The Difference Between Reading the Bible and Meditating on God’s Word

There always has to be a good reason to read the Bible. Even

“simply wanting to know what all the hoopla was about and why people were so hyped up on it”

could already be a good reason to start reading the Bible. From that point of view, it could give some good idea of what others are saying, what would or would not be in Scripture.

Best is to read the Bible to study it and to gain more knowledge of what is written inside it. Then it will give also a good idea of what others, like clergy, are insinuating what would be standing there in those 66 books of the Book of books, the Bible, and coming to see what is really written in it.

When

“in no way shape or form, did reading the Bible had anything to do with God.”

then it would be a very difficult start, already closing some gates to receiving knowledge or to coming into conversation with God. Reading the Bible is namely like being present by someone, listening to what He has to say. Reading the Bible also gives an opportunity to come into conversation with the Divine Creator of heaven and earth, the God of gods. When starting to read what He has to say, there has to be a willingness to listen to Him.

For sure, several people coming to read the Bible,

“some of their reasons aren’t particularly holy.”

Several people want to find reasons and words to attack those lovers of God, who find those words in the Bible sacred.

Sometimes, as the article writer mentions, coming to read the Bible is

“done out of curiosity”

as her friends in school did for religious studies

“and other times it’s for understanding the religion better.”

And that is a very good reason, more people should consider why reading that book is as important as reading other basic scriptures of certain religious groups.

All people should learn about the different religions and have to go through their basic scriptures. When the reason to read the Bible is to debunk the Bible, like some atheists and other (religious) people do they would often be surprised where they end up. More than once, an atheist or even a Christian or other religious person came to see the truth and came to look for a church that is living according to those Words of God.
That

“they use part of the bible to show why other Christian religions are wrong”

is not such a bad idea, when they do it with the right intention and lovingly, to bring people closer to the One and Only Real God, the God of Israel, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, Who is One and not two or three.

Too often, people who call themselves Christian, do not dare to open their ears fully to those words of God, but prefer to be chained to the doctrinal teachings of their church, be it a Catholic or Trinitarian Protestant Church, instead of trying to read and understand the words like they are written black on white.

When there is a willingness to listen carefully to God’s Word as presented in the Bible, the reader shall be surprised how a whole new world might open up before him or her. But then it becomes most important also to accept those Words from God and to act to the received new insight. And that last bit is one of the very difficult parts when one has lived for several years in a certain Christian denomination. Often it is easier for an atheist to become a true Christian than for a Christian to become a real follower and believer in the son of God, Jeshua or Jesus Christ. Most people coming from a certain denomination have difficulties changing their lives and changing church, after they discovered that there are differences in the teachings of their familiar church and the contents of the Bible.

The difficulty for reading the Bible is that it has to be done with an open mind geared toward spiritual growth and with a willingness to change.
The writer of this article still has to go a long way, because she writes

“After all, the time He walked the earth stone was the paper of choice”

giving an indication that she still considers Jesus to be God instead of him being the son of God. God never walked this earth. God is an eternal Spirit Being (meaning having no beginning or birth and no end = no death) no man can see. Clearly, the writer of this article is still confusing and mixing two different Biblical characters. This comes perhaps because she is so clinched or stuck by her Catholic upbringing, where they worship a Trinity and other gods and saints.

We can only hope that those who read the Bible also one moment come to listen more carefully to the Words of God and start meditating on them as well, giving a two-way communication platform to the Author of the Book of books, so that more insight and wisdom will come to them.

The writer of this article (Marita) ends very nicely but also hits the nail when she writes

“Basically, meditating on God’s word is supposed to bring about change. Change in you and the world around you.”

And changing direction and adapting their belief unto what is really written in the Scriptures is one of the most difficult tasks for people who grew up in a Christian church tradition and who have come to read the Bible more thoroughly.
And the Bible deserves a thorough reading and study to be moulded by God and filled with biblical clarity rather than church indoctrination.

 

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Preceding

People Seeking for God 1 Looking for answers

People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations

God of gods

The Almighty Lord God of gods King above all gods

Is reading the Bible necessary?

Being in tune with God

How Social Media is Shrinking the Bible

Ways to Approach Difficult Bible Passages

Followers, protestors and reformers

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Additional reading

1. Bible
2. Unread bestseller
3. What Is: The Bible as Originally Written
4. Bible Word from God
5. Word of God
6. Bible Inspired Word of God
7. Today’s thought “Word of the Only One God – To be read and listened at” (November 21)
8. Bible Word of God inspired and infallible
9. Moshe Rabbenu and Torat Moshe
10. Bible in the first place #2/3
11. Appointed to be read (Our World) = Appointed to be read (Some View on the World)
12. Best to read and study the Bible
13. Not studying an abstract and arcane text of the ancient world
14. Best intimate relation to look for
15. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
16. Main verses in the Bible telling us Who God is #8 Some more attributes of God
17. Today’s thought “Jehovah God makes us dwell in safety and confident trust” (January 02)
18. Fill your hands with the Lord’s work
19. A living Word giving confidence
20. Praying and acts of meditation without ceasing
21. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #6 Words to feed and communicate
22. Pray that we will make the time to listen: listen to God and listen to each other
23. Today’s thought “On the eternity of God” (December 17)
24. Today’s thought “Ability to circumcise your heart” (May 13)
25. Conversations that Matter
26. Necessity of a revelation of creation 10 Instructions for insight and wisdom
27. Necessity of a revelation of creation 12 Words assembled for wisdom and instruction
28. Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures
29. From nothingness to a growing group of followers of Jeshua 3 Korban for God or gods
30. Making time for God is crucial
31. 500 years of a provision of the Word in the language of the peoples
32. A special anniversary for the Church where Catholics and Protestants find common ground
33. Accuracy, Word-for-Word Translation Preferred by most Bible Readers
34. A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t

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Related

1. Are you making time or making excuses?
2. Practical Christianity: Give Your Time
3. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
4. Seeking God’s manna
5. The Book
6. Our Amazing Bible
7. The Original Biblical Writings
8. Scriptures
9. Purpose of Scripture
10. God breathed
11. Bible Reading Discovery
12. Conversation between God and Me
13. How to Begin Conversations with God
14. Conversations with God part 2
15. Talkative God
16. Confirms the Word
17. The Word, Faith, and Testing
18. The Word – Good News and Bad News
19. Believing God
20. A way to look for Christ, the Bible, Word of God
21. Light Unto My Feet
22. Practical Christianity: Don’t Be A Jerk
23. When My Mental Health is Suffering
24. Bad News and Good News
25. How Do I Read the Bible?
26. How to Interpret Scripture
27. Book: How (Not) to Read the Bible
28. Read the Bible in a Year
29. The Bible Tells Me SoFall in Love With Reading the Bible: 10 Tips to Keep You Motivated & Passionate
30. The Not-So-Quiet Time

Seeking Redemption

To those now deep into biblical scripture you are probably aware of the difference between reading the bible and meditating on the world. Naturally, like many young Christians, I had assumed that once you read the bible, and you knew God’s words and it was enough. But I kept hearing about ‘meditating on the word’ and never understood what it meant. Until over a decade later when I began meditating on God’s word.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and, training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work,” 2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Reading the Bible

I’ve read the bible twice, decades ago and still could quote a single lick of scripture. I read it just like I did with any storybook. Enough to know all the main characters and get a clear…

View original post 1,410 more words

Dividing walls of “race”

All human beings are created in the image of God. This makes that we are or should be, all accepting the other as being allowed to be here by God and to be co-images of God and ourselves.

The Divine Creator, Jehovah, the God above all gods, did not create more than one race. Of the kind that now usually walks on two legs, God created only one kind: a man taken from the red earth, hence his name “A·dham“.

Dr. George Gallant says

Racism, implies that our Creator made more then one race of people. There is but one race the human race. Get use to it people and stop using the word Racism. One Blood, One People, One set of Parents, Adam and Eve.

He has good reason to call for stopping to divide people in races or a sort of brands. We all come from the same original human beings, who probably were not white at all. The first man and mannin Adam and Eve (Chavah or Isha) got children and their children got again children and in the end we come from those children their children.

William D Tillman says

the majority of people have bought into the false construct of color/ethnicity equals – species (sic race). This is really a question of supremacy – white supremacy in particular. The dividing walls of “race” were erected to not only keep “the races pure” but to subjugate all to so-called white people. My real concern is how silent the church is on this.

“let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think…”

is a principle that is espoused but today’s rhetoric indicates it’s one that rather needs to be lived. The statement,

“I don’t see race”

is another method to dismiss the systematic denigration and disenfranchisement of a whole sector of the population because it places the blame of perception of the suffering and relieves the “race-blind” of the guilt of apathy.

We always should remember we could be born in another region, another culture, or we could have been born with either lighter or darker skin, God chose what we are on the outside but the inside is the same. The inside is the most important factor of our being.

In the life and teaching of Jesus we nowhere can find that he had a particular predilection for a sort human being. The places he went to had Hebrew, Palestinian, Arab and other Eastern people walking around and also listening to him. Never gave he a sign to have a certain preference for or over one or the other person. In Jesus’ teaching is no such thing as racial preference. He teaches that all people are the same. Also for God everybody is equal and shall be equally judged.

As followers of Christ or Christians, we all should be like brothers and sisters and share that brotherly love with each other.

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Find also to read:

1. How did the original readers understand Gen 1:1?
2. A dark skinned Jesus
3. Why I’m Angry
4. What is Racism??
5. A last note concerning civil rights
6. Even in the so-called freeworld countries racism exist
7. Where It All Needs to Start
8. Need to reject an archaic, racist inspired interpretation of the Bible and animosity against other believers
9. Speciesism and racism
10. Martin Luther King’s Dream Today
11. Apartheid or Apartness #1 Suppression and Apartness
12. Institutional Racism
13. Immigration consternation
14. Migrants to the West #1
15. 150 Years after the 13th Amendment
16. Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed
17. Walls,colours, multiculturalism, money to flow, Carson, Trump and consorts
18. Looking at an American nightmare
19. At the closing hours of 2016 #2 Low but also highlights
20. Rome mobilisation to say no to fascism and racism
21. American social perception, classes and fear mongering
22. A president daring to use the Bible for underlining his hate speech
23. Trump going over the top bringing a blasphemous act
24. Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter
25. It’s Time real lovers of God to Stand and Speak Out!
26. My Multi-Cultural Childhood Could be the Answer to Racism & Xenophobia

Words to bring into a good relationship

Relating to God is a new website and blog, created at the beginning of this year (2016-03-09) to bring people in a good relationship with the Divine Creator. To come to such good relationship it is important to get to know God and to get to know His Word, the Bible. For that reason the site is looking at the gathered Words of God.

Frontispiece of the 1917 JPS translation of the Bible (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the organisation’s words people do not have to start of with a believe in god nor in His Word to come to get to know Him. It is by discovering the Words of God, that people shall come to understand that the assembled set-apart or Holy Scriptures manifest themselves to be the word of God, by the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God.

There is an essence or a centre or a dominant peculiarity in the way God glorifies himself in Scripture and those collected Words do manage to bring people to see Who God is and What His desires are.
When people are willing to listen to those words in that library of 66 books they shall come to the understanding that the Bible has final authority over every area of our lives and that we should, therefore, try to bring all our thinking and feeling and acting into line with what the Bible teaches.

The world may have many religions and many churches, but those who are willing to listen to the Call of God shall come to hear that Sacred Calling. There are people who believe themself and want to have others to believe that certain churches have their own Bible with their own words, but this is not taking into account that God Himself all over the years has protected His Own Word. Certain churches and people may prefer to have a certain Bible translation and may not like an other Bible translation, but that does not mean that people using an other bible translation would not been able to come to the Biblical Truth.

A Bible translation is not the private charter of a faith community among other faith communities. It is a total claim on the whole world. God, the Originator Speaking Creator Owner, and Governor of the world, has sent His Word all over the world and has not limited His Words to one particular language or one particular church denomination.

His words, in whatever language they may be read, are valid and binding on all people everywhere. God can not be owned by any church, but God owns all people in the world and is Master of all.

First page of latest Dutch Bible translation (NBV) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People might believe in only certain things their religion places before them, irrespective of whether the Author is divine. But even if they don’t believe in all of it, they still can be believers in God. They also might find other ideas than their original church is preaching. At a certain point they might even come to see that there are too many differences in the church teaching opposite in what they belief the Bible is teaching. And most important of all tit is the bible which should guide people. It is the Words of the bible which should be taken as the truthful words of God.

In the end it are people themselves who shall have to decide which way they go and what they want to believe, human doctrines or Biblical doctrines.

The rubber meets the road, however, when fundamentalist notions of “what one must believe” overtake open-mindedness in a non-secular community – when one’s personal beliefs, and more important his personal disbeliefs, ostracize him from “good standing” if he articulates  those disbeliefs aloud.  If that occurs – if the Bible’s factuality becomes essential to one’s faith for fear of being shunned – it will be man, and not God, who decides what one must believe in order to be viewed as having Faith.  And that principle cannot ever be what God intended.

writes rabbi Joel Cohen in Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?

God His way of speaking with unique, infallible authority counted in the 5the century b.C.E. as well as in the 1st century or 21st century C.E. is through signs or letters on a stone, papyrus, paper or even today on a screen of an electronic device. The Words He thinks necessary for mankind or brought together in “One book”. A Set-apart or Holy Book, which is for all people, educated or not.

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Please do find to read:

1. Are there certain books essential to come to faith
2. Life and an assembly of books
3. Words of God to stand and to be followed and to believe
4. the Bible – God’s guide for life #1 Introduction
5. the Bible – God’s guide for life #2 Needs in life
6. the Bible – God’s guide for life #3 Fast food or staple diet
7. the Bible – God’s guide for life #4 Not to get the best from our diet– or from ourselves
8. Challenging claim 3 Inspired by God 2 Inerrant Word of God
9. Challenging claim 4 Inspired by God 3 Self-consistent Word of God

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Related articles

• 6 countries where owning a Bible is dangerous
• The Origins of the KJV
• Bible translated in ChiLambya launched in Chitipa: ‘Ulufingo Ulupya’
• Four Bible Translators Murdered in Middle East
• Why Stop at Just Casting Out Demons?
• There’s No Business Like the Bible Business: 200 Years of the ABS
• Why Four Bible Translators Martyred In Middle East Won’t Be The Last
• Is blogging damaging to serious theology?
• Evangelicals Are Losing the Battle for the Bible – And Many Of Them Are Just Fine with That
• A Reader has a Question about the Canon of Scripture

Luther on Being a Theologian: Oratio, Meditatio and Tentatio

Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Latin theologian. His writing on free will and original sin remains influential in Western Christendom.

The world has created so called scientists in the knowledge of God. Lots of people do put all their trust in such scholars who received a degree in theology at a university.
The majority of those theologians are as most of them would consider a theologian is,

“one who is dedicated to life in Christ and the contemplation of the Holy Trinity.” {What Does It Mean To Be a Theologian; by David Russell Mosley}

For many who studied the gods “The Philokalia“, a collection of texts written between the 4th and 15th centuries by spiritual masters”, was their primary guide for what it meant to be a theologian.

We always should know that to come to know God and to worship God we do not have to be people who have a university degree in theology, but we should be people who take time to study the bible. Lots of theologians have spend more time in studying writings of other human beings instead of looking more closely at the Word of God, the Bible. When you look at the theology courses, you will notice much more time is spend at those human writings, philosophy and human doctrines than at Biblical doctrines. No wonder that there have been much more books written by trinitarian scholars than by non-trinitarian Christians, because for the latter it is evident what is written in the Bible is the truth and as such in the non-trinitarian denominations of Christianity there are not so many divisions or matters of dispute as in the trinitarian denominations of Christendom.

We should remember that each of us has to be a theologian, a person who wants to know and worships the Only One True God of gods. A knowledge of the other gods may help in this, but the main focus should be on the real True Divine Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jakob and of Jeshua, who is mostly known as Jesus Christ by English speaking countries.

Each person who claims to be a Christian should be a follower of Christ and should worship the same God Christ worshipped, namely his heavenly Father. Like Jesus prayed to his heavenly Father we also should pray to that God of Jesus, Jehovah the Most Almighty God. That Oratio (prayer) should be grounded in the Word of God.

God cannot tempted, but Jesus was and we also shall be tempted more than once. This Tentatio (affliction) is not something God uses to drive us a way from self, but is our own selfish will because we are so much busy with ourselves. In case we would be more busy with the Will of God we would not be so much and so often suffering from our wrongdoing. Then we would also be more forthcoming to God His Will and would be more able, like Christ did not his own will, not to do our own will but being happy to do God’s Will.

To avoid going astray we do need the Meditatio (meditation) which should be the continual study of the Holy Scriptures and not so much the study of the many theological works by human beings.

We should trust more the Call and the Voice of God instead the voices of so many people who call themselves theologian, whatever they may mean by that word.

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Preceding articles

Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS)

Some one or something to fear #7 Not afraid for Gods Name

Pascal’s Possibility

Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings

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Additional reading

1. The importance of Reading the Scriptures
2. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
3. God’s forgotten Word 3 Lost Lawbook 2 Modern scepticism
4. Theologians and a promised Spirit to enlighten us
5. Necessity of a revelation of creation 9 Searching the Scriptures
6. Necessity of a revelation of creation 11 Believing and obeying the gospel of the Kingdom of God
7. Necessity of a revelation of creation 14 Searching the scriptures
8. Missional hermeneutics 1/5
9. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
10. Approachers of ideas around gods, philosophers and theologians
11. To find ways of Godly understanding
12. Position of the Bible researcher
13. Theology without spirituality sterile academic exercise
14. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
15. Being Missional
16. Christendom Astray The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being
17. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
18. Our life depending on faith
19. Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
20. Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
21. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
22. The meek one riding on an ass
23. Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery
24. Altered to fit a Trinity
25. the Trinity – the Truth

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Further related writings

1. What Hath the Church to do with the Library?
2. Theology of Experience
3. … 506 years ago
4. The Calvinist ‘God’ and God
5. Jealous God | Jealous for God
6. So, Here Goes…
7. The Angelic Doctor
8. Good Morning January 25
9. What Makes a Theologian
10. The Pastor Theologian
11. A Quote from St. Augustine on “The State”
12. Theology as Discipleship
13. 43rd of 2015.
14. What Does It Mean To Be a Theologian
15. What is Distinctive about Christian Analytic Theology?
16. Pulpit Supply: Sunday School: Four Key Concepts to be a better Theologian
17. Theologian Spotlight: Kathryn Tanner
18. Saint Augustine
19. Puritan John Owen – Doctrine of the Spirit and Mortification of Sin (Christian audio book)
20. C.S. Lewis Died on This Date
21. Albert Schweitzer
22. Jean Guitton
23. Biblical Christian Theology: Definition by DR. Donald E. Battle
24. DR. Donald E. Batle: Theologian And Christology Scholar
25. Who is qualified to write theology?
26. What is the Recipe to Survive in the Storms of Life?
27. Crossing Divides: Can an Atheist be a Chaplain?
28. So Now I’m a Christian. Now What? Part 4:The Loving, Triune God
29. Thought on the Trinity, Its Being Less than Mysterious, and the Biblical Support of an Analogy to It
30. The Incarnation a Contradiction?
31. 1 Corinthians 10:15 (Don’t Take My Word For It)
32. Christ Strengthens You

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Related articles

• The Holy Trinity (vernacularisms.com)
• Advent Day 12: Hope (writingstraight.com)
• Why Cultivate Inner Stillness? (palamas.info)
• Religion and faith: Schedules full for faith communities (tucson.com)
• Muslim God, Christian God (theamericanconservative.com)
• Americans really thinking the Messiah Christ had an English name (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
• Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
• Science Is Still Trying To Figure Out If Was Really White (biospace.com)

Gospel & Gratitude

In John Doberstein’s The Minister’s Prayerbook, he discusses Martin Luther’s understanding of the development of a theologian. Luther believed that the “right way to study theology” is anchored in the three rules set forth in Psalm 119: Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio. For Luther “Everything centers around the practice of meditation, for prayer prepares for it and its results are confirmed in the experience of conflict. For Luther, meditation is the key to the study of theology. No one can become a true theologian unless he learns theology through it” (Kleinig, “The Kindred Heart”, 142). The discussion that follows is taken directly from Doberstein and explores each of the three dimensions.

• Oratio (prayer) is grounded in the Word of the Lord. Prayer is the voice of faith. That is to say, that prayer grows out of the Word of the Lord. “The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not…

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Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS)

Today we came across a blog where was spoken of the Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS), which we would consider concerns all people of this globe.

Pastor ucocsthdm, Founder/Senior Pastor at Universal Church of Christ Seventh Day Ministries

The blog Inward Jews’ Site for Emancipation from Mental and Spiritual Enslavement! (previously Blessupebookstore) is from Redeeming Luv,  a God-fearing Guyanese of African descent, whose name is Wilfred A. Wilson, Pastor of Universal Church of Christ Seventh Day Ministries, INC., and leader of the Inward Jew Nation in Christ (Guyana, South America, an arm of the UCOC7THDM. He came to grips with Jesus in the early 70s and felt saved by him, called and put in the ministry.

If we are right his church then belongs to over 500 Sabbath keeping Churches of all different denominations. Some of the largest Sabbath keeping Churches would be the Seventh Day Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist, Church of God and the United Church of God.

The preacher his online presence is due to the fact that because his African descendants, 177 years after their ancestors, were fully emancipated on August 1, 1838, his people, are still enslaved mentally and spiritually, and he feels he is having an inspired Word and message to deliver to his people as well as for the world in a season where souls are ready to be harvested upon hearing the true Gospel of Jesus Christ preached unto them.

He asks coloured people to take back their birthright to the kingdom of God and of Christ, His Son, for the coloured people wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. [Ephesian 5:4]

He writes

The devil got to run when we speak the Word, viz., Jesus, say it again, Jesus, and say it again, Jesus. May God Almighty richly bless you. The Spirit of God gave me a Word which will set free whosoever believes from their Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome. (MESS) The inspired New Testament Word is:

“…Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: for as much as y know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers: But with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot.” [1Peter1:17-19] {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

Mental Enslavement for sure is something we are all chained by. Wherever we live are minds are taken in by the place where we grew up and by the people who formed us and moulded in the being we are at present in this system of things. The ‘Mental Enslavement’ the pastor considers to be a legacy of slavery. For him it is

the root cause of the current divisions among us, African descendants. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

The white English naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin

Nelson Mandela led the ANC in the battle against South African Apartheid.

Caucasians, Asians, they too are divided by their enslavement of their spirit. It is not restricted to the African people. Neither is the Sins Syndrome as a legacy of Adam’s transgression restricted to black people. Perhaps worse, the white people took the innocent black people chained to their world of greed and of unconnectedness with nature. By the commerce of slavery many black people where taken away form their native place where their people were still connected with nature and lived in peaceful communities where there was a certain order of respect. That respect and family order was broken, the mind degraded unto that of an animal. The negro was made into a carnal man which had no rights and was considered as part of the animal world. Carnal white man saw in them an opportunity to enrich themselves and to have some element with whom they could have sex as much and how they wanted it. For many of them it was an element by which no sin could be done. And church looked at it and did nothing against it.

A European map of West Africa, 1736. Included is the archaic mapping designation of Negroland.

We may not forget they all are under the spell of the fall of man, but God did ask each individual to make up their own choice and to go away from that spell. God created the human beings with the possibility to think for themselves. Man has no excuse to point the finger to Adam and Eve. It is not because they sinned, we can not do different. If that would be so that would mean the Divine Creator created human beings who are not able to live according to the rules God gave them. Such a thing would make that God a very Cruel God.

It is true that even today there are lots of Christian preachers who say man is incapable to do good or to do the Will of God, and therefore Jesus has to be God. They are mistaken and have become enslaved to their twisted mind or to the twisted mind of generations of theologians. Those people who call themselves scientists in the knowledge of God took a lot of time to study books of other theologians. Most of their time is spend to reading and studying books of other people of this world, instead of spending more time to reading the Word of God itself, given to mankind by the Book of books.

They and their followers have come enslaved to their minds which are taken in by human doctrines. That ‘Mental enslavement’ is the root cause of the current divisions among so many people, not only for African descendants.

The blogwriter thinks his people, due to years of conditioning, have become strangers one to the other, or at least some act as though they are because of their mindset. He should know all other races are also enslaved to their world which works as a magnet drawing them in all sorts of dreams and adventures.

When you look at this world you will see that man made a big mess of it. As such that Mental Enslavement and Sins Syndrome (MESS) fits clearly our big mess.

Living in this big mess perhaps also being caught by that Mess, we do have to know we can become liberated from any form of slavery. Some two thousand years ago a man was born who proofed that it was all lies that a man could not do the Will of God. That Nazarene Jew managed not to do his own will but humbled himself and gave himself totally to this God and His creatures. That son of man showed the world that each son of man is capable to come to God and do what God wants from him or her. Those who say Jesus is God, because no man is ever able to follow God from himself or herself, are telling lies. They are misleading people and are holding them back from the real God of gods, Who is the Only One True God which all people should come to worship.

The Jew Jeshua, today better known under his falls name which gives honour to the god Zeus, Jesus  (Hail Zeus), had studied the Word of God, proclaimed it, prayed a lot to his heavenly Father and asked also his followers to pray to his heavenly Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jakob. That man of flesh and blood gave his body to the world, but kept his mind high up by his heavenly Father and demands us to do the same, as him coming to be united with that only One True God, being one like Jesus is one with Him.

When we do follow Jesus, who is the Way to God, we are able to change our attitude. Yes it

could be changed by the power in the blood of Christ.

How? You have to let go (MESS), and allow God to have His way in you. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

We are not a hopeless people, who are unable to become without further sinning. It is true that all of us sin but such a condition has not to continue for ever. For there is hope, hope in the very Christ, whose precious Blood washes away our sins the moment we repent and believe the Word of God from the heart. Such act of coming into believing in Christ, the son of God, will demand work. Then shall come the most important factor to break the chains of enslavement, namely the demand of repentance. When we do not come to see what we have done wrong or what we can do wrong we shall never be liberated. We do have to see what is wrong and what is the right way. Without recognising good and bad we shall not see the light nor become free citizens under Christ.

People of all sorts of cultures should know that God is not partial and that He had sent His son for all people. For God nobody should be enslaved and be under the spell of satan, the adversary of God. People should come to believe in the sent one from God, the son of God and

Know that it is the Word that will turn your life around so that you do not have to continue being a slave to sin. and to the devil. [Romans 6:7-23]  If you have doubts about Christ, put your right hand on the region of your heart and say, Father in heaven, help my unbelief. Amen. I guarantee that God the Father will hear your prayer. Amen. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

There are still too many Christians who do not believe what Jesus really did, not doing his own will but submitting to the Will of God and giving his body as a ransom for the sins of mankind.

Today there are still too many who prefer following human traditions and human doctrines instead of adhering to sound Biblical teaching and going for the Biblical tradition. We should come to see how everything links together. The Old Testament is inherent to the New testament. The promises given in the Garden of Eden have become a reality by Jesus being the promised Messiah.

Jesus has become the slave who managed to liberate his fellow slaves. His death made an end to the curse of death. In him we are liberated and can put away the chains leading to death. After he had gone his apostles continued doing the work Jesus ordered them to do. Philip also came to bring people as the eunuch to God.

Philip in the awesome presence of the Most High God and under His Sovereignty did not sprinkle water on him, he did not pour water on his head, he did not duck him in the water three times, he did not baptize him in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, but rather, Philip baptized our Ethiopian brother in the name of the Lord Jesus, just as He was guided by the Holy Spirit to do at Samaria.
It is written, “…they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”[Acts 8:16, 2:] And for those who may have a problem with the parenthesis in this verse of scripture: Acts 2:38, says,

“Then Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Proof: Thus at the mouth of two genuine witnesses (the scriptures) baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus is established. Let us give Yahweh praise. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

The highly placed person came into the faith and knew he had to do things. He was convinced that it was not enough to have been baptised, but that once having come into the faith the believer had to do works, like spreading the gospel and giving people hope.

Cush or Kush, an ancient African kingdom situated on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan.

Ethiopia was one of the great kingdoms of Africa, part of which is now called Abyssinia. It is frequently mentioned in Scripture under the name of Cush. But Cush comprehended a much larger region, including the southern part of Arabia, and even sometimes the countries adjacent to the Tigris and Euphrates. Ethiopia Proper lay south of Egypt, on the Nile, and was bounded north by Egypt, that is, by the cataracts near Syene; east by the Red Sea, and perhaps part by the Indian Ocean; south by unknown regions in the interior of Africa; and west by Lybia and the deserts. It comprehended the modern kingdoms of Nubia or Sennaar, and Abyssinia. The chief city in it was the ancient Meroe, situated on the island or tract of the same name, between the Nile and Ashtaborus, not far from the modern Shendi. (Robinson’s Calmet,)

The confidential officer, or counsellor of state, was a Jew, or at least a Jewish proselyte. It was customary for the Jews in foreign lands, as far as practicable, to attend the great feasts at Jerusalem. He had gone up to attend the Passover, and got fascinated by the new teachings of the followers of the Jew Jeshua and humiliated himself going down into the water to get baptised. The conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch is a milestone in the proclamation of the gospel which spread from Jerusalem. The fact that he rode in a chariot was a demonstration of his wealth and power. One would think he would not share his faith with lower people, but he did. The eunuch “went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:39). He went along taking care others also came into the faith, which could spread from Arabia and Egypt to the North of Africa.

All nations should come to see how that important man welcomed the opportunity of ‘emptying himself’ by going down to baptism. He rejoiced in his appreciation of how his Saviour had emptied himself to make it possible for the eunuch, a man who was excluded from the ‘congregation of the Lord’, to draw close to God, no longer being distanced from Jehovah God by sin.

We all may be connected with one or other ‘class’ or ‘profession’, but for god we are all the same and given the same opportunities to come to God. We only should react in the right way when we hear the call.

Like the eunuch we can take the knowledge of the greatness of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ with us into our everyday lives that will provide a fitting contrast to the aspirations to greatness of those around. This can help us to follow his example of humility and rejoice that we might share the true greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ at his return to the earth.

In the meantime we may not sit still. We do have to do the works of faith. To get away from the ‘Sin Syndrome’ we have to work at our character. It will not come easy to step in the right direction and to always keep to the Word of God.

Like god in the past changed the mindset of many He is willing to change our mindset too. We should take time to see the links from the past as well as those with the future.

The past refers to Yahweh’s Visitation with our African brother (1) and when He miraculously changed His mindset, and moved Him away from those aspects of our Fathers’ tradition which are not in sync  neither Yahweh nor His Word. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

The pastor ends

Make it a habit to trace our Biblical history and tradition back to Acts 8:26-39, and believe the Word and teach your children all the Word builds up our confidence, gives us a sense of belonging, a high self worth, and a strong feeling that we are guided by it (the Word), in our journey along a path in Christ— that has continuity.  O let us give God Praise. Amen. {Blogging 201: Day 8 Assignment}

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Preceding articles

Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity

How Many Persons Created the Heavens and the Earth?

Some one or something to fear #7 Not afraid for Gods Name

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Additional reading

1. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
2. God of gods
3. Only One God
4. God is one
5. The faithful God
6. God’s wisdom for the believer brings peace
7. Necessity of a revelation of creation 9 Searching the Scriptures
8. Necessity of a revelation of creation 11 Believing and obeying the gospel of the Kingdom of God
9. Necessity of a revelation of creation 14 Searching the scriptures
10. God’s forgotten Word 3 Lost Lawbook 2 Modern scepticism
11. Theologians and a promised Spirit to enlighten us
12. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
13. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
14. Back from gone #4 Your inner feelings and actions
15. Our life depending on faith – Looking at the Bible reading for January 28
16. Faith Alone Does Not Save . . . No Matter How Many Times Protestants Say It Does
17. January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works
18. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
19. A Living Faith #1 Substance of things hoped for
20. A living faith #2 State of your faith
21. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
22. A Living Faith #4 Effort
23. A Living Faith #5 Perseverance
24. A Living Faith #6 Sacrifice
25. A Living faith #7 Prayer
26. A Living Faith #8 Change
27. A Living Faith #9 Our Manner of Life
28. A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
29. A Living Faith #11 My place in the body of Christ and my ecclesia
30. A Living Faith #12 The Love for Jesus
31. Faith and works
32. Not making yourselves abominable
33. The attraction of doing something
34. Re–forming ourselves
35. Humbleness
36. Wired to Connect?
37. Bearing fruit
38. Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works
39. First man’s task still counting today
40.  He who knows himself, is kind to others
41. Luther’s misunderstanding
42. Our life depending on faith
43. Romans 4 and the Sacraments
44. Is Justification a process?
45. Letter to the Romans, chapter 3
46. Letter to the Romans, chapter 4
47. Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans
48. Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4
49. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
50.  The sin of partiality
51. Hope by faith and free gift
52. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
53. The meek one riding on an ass
54. Atonement And Fellowship 7/8
55. Authority given to him To give eternal life
56. Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
57. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
58. Preparation for unity
59. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
60. Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings
61. Looking for True Spirituality 7 Preaching of the Good News
62. Daring to speak in multicultural environment

 

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Further related articles

1. A man
2. My Flesh and My Spirit
3. What are we asking for? What do we need?
4. Baptism of the Spirit: my testimony
5. So, Here Goes…
6. The Angelic Doctor
7. Good Morning January 25
8. Theologian Spotlight: Martin Luther
9. What Does It Mean To Be a Theologian
10. What Makes a Theologian
11. Pulpit Supply: Sunday School: Four Key Concepts to be a better Theologian
12. Luther on Being a Theologian: Oratio, Meditatio and Tentatio
13. Who is qualified to write theology?
14. A Quote from St. Augustine on “The State”
15. Theology as Discipleship
16. 43rd of 2015.
17. No More Sunday School Answers
18. Between A Father and Son
19. lifted up
20. Father, Holy Spirit, & Son: When the Trinity is Out of Order
21. Have You Seen Jesus?
22. What does it mean that God is the Ancient of Days?
23. Review: The Unseen Realm

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• Hundreds of Ministers Enroll In Firearm Expert’s Free Gun-Training Course (blackchristiannews.com)
• Signs-Signs-Everywhere Signs (dedicated2jesus.com)
• Hallelujah! Must-Watch Video (secretstolife.com)
• The Spirit Speaks – of THE Christmas Gift (histruthwillsetyoufree.wordpress.com)
• Broken Woman? (ezerwoman.wordpress.com)
• Scripture of the Day, 12/16 (sowegalive.com)
• Hundreds of Ministers Enroll in Firearm Expert’s Free Gun-training Course (nworeport.me)
• Which man is mentioned most often in the Bible? Jesus, Moses, Abraham or David? (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
• Religious Freedom in a Multicultural World (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #6 Summary

Summary

Being aware that the Greek word psuche/psyche means “a living, breathing creature,” referring to man, animal or plant, we as human beings should not consider “Soul” meaning something immortal inside of man or animal. Those plants and animals, like human beings or souls shall die and deteriorate. For all of them it shall be the same, having decay coming over them.

Faroe stamp 430 The First Human Beings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Holy Scriptures remind everybody that they shall wither or like animal and plants become nothing again, like they were nothing before they were born. We as human beings, be it father, mother, daughter or son, we all have a sinful nature and like all those that sin, we shall die.

The Creator provided a universe with living beings. Man was created by God to inhabit the earth. The Divine Creator, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, took care that there became an animated existence. He created things which received life because He allowed it to be it, in that being.

Immortality or the non death of the soul and or the spirit is a non-Biblical teaching which we do have to put aside as Platonism, not belonging in true Christianity, though it may be the cornerstone of many Christian Churches.

There is the breath of life (nesh-aw-maw) which (figuratively) returns to God when a person, the living fleshy soul (nephesh) dies. There is not at all a separation to take place and as such real Christians should not follow the teachings of ancient Greek writers that man is soul (immortal) and body (mortal), and the two can be separated.

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Preceding

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #1 Intro

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #2 Psyche, the word

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #3 Historical background

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #4 Psyche, According to the Holy Scriptures

Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #5 Mortality of man and mortality of the spirit

People Seeking for God 5 Bread of life

Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God

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Additional reading

1. Genesis – Story of creation 4 Genesis 2:16-25 Warning for Adam and Eve
2. Genesis – Story of creation 5 Genesis 3:1-12 Eating of the fruit-tree of knowledge
3. Dying or not
4. What happens when we die?
5. Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
6. Decomposition, decay – vergaan, afsterven, ontbinding
7. Grave, tomb, sepulchre – graf, begraafplaats, rustplaats, sepulcrum
8. A philosophical error which rejects the body as part of the human person
9. Building up the spirit of the soul
10. We will all be changed
11. We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory
12. A Mundane Existance
13. Material gain to honour God
14. The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around
15. God loving people justified

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Related articles

• The key to happiness – A Saturday thought (tonylobl.com)
• What it really means to be an Atheist. (sight66.com)
• Get Back Up and Keep Going (faithhopeandmiracles.com)
• Luke 3.1-6 “Time to Straighten Up” 20151206 RSUMC Advent2 (mysundaysermons.com)
• They, Them and There (veroniquepalmer.com)
• Meaning of a Savior – part 6 (completejoy.wordpress.com)

The Question is this…

Many may be saying there is no god or gods at all and that it is all a fabrication of the human mind.

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Those who find that somehow something has to be behind this universe and all the things that can be found around us. but how many know Who is the Mastermind behind it all?

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How many are really knowing the Divine Creator and how many are willing to open their mind to this Eternal Spirit Who cannot be seen by man or they would fall death?

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The unseen, the untouchable, is so difficult to comprehend.

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The God of order Who created everything, has done it with and out of love. It is His goodness which transcends our understanding we think it is impossible that there can be such a Goodness existing.
Absolute completeness is so difficult to understand for our little human mind. Our brain is so incomplete, it seems, that the idea of such Perfect Being looks impossible.

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Though there was a time man had no fear and no problems and everything seemed all right. But it was too nice to be true and man doubted its Creator.

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Man came to separate and to see separation between the Creator, man, animal and plant and wanted more than he had received. This greed made him blind.

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After the first Adam failed god had to create a second Adam. That sent one from God came unto the earth to show the world the true hand of the Master-worker. God gave his only begotten son as a good shepherd to guide us and to show us the only one Way to God. In his way we should come to walk.

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When willing to go that Way we shall notice that God shall be the first one to go with us. when we are willing to open our eyes and ears, we shall see and hear God, who shall receive us as His children.

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There are plentiful reasons to get to know God and not to hesitate longer.

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• rich? or poor? > matters not your station in life
• matters > certain about your future destiny
• fail to listen and heed, destiny = same as fools whose shepherd is death +  separation from the Almighty God
• if you listen, heed and accept the Living Word > destiny in eternal space of the Kingdom of God
• + will be guided on your journey by the Good Shepherd

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Are you Jew? Are you Gentile? Are you male? Are you female? Are you slave or free? In this present world we make distinctions but “there is no partiality with God.” [Romans 2:11] Those who hear his voice and follow, to them the promise is this:

Rom 8:14 MKJV  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

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Find additional reading:

1. Others that hinder the message
2. This is an amazing thing

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Supplementary readings:

• The Fear Of The Lord
• Hearing God’s Voice | Almighty God’s Utterance “God Is Sovereign over the Destiny of All Mankind”
• Affirmation of God: I find the comfort of God in quietness.
• The answers in your soul
• Only God Can Judge Me
• Straight Outta “Love”
• Richard Corriere’s “In Their Own Words.” John Kasich On God’s Unconditional Love
• The Severity Of Vain Glory
• Only the lonely…
• “Listening Heart”
• Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd
• Jesus as the Shepherd (emptycrosscommunity)
• Jesus as the Shepherd (betsybeadhead)
• The Unsurpassable Value of the One
• Leaving Jesus In the Bedroom
• Rivers of Living Water
• Sheep and being led by the Spirit (part two)
• Pieces of Grace

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Related articles

• God Almighty Love is the Greatest:-)
• Psalm 104
• The Creator was the true Mathematician.
• ‘Hand Of God’ Creator And Cast Discuss Rape And Likeable Women – TCA
• Reflective Moment ‘God Is Sovereign’
• Have You Not Heard? Our God is Omniscient
• I Am Called
• We Have Sinned
• To sit for more
• Occam’s Razor Is Satanic

SonShine's Journal -

Let me ask you; Do you know God? Let me tell you about my God because He can be your God too! He is “great and certainly worthy of praise,” He is the defender of both the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the young and the old. You may have heard about his mighty deeds, but have you seen them? Observe His fingerprint of lovingkindness upon the lives of those he calls his own. It is because of this that we are to “go and tell” that the next generation may also know and be known as children of the Almighty God.

Are you rich? Are you poor? It matters not your station in life. What matters is that you are certain about your future destiny. If you fail to listen and heed, your destiny will be the same as fools whose shepherd is death and…

View original post 150 more words

Pascal’s Possibility

Though many may be happy there has been an increase of theological books, we can see that the interest in God has diminished a lot more.

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Theology has wide appeal, and books promoting it are best sellers, but by the common man we notice that he has drifted further apart from any connection with the Divine Creator.
Though the existence of order presupposes the existence of organizing intelligence. Such intelligence can be none other than God’s.” [Dieu existe? Oui (Paris, 1979), Christian Chabanis, quoting Pierre-Paul Grassé, p. 94.]
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It is not because scientifically we can not prove an existence of something that it doe snot exist. The same with God, we not able to proof He does exist or does not exist, makes it not that He would not exist.

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Our minds cannot fully comprehend the Divine Creator. He seems untouchable and incomprehensible. Though if we would look more to the things around us and listen to our inner soul, we would be more sure. Also when we would listen to the Words in the Holy Scripture and let them enter into our heart we shall come to understand lot more things. Listening to the heart will also give lots of answers.

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It is not our minds cannot fully comprehend it that we would have a sound reason for rejecting the existence of God.

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Levels of existence (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Consider examples: (1) Time. No one can point to a certain moment as the beginning of time. And it is a fact that, even though our lives end, time does not. We do not reject the idea of time because there are aspects of it that we do not fully comprehend. Rather, we regulate our lives by it. (2) Space. Astronomers find no beginning or end to space. The farther they probe into the universe, the more there is. They do not reject what the evidence shows; many refer to space as being infinite. The same principle applies to the existence of God.

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Other examples: (1) Astronomers tell us that the heat of the sun at its core is 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit (15,000,000° C.). Do we reject that idea because we cannot fully comprehend such intense heat? (2) They tell us that the size of our Milky Way is so great that a beam of light traveling at over 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/sec) would require 100,000 years to cross it. Do our minds really comprehend such a distance? Yet we accept it because scientific evidence supports it.

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Which is more reasonable—that the universe is the product of a living, intelligent Creator? or that it must have arisen simply by chance from a nonliving source without intelligent direction? Some persons adopt the latter viewpoint because to believe otherwise would mean that they would have to acknowledge the existence of a Creator whose qualities they cannot fully comprehend. But it is well known that scientists do not fully comprehend the functioning of the genes that are within living cells and that determine how these cells will grow. Nor do they fully understand the functioning of the human brain. Yet, who would deny that these exist? Should we really expect to understand everything about a Person who is so great that he could bring into existence the universe, with all its intricate design and stupendous size?

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To remember:

• criteria for God’s existence
• to claim that there is no evidence = claim to knowledge which is itself already assuming a criteria of evidence
• there already exists an unconscious idea
• how should a God exist on their view
• reasons for believing in God’s existence =  entirely pragmatic
• formulate conception of God
• our inability to truly conceive of perfect goodness
• when thinking of God, one must think of a being approaching one’s highest ideals of Perfection
• the better his idea of God => the better he will know God
• the worse the man, the smaller and more shallow his conception of God will be +> therefore the further from the truth he will be ===> digression
• Ontotological argument
• trick of the mind to think that the goodness of a thing counts as positive proof against its existence
• metaphysical possibility of God’s existence > no proof such a being is an impossibility -> possibility
• Pascal was right in concluding that the infinite gain one receives by living in a world of objective meaning, in which at the heart of existence really does lie a Perfect Being who shall set all right, and who can ground all logic and truth, easily justifies the risk one takes in believing in something one thinks is even extremely improbable.
• metaphysics, truth, science, morality, beauty, and a hope in ultimate triumph of good over evil
• if our faith lasts till the end we shall die with about as much hope as it is possible for the human heart to contain.
• We must not be tricked into thinking that just because we are gambling we are gambling on an impossibility. Remember, we are betting on a real possibility – a reality which thousands of years of human thought has not been able to prove impossible, and which there is actually good positive evidence for.

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Preceding articles:

Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics

Science, scepticism, doubts and beliefs

Is faith rational?

Why think there’s a God? (1): Something from Nothing

Why think there is a God? (2) Goldilocks Effect

Why Think There Is a God? (3): Why Is It Wrong?

Why think there is a God (4): And the Rest …

Why think that (4) … God would reveal himself in words

Does He exists?

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Additional reading:

1. Science and God’s existence
2. Did the Inspirator exist
3. Christianity is a love affair
4. When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation
5. Hatred and hostility against God
6. Daring to speak in multicultural environment

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Further interesting readings:

• From Whom Should We Seek Counsel?
• Transformation through God’s word!
• The Whole Counsel of God #563
• God uses our work to put others in right relationship with Him
• Does God Exist?
• IS God really exist…???
• How Do We Know There’s a God When We Can’t See Him?
• God’s Existence
• The Ontological Argument for God’s Existence
• Scientific Evidence for God
• God, Evidence, and the Burden of Proof: Why A Lack of Empirical Evidence for God’s Existence Would put the Atheist in Higher Epistemic Standing
• Friday Phraseology: Wager Argument
• A short and simple truth
• Video: Evidence for God: Key Arguments for a Reasonable Faith | William Lane Craig
• Existence of God and Bertrand Russell
• An Interview with God
• A Return to the Ancient Worldview
• “They trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.” ~~Apostle Paul
• What I Appreciate About Atheists
• Bible Meditation
• 116 Dissected: What Does It Mean to Be Unashamed of the Gospel?
• A Christian Response to Stephen Fry on God and Suffering
• Romans 1:21 – In Defense of the Faith
• The One Big Question For The Atheist To Consider Honestly
• Video- Deconstructing New Atheist Objections to the Arguments for God and Q&A- William Lane Craig
• Video- Christian Apologetics- Doug Powell
• Atheism and Its Irrational Call for Proof of God
• New Video Resources: The Kalam Cosmological & Fine Tuning Arguments
• What an atheist did answer, then me
• Why Philosophy Matters for Christians

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• US: summer or not,” winter is coming” says FCA test lab
• It takes years to learn
• Human beings and creation
• Big Letdown From a Top Emitter: Japan’s Tardy INDC
• Monstrous Whirling Gas Cloud Reveals Clues About Galaxy Formation
• New Planet and Planet Formation: Young Gassy Giant Has Methane and Water
• World breaks temperature record
• UAH Global Temperature Report: July 2015 – the pause continues

The Presence of God

When we look around us we shall be able to see enough proof of the presence and work of the Divine Creator. We only have to open our eyes and our heart. Without opening ourselves for the Most High it can well be we stay blind, blinded by the super strong light creation provides.

To see God we have to be willing to look for Him and to see Him. The presence of God is in the things He created. It can well be that the presence of God can not be seen a a certain church. Like the writer of this poem can not find God in church, many are willing to look for God and luckily they are willing to look at their surroundings, the planes, flowers, forests, mountains and the things above our head.

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Related articles

• Your Light
• The Contemplative Companion for Monday, August 3, 2015
• What’s in a Name? The Presence of God!
• What satisfies your hunger?: Part two
• Be a Creator not a Consumer
• Nature
• Be Ready!
• What satisfies your hunger?: Part two
• Elohim, Mar-Yah showing His wonders

An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows

Whilst there may certainly be nothing sacred or “God-ordained” about the modern nation-state, lots of people do claim the connection of their state with the God of their Christian faith. Lots of those claiming to be Christian do not notice they themselves made themselves an own faith which in many cases has gone far away from the leader Christ Jesus his teachings. Even worse many of the conservative Christians and extreme right people have twisted so much the biblical teachings they do not see straight any more.

Lots of people in the so called democratic countries would like to build up their country to what they call to be a free nation, though they want to put a lot of limitations to whom may enter and to what others may believe.
A very good example of such deformation of the mind is the United States of America where there are some citizens who are totally convinced that it is their own home country, not recognising they themselves came from immigrants, thinking their laws should be build on their restricted view of the Bible, ignoring in a certain way the idea of freedom of the Pilgrims who founded their country.

Americans, convinced that the only state they have does not belong to the original locals, redskins or Indians, neither that it belongs to the Divine Creator, are convinced only they can work, according to their measures, to make ‘their state’ the most just and life-enhancing state it can be.
They are also convinced they should also work against their state as strongly as possible when it is unjust and undermines life. Though they often forget which measures or rules they would consider to be the just, righteous and most right to choose for.

Perhaps they can use an anarchist critique of the state and an anarchist affirmation of the human capacity for self-organizing to help to resist the undermining and, even more, to help them as they seek to construct a well-functioning society.

But most of all I would advice those who call themselves Christian to take up again the Bible and to go through it thoroughly.
All people interested in building up a community which can leave together in peace,is better to take up the manual given by the Supreme Writer and Divine Creator of all.

We can approach the Bible as a storybook and see it as providing a loosely coherent message, amidst a great deal of diversity, but than we shall miss out a lot of wisdom provide in it and would not be able so much to see our own stupidities and the stupidities of our governments who do not want to learn from the past, having the past repeating over and over again.

When we look at the Bereshith, the book of the Beginnings brings us the evolution of all things. Lots of conservative Christians do want to take its writing as a literal presentation from day to day, but it was never intended to be so. Moses neither the Client to write, wanted to present humanity with a factual historical scientist into depth account of what happened throughout the years of this universe.
The very beginning of the Bible provides much important information about the Bible as a whole, about the cosmology of the whole, about the character of the God seen to be central to the entire story, and about the relationships between humankind and this God.

Those people taking up the Bible, the infallible Word of God, should remember that the tale told in that Book of books, is to bring us knowledge about our own beings, our own self, how and why we are and how humanity develops.

In this Best-seller of all times, the One giving His Voice, the One Who asked to have His Words written down, This Creator God speaks of His Creation, which includes not only the human beings (male and female) being created in His own image, but also all the things He gave under dominion of those human beings (plants and animals). Though man could make use of it and could give it names, it has made a mess of it, and has done dishonour to the Creator of it. Too many have forgotten that humanity is commissioned to care for the rest of creation as God’s stewards. This is one of the good reasons lots of people should again or for the first time start reading the Bible to find out what their position on this planet is and what they have as task to do to come to a nice good peaceable world.

The Bible tells us what went wrong in the past and how the relationship between God and man became troubled. We do have to find ways to restore that relationship between God and humanity which is not one of domination, command-and-obedience. Yes it is rather a relationship of like with like. God has given several man of God to lead us and to show us the right way to develop. The prophet and master rabbi Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is the most important one to follow. after so much time that the people still did not come to understand the Torah, Jesus came to clarify it once again and to show the Way to God. though Jesus is the Way, he did not want to do his own will nor wants us to do only his will, neither to make him God or to worship him. He wants us to worship and to pray to the same God he prayed to, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, Who is also the God of him (Jesus) and his disciples.

We are told to put on the armour of Christ and to become like Jesus, and to put on the armour of God becoming one with God like Jesus is one with God. Though God is the Most High and even Jesus could not do anything without his heavenly Father, we also shall never be able to do anything without God allowing it to happen. But we are given the words of Christ and the words of the other prophets to help us to find the right way, trying to transform ourselves by the teachings of the master teacher and by the words of the very different books brought together in the Canonical Bible.

We as humans created in the image of God are also by that Creator asked to be like God. And, perhaps even more importantly, the picture here is that all humanity shares in this divine image — kingly, perhaps, but in a strongly egalitarian sense. As well, human beings are given power and responsibility.

The biggest problem is we all are responsible for our own choice and for our own actions. There is nobody else to blame for what we ourselves decide to follow.
It is up to us to take up the Book of books, to believe in it and to follow up freely its advice and wisdom.

*

To remember:

to avoid the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (2:17) =  restriction >  arbitrary rule from a dominating God intended to prevent human enlightenment? => Such an interpretation contradict much of the surrounding story + much of what follows in the Bible.

restriction = symbolizing innate human limitations.

human beings seek to know + use that knowledge to dominate creation => will devolve into power struggles and develop hierarchies

To avoid such a dynamic =>  to step back from desiring too much “knowledge,” to accept limits, and recognize to live in trust.

Adam and Eve (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“temptation” to violate restriction = too strong => Adam and Eve break the close connection between themselves and God.

coming from human side — after they eat the forbidden fruit, God still seeks to hang around with them in the Garden

humans hide from God (3:8) = they become ashamed of their nakedness.

consequences of this turn toward disharmony = establishment of “enmity” between Adam and Eve (3:15) and of Adam as “ruler” over Eve (3:16).

Not God’s will

new tensions and struggles = characterize human life.

rest of story = God’s work among humanity to overcome this “enmity” and proclivity toward “rulership.”

“fall”= affirmation of fundamental character of human peaceableness and responsiveness to God = complicated by human freedom.

God gives humanity potential to turn away as a key part of basic loving nature of the relationships +> turning away has consequences.

fatalistic interpretation has underwritten power politics over the centuries — the “fallenness” of humanity used as an excuse for a politics of centralized, coercive power.

human proclivity to exercise power in dominating ways = target in story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.  = inclination to centralize human power and to create a “oneness” that serves centralized power.

“scattering” Babel-dwellers (3:4, 8, 9), God seeks to create the conditions for a different kind of oneness — human unity respecting diversity, decentralizing power, based on mutual respect.

rest of the Bible’s story describes long, tenuous process of such a oneness being established.

human beings being gifted through God’s Spirit to connect despite their differences in languages, points to the type of oneness God endorses.

God’s healing strategy

genealogy that will connect Noah with the founding of God’s chosen people, we meet the human founders of the Hebrew peoplehood.

God creates something new out of barreness + promises descendants, beyond counting, and the agents of blessing for “all the families of the earth” (12:3).

important intervention of God = vocation God gives Abram, Sarai, and their descendants = God’s response to what happened in Eden, the story of the Flood, and the Tower of Babel => God will bring healing, but it will be patient, non-coercive, based on love and not on domination.

Founding ancestor of God’s chosen people = far from being a king or powerful ruler.

God’s work to bring healing to creation = not linked with territoriality => no geographical kingdom and no human king.

The method for doing God’s work in the world is “blessing” and this work is intended to encompass “all the families of the earth.”

We will have to follow the rest of the story to understand better the political implications of this starting point. But we should notice right away the combination of a lack of state-centeredness and the optimism about the possibilities of this “blessing” spreading widely without domination.

++
Additional readings:

1. What is life?
2. Leaving the Old World to find better pastures
3. Men of faith
4. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #1 Christian Reform
5. Right to be in the surroundings
6. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
7. Creator and Blogger God 5 Things to tell
8. God wants to be gracious to you
9. The giving and protecting God
10. Testify of the things heard
11. I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late !
12. A secret to be revealed
13. Humility and the Fear of the Lord
14. No fear in love
15. If you want to go far in life
16. Being of good courage running the race
17. Wisdom lies deep
18. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies
19. God should be your hope
20. Your New Job Description — Bless!
21. Count your blessings
22. There can only be hope when there is a will to be and say “I am”

+++

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Thinking Pacifism

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This is the second in a series of posts.

In this survey of some biblical themes looked at from an anarchistic angle, I will not be real precise in my use of “anarchistic.” I’ll be talking about a sensibility more than a full-fledged political philosophy. The key “anarchistic” motifs I will focus on will be a strong suspicion toward centralized social power, especially kingdoms and empires, and an optimism about human possibilities for self-organizing and decentralized social power.

And I will be reading the Bible in fairly naïve and straightforward ways. I approach the Bible as a storybook and see it as providing a loosely coherent message, amidst a great deal of diversity. I will focus more on the loose coherence than the diversity—largely due to a desire to find usable guidance in the Bible. At the same time, in reading the Bible more as…

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