Something I read today....

[mizpeh]

Another dose of Carson:

April 8

Leviticus 11—12; Psalms 13—14; Proverbs 26; 1 Thessalonians 5

FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE are often called the Pauline triad. They crop up again and
again in Paul’s correspondence, in various combinations and structures of
thought. Doubtless the best-known passage is 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now
these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” It may
be that the reason love is the greatest of these three cardinal Christian virtues is
that love is the only one that God exercises. Elsewhere the Bible says that God is
love (1 John 4:8); it never says that God is faith or that God is hope.


In the epistle before us, the Pauline triad first crops up in chapter 1: “We continually
remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your
labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus
Christ” (1:3). Sometimes only two elements of the triad are present: e.g., “We
ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith
is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is
increasing” (2 Thess. 1:3). Sometimes the three are linked in particular ways: “We
always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for
all the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you
in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel
that has come to you” (Col. 1:3-6). Although love may be “the greatest” of the
three, in this passage hope is the foundation or even the motivation of faith and
love—though that arrangement is far from invariable (e.g., Eph. 1:15, 18).


If the Pauline triad occurs at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians, so it recurs at
the end: “But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith
and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet” (1 Thess. 5:8, italics
added). These variations suggest that faith, hope, and love were not, for Paul
nor for the early Christians, a cluster of tired words always deployed in some boring
formula. Rather, they were the quintessential Christian virtues that they
thought about and pursued, so that their reflections and experience prompted
them to describe these virtues in many different ways. Here we find the metaphor
of the armor of God, but not with the associations found in Ephesians 6:10-17—
once again demonstrating that these were fresh and living forms of speech, not
clichés emptied of all power except comforting repetition.

[mizpeh]

More on meditation by Meyers.......

The Blessing of Meditation

Proverbs 4:20My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings.
21Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart.
22For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh.

In these verses, the writer used the words, attend to my words, which is another way of exhorting us to meditate. I love the fact that God not only frequently tells us to meditate--to ponder seriously--His Word, but He frequently promises results. It's as if God says, "Okay, Joyce, if you meditate, here's what I'm going to do for you."

In this passage, the promise is life and health. Isn't that amazing? It's even a promise that when you contemplate and brood over the Bible, it will affect your physical body.

We've known for a long time that when we fill our minds with healthy, positive thoughts, it affects our body and improves our health. This is just another way of repeating this truth. Or take the opposite viewpoint: Suppose we fill our minds with negative thoughts and remind ourselves how frail we are or how sick we were the day before. We soon become so filled with self-pity and self-defeating thoughts that we get even sicker.

In the previous pages, I've already mentioned the idea of prosperity (see Psalm 1 and Joshua 1:8). I believe that by "prosperity", God means that we'll be enriched and prosper in every part of our lives. It's not a promise of more material wealth, but an assurance of being able to enjoy all the wonderful blessings we have.

Recently when I meditated on several passages in the Bible, I realized God was showing me that the word has hidden treasures in it--powerful, life-giving secrets---which God wants to reveal to us. They are there for those who muse, ponder, and contemplate the Word of God.

What we often forget is that God wants our fellowship, our company, and our time with Him. If we want a deep relationship with our heavenly Father, we have to make quality time for God. I recently heard someone say, "Quality time comes out of quantity times." In other words, it's only as we spend time with God on a regular, daily basis that we have those special, life-changing moments. We can't program them to happen, but if we're there on a daily basis, God will cause some of those times to be quality times of blessing.

D. L. Moody once said that the Bible would keep us from sin, or sin would keep us from the Bible.That's the principle here. As we concentrate on God's Word and allow it to fill our thoughts, we will push away all desire to sin or to displease God in any way. We become more deeply rooted in Him. Again, think of it in the negative. When our mind remains focused on our problems all the time, we become consumed with them. If we meditate on what's wrong with others, we see even more flaws and faults. But when we concentrate on God's Word, light comes into our souls.

I want to go back one more time to that powerful statement in Philippians 4:8. No matter which translation or paraphrase we read it in, the message is powerful and exactly what we need to do to condition our minds for victory.

Here's Eugene Peterson's paraphrase in The Message: "Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse."

I'm thinking of finding a comfortable chair, a quiet room, with my Bible once a day before bed and finding a verse or a passage of the Bible to read and think about.

[mizpeh]

"Lukewarm People think about life on earth much more often than eternity in heaven. Daily life is mostly focused on today's to-do list, this week's schedule, and next month's vacation. Rarely, if ever, do they intently consider the life to come. Regarding this, C.S. Lewis writes, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

" For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomace, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:18-20).

"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" (Col. 3:2)."

From Crazy Love by Francis Chan, page 75.



Have we become to comfortable in this world?

[DaveC519]

I'm thinking of finding a comfortable chair, a quiet room, with my Bible once a day before bed and finding a verse or a passage of the Bible to read and think about.

"My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord." (Ps 104:34)

"O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day."
"I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation." (Ps 119:97, 99)

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by DaveC519

"My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord." (Ps 104:34)

"O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day."
"I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation." (Ps 119:97, 99)

And as I think about the word of God and sit in his presence, I will ask the Lord to open my understanding to his thoughts.

[mizpeh]

I read this over at Parchment and Pen. It is written by a Biblical Unitarian, David Burke, but I am in full agreement with what he states:

Before entering any discussion about Who and what God is, it is important for us to keep in mind an essential point: the Christian God is the Jewish God and everything that we know about Him through the Christian message was already known to the Jews through Judaism. Christianity added nothing to the nature or identity of God, but took for granted the definitions and principles already present in Judaism. Biblical Unitarianism stands firmly within the context of Old Testament Judaism and first-century Christianity; our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, John and Paul.

Equally important is the origin of Christianity. Although generally regarded today as a western religion, Christianity was originally a Jewish sect, with Jesus first preached to the Jews and later to the Gentiles. Since most of the earliest Christians were Jews, we must strive to understand the Christian faith as they did, and not as it was later interpreted by Gentile Christians of later centuries, many of whom lacked an essential understanding of Jewish religious traditions.

The first-century Jewish opponents of Christianity insisted that it constituted a heretical breach from Judaism, but in the pages of the NT we are able to see that Christians proved otherwise, demonstrating powerfully from Scripture that Christianity is the end result of a process which had begun with Israel. Thus, as Christians, we must recognise and acknowledge that there is a doctrinal continuity from Judaism to Christianity which cannot be broken. This continuity is emphasised by the apostle Paul in Galatians 3:24, where he says that the Law of Moses was “…our instructor into Christ.”

But how was the Law of Moses our instructor? In what way could this rigid Old Testament legal system prepare anyone for the message of love and grace that we find in Christianity? This is a point to which I shall return in later discussions.

Trinitarians recognise the vital importance of the Judaeo-Christian continuum, as evidenced by their sensitivity to the theological tension which results from the anachronistic imposition of Trinitarian interpretations upon first-century doctrinal statements. Since it is now widely accepted that the first-century church was not Trinitarian, it has become necessary for Trinitarians to explain (a) why this was and (b) how Trinitarianism successfully emerged from an ideological climate which was wholly unfavourable to it.

Various scholars (not all of them strictly Trinitarian) have approached this problem with considerable ingenuity but limited success. For example, James F. McGrath postulates that Johannine Christological development was a tentative process which blurred the distinction between the pre-existent logos and the pre-existent Jesus without ever committing to a fully defined ontological unity between Father and Son. James D. G. Dunn takes a similar position.

Larry Hurtado (whose work reflects the influence of Alan Segal’s “angelomorphic” or “two powers” model) is bolder, but even he can only offer an “early binitarian” hypothesis which is ultimately unsatisfactory. A closer examination of these issues will be presented in Weeks 2 & 3 of the debate.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blo...ure/#more-4264

[DaveC519]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

I read this over at Parchment and Pen. It is written by a Biblical Unitarian, David Burke, but I am in full agreement with what he states:



http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blo...ure/#more-4264

Thanks for this link, Mizpeh. I was surprised (happily) to see this is actually a debate between Burke and Rob Bowman. I've not seen formal arguments from a Unitarian such as Burke, so I'm curious to see how he interprets verses such as 1Tim 3:16.

[mizpeh]

3Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.
4And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation.
5Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us Rom 5:3-5 Amp

Looks like there is no way around it, to grow in Christ, to develop into a mature child of God, we have to go through trials. It's comforting to know that God is a good Father, who loves us and wants the best for us. He won't let us have more than we can bear but will not only make a way for us to endure the trials of life but He is with us through them all!

[mizpeh]

You are who you are for a reason.
You're part of an intricate plan.
You're a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God's special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.
Our God made no mistake.
He knit you together within the womb,
You're just what he wanted to make.

The parents you had were the ones he chose,
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God's plan in mind,
And they bear the Master's seal.

No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into his likeness you'd grow.

You are who you are for a reason,
You've been formed by the Master's rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God!

Poem by Russel Kelfer from page 25 in The Purpose Driven life by Rick Warren.

[mizpeh]

"This is the true joy of life: the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." George Bernard Shaw.

Not bad, the only thing I might change would be the word, nature, to God.