It's all about God!

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Retrobyter said:

A relationship is not a partnership. The Father is ALWAYS in a higher position than a son, but partners are considered EQUALS, and THAT will not do at all to a God who said,

Nowhere did I say it was an equal partnership.

 

[Retrobyter]

7 hours ago, CCole1983 said:

Nowhere did I say it was an equal partnership.

Shabbat shalom, CCole1983.

Okay, but that's why it's a bad choice of word. It IMPLIES an "equal partnership," elevating the individual, which IMPLIES a weaker God. That's how I took what you were saying.

It's the same thing that happened to Yeshua` when He claimed to be God's Son to the Jews. They reasoned that, by elevating Himself, He was lessening or "blaspheming" God, "putting God down."

If you're going to use the word "partnership" in the future, you might want to specify that it is NOT an "EQUAL partnership." Most partnerships in business are two (or more) people who throw in together to make a new business work. They meet on the same level with their individual strengths and each contributes to the forming of that new company.

When we "meet with God," we are most certainly NOT "on the same level" as we have NO "individual strengths" by which to contribute, especially to the "salvation" in which God justifies us. It's not until God IMBUES us with His power that we can "contribute" in some small way.

Chalk it up to semantics, if you want. I think we're on the same page, now. At least, in this area.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Retrobyter

[Retrobyter]

Shabbat shalom to all.

God has communicated to us down through the years with languages, both spoken and written. However, while neither God nor His messages have changed, we humans DO change, and usually NOT for the better. A living language will change with the "changing times," adding new words, changing the definitions of old words, and dropping other words as "archaic" or even "obsolete." This is why, from time to time, even the Bible needs revisions.

Back in the late 20th century, many were attempting to "re-educate people" to the proper usage of certain words, to get people back on the right page so they could understand the Bible, particularly the KJV, since that version has been around 400 years or so. Some gave up trying to re-educate them and tried to change the version, updating the language of the Bible to the current usages of the English language. That, too, however, is failing because the English language is changing at such a volatile rate! (Also, such translations draw upon the translators' understanding of the Bible

This is why, for me, it is best to learn the original languages in which the Bible was written. Of course, even textbooks on those original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek suffer from the same fate as that of the Bible for the rapidly changing English language, although shielded in the world of acadamia. This is why dictionaries, especially those with good etymologies for each word, become so important. They are supposed to be BRIDGES between the now and the past, explaining how the words have originated and changed.

My point is that, whatever we use for a version and whatever we use for a language, the GOAL is to understand what God has communicated to us and thereby to understand God a little better: to know what He wants from us and to know what He likes and dislikes, because it IS all about God. Therefore, we should also concentrate on the etymologies and histories of words.

[Retrobyter]

Shabbat shalom to all.

For instance, have you ever looked up the word "heaven" in a dictionary? Do you know the etymology and history of the English word "heaven?"

One dictionary says this:

heaven |ˈhevən| noun1 a place regarded in various religions as the abode of God (or the gods) and the angels, and of the good after death, often traditionally depicted as being above the sky.• God (or the gods): Constantine was persuaded that disunity in the Church was displeasing to heaven.• Theology a state of being eternally in the presence of God after death.• informal a place, state, or experience of supreme bliss: lying by the pool with a good book is my idea of heaven.• used in various exclamations as a substitute for “God”: Heaven knows! | good heavens!2 (often heavens) literary the sky, especially perceived as a vault in which the sun, moon, stars, and planets are situated: Galileo used a telescope to observe the heavens.PHRASES the heavens openit suddenly starts to rain heavily.in seventh heavenin a state of ecstasy.move heaven and earth to do somethingmake extraordinary efforts to do a specified thing: if he had truly loved her he would have moved heaven and earth to get her back.stink (or smell) to high heaven have a very strong and unpleasant odor.DERIVATIVES heavenward |ˈhev(ə)nwərd| adjective& adverb.heavenwards |ˈhev(ə)nwərdz| adverbORIGIN Old English heofon, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch hemel and German Himmel .

Look at the section directly above titled "ORIGIN." 

Wikipedia adds this for the ETYMOLOGY section:

Etymology

The modern English word heaven is derived from the earlier (Middle English) heven (attested 1159); this in turn was developed from the previous Old English form heofon. By about 1000, heofon was being used in reference to the Christianized "place where God dwells", but originally, it had signified "sky, firmament"[1] (e.g. in Beowulf, c. 725). The English term has cognates in the other Germanic languages: Old Saxon heƀan "sky, heaven", Middle Low German heven "sky", Old Icelandic himinn "sky, heaven", Gothic himins; and those with a variant final -l: Old Frisian himel, himul "sky, heaven", Old Saxon/Old High German himil, Old Saxon/Middle Low German hemmel, Dutch hemel, and modern German Himmel. All of these have been derived from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *Hemina-.[2]

Now, let's do the same thing with "sky":

sky |skī| noun (plural skies) (often the sky) the region of the atmosphere and outer space seen from the earth: hundreds of stars shining in the sky | Jillson had never seen so much sky.• literary heaven; heavenly power: the just vengeance of incensed skies.verb (skies, skying, skied) [with object] informal hit (a ball) high into the air: he skied his tee shot.• hang (a picture) very high on a wall, especially in an exhibition.PHRASES out of a clear blue sky see blue1.the sky's the limit informal there is practically no limit (to something such as a price that can be charged or the opportunities afforded to someone).to the skies very highly; enthusiastically: he wrote to his sister praising Lizzie to the skies.DERIVATIVES skyey |ˈskīē| adjective.skyless adjectiveORIGIN Middle English (also in the plural denoting clouds): from Old Norse ský  ‘cloud.’ The verb dates from the early 19th century.

Again, look at the ORIGIN part. And, the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

sky (n.) 

c. 1200, "a cloud," from Old Norse sky "cloud," from Proto-Germanic *skeujam "cloud, cloud cover" (source also of Old English sceo, Old Saxon scio "cloud, region of the clouds, sky;" Old High German scuwo, Old English scua, Old Norse skuggi "shadow;" Gothic skuggwa "mirror"), from PIE root *(s)keu- "to cover, conceal" (see hide (n.1)). 

Meaning "upper regions of the air" is attested from c. 1300; replaced native heofon in this sense (see heaven). In Middle English, the word can still mean both "cloud" and "heaven," as still in the skies, originally "the clouds." Sky-high is from 1812; phrase the sky's the limit is attested from 1908. Sky-dive first recorded 1965; sky-writing is from 1922.

sky (v.) 

"to raise or throw toward the skies," 1802, from sky (n.).

Thus, "obscure" and "sky" come from the same origin, and the word originally meant "a cloud!"

So, the words that once meant "sky" and "a cloud" now mean "God's abode" and the "sky," respectively! Do you see a paradigm shift in the language?