coming through photos of the white supremacist march on the campus of the University of Virginia the night before. In it, they found a man wearing an Arkansas Engineering t-shirt. He was in his late 30s, average build, brown hair, and a full beard, and looked vaguely like Kyle Quinn's professional headshot. So the mob had begun to publish Dr. Quinn's name, job, contact information other personal details to the web. Soon, profane messages and death threats started streaming in. When their home address was published to Twitter late Saturday afternoon, Dr. Quinn and his wife took off for a colleague's home, calling police to alert them of danger at their home. Dr. Quinn's only crime was looking vaguely like someone who had been like the rally. (http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/08/17/543980653/kyle-quinn-hid-at-a-friend-s-house-after-being-misidentified-on-twitter-as-a-rac)

I use Facebook and Twitter often, and I often find helpful things for sermons on those platforms. This week, I found some examples that broadly fit under the heading, "What not to do." After a Facebook friend posted the story about Dr. Quinn and doxxing - the term for when internet users publish personal information of people who are caught up in a news story -- I witnessed an argument that went on for dozens and dozens of messages between my friend and another person, who turned out to be an Episcopal priest. The priest argued that society's only goal should be maximum shame of Nazis, and that the danger of misidentification didn't matter because the people in question were Nazis, and they deserved any consequence that might come to them as a result. Every time my friend raised the question about the dangers of misidentification, this priest called them "collateral damage." 

Even though I join with that priest in fully condemning the racist, white supremacist views of those who marched on Charlottesville last weekend, I think that he couldn't be more wrong about our strategy in responding to people with these views. Because indeed, these people are still people - trapped by the power of Sin in a hate that will, if it is not checked, lead to their destruction. Yes, their ideas are un-Christian and blasphemous and offensive: but if we ostracize these people so that the only friends and family they have are fellow white supremacists who share their views, what hope do they ever have of hearing good news that could change their ideas?

There is always a temptation to treat people outside our religious group as less worthy of God's love than we ourselves are. This is what St. Paul has been mulling over for the past few weeks in his letter to the Romans, chapters 9-11. Throughout this section, Paul has been reflecting on the covenant God made with Abraham and with what happens to the Jewish people now that their Messiah has come but they mostly failed to recognize him. In response to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, God has now begun to reveal himself to Gentiles so that they could receive the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. For the Jews, this was throwing pearls to swine, this was throwing the children's food to dogs. Gentiles were unclean. Their ideas about how God worked in the world were offensive. Everyone knew that the Jews were God's chosen people, and it was unthinkable that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would now call filthy Gentiles to be a part of his chosen people.

But the Roman Christians who received Paul's letter were Gentiles. They had set aside their pagan ways, their worshipping of idols, their debauched sexual practices, and they had begun to worship the God who had shown them mercy. And look what happened: they became the superior group. They looked at all of the Jews whose Messiah had come in Jesus. But most of those Jews didn't recognize them. The Gentiles had started to brag about themselves, thinking of themselves as superior to the Jews because the Jews couldn't recognize in Jesus the Messiah they had awaited. The Gentiles thought that because God was calling them, God had turned his back on the covenant he had made with Abraham and his descendants. They had begun to believe that God loved them more than the Jews.

But St. Paul will not have this either. He concludes our reading this morning, and the whole section we've been reading and preaching out of the last three weeks, by saying that God will never turn his back on the Jews, his chosen people, because when God gives gifts and calls people his gifts and call are irrevocable. All of us, Jew and Gentile, are dependent on God's mercy, not on our own superiority. Our beliefs, our ancestry, the rightness of our ideas: none of that makes us more or less worthy to receive the mercy of God. "For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all."  

But if we are the people to whom God shows mercy, why do we struggle so much to extend mercy to others? 

Now some of you might respond and say, "Of course we show mercy to others; we're Christians, that's what we do." But it's easy to show mercy to others if they look like us, are the same social class is us, and believe in the same ideas we do. Have you ever been in conversations even in our church where things turned political, and you could feel the tension in the room creep up just a little bit? Did you ever wonder at that moment if the people talking would still be friends after the conversation is over? 

There are so many people who need mercy, who are told through word and action by our culture that they are damaged, that they are not worth our time. In my five months in Baraboo, I have been staggered by the amount of poverty and drug abuse there is here. What if people who were struggling with the effects of poverty and drugs met some of us? Would they have positive personal interactions with us? Would they go away thinking, "Hey, even though my life is a mess, those people from Trinity care about me." Would we be able to do something tangible to show those folks love with no strings attached?

We have a number of parishioners and friends of this parish who are people of color, growing up in a place where they are vastly outnumbered. Some of us might be tempted to look at the small numbers at the neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville and Boston and think, "Eh, racism isn't such a big deal." Will we listen closely enough to hear our friends of color talk about watching their kids play sports at other high schools and hearing fans yell racist slurs at them? What does the mercy of Jesus look like for those people? I think it looks like a Christian community gathering around those folks to say, "Your pain matters. We're sorry this happened. We believe you. You're valuable to us. You have so many gifts to offer here at Trinity and in our community." Rather than dismissing these events as the action of the lunatic fringe, we value our friends and the people we meet enough to take their stories of pain seriously. 

God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he can have mercy upon all - not just to church people, to people who believe the right things and who do the right things. He shows mercy to the victim of internet doxxing, to the unwed, teenaged mom. He shows mercy to the man with autism who struggles to relate to other people. He shows mercy to the murderer. He shows mercy to the victims of racism who can't get their white friends to hear their pain. And yes, he shows mercy even to the foulest, most odious racist neo-Nazis descending on Charlottesville last weekend. 

Because ultimately, we are all just people, even if some of us embrace ideas that are incorrect, hurtful and offensive. Even those of us who are addicted and imprisoned by the hate that we feel towards other people need to be set free by the gospel of Jesus Christ. When Paul says that God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that the can have mercy upon all, he means everybody, even those people that are difficult to show mercy. For a lot of people, that kind of gospel is offensive. But no one promised us that Christianity would be easy. Our only promise is that Christianity will make us free. 

And that is the good news in Paul's conclusion to Romans chapter 11. There is no more a line between Jew and Gentile, between religious people and unreligious people, between acceptable and unacceptable people. All of us are disobedient, yes; all of us need transformation. To the extent that faith in Jesus has changed us, those changes are a gift from God - they are God's mercy poured out upon us. They are not something that we get to boast about, because they are gifts that we receive. All of us -- Christian or not, are deeply loved by God, and he is at work in our lives whether we know it or not. Someone told me once of being present for a sermon where the pastor said, "Sure, God loves everybody, but when you become a Christian, God loves you more." I think there are a lot of people who believe that, and it is a lie. Jesus Christ came to earth as a human being so that he could rescue humanity even while we were yet sinners, Paul says in Romans 5. 

When we live in a Christian culture that is willing to stop at nothing to punish evildoers, or to punish those with offensive ideas, you can be sure that we've lost Paul's teaching on sin. There is not a line between "good people" and "bad people" in God's economy. We cannot group the most notorious wicked in a group by themselves, and put the rest of us so-called normal people in a bucket over here labeled "mostly good". The reality is that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. We are all capable of massive evil, just like we are all capable of profound beauty. And so all of us, from the most saintly to the most profane, are in the same boat of total dependence on the mercy of God. 

What is noteworthy here is that Paul doesn't come to much of a conclusion. He says that God hasn't rejected the Jewish people, even though they have not accepted Jesus as Messiah. Instead, God is using their disobedience for a larger purpose - to bring the Gentiles into his people. In turn, the way that God's mercy changes the lives of the Gentiles will be a testimony back to the Jews. Ultimately, God will use the disobedience of everyone, Jew and Gentile, to bring about mercy for all people. He doesn't tell us that hell will be empty, though it seems that it's alright for us to hope and pray that this will be the case, that God's mercy will overcome even doubts and fears that we put in God's way. But we don't know the details here, and Paul doesn't give them to us. But instead of spelling out how this is, he breaks into doxology: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" We don't know how God will resolve all of this. We don't know how the Jews will come to faith in Jesus. We just know that God desires to be merciful to all. How could that happen? We don't know. In verse 25, Paul calls all of this a mystery, and it is: we don't know all the details because the Bible doesn't give them us. All we know is that we can be confident of God's mercy to save that which he loves. 

As I was preparing this sermon this week, I ran across the story of blues musician Daryl Davis, the subject of a 2016 documentary called Accidental Courtesy. Davis, a black man, has for a number of years befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan. He had initially planned to write a book about the Klan and so began interviewing their members in the early 1990s. He never set out with a goal of converting them to a different way of thinking; he just opened dialog with them. He said that he started having these dialogs to try to ask Klan members "how they could hate him if they didn't even know him?" His Christian faith deeply informed his work. Instead of simply preaching to them directly about how the Bible condemns racism, he tries to find common interests in music or in other areas to show them that he is a person. He says that "what you have to understand about the Klan is that this is a group of people who feels inferior, and the only they can feel superior is by making others feel inferior. So you have to care about them as people to show them that actually, they're not inferior after all." As a result of friendships with Davis, more than 200 former Klan members gave up their racist views and left the Klan, because through talking with him they came to realize their views were wrong. (https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/black-man-befriending-kkk-members-lead-200-people-quitting-organization)

I once studied with a man who had been a pastor of Assemblies of God churches for many years. In his first church, the pastor and his 8 year old son were accosted by a man who had some kind of conflict with the pastor. The man yelled and screamed and called the pastor all sorts of names in front of his son, and then left. The pastor was broiling mad and shaking and couldn't believe that this man would do that in front of his son. Just as the pastor was trying to figure out how to talk with his son, whose name was Jonathan, about what happened, Jonathan piped up, "Dad, that man was really angry. He must have been really hurting inside." This pastor was shocked into silence, for out of the mouth of a babe came profound wisdom. Thereafter in his teaching, the pastor taught something he called "The Jonathan Principle". You have to look past the words, look past the actions and see the need.

So in the Christian church, we don't excuse violent anger. We don't excuse racism or white supremacy. We don't excuse greed or theft or adultery or dishonesty or rude behavior or gossip or name-calling or a thousand other things. But thanks be to God that Jesus Christ looked past our words, looked our actions, and saw our need for mercy. 

[johnchiarello]

We are the light too

WE ARE THE LIGHT- TOO

16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

https://youtu.be/N0XfwA6Lm_k  We are the light too

https://ccoutreach87.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/3-26-17-we-are-the-light-too.zip

2nd Kings 6

ON VIDEO-

.Catholic Mass- Church Unlimited verses

.What son is it?

.God sees the heart

.Do justice

.Protect the animals too

.Leave him alone

.Too many questions

.Death row story

.The gift of prophecy

Habakkuk 1:5

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

NEW [Past teaching- verses below]

I talked about the verses from the Sunday Mass- and added a few thoughts as well.

When Samuel anointed David as a young boy- this enduement of power was given unto him- and it was for a purpose.

David prophesied much in the book of Psalms- he revealed hidden things- things that only God knows.

Yet- thru the gift of prophecy- God also reveals the hidden things in men’s hearts.

The apostle Paul taught us this in the book of Corinthians-

24 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all:

25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; 

Cor. 14

When Jesus healed the blind man in John chapter 9-

For the first time- he ‘saw’.

He saw things that he never 'saw’ before.

He did not know who Jesus was- but simply that a man named Jesus opened his eyes-

John 9:11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

When we as the church- speak the word of the Lord- it reveals things.

Jesus told us to shout the hidden things upon the housetops-

Matthew 10:27

What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

 One of the functions of the church is to make hidden things manifest.

That speaks of revealing the things that society prefers ‘not be revealed’.

Jesus and the apostles spoke in the audience of the people- and at times the rulers were afraid that their misdeeds would be exposed.

The purpose of this ‘revealing' is not for destruction- but to bring the hidden things to light- and as the apostle says ‘they will fall down on their knees and say God is in you’-

 and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth. Cor. 14:25b

Because only God truly knows the secret things in the heart- as the verse from the Mass says-

1Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

And when those secret things are brought to light- then true repentance comes.

Yes- Jesus told us he is the light of the world-

John 8:12

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

 And because we are his- we too are the light of the world-

Matthew 5:14

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

 The anointing upon David as a boy stayed with him for the rest of his life- he functioned in that gift.

Jesus has given us the Spirt- the Spirit of God is in us-

And like the verse from the Mass said- light reveals stuff- we are the children of light-

Ephesians 5:13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

John 12:36

While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.

 PAST POSTS [Verses below] here are my past teachings that relate to today’s post ‘we are the light too’

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel-links-updated-3-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-corinthians/

https://ccoutreach87.com/john-complete-links-added/

https://ccoutreach87.com/ephesians-highlights/

KINGS-

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-kings/

https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/03/29/kings-2/

 SAMUEL 16- Samuel is coming from the recent ‘hacking incident’ of king Agag, and the Lord tells him to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king. Samuel is afraid ‘what if Saul hears about it? He will kill me’. Notice, Samuel feels intimidated and fearful. When he gets to Bethlehem the scripture says the Elders were all in a panic, they said ‘are you come in peace’? Hey, they just heard about the hacking incident, word spreads fast when a prophet straps it on with some pagan! They must have been thinking Samuel was on a warpath. He tells them he is come in peace and wants to sacrifice with them and worship. As a little aside, when you have prophetic ministers in a city, it’s only natural that Elders [pastors] are going to feel intimidated. Why? Are prophets better men? No, but the prophetic operates under a different type of anointing. Don’t forget you already saw Samuel gain a reputation among the people because of his strong prophetic gift. Sometimes pastors can feel intimidated ‘geez, that guy hit the nail on the head. I hope he doesn’t call me out by name too!’ Samuel doesn’t ‘call them out’ but says ‘hey Elders, where all in this together. Let’s worship God’. Samuel finds David and anoints him. Saul is battling with all sorts of personal issues [evil spirit]. Even his close associates can pick up on it. The servants recommend for Saul to get a worshipper who can play music and minister to Saul. They tell him ‘yeah, there is this guy named David. He’s real good at playing music. Plus he is a valiant and mighty warrior’. We often see David as a ‘mamby pamby mamma’s boy’ at this stage of his life. But scripture says he already built up a reputation as a fighter. David takes the job and becomes a musician for Saul. A few thoughts. In this chapter we see Gods Spirit [anointing] leaving Saul and going with David. David himself in Psalms pleas with the Lord ‘take not thy Holy Spirit from me’ after his sin with Bathsheba. Let me encourage some of my Pastor friends. It’s easy to read stuff like this, or for some ‘prophet’ to pronounce stuff like this to a pastor. I really don’t see applying this scenario to modern day ministers. God’s Spirit in the Old Testament was operating differently than today. Only one king at a time could have the ‘kingly anointing’. When the Spirit left Saul for David it was because God was only anointing one person for the job. Today, while it’s possible for a pastor/minister to mess up and ruin his ministry, I still wouldn’t apply stuff like this in too much of a personal way. Sort of like ‘The Lord must have left me and now he’s chosen so and so on the other side of town’. The Lord ‘doesn’t leave you’ in this way under the New Covenant. Paul said the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, in context he is speaking of natural Israel, but you can also apply it to believer’s gifts today. How much God uses you does depend on your willingness and obedience to his call, but don’t think he left ‘your church’ and went to the other one down the street! [he hasn’t written ‘Michelob’ on your door! See entry 887]

                John 8-9 [radio # 592]  before I cover this, last night I was watching a preacher from a classic type ministry. Not the flamboyant ‘prosperity’ type with gold hanging off and all. I was a bit surprised [let down] to hear him teach the classic errors of the prosperity movement. He took the verse in Corinthians where it says ‘though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor’ and taught that Jesus died to make you rich financially [ a direct violation of 1st Timothy 6]. He went to Genesis and showed how Abraham was rich, then jumped to Galatians 3 and taught ‘we are Abrahams kids, therefore we get his blessings[stuff]’ a classic mistake in doctrine. I explained this in the book ‘House of Prayer or Den of Thieves’ in the chapter ‘The Abrahamic Blessing’[you can read this book on this site!]. This stuff shouldn’t have been coming from this program, they are not the type that teach this stuff. You could tell from the look on the faces of the audience that they were feeling uncomfortable with what this guy was teaching! Now John 8-9. Jesus says ‘you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth that I heard from God’ often times when people are reproved, they don’t like it. It’s not that what the ‘reprover’ is saying is wrong, it’s just we don’t like being confronted with truth. We usually take it out on the messenger. Jesus says ‘before Abraham was, I AM’ this is the name of God in the Old Testament ‘the I AM’. Jesus is the ‘I AM’ in Johns gospel. I AM the door, I AM the resurrection, I AM the way and the truth and the life. I believe you find 7 different ‘I AM’s’ of Jesus in this gospel. Jesus now heals the man who was blind from birth. They ask him ‘who sinned, this man or his parents’? They had a mentality that always wanted to place blame on someone for sickness, sort of like some in the healing movements of today. Jesus said ‘neither’. He simply said ‘this happened to him so I would heal him and God would get glory’. He heals the man and the leaders are mad. ‘Who healed you’? A man called Jesus. They get the guys parents and say ‘you say he was blind, then how come he can see?’ They say ‘ask him’. They go back and ask again. The healed guy answers ‘how many times do you want to hear it, I told you already’. Though the man still doesn’t know Jesus is the Messiah, yet he starts to defend him, and even prophesy! ‘We know that if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him God hears’ good stuff coming from an ‘unsaved’ guy! Jesus hears that they rejected him, he tells the guy ‘I am messiah’ and the guy believes. Jesus says ‘I come to give sight to those who are blind [admit they need help] and to take away sight from those who see’ [think they know it all]. We often can’t receive correction because of religious pride, we think we ‘see everything’ someone comes along and shakes the cart, our first response is ‘who does he think he is, doesn’t he know that we all know more than him’. Quite often whole groups of leaders have the same blind spot. This is what enforces the belief that they must be right! Jesus told them ‘you guys are blind, if you could just admit you didn’t know it all, then I could show you some good stuff, but because you think you already ‘see’ everything, then you are gonna miss out’. Pride is destructive, it keeps us in the dark spiritually. NOTE; Let me give an example. I remember reading an article on tithing from one of the best Christian historical review magazines in print. They do exhaustive historical research on many subjects. To the surprise of the readers, this well respected historical magazine, read by many theologians, showed that all the historical evidence points to the fact that the churches of the first century did not practice tithing! This seemed to go against the grain of what many of the theologians believed, who regularly read this magazine. But you could have easily come to this same understanding from simply reading the New Testament in context. I have basically taught you guys this for years, from scripture. Yet this ‘blind spot’ was an area where many intelligent ‘religious leaders’ were all wrong. They ‘corporately’ were wrong on this subject. It took a ‘jolt’ from true historical evidence before they could ‘see’ the obvious! It would be too humbling to have seen it from a ‘layman firefighter’ who has a web site. NOTE; Tithing as a practice for Christians developed at the same time as ‘the church building’ and the office of ‘Priest’ and eventually the altar [in the Catholic system] and the mass. The church got away from the family/community mindset and took on more of the ‘church building’ form. Tithing fit in easily into an idea of church that asked ‘how much should we put in the offering basket on Sunday’. The whole language and style of church called for the doctrine of tithing to be taught, sort of like a ‘tax’ on the people of God to support ‘the church’. Now, there are some good things that came out of the ‘dark ages’ of Christianity. The ‘desert fathers’, the Catholic mystics and other good spiritual disciplines. I don’t want to fall into the category of those who see the dark ages as a time of no good whatsoever. But we also need to see how the church during that time was very legalistic in the sense that the Mass and Altar and  'Priest’ presiding over the liturgy were all forms of Christian service that were absent from the churches in Scripture. The tithe was just one added aspect of this legalistic approach that seemed to make it all the way into the Protestant churches of today. All these churches are good Christians in my view, but we need to be open to change and reformation as the Spirit leads.

 VERSES-

Ephesians 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

Ephesians 5:9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

Ephesians 5:10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Ephesians 5:12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Ephesians 5:13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Ephesians 5:14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

1Samuel 16:1 And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

1Samuel 16:2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the LORD said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the LORD.

1Samuel 16:3 And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.

1Samuel 16:4 And Samuel did that which the LORD spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?

1Samuel 16:5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

1Samuel 16:6 And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD's anointed is before him.

1Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

1Samuel 16:8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

1Samuel 16:9 Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

1Samuel 16:10 Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD hath not chosen these.

1Samuel 16:11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

1Samuel 16:12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

1Samuel 16:13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.

1Samuel 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

1Samuel 16:15 And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

1Samuel 16:16 Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.

1Samuel 16:17 And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.

1Samuel 16:18 Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him.

1Samuel 16:19 Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep.

1Samuel 16:20 And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul.

1Samuel 16:21 And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer.

1Samuel 16:22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favour in my sight.

1Samuel 16:23 And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

John 9:1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

John 9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

John 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

John 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

John 9:6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

John 9:7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

John 9:8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?

John 9:9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.

John 9:10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?

John 9:11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

John 9:12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.

John 9:13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.

John 9:14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

John 9:15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.

John 9:16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.

John 9:17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.

John 9:18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.

John 9:19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?

John 9:20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:

John 9:21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.

John 9:22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

John 9:23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.

John 9:24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.

John 9:25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

John 9:26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?

John 9:27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?

John 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.

John 9:29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

John 9:30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.

John 9:31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

John 9:32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.

John 9:33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.

John 9:34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.

John 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?

John 9:36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?

John 9:37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

John 9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

John 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

John 9:40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?

John 9:41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

36 And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat.

37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,

38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

39 Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.

40 And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.

41 There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.

42 And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?

43 Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.

45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.

46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.

47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

48 And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

49 And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?

50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Luke 7

Micah 6:8 [Full Chapter]

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

2 Kings 6King James Version (KJV)

6 And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us.

2 Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye.

3 And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go.

4 So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.

5 But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.

6 And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.

7 Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it.

8 Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp.

9 And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down.

10 And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice.

11 Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel?

12 And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.

13 And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan.

14 Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about.

15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Kings

Hebrews 13:3

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound withthem; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

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