Certainly it's good for something. But without illumination of Spirit, it can become pernicious in the hands of those whose minds are dark, chains of dogma and justifications for self-serving greed under the name of God.
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John 5:36-40 (Sola Scriptura)
- Thread starter Unveiled Artist
- Start date
I certainly did not say only Christians. I would never say such a thing. I agree any can see the Bible from a spiritual light, regardless of their religion. But not everyone is currently seeing from a spiritual light. Not everyone does. Not everyone currently can, and I would argue that those who are the most religious, the ones who "stand on the word of God!", as their substitute for actual spiritual awareness, are the most hard-pressed to do so.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the Buddhist concepts of the far enemy and the near enemy. The far enemy is the obvious opposite of the desired quality. The far enemy of compassion for instance is indifference. It's easy to identify. But the near enemy masquerades itself as that quality, allowing the person to deceive themselves they are engaged in the quality. The near enemy of compassion would be pity. "I'm a compassionate person, because I feel pity for other less-fortunates". That's not true compassion. And I argue that religion is the near enemy of spirituality, because it allows those who are the most religious to deceive themselves that they are engaging in a spiritual life, when it fact it is simply a substitute, a masquerade for a truly spiritual life. There is a huge difference in result between being religious and having spiritual awareness.
So my point is, anyone with spiritual awareness will hear words that are spiritual as they are, not as dogmatic truth claims, but as reflections of that Light, not objects of belief. I believe that religion can actually hinder and interfere in that awareness, because it looks to external authorities to tell you what to believe, rather than awakening to Truth from within. It is far easier to "believe" the Bible, than to know God. As the dear Christian mystic Meister Eckhart said so very well, "I pray God make me free of God that I may know God in his unconditional being". Believing in the Bible, is believing in your ideas, which is no knowledge of Spirit.
I certainly agree.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
The buddhist part was hard to understand.I think I gotcha though.
My pet peeve is when anyone disregards doctrine a dogma as not spiritual. It makes me think of new agers who some work from "intent" rather than physically with or without things being involved in their faith.
When I was part of the Church the dogma did not replace my spirituality it enhanced it. It worked together in my faith in God. When I said back to the priest "may God be with you" it was not ritual. Everytime I said this I believe God be with Him too. Mass is a personal experience with other believrs aka Chuch. When we say "peace be with you" to each other it is not dogma. We actually do want peace to be with the person we say it to.
It is similar to a Muslim saying the sake thing. These repeated sayings that Muhammad emphasis is not mere dogma.
Everyone differs in how they express themselves spiritually and how their involvement with others amplfies their faith. It is not wrong; it is different
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I didnt get that experience from religion. The Church didnt hinder my faith. It made me think of myself in a different light and to some it helps them be better christians...Christ like fir me it was the opposite. I wish all can experience being born again through the sacraments.
It rattles my nerves when someone says you dont need the sacraments to be saved "and" that that is materal dogma not spiritual. It reminds me of new agers...protestants worm off intent/faith. What about the material? Everything is part of creation. They go together.
I mean no one looks down on someone who puts their hands together to pray over their meal. Thave a hissy fit if thebsame geasture is done in a church.
I dont get it.
My pet peeve is when anyone disregards doctrine a dogma as not spiritual. It makes me think of new agers who some work from "intent" rather than physically with or without things being involved in their faith.
When I was part of the Church the dogma did not replace my spirituality it enhanced it. It worked together in my faith in God. When I said back to the priest "may God be with you" it was not ritual. Everytime I said this I believe God be with Him too. Mass is a personal experience with other believrs aka Chuch. When we say "peace be with you" to each other it is not dogma. We actually do want peace to be with the person we say it to.
It is similar to a Muslim saying the sake thing. These repeated sayings that Muhammad emphasis is not mere dogma.
Everyone differs in how they express themselves spiritually and how their involvement with others amplfies their faith. It is not wrong; it is different
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I didnt get that experience from religion. The Church didnt hinder my faith. It made me think of myself in a different light and to some it helps them be better christians...Christ like fir me it was the opposite. I wish all can experience being born again through the sacraments.
It rattles my nerves when someone says you dont need the sacraments to be saved "and" that that is materal dogma not spiritual. It reminds me of new agers...protestants worm off intent/faith. What about the material? Everything is part of creation. They go together.
I mean no one looks down on someone who puts their hands together to pray over their meal. Thave a hissy fit if thebsame geasture is done in a church.
I dont get it.
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I think the way I use the term dogma may be at fault here. I do not mean to disregard ritual and sacraments. Not at all. I fully understand their value and benefit as tools to spiritual awareness within oneself. But I see them as vehicles, not the thing in themselves. I see however, that when one places them as THE thing itself, it becomes a substitute for actual spiritual experience. To quote from Buddhism again (which very much pertains here), the Buddha said, "To insist on a spiritual practice that has served you in the past, is to carry the raft upon your back after you have crossed the river".
That's what I call being "dogmatic", an insistence on the form to the point it becomes a hindrance. You see my point? It's not the dogma or sacrament at fault, but the insistence upon it above all else. In other words, obeying the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. I believe Jesus was quite clear in his approach in that regard to the latter and not the former.
If you notice my signature line below quoting the Zen poet from the 14th century, "Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain,but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon." I think it's pretty clear I support everyone utilizing whichever tools help them, tools and languages which are relative, subjective, and culturally rooted. The end however should be a spiritual awareness, a Unitive Consciousness, through which we see each other all gazing at the Single Bright Moon, beneath its Light, immersed in that Light together, while respecting everyone's regional attire, everyone's language, everyone's relative subjective and cultural views. This to me, IS the Christian message, not this "You don't have the truth if you don't believe these things" attitude. Agree?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Eerrr!!! I wish i had my computer..quoting takes forever
Anyway. I understand now. I would not be surprised that dogma hinders a person. A muslim told me its better for converts because they dont have the dogmatism someone raised in it has. I dont think its a hinderence in itself as you mentioned the sacraments but i do agree with you. Its easy to fal into depending on some thing to where it replaces ones spiritualty
For example and this is my opinion and observation the Eucharist concrecrated or not is bread/wine on appearence. I notice that lwhen one gazes on the eucharist they are seeing Jesus. I understand the physical need and importance. When the Church says you cannot be saved without it it raises my brows as to who saves them concecrated bread or holy spirit.
Mind you many catholics have faith in Christ "and" take the eucharist. I am also as I think youbare saying see that as a hinderence to ones spiritual growth when one cannot see the Eucharist but only in a Church.
I mean I found myself doing that. If I go to a protestant chruch ik searching for the Eucharist.
I can see whatcha saying
Anyway. I understand now. I would not be surprised that dogma hinders a person. A muslim told me its better for converts because they dont have the dogmatism someone raised in it has. I dont think its a hinderence in itself as you mentioned the sacraments but i do agree with you. Its easy to fal into depending on some thing to where it replaces ones spiritualty
For example and this is my opinion and observation the Eucharist concrecrated or not is bread/wine on appearence. I notice that lwhen one gazes on the eucharist they are seeing Jesus. I understand the physical need and importance. When the Church says you cannot be saved without it it raises my brows as to who saves them concecrated bread or holy spirit.
Mind you many catholics have faith in Christ "and" take the eucharist. I am also as I think youbare saying see that as a hinderence to ones spiritual growth when one cannot see the Eucharist but only in a Church.
I mean I found myself doing that. If I go to a protestant chruch ik searching for the Eucharist.
I can see whatcha saying
sincerly
Well-Known Member
SW, I want to revisit this post of yours since you erroneously continue to claim I believe things which I do not believe.
Yes, as Jesus said and I believe, HE is "the way, the truth, and the life".
Jesus, did not say that the Scriptures are HIM or GOD. John 5:39 says in searching the scriptures, one finds they testify of HIM.
The "eternal life" one is promised scripturally is only secured by Faith in what HE CAME to do and did accomplish--again recorded in the Scriptures..
Paul (Acts17:11)acknowledged that the Scriptures showed that what GOD had inspired the prophets to write(Scriptures) was the authority of/from GOD to believe the spoken messages GOD.
Rom.10: (5)10-17, reveals that it is Moses' writing(by commandment of GOD to write) which one's heart receives by Faith unto righteousness and confesses unto salvation.
Again that "Faith" is in John 3:16--the belief in the sacrifice of GOD'S SON for the propitiation of sins.
This is seen in John 5:37-47(as well and you posted.)"
For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"
Heb.4:2, affirms the GOD is NOT a respecter of person. HIS salvation is available to all who chose to have GOD as their GOD in Love and Obedience. "For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
1Pet.1:18-20, "Forasmuch as ye 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 blemish and without spot:
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,"
John 17:5, affirms Peter's above. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
If you have problems with those verses it is because of your own assessment. The Scriptures agree with the teachings of Jesus as HE taught having received from the Father.
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sincerly
Well-Known Member
Nazz, "scriptures" would apply to all "writings", But, Yes, It is only the true seeker who see/understand the messages of Salvation through the Biblical Scriptures.
Reading is an exercise--but not necessarily for "believing/edification."
sincerly
Well-Known Member
Pegg, Let's look at what Jesus was saying and the scripture Jesus was quoting.` John 6:44-45 KJV, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."
Isa.54: (3, 5)13, Prophetic for the end of time. "And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children."
Jer.31:34, an end of time prophecy. ""And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Micah 4:2, "Ditto". "And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem."
In these last days, the GOD still speak to us in the inspired writings of those(Prophets) HE gave the Messages to and those Scriptures have not lost any of their truthfulness.
Jesus is still the "bread of life". In HIS blood, one has propitiation for sins and "eternal life."
GOD revealed Jesus in all those Sacrifices(from the initial one to clothe the guilty pair), and from Abraham's experience with Isaac, the brazen serpent, the Ark, Jonah's experience with the whale, in Lazarus's resurrection, etc.
And Jesus revealed the Father in all of the NT.
Gerald Kelleher
Active Member
Knowing God in his unconditioned being is quite an experience as a Christian and few have been able to express such a condition adequately as a journey of descent much like the ancient Job finding that the God above was actually a God of the human condition at its most desperate. Christ and genuine Christians lose the conception of a God of reward and punishment and subsist on doing what they can for others in all sorts of creative and productive ways as the only means to live with injustice, greed, cruelty ,pretense and all the other traits of man that diminish existence.
Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
In more eloquent hands it shines like so -
"Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation- free from every limitation and beyond them all." Dionysius the Areopagite
It is the flame of negation that burns away any pretense we have and act in an individual way as God does.
Yes, I agree the apophatic approach opens one to what God is, to apprehend and experience what is beyond all ideas we hold, look for, expect, and so forth. There is of course the other side of it though, after we are immersed within this God, we have to say "something".
And that's fine, so long as it is understood by those seeking that they are merely fingers pointing to the moon, and not a definition of the moon itself. A cataphatic approach can lead one up to the door by pointing you in a direction, teaching you the nature of yourself along the way, but it takes laying it all down and completely emptying yourself of any seeking for what you think you will find, in order to find. In other words, when Jesus says to seek and you shall find, the seeking is to come to the place of not seeking. You seek to no longer attempt to know the God you believe in. You seek to know the God beyond what you believe in. Then you find. You die, and then you are resurrected.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
Actually the bible is Jehovahs Word and salvation comes because Jehovah sent Jesus to us.
It says it throughout, for example:
Jeremiah 1:1 The words of Jeremiah*+the son of Hil·ki′ah,* one ofthe priests that were in An′a·thoth+ in the land of Benjamin;+2 to whom the word of Jehovah occurred in the days of Jo·si′ah +the son of A′mon,+the king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reigning.+
Ezekiel 1:1 Now it came about in the thirtieth year, in the fourth [month], on the fifth [day] of the month, while I was in the midst of the exiled+ people by the river Che′bar,+ that the heavens were opened+ and I began to see visions of God.*+2 On the fifth [day] of the month, that is, [in] the fifth year of the exile of King Je·hoi′a·chin,*+3 the word of Jehovah occurred+ specifically to Ezekiel+
Isaiah 1:10 Hear the word of Jehovah,+YOU dictators+of Sod′om.+ Give ear to the law of our God, YOU people of Go·mor′rah.
Amos 3:1
3 “Hear this word that Jehovah has spoken concerning YOU,+ O sons of Israel, concerning the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt,+ saying,
Zechariah 1:1 In the eighth month in the second year of Da·ri′us,+ the word of Jehovah came to the prophet Zech·a·ri′ah*+ son of Ber·e·chi′ah son of Id′do, saying: 2 “Jehovah grew greatly indignant at your fathers.
2 Samuel (40 occurrences)
4 On that very night, the word of Jehovah came to Nathan, saying: 5 “Go and say to my servant David, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Should you build me a house to dwell in?+
Exodus 4:22 You must say to Phar′aoh, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “Israel is my son, my firstborn.
Haggai 1:2 “This is what Jehovah of armies says, ‘These people say, “The time has not yet come for the house* of Jehovah to be built.”’”*+
Every book of the bible is the Word of Jehovah. And if Jesus words are correct (No one can come to Jesus unless he has been drawn by the Father) how can you really be sure that you know Jesus if you dont even know who's Word the bible really is???
i agree with you. But who actually gives out the holy spirit?
According to Jesus, it is Jehovah or the Father who gives holy spirit:
John 14:26 But the helper, the holy spirit, which the Father will send in my name, that one will teach you all things and bring back to your minds all the things I told you.
If your belief is that Jesus sends the holy spirit, where did that idea originate from?
And what if what you think you know about Christ is the opposite of what the scriptures actually say? Let me give you an example....
Eve was told that she would not die if she ate from the tree. But Gods word stated "in the day you eat from it you will surely die" .
So Gods Word was true and correct. Eve did die. But she was told that she would not die. Where did the false information come from??? Wasnt it Satan the devil? Are you sure that the information you've been has not come from such a source? Your views do seem to contradict Gods Word afterall.
Gerald Kelleher
Active Member
Yes, I agree the apophatic approach opens one to what God is, to apprehend and experience what is beyond all ideas we hold, look for, expect, and so forth. There is of course the other side of it though, after we are immersed within this God, we have to say "something".
A cataphatic approach can lead one up to the door by pointing you in a direction, teaching you the nature of yourself along the way, but it takes laying it all down and completely emptying yourself of any seeking for what you think you will find, in order to find. In other words, when Jesus says to seek and you shall find, the seeking is to come to the place of not seeking. You seek to no longer attempt to know the God you believe in. You seek to know the God beyond what you believe in. Then you find. You die, and then you are resurrected.
I had to look up apophatic and cataphatic in a Google search but they sound like a sort of a lecture about going on a journey rather than the description of a journey itself which involves no approach and no choice. I will say that at the beginning of the journey after an amazing awakening I read everything there was to read about the experiences of others and can laugh now at being naive in a self-centered way but 25 years later I can forgive myself the notion that I was ascending up to some spiritual level instead of realizing that it is a process of becoming more human and more intimate with the encompassing life that surrounds us.
In a practical way I deal with issues that the more renowned members of the Christian Church once shied away from and rightly so as it takes 21st century tools to make sense of observations and put them in order. Unless you haven't noticed there is an empirical cult out there convincing everyone that they have proof that humans can control time by moving quickly or they know the foundations of all that is seen began in a big explosion.In short, there is a forced disconnect between the temporal and the Eternal as the life of the individual encompassed in the great life of the Universe is lost to voodoo about time travel and so on.
In short, the returning pilgrim has something to say about the modern world and the pretense couched in academic bluffing and voodoo and it is time to recover something that was lost among Christians and other spiritual people in a practical way. It is that part of humanity that really needs to be addressed by facing a part of physical experience people fear or see as irrelevant due to generational prejudices.
"Some of the brethren raise a question concerning the motion of
heaven, whether it is fixed or moved. If it is moved, they say, how is
it a firmament? If it stands still, how do these stars which are held
fixed in it go round from east to west, the more northerly performing
shorter circuits near the pole, so that the heaven (if there is
another pole unknown to us) may seem to revolve upon some axis, or (if
there is no other pole) may be thought to move as a discus? To these
men I reply that it would require many subtle and profound reasonings
to find out which of these things is actually so; but to undertake
this and discuss it is consistent neither with my leisure nor with the
duty of those whom I desire to instruct in essential matters more
directly conducing to their salvation and to the benefit of the holy
Church." St Augustine
They're simply technical terms for different approaches to contemplative practice. Cataphatic is where you actively hold an imagine in mind and meditate upon that, entering within it so to speak. Apophatic is where you empty the mind of all images, ideas, expectations, etc. (what you were describing). These are techniques that people either are just doing naturally in meditation, or are very specifically practiced towards a certain goal, or result.
Of course the journey itself cannot be taught. As the saying goes, the map of the terrain is not the terrain itself. But I would disagree there is no choice in the matter. One can easily withdraw himself from God in practice. We do so when we allow ourselves to be distracted, looking to our ideas, our expectations, our fears, our beliefs, etc. It how we avoid God, by avoiding the end of ourselves. To willfully put yourself to death in this manner, so to speak, is most definitely a choice, through which you can then rightly say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ in me". That doesn't really happen before that complete laying down of oneself, and that doesn't happen unless we choose to do that.
I relate in some regards, but my experience was different in that I had no idea what this was and was looking to others to tell me how to find this path home again (to something it turns out they had no experience in themselves). My path was one more of frustration and confusion with the lack of true freedom to be found in these teachings of others, using all the right words, but in an inadequate context. I really never had a place to be proud of my "accomplishments" spiritually, as I never really grew much beginning where they were at.
Eventually, through beginning a meditation practice freed from the constrictions of their bubble they created of theologies and beliefs, that opening into what began this journey for me was right there as in the beginning. I mused with myself, "Now I begin where I began 30 years ago." Through this then I have come to see the nature of where different people are on their spiritual paths. It's not that they were "wrong", per se, but in all honesty that awakening experience I had that began all this, was beyond where they were at. Even though I was incredibly naive about things spiritual and religious, my experience had opened to me something that was beyond where they were at. It was sort of like being at a highschool sort of understanding taking classes in an elementary school class.
I'm not saying that to speak pridefully, but there simply is a path of growth that occurs where certain knowledge comes later. It just so happened, that even though I never had any schooling at all, that "lightening bolt" blew the roof off my collapsed world and exposed what was beyond all descriptions. In other words, I began with that knowledge of God, and had to take a step back a bit to begin with a few elementary school classes. The problem is, that's all they knew and understood. I had to keep going on my path outside their classroom.
Had I exposure to others who understood the nature of these things, had I read about them, etc., would I have become "puffed up" back then? Hard to say. Maybe so. It's a different history and would be a different me. Probably because I did suffer self-esteem issues, and those that have that will often "weaponize" their attributes to see themselves as having power in the face of fear. I'm describing pride of course.
I believe I hear what you are saying. I think people have rightly cast off these mythic-literal systems which keep one's spirituality tied to that elementary school classroom I described. The problem is, there is no home in the mainline, fundamentalist religion. So in order to embrace our rational natures, in order to not deny our own minds, they rightly reject it and throw out the baby of spirituality with the bathwater of myth. A choice is made to reclaim reason and reject anything related to a spiritual path, because that is the choice religion is presenting them!
It comes full circle back to this discussion about sola scriptura. The claim that we have to follow what the Bible says in order to be "saved", has a hidden message embedded within it which says you have to read it in the context of mythic-literal understandings! That's crap, to be blunt. If someone lives in a different context, they will not, and cannot any longer read it that way, as a child reads it and sees God like Santa Claus, or the Great Magician in the Sky, sort of literal view. God can in fact be understood in a rational context, knowing that God is a description of the transcendent. Which is not saying one can know God through reason and rationality, but that reason and rationality can understand the nature of God as transcendent to human reason, which includes all these mythic-literal depictions.
That is what is lacking in religion, is that voice that says you can explore the knowledge of God, legitimately, honoring your own traditions if you wish, by simply advancing your own spiritual understanding through an actual spiritual practice. It's like Jesus said, "Make clean the inside of the cup first". That's where growth occurs. That when you begin to see that the beliefs are really simply support structures, scaffoldings we climb upon that hold up the building of ourselves we are erecting, through reaching to God. But that scaffolding eventually is no longer needed, and in the meantime should not be mistaken as that building itself. It's simply tools that serve a purpose, but not the essence of the structure itself.
That's a great quote, but I would challenge it in today's context to not exclude the value and benefit to having a scientific understanding. I believe the whole person, mind, body, and spirit must be addressed. I do not believe that the denial of the body or mind results in a spiritually whole person. I believe in both a path of ascension, and a path of descension. We reach to knowledge of God, and into the world as it is, not in denial of it. It is as Jesus said the two great commandments that the entirety of a spiritual path depend on is to first connect to God, and secondly to enter with that Source into the world. That to me is what the incarnation is, in all of us.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Okay. Im just saying in so many words that to me you are idolizing the Bible. You are saying one cannot be saved without a Bible. Youre replacing the Bible for the Holy Spirit.
What I am saying is with or without the Bible a Christian is saved. Without the Bible he still has the Holy Spirit. Without the Bible he is still saved.
The Word not the Bibke is Jesus Christ. Relationahip with christ rests between you and Christ. Having a Bible shouldnt dictate the authenticity of your salvation. What you do for Christ and how you act for Him does. The Bible helps with tbia as you say "and" it is not your salvation.
This is my point below. The helper is the holy spirit on the bible.
John 14:26 But the helper, the holy spirit, which the Father will send in my name, that one will teach you all things and bring back to your minds all the things I told you.
What I am saying is with or without the Bible a Christian is saved. Without the Bible he still has the Holy Spirit. Without the Bible he is still saved.
The Word not the Bibke is Jesus Christ. Relationahip with christ rests between you and Christ. Having a Bible shouldnt dictate the authenticity of your salvation. What you do for Christ and how you act for Him does. The Bible helps with tbia as you say "and" it is not your salvation.
This is my point below. The helper is the holy spirit on the bible.
John 14:26 But the helper, the holy spirit, which the Father will send in my name, that one will teach you all things and bring back to your minds all the things I told you.
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I think the difference between saved by Holy Spirit and saved by Holy Spirit AND The Bible is that with it a person is able to communicate with The Holy Spirit. Without God's Word, there can't be a communicating because a person must learn language to communicate. The Bible is the language of The Holy Spirit.
If it is true scripture is to know how to communicate with Jesus Christ then the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong because they believe Jesus Christ communicates only with 144,000.
If it is true scripture is to know how to communicate with Jesus Christ then the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong because they believe Jesus Christ communicates only with 144,000.
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Gerald Kelleher
Active Member
Over in another thread I am demonstrating to a bunch of empirical cultists that the graceful arc of the Sun from horizon to horizon within each 24 hours is due to a single rotation of the Earth and they don't want to know and to be frank I don't think anyone else does either. Want to be spiritual then let the mind and body work in sync with the great planetary cycles that govern our physical existence and yet we live in a world that imagines the Earth turns more times than the steady progressions of 24 hour days in a year !!!!.
" It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year" NASA /Harvard
1904PA.....12..649B Page 649
" We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold." Ruysbroeck
The great Christian souls such as Ruysbrooek reached for natural analogies as pilgrims through the great Christian Way, we live in a world which can't even get the most intimate fact imaginable straight as we turn with the planet and to the central Sun each day.
Gerald Kelleher
Active Member
144 is used in two different ways and should give the reader an important clue as to how to approach numerical values in Revelation, if not then don't worry about it.
Gerald Kelleher
Active Member
There is one sight along the Christian Way which is not really proper to speak about although there are description of the experience of 'light from light' that exist however the contemplative may assume this is the end and continue on that road to nowhere for some distance before realizing that stilling the mind to accept the Unspeakable image is not going to happen and turns out to be really counter-productive. Then the Christian takes the long trek back to humanity and experiences the rough and tumble treatment that makes us more human and that is why I love the lively analogy of St Francis -
"And now, brother, listen to the conclusion. Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to his friends, is the grace of overcoming oneself, and accepting willingly, out of love for Christ, all suffering, injury, discomfort and contempt; for in all other gifts of God we cannot glory, seeing they proceed not from ourselves but from God, according to the words of the Apostle, ‘What hast thou that thou hast not received from God? and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?’ But in the cross of tribulation and affliction we may glory, because, as the Apostle says again, ‘I will not glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Amen.”
Perfect joy according to Saint Francis of Assisi
In short, negating the mind would not constitute the descriptions of Dionysius nor St Francis insofar as finding God beyond all individual sufferings runs parallel to observing it in the wider world.
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Yes it does.
One has to first move beyond themselves into God, to see others and be God in the world to them. Otherwise, you're operating out of your ego in your charity.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
This is what the Apostle Paul said to Timothy as recorded in the bible: 2Timothy 3: 14 You, however, continue in the things that you learned and were persuaded to believe,+ knowing from whom you learned them 15 and that from infancy+ you have known the holy writings,+ which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus
According to this, it is the 'holy writings' which makes us 'wise for salvation' because they can instill faith in a believer....and there salvation really comes from 'faith'
This goes back to what I originally asked you about.... how do you even know what the sacraments are and what they mean? Isnt it the bible, the holy writings which lay them out and explain them???
Yes. The holy writings are what gave us faith in Christ because they record his life and teachings. Those holy writings are the source of our knowledge.
I would actually take it a step further and say that our relationship with Christ depends on our relationship with Jehovah.
John 6;65 He went on to say: “This is why I have said to you, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”"
It seems fairly reasonable to conclude here that we must first know the Father.
I certainly agree though that the bible should not become an idol to be worshiped. But nor should we be worshiping Jesus either.