My problem with our shared language

[Beckett]

56 minutes ago, Justin Adams said:

Wisdom only comes from the Lord High God, Yahweh (Yeshua - God is Salvation).

This is seen in the passage: "Had they but known, they never would have killed the King of Glory".

If you understand psalm 82 and Deut 32, you will see that God removed trust and wisdom from His ruling spirits. Then they ran amok and made up a bunch of fake religions and god-heads, setting themselves up to be worshiped as a god. The silly (yet powerful) principalities cannot have an original thought but can only pervert what the Lord High God has setup Himself. It is laughable!!

I will look into it.

Materialism, lust for power, narcissism and ignorance is the fake god-head of the masses today, we see the effect in the climate crisis which maybe just has begun. There really is no such thing as atheism, humans alway worship something: be it their own self, their car, wife, money, rationality, their job and so on ... Underlying all this there is a mountain of lies.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Beckett

[Justin Adams]

3 minutes ago, Beckett said:

Materialism, lust for power, narcissism and ignorance is the fake god-head of the masses today, we see the effect in the climate crisis which maybe just has begun. There really is no such thing as atheism, humans alway worship something: be it their own self, their car, wife, money, their job and so on ... Underlying all this there is a mountain of lies.

Yes, this is a big issue. Even the 'christian church' is heavily steeped in traditions of men. SUN-day, the 'easter' fiasco to replace Passover. The so-called Reformation that changed little but pasted a new label with martyr's blood dripping from it...

The anti-Semitic writings of not a few 'bastions of Christendom' (see "Things your pastor never told you"). Understand that much has been twisted, ignored or 'translated' away by those that knew full well what they were doing. The so-called pre-trib rapture and other fake movements are all over YouTube screaming for attention. The pagan deities have been revisited by our latest super-heroes that our kids are allowed to watch.

It is quite nauseating to us, imagine how our Lord must feel...

[Beckett]

29 minutes ago, Justin Adams said:

Yes, this is a big issue. Even the 'christian church' is heavily steeped in traditions of men. SUN-day, the 'easter' fiasco to replace Passover. The so-called Reformation that changed little but pasted a new label with martyr's blood dripping from it...

The anti-Semitic writings of not a few 'bastions of Christendom' (see "Things your pastor never told you"). Understand that much has been twisted, ignored or 'translated' away by those that knew full well what they were doing. The so-called pre-trib rapture and other fake movements are all over YouTube screaming for attention. The pagan deities have been revisited by our latest super-heroes that our kids are allowed to watch.

It is quite nauseating to us, imagine how our Lord must feel...

 

Yes, the super-heroes, What they do to a childs mind and,  is to create this false idealization of human super powers. So for example, when they grow up they spend all their time in the gym trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Becomes part of the machinery - buys protein powder and feed the always hungry capitalist system. It screams: me, me, me! feed me, feed me! that's really what one becomes when going down these paths, narcisstic and ignorant, there can't be any truth in a mind that screams like that.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Beckett

[GandalfTheWise]

19 hours ago, Beckett said:

This is my experience: When one pray, meditate or do any kind of honest silent contemplation. The barriers created by language don't play such an important part. What I mean is, I no longer think in the line of I, them, you, me. As these are distinctions created in language, and is superfluous when in silent contemplation.  But then, when I am in my ordinary state, out in the world, talking to people. Of course, these distinctions needs to be made - as our language as it is, depend on them. But this sometimes makes me feel uneasy, like it can be difficult to balance these two states of mind. Like I somehow need to go out of myself in order to talk to people, anyone get the same feelings? I always do my best to be mindful and say the right thing to other people, but well ... it can be difficult, to balance this religious search for wisdom and understanding, but at the same time talk to people, that maybe got no such need for wisdom and understanding.

[Reformatted for space]

My observation is that our brain (or at least mine , I'm assuming this is true of others) has a few different modes it can operate in.   One is what I'd call the talking-mode which is where we are using language or symbolism or some sort of abstract patterns whether in thinking or interacting with others.  The second is what I'd call the existing-mode where we simply sit down and (for lack of a better description) just feel what is happening around us.  One example is just sitting on my front porch feeling the breeze, listening to birds, and just feeling the peace and calm without my mind actively using language.  Another example is just snuggling with my wife in the middle of a cold winter night feeling a warm embrace as I fall asleep.  Another is enjoying a bowl of ice cream after working in the yard on a hot day just relishing the cool texture and taste.   The reality is that both of these modes, "talking" and "existing", are a part of who we are.

I see two misconceptions about the existing-mode.  The first is those who equate spirituality with being in the existing-mode.  The second is those who consider the existing-mode to be primarily sinful rather than being a part of how we were created in Eden to enjoy the world God created for us.

My sense of things is that some groups have elevated the existing-mode into being what spirituality is about.  I'm not sure, but my understanding is that some eastern practices are about shutting down the talking-mode and trying to exclusively be in the existence-mode.  I also see some in the west (in an absence of relationship with God and absence of His Spirit inside) also seeking these types of experiences as being what spirituality is about.  I think this is perhaps why some of the modernist/rationalist elements in mainline churches have an affinity with eastern religions.  Many of their descriptions of spirituality seem to just be descriptions of the existing-mode of our brains where we enjoy a bowl of ice cream, sit on a porch, or take a walk.  My sense is that some of their practices are about trying to cultivate being in the existing-mode to achieve more and more experiences of it.

The second thing I see a problem with is equating the existing-mode with our sinful nature.  This is basically the old gnostic heresy (if I recall the names of the heresies correctly) of the flesh and physical world being evil and the spirit being good.  They are the ones who denied Jesus could be born physically because the physical world is evil.  Even though Christians explicitly reject gnosticism, many Christians implicitly accept their assumption that the physical world around us is completely evil rather than the more biblical view that it is corrupted and fallen thus retaining some of it's original beauty and goodness but now intertwined with sin and evil.  For many Christians who implicitly accept the gnostic dualism of physical-bad/spirit-good, even any type of positive or healthy emotions or feelings are considered suspicious and to be avoided.

I think living a healthy spiritual live is going to involve both ways our brain operates.  We can read, pray, study, and worship using language.   Then there is too simply resting in God's presence and enjoying His peace and comfort.  There is praying with understanding, and there is pouring out deep feelings and groans that words cannot express.  There is the worship of understanding and there is the worship of being awestruck with wonder where words fail.  There is the expression of encouragement through words and there is the encouragement of just sitting silently next to someone.   There is knowing and believing particular facts about God and then there is the presence of His Spirit within us that we try and usually fail to adequately describe in words.  We can use words like being new creation in Christ or being born anew or born again, but these words fall short of describing what it is like when we first feel the presence of our Creator changing us.  At least for me (and I'm assuming true of other Christians), it is an indescribable thing for which words are like the difference between a menu and a real meal, an orchestral musical score versus a live performance, or reading someone's biography instead of actually living with them.

With regard to mystics, I think that there are two very different and mutually incompatible types of them, new-age/eastern types and Christians.  There are those for whom existing-mode is all that spirituality is.  They are promoting a type of mental conditioning to get out of talking-mode.  I think this is much of the new age movement and modern/rational movements in mainline churches who are looking for emotional experiences of some type.  Then there are the Christian mystics through the ages who describe a very real walk with God where existing-mode also comes into play.  Worship is no longer only theologically correct words we recite or sing as a congregation  but can also be awestruck wonder where we are speechless.  Prayer can be recited and spoken with understanding, but it can also be the speechless groaning of our innermost being.  My sense is that many of those early Christian mystics were trying to describe a walk with God that was real and vibrant to their contemporaries for whom spirituality was attending services, participating in rituals, believing the correct beliefs, and doing the right things.  As I've read some of them, I have the sense of a born-again believer in the midst of those who are not born-again who is trying to use the religious language of their time and place to explain to their religious contemporaries that the formal rigid doctrine, liturgies, and rituals of their traditional church are mere shadows of the real thing.   Whenever I read or listen to anything, I try to discern if this is a person who is trying to explain a very real experience with God that is hard to put into words or if this is a person for whom any experience is valid.

[Jostler]

we're getting perilously close to investigating the differences and interactions of spirit, soul and body.  What the "heart" is and where  it fits in that overall explanation of our being. 

The role language  plays is an amazing one and understanding the limitations of human  languages is a fruitful bit of knowledge to pursue.  I'm very interested in  what He's doing with  this....

It's a shame the  mandatory study of a second language was purged from the  American education system, because once you have learned another language besides your native language, it's easier to see how the language you were  born into constrains thinking, and actually prevents consideration of some concepts and perspectives because the  language itself has no way to express them.

We are molded by our  language  far more than we realize.  The mind of the  spirit has no such limitations  because it's "language" encompasses FAR more than mere words and is capable of FULLY expressing knowledge that simultaneously involves words, emotions, understanding and wisdom.

When the  indwelling Spirit speaks  a word to my spirit, which then transfers that to  my mind, I find that complex understandings simply  "bloom"in my  mind with such force, i have to work NOT to  believe it.  It is very odd thing for  someone like  me who was DESIGNED with a VERY logical, rational, linear mental process.  To apprehend knowledge without being  able to "trace" a logical pathway from ignorance to conclusion was very foreign to me at first.

Even so I have found that a SINGLE rhema Word spoken to my spirit in the  past, has required months of meditation and pouring through the  written  Word of God to confirm it.  i find that once secured by "testing the spirit" and making certain what I  heard  is from God and confirmed by His Word,  when I try to share the revelation with others, i have to write paragraph after paragraph in an attempt to explain the SINGLE Word I heard  in my heart.

The communication of the Spirit  is FAR broader than mere words, and very often words are  simply not up to the task of  transferring understanding  to another.  Abesent  the  presence and working of  the  Teacher of the Church, we can pound out words to  exhaustion, and produce nothing of value  in the heart of another.  HE must be  present to add the depth and richness of His ways  of communicating and revelation to  the  hearer's heart  or it is a useless endeavor to even try.  These things are spiritually discerned. 

[JustPassingThru]

7 hours ago, Beckett said:

That is interesting. So would that mean, when Jesus was crucified, that the knowledge of the word was crucified?

 

And that it this way, needs to be a rebirth - a rebirth of the word? so that the holy spirit can shine understanding on the knowledge

 

And that this then is the trinity? when united: Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Father: Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom.

The Word, also know as the Son, the second person of the Trinity of God is Eternal, the Alpha and the Omega, without beginning or end. The God-Man we know as Jesus of Nazareth, had a beginning about 2,000 years ago, the Man was crucified and died, not the Word.

The very first Book of the Bible is Genesis, which means in the Hebrew language, "beginnings," in Genesis  1:1-4 we read and understand the world God had created was in disorder and covered in darkness, we see the Holy Spirit "hovering" over the earth and the Divine fiat was pronounced (which is more accurate in the French translations to the Hebrew), Lumière soit!  Lumière fut!  ...Light be! Light was! 

Those four verses explains for us exactly what happens in our lives...

We read in the Word, Psalm 139:13, ...that the Word, the Son, Jesus, ...literally knit us together in the womb of our mother, that is the Good part Gen 1:1, ...the human fetus begins to produce it's own blood from the moment of conception, not receiving any of it's mother's sin tainted blood, ...however Genesis 5:3, Romans 5:12 tells us Adam passed on to all of his descendants through his seed his rebellious, sinful nature and that is true for our fathers also Gen 1:2, ...then sometime, as we grow and mature from infant, child, teenager, to adult the Light of the Holy Spirit bursts forth into our darkened minds, Light be! Light was! and the very first thing we see, we actually understand spiritually in our darkened hearts is, ...Jesus is God!  

The Holy Spirit is "hovering" over us, drawing us to Father which usually causes our human nature that needs to "worship" something to "feel" the need to start attending what we call in our human understanding "church," ...if we follow the guiding of the Holy Spirit we will usually end up somewhere the Gospel is preached and again the Holy Spirit will shine His Holy Divine Light exposing our sinful lives, we will be convicted and will have a choice to  make, accept the Salvation presented to us in the Gospel or reject it, ...if we "invite" and "receive" Jesus into our hearts we become born again children of God John 1:12, ... Father sees that the Light was/is Good and the Light is divided from the darkness Gen 1:4, ...Once I was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see, ...Amazing Grace

I hope that answered your question about being born again.

And that this then is the trinity? when united: Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Father: Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom.

Yes! ...Now plug that info into wherever you find the words: knowledge, understanding and wisdom, especially in the book of Proverbs, and you will benefit from Paul's prayer to/for us, ...to grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ!  

Lord bless    

[Jostler]

15 minutes ago, JustPassingThru said:

And that this then is the trinity? when united: Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Father: Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom.

Yes! ...Now plug that info into wherever you find the words: knowledge, understanding and wisdom, especially in the book of Proverbs, and you will benefit from Paul's prayer to/for us, ...to grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ!  

Lord bless    

 

I am aware of a number  of places where the  Bible says Jesus (or Father) IS  something.....strongly impressing  us with the idea of "equation" or synonymous understanding.

For example the Word.  Jesus IS the Word.  It's also clearly  stated He is the  Way, the Truth, and Life.  John  tells us  God IS love.

We can look carefully at Proverbs 8 and establish that Jesus IS Wisdom.

I am not aware of any place the  Bible says Jesus IS knowledge.  It  may sound like trying  to split hairs but I assure  you  that is not  my  intent.  The Word is precise, and careless assumptions can mean misleading  and deception.

If I have overlooked Biblical proof that Jesus is knowledge, would you be so kind as to show  me where that  is in Scripture?

Here's a problem passage that makes me question the accuracy of  that  statement:

Quote

1Co 13:8

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

You can probably see my objection.....Jesus and all He is is eternal.  He's not going anywhere and since He already fills all in all, where could He go if  He wanted  to?

[warrior12]

On 6/29/2019 at 1:27 PM, Beckett said:

This is my experience:

When one pray, meditate or do any kind of honest silent contemplation. The barriers created by language don't play such an important part. What I mean is, I no longer think in the line of I, them, you, me. As these are distinctions created in language, and is superfluous when in silent contemplation.

 

But then, when I am in my ordinary state, out in the world, talking to people. Of course, these distinctions needs to be made - as our language as it is, depend on them. But this sometimes makes me feel uneasy, like it can be difficult to balance these two states of mind.

 

Like I somehow need to go out of myself in order to talk to people, anyone get the same feelings? I always do my best to be mindful and say the right thing to other people, but well ... it can be difficult, to balance this religious search for wisdom and understanding, but at the same time talk to people, that maybe got no such need for wisdom and understanding.

The Muslims use this very effectively when Christians debate them or interact in dialogue.  They claim the bible is corrupted as to the the number of versions.  When they are told the same about their holy books translated in English, they then claim that Arabic cannot be translated effectively into English and therefore one has to be able to read Arabic to understand their religion.  I have heard that maybe as much as ninety percent of Muslims cannot read Arabic, but they read the English and other language translation.   Logic, where is it.

[JustPassingThru]

3 hours ago, Jostler said:

If I have overlooked Biblical proof that Jesus is knowledge, would you be so kind as to show  me where that  is in Scripture?

No problem bro, the answer to your question is found in the first temptation satan presented to Jesus:

If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.  Matt4:3b

It's more like since You are the Son of God, in the original language, ...satan knew exactly who Jesus was, he had been trying to kill Him from his birth, the temptation was presented to His divine nature.

However, Jesus replied with:

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

What Jesus was saying to satan is, I don't need to use any supernatural power to defeat you, ...I'll defeat you as a man anthrōpos, Greek for man, not theos, Greek for God, ..so how did Jesus show us how to defeat satan's temptations, ...by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

The word He used is rhema, which is the spoken word of God, rather than Logos, which is the Divine name and nature of Jesus.

The suffix eth used in the King James Version means continually, ...what Jesus is saying is His rhema is continually being spoken to us, ...if we have the ears to hear it.

The dictionary defines knowledge as: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education.

So then knowledge for us is for us to live  zaō in the Greek, ...to have eternal life, to enjoy real life, to have true life and worthy of the name of Jesus, to be active, blessed, and to live endless in the kingdom of God, to live a life of Holy, Godly of mortals or character, ..by every word spoken by Jesus, ...hence in this sense Jesus is knowledge:

For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Pro 2:6

 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Father): and the knowledge (Jesus)of the holy is understanding (Holy Spirit). Pro 9:10

...and many more verses in the Proverbs.

Jesus told us the Holy Spirit will not speak on His own, but rather will speak only what he has heard Jesus say, so we hear the rhema Word of God spoken to us by the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

4 hours ago, Jostler said:

1Co 13:8

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

We have to look at this verse in it's context, the Holy Spirit through Paul is talking about spiritual gifts, the word knowledge is  gnōsis which means: 

knowledge signifies in general intelligence, understanding, ...the general knowledge of Christian religion, ...the deeper more perfect and enlarged knowledge of this religion, such as belongs to the more advanced, ...especially of things lawful and unlawful for Christians, ...moral wisdom, such as is seen in right living.

The Holy Spirit continues to teach us:

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.  1 Cor 13:9, 10

I think we both agree that which is perfect has not come yet, just look around, ...it's still a future event on God's timeline, so since it's future there are prophecies, tongues and knowledge still active by the working of the Holy Spirit today in the Church.

Lord bless

 

 

 

[Jostler]

I am sorry.  I can't agree with  most of that.  And most of it has little to do with whether the Bible indicates Jesus is knowledge.   He isn't, and there are plenty of scriptures that need no additional commentary added in to prove it.  Father is not wisdom, Jesus is and no member of the  Trinity is equated  to understanding.  Your addition  of those elements is not  Biblically supportable.  I have no confidence going into it  in any further detail would be productive, so I'll leave it at this. He uses words precisely, and precision in understanding  requires being very careful with that.