I want to borrow a phrase from TTB.org's J. Vernon McGee and go about my business "plowing a straight furrow and letting the clods fall where they may."
These are my thoughts after listening to J. Vernon speak about 1 John 4:1-3 again today.
Spiritual used to mean supernatural. It used to mean things that we couldn't understand. People wanted to understand them, so they made up two main ways to do that; religion and science. Religion is much older and by my lifetime science was king, although religion may have been the ceremonial monarch for many, including myself. It's as if religion is the constitutional monarch for some people, and science is the constitution. During the millenia that religion was king, a few people were practicing science. And during the time that science was king, probably 1800 through today, lots of people were practicing religion but trusting in science more than their religion.
They used to be parts of a whole, but science is the part of spiritualism that's getting bigger and bigger. There are embarrassments along the way, and I think the current ones are electricity and nutrition. We don't have a handle on these things at all, but we talk about them alot. We know more and more of what used to be unknown; and the part we can prove and repeat and build upon brick by brick, is science. I suppose science and religion are both able to be aggregates through time, therefore they are culture, but one is provable through a method that we all assume is valid. One of them is repeatable.
Because of this change in the hierarchy between science and religion, spiritualism came to mean the unknown that couldn't be proved by science. And to people in the West, this was Christianity versus anything else. Some people remained well within Christianity, and others looked for anything else. Christianity is our parent, and no matter how much of a rebel we think we are, we're either following our parent, or rebelling against our parent. We're either dressing respectably or wearing black clothes and eyeliner to avoid doing that. We're not approaching the world as if we're a newborn foundling who doesn't have a parent, even though we don't know much about our parent anymore. Today it's all about looks, because we think we know what Christianity looks like; white (wrong!), patriarchal, old-fashioned (wrong!) and inflexible. In short, it's seen as the power broker with the stick up his butt.
Spiritualism then came to mean Christianity or anything unprovable, which includes Christianity. Now that Christianity is on the way out (the culture, not the true belief) people delve into things that they cannot understand while losing this perspective or framework.
None of us know very much about the spirit world and we're not supposed to! "You can go off the deep end" here and there is too much time given to it. Jesus said to love your enemies. Let's do that, rather than try to put every spirit into its place, define the soul and angels; principalities and cherubim, and think we can know everything.
I believe that I am supposed to do the things that I know I should do, and stop trying to know everything. A far as spirits go, I am not supposed to study them or talk to them, or explore them, but never doubt their existence for a minute. We are supposed to prove or test them, but why? I think it's to make the point that there is a plane we cannot know and some of it comes from God. If it comes from God, do it, and this is the Word. I'm not doing the Word so that's the first step.
We Christians concentrate on the Holy Spirit but don't know His word. Instead we run around chasing miracles and trying to create them. There are countless fallen angels, and unclean spirits. Or maybe there's just one. Or maybe there's none. What's the difference if I don't do what I know I should do?
I believe there is a gigantic spiritual battle involving wickedness in high places, maybe not low places. We're not called to tell people they're wrong. We're called to tell people what's right. Freedom to do what you please is back in fashion- but it's not new. It is older than people and it is from the pit of hell; no matter where or how hell exists. Either you know better or your boss knows better. My authority or His authority- and we're called to submit to someone else's- our boss, our parents, our spouses and each other. We're all following, but who are we following.
Love each other, help each other. Abound in love more and more but in knowledge and all judgement. The world is wicked, but the plan is good. Sure this is confusing. But we know what we should do. It's not to review the sum total of knowledge, and study. Bad teaching, shallow and poor instruction follow.
Why am I saying more than the scripture says rather than following what it says. I can learn how to reign it in because I believe that's what others are doing and I know they are wrong. I'm not called to call people bad, but learn from their mistakes.
He's so nice, he was a great child, superior, and religious genius. You know why? He had greater knowledge, was an amazing superstar, and very nice but why? Because he was God manifested in the flesh!?
Incarnation is fancy word I don't think we should use anymore unless we think about it as being where you are. I've been disincarnate- off in movies and books and inside my head. He was where he was, Bethlehem, Egypt, Galilee, Nazareth, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, outside the city gates in a tomb and on the road to Emmaus and on mountaintops and in heaven before and after. Maybe he went to hell. Maybe I've been, but I need to be where I am. Jesus was God come to earth, more than remarkable, but the only God, bodily born, bodily died and bodily raised and working today.
Am I working? Am I following? I'm not sure if I'm working. But I am following somebody, all the time. Sometimes it's the right Somebody.
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