Thursday, July 30, 2015

Light of the World

Matthew 5:14 (NASB) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden..."

Matthew 5:14a (Phillips) “You are the world’s light..."

Matthew 5:14 (word studies)
“You [Jesus's disciples and the crowd of the Sermon on the Mount, anxious to hear Jesus's word] are the light [radiance, blaze of light] of the world ["kosmos." Variously: universe, the human race, the earth, the established order, everything apart from God]. A city ["of one's birth and residence"] set [laid out or situated] on a hill [or mountain] cannot be hidden [no power can hide]..."

Matthew 5:14 (my expanded)
You who desire to hear my word are a blazing radiance to the universe. You are a city is set on a high hill, and no power can hide it.

Hat tips:
1) Mounce Reverse-Interlinear New Testament

2) Lexicon-Concordance Online Bible

Labels:

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Seeing Jesus: What we are freely given

1 Corinthians 2:12-14,16 (NASB)
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
There are so many things He has freely given us that it is hard to write up even a partial list. Someone who has been "taught by the Holy Spirit" for many years have these things so integrated into one's life that they become hard to see.

The greatest of these is salvation by grace through faith. Ranking just below that is the free gift of the Holy Spirit, the ability through prayer and action to partake in the Kingdom of God, and the revelation of His love for us. All of these seem to be "moronic foolishness" to the natural man.

To the natural man, righteousness, or "right-standing" with his/her fellow natural man, is a matter of holding the right (or consensus) opinions, signifying that they hold the right opinions, and acting on those right opinions. These opinions are freely changed depending on circumstances. The Kingdom of God is not so.

For example, He has commanded us to love our neighbors, our brothers, our enemies, and, indirectly, ourselves and our families. Who does this leave out? No one.

This is not the way of the natural man. The natural man only loves those who love him.

Loving his enemies is moronic foolishness to the natural man. He cannot understand it. But it is what Christ did; He saved us "while we were yet sinners." To us, it is the wisdom of God.

Jesus, You have freely given us so many things, and given us the mind to understand those things. The natural man is like a blind man in a room full of books and artworks and treasures. He can not value any of those things. But we are given, as a gift, the ability to value them. And in the gift, we see You, Jesus.

Thank you, Lord, for that gift.

Labels: ,

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Living in Darkness

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NASB) But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Colossians 2:8a (NASB) See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy [worldly wisdom] and empty deception, according to the tradition of men...

Imagine a person raised in a dark room, who has never experienced light. Imagine a man in a room full of books that he cannot read, full of pictures he cannot see, food that he can barely find. To tell such a man that it is, "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness," is moronic foolishness to him. He does not know what light is, what a candle is, how to light it, or even why bother. Yet, the saying is wise to those who know how to light a candle.

The wisdom and philosophy of the world is, at best, a wisdom of how to live in total darkness. At worst, it is according to the "elementary spirits" (demons) of the world.

And the things of the Lord are moronic foolishness.

When we are saved, the Lord lights a candle ("He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit." John 20:22).

It is not futile to talk to a "natural man" about the things of God: His word will not come back void.

However, it is futile to expect a person without the Spirit of God to understand, to experientially know, the things of God.

For example, currently there is a kerfuffle over some MD's, employed by Planned Parenthood, getting caught haggling over the price tags on various organs and tissues from aborted fetuses (offspring, babies, some who are viable outside of the womb).

Christians know that everyone is made by God, in the image of the God (“Let Us make man in Our image..." Genesis 1:26). Even abortion doctors.

This means every human being, as an individual, is valued by God. Individual humans beings have an innate value, honor, and dignity that cannot be taken away by slave owners, abortion doctors, twitter mobs, or the ideologies of fascism, Nazism, communism, socialism, and progressivism.

Do Christians always live this ideal? No. However, it is our ideal.

Oscar Wilde's comment may be appropriate here: "[A cynic is] a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.." The MD's may know how much the parts are worth, but have no idea of the value of the whole child in the eyes of God.

Modern leftist thinking does not see individuals, they see "tribes" at war with one another. Marxist thought divides people into groups: an oppressor class to rule and oppressed groups that are being ruled. Oppressed groups in the US include African-Americans, women, Hispanics, homosexuals and their allies, and other minorities. One of the implications of this is that only white males can be racist, sexist, homophobes, etc. And that they are just by being born white.

A white male opposing abortion must be doing because of sexism. A pro-choice person can not see a white male as having any other motive. They are blind to that possibility.

Expansition: 

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NASB) But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

"A natural man" - word is derived from Greek word, psyche - the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished from pneuma, or spirit. (From Thayer)

"Foolishness" - word is derived from Greek word, moros - fool, moves into English as "moron" and "moronic."

"Understand" - word translated by Wuest as "experientially know."

1 Corinthians 2:14 Amplified Bible. But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.

Article: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised At Planned Parenthood’s Callous Inhumanity

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist and a racist who permitted her publications to be used as a platform for Nazis. Planned Parenthood has never acknowleged nor reputiated her or her stands.

Labels: ,

Monday, July 20, 2015

Psyche, the soul

Psyche (Strongs 5590)
http://lexiconcordance.com/greek/5590.html
From 5594, to breath

—Greek Word Study (Transliteration-Pronunciation Etymology & Grammar)
1) breath
    1a) the breath of life
        1a1) the vital force which animates the body and shows itself
             in breathing
             1a1a) of animals
             1a12) of men
    1b) life
    1c) that in which there is life
        1c1) a living being, a living soul
 2) the soul
    2a) the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.)
    2b) the (human) soul in so far as it is constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life
    2c) the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from other parts of the body)

—Thayer's (New Testament Greek-English Lexicon)
From G5594; breath, that is, (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from G4151 [pneuma; wind, breath, spirit], which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from G2222 [zoe; life, vitality], which is mere vitality, even of plants.

Labels: ,

High sounding nonsense

Colossians 2:8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

New International Version (NIV)
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Amplified Bible (AMP)
8 See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).

Expanded Bible (EXB)
8 Be sure [Be careful; Watch; See] that no one leads you away [takes you captive; captivates you] with false [deceptive] and empty [worthless] teaching that is only human [according to human traditions], which comes from the ruling spirits [elemental spiritual forces (demons); or elementary teachings] of this world, and not from Christ.

Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)
8 Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men’s ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ!

The Message (MSG)
8 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ.

Wuest
Be ever on your guard lest there shall be someone who leads you astray through his philosophy, even futile deceit, which is according to the tradition of men, according to the rudimentary teachings of the world, and not according to Christ.


"Be on guard," "takes you captive." Military analogies in the Greek.

"Philosophy." 1 Corinthians 1:20b (NASB).  "Has not God made foolish the wisdom [sophia] of the world?
1 Corinthians 1:25a (Mounce). For the foolishness (moros) of God is wiser (sophos) than the wisdom of men.

Labels:

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Seeing Jesus: Heb 10:16-17

Title: Intimacy
Hebrews 10:16-17 (NASB)
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws upon their heart,
And on their mind I will write them,”
He then says,
17 “And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.”
[Quoting Jeremiah 31:33-34]
John 14:21 (NASB)
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
"I, the Lord, the Word of God, will write the Law of God on your hearts and minds. And I will remember your sins no more."

God, seeing our failure, our sin, our lawlessness, took pity on us. He showed us mercy in the new covenant, through the broken body of His Son Jesus. He, by grace, has chosen to forget our sins. He, by grace, has chosen to write His law on our hearts and minds.

We who were lawless now have His law inside us.

We can submit in love to the One who loves us because we have His commandments in us. And when we keep the commands He has written on our hearts, He reveals Himself to us.

What an act of intimacy, to give us so precious a gift.

Thank you Jesus for writing yourself, the Logos, the Word of God on our hearts and on our minds. Help us to be keep those commandments that You have written there.

Labels: , , ,

Monday, July 13, 2015

Israel, apple of God's eye

Zechariah 2:6-12 (NASB)
6 “Ho there! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have dispersed you as the four winds of the heavens,” declares the Lord.
7 “Ho, Zion! Escape, you who are living with the daughter of Babylon.”
8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, “After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye. 9 For behold, I will wave My hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.
10 Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” declares the Lord.
11 “Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you.
12 The Lord will possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.

See also: Deut 32:9,10.

The passage opens with a call to return to to the land of Israel from the diaspora. Then a reminder that Israel is precious in God' sight. Followed by God's plain statement that He will destroy the nations the plundered the Jews. And ending with a messianic promise that God is coming, and that nations will follow Him and join Israel, as they did after the Messiah's death and ressurection.

A reminder, as the song says, "You must be carefully taught to hate."

Article #1: German Textbooks and Anti-Israel Liberal Elites

German elite media shocked by the level of anti-semetism in ordinary Germans.

Subsequent German study of currently used German textbooks, written by the German elite, show that they are anti-Jew and anti-Israel.

Article #2: Greece and its Jewish Problem
Today there are 5,000 Jews in the Greek population, most of whom are Greek Orthodox Christian of 11 million. A recent public opinion survey found that Greece was the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, twice as anti-Semitic as France. It showed that 85 per cent of Greeks surveyed thought Jews had too much power in the business world, 82 per cent in the international financial markets, and 74 per cent too much control over global affairs. Anti-Semitism has cut across political lines and been transmitted from the Church, from political parties, from the newspapers, and TV channel Tele-Asty, and from well-known personalities.

Labels:

Friday, July 10, 2015

Law, Honor, and Fear Cultures

Cultures have three major ways of maintaining social order: law, shame, and fear. All cultures use all three, but most tend to emphasize one over the other.

Honor Culture
In cultural anthropology, a shame society, also called shame culture or honour-shame culture, is a society in which the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining social order is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. A shame society is contrasted with a guilt society [also called a law culture], in which control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the afterlife) for certain condemned behaviors, and with a fear society, in which control is kept by the fear of retribution. 
Paul G. Hiebert characterizes the shame society as follows:
Shame is a reaction to other people's criticism, an acute personal chagrin at our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. In true shame oriented cultures, every person has a place and a duty in the society. One maintains self-respect, not by choosing what is good rather than what is evil, but by choosing what is expected of one. 
Law Culture
Paul Hiebert characterizes the guilt society [or law culture] as follows:
Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the absolute standards of morality within us, when we violate our conscience. A person may suffer from guilt although no one else knows of his or her misdeed; this feeling of guilt is relieved by confessing the misdeed and making restitution. True guilt cultures rely on an internalized conviction of sin as the enforcer of good behavior, not, as shame cultures do, on external sanctions. Guilt cultures emphasize punishment and forgiveness as ways of restoring the moral order; shame cultures stress self-denial and humility as ways of restoring the social order. 

Note the emphasis on conscience.

Western cultures tend to be law cultures. One example is the US. The US is a law culture because of the heavy Christian component in its founding: Puritans (and Congretationalists), Quakers, Catholics, and Methodists. Later groups such as the German Anabaptists, Moravians, Baptists, and others merely solidified the tendency in the US.

This is referred to as "America's Judeo-Christian" tradition. Often people think that this means that the Founding Fathers were Christian believers. It does not. It means that the Founding Fathers were part of an over-arching culture that accepted and internalized a Christian moral structure. Additionally, they saw, accepted and routinely spoke out in favor of that culture even if they were not traditional Christians. (Yes, even, and most especially, Thomas Jefferson.)

Eastern cultures tend to be honor cultures. Examples include Japan and China.

Mediterranean cultures, even when "Judeo-Christian," and therefore law cultures, have a heavy honor/guilt culture aspect.

Tribal cultures tend to be honor cultures. The tribe may be rooted in blood kinship like the Romani, most Islamic cultures, or the traditional Native American cultures. Or they may be rooted in some sort of intense, shared experience (hazing in college fraternities or boot camp in the military).

While Western cultures tend to be law cultures, specific subcultures in the West can be honor cultures, for example the police, the military, criminal organizations, sports teams, and college sororities and fraternities.

Overall, human beings are tribal. That is, each of us relate to 100-200 people on a regular basis. Family, of course, is the basic tribal unit. However, all of us belong to other "tribes:" a political subculture, fans of a particular sports team, a clique of co-workers at an office, or members of a church or social organization. Once one is aware of our tribal nature, it becomes obvious everywhere: the regulars at a coffee shop or diner, the pundits on TV, or the regular commentors on a blog. There is an obvious camaraderie.

Fear cultures occur in totalitarian societies, ranging from the "petty tyrants" of the workplace to the totalitarian dictatorships of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

However, to make it clear, no cultures or subcultures are only honor, law or fear cultures. All cultures are a mix. One or the other dominates, but does not exclude the others.

Tribal signaling in the US.

Because the US has a large and diverse set of subcultures, it is typical to "signal" which particular subculture a person belongs to. Signals may include symbols such as a rainbow flag, a cross or star of David, a hammer and sickle, or a national flag. Or it may be what is and is not posted or commented on. Signalling may be posting of one side or another of a controversary: confederate flags, gun rights, gay marriage, global warming, or "gamer-gate." This is common, and once noticed becomes obvious on social media sites.

For example, I know people on Facebook who I know are born-again Christians, from families of born-again Christians, all of whom attend "conservative" churches (conservative theologically, that is). However, They may post items, sometimes links and sometimes comments, that counter practices and beliefs of some or most Christian subcultures. The posts are from a "left" political or theological viewpoint. Additionally, none of them post links or comments that openly state any affiliation with a conservative political or theological viewpoint.

This puzzled me until I realized that all of them were also members of very intellectual, very technological "tribes." Since these tribes, unless physically located in "Bible Belt" type regions, are uniformly non- to anti-Christian, it became obvious that they were signalling their leftist tribe members that they were also members of that tribe and not of "those" type of Christians. An odd form of "bearing witness."

There are other forms of signalling. Sports and military metaphors are very common in our culture. They might signal being a sports fan. However, they may also signal that the user is affirming being in a clique with another person.

For example, one office worker might use the phrase, "I've got your back," in an office setting. The person is using a military metaphor that he/she will stand by his/her coworker during a bout of office politics.

Law/honor cultures in the Bible.
Joshua 1:8 (NASB)8 This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
Jeremiah 31:33 (NASB)33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Philippians 3:4b-6 (NASB)4 If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I [Paul] far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
Acts 23:1 (NASB)
23 Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.”
Paul was an embodiment of law culture.

It would appear from the quotes above, that the culture of the ancient Israelites was a law culture, but it was clearly also an honor culture.
Numbers 15:32-36.  So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
The forty years in the wilderness welded a slave peoples into the nation of God. Twelve tribes, often in conflict, but still a unified nation.

How then should the Church function? 

Church should function as a law culture. We are given the mind of Christ; we have His laws written on our hearts; and we can have direct and personal access to God via the Holy Spirit.

We do not have a spirit of fear [2 Timothy 1:7] and we no longer come under, and thus fear, condemnation, sin, and death [Romans 8:1-2]. Therefore, the Church should not use fear or shame as a means of maintaining order in the Church. Yes, we are to fear God, but that is whole different thing than being cowed into obedience by Church leadership.

Church Discipline
Matthew 18:15-17 (NASB)
15 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 
"Tell it to the church." This appears to be shaming behavior. The Law is written on our hearts, but we have a choice whether or not to obey that law. When the disobedience becomes obvious, it means that there has been a breakdown in a person's willingness to operate in the law culture established by God. The person is violating his or her own conscience, and that violation has become public knowledge.

Ideally, the person's fellow Christians then attempt to lovingly point out where the person needs to submit to the rule of the kingdom of God that is in the person's own heart. If the person refuses to submit to the law written by God on that person's own heart, they are unruly (that is, un-rule-y). They need to be told that it is they who have stepped out of bounds. "Telling it to the church" and disfellowshipping the person is merely a public acknowledgment of where the person is already.

It is an ostricizing or shaming action that is required, in good conscience, by law culture.

What about the honor aspects of the Church? 

"One maintains self-respect, not by choosing what is good rather than what is evil, but by choosing what is expected of one."

The church should not be about doing "what is expected of one," unless it is what is expected of one by God, by the voice in of the in-dwelling Holy Spirit.

Humans are tribal, and humans in the church are tribal and act tribally. That is, we try to turn the church into a tribe and operate inside an honor culture. The results is cliques.

Cliques are a natural side-effect of talking to our friends and meeting in small groups (Sunday school classes, Sunday or Wednesday night meetings, house churches, prayer meetings, or whatever). It means that new members or visitors feel unwelcome, not because they are unwelcome, but because they are not yet part of a tribe. New member classes can be a "rite of passage" signalling acceptence by the church (tribe).

However, we are not bound by our hard-wiring to act tribally.

One way is adjust our viewpoint. CS Lewis said of the church that it is "Spread out through time and space, and terrible as an army with banners." We can take a "God's eye view" and see the church as a unified whole ranging from the 1st century church with Peter and Paul through all the believers in any and all locales and times. A person who has made a profession of faith in one church, is a Christian, a brother/sister, a believer, a fellow disciple and traveller on the same road as any other.

However, it does not end there. Any future Christian is also part of that the body of Christ, as well. And we do not know today who will be a member tomorrow, or next year, or on their death bed 50 years from now.

The tribe of all Christians is the body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as its head, and its mind.

Note: I am cross-posting this on my other blog, as well.

Labels: , ,