Image via Wikipedia

Like so many other classic rock prophets of the hippie era, Donavon celebrated the coming of the Age of Aquarius, singing…

Down through all of eternity, the crying of humanity —

’tis then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love.

During the decade of the Vietnam war (the first war that ever televised dying in Living Color), Flower Children and acid rockers alike were calling for Love. Not simply the End of War (that too) but a generation of people who idealistically committed themselves to deliberately, consciously set aside all conflicts, injustices, self-serving greed and any other means whereby people chose to not-love one another. Bird-lovers everywhere were singing the praises of the “Dove of Peace” and its soon approach to humankind…

You can make the mountains ring

Or make the angels cry

Know the Dove is on the wing

And you need not know why

C’mon people now,

Smile on your brother

Ev’rybody get together

“Get Together”, by The Youngbloods

Back in 1968, when Donovan sang about the “hurdy gurdy man”, few people even knew what that meant. The hurdy gurdy is an ancient, stringed instrument, similar in sound to bagpipes and popular for centuries at feasts and festivals. Wherever the “hurdy gurdy man” traveled, people gathered in expectation of times of high-spirited laughter and merrymaking.

Donovan touched on this when he declared the Spirit of Love to be unconquerable by the inhuman cruelties of this world. In his mind, “songs of love” were already “winging” their way into the sorrows and troubles which characterize the normal, human condition.

That was 1968. People still love to hear that song — as well as others like “Get Together” — even though few people still celebrate the Age of Aquarius and its accompanying spirits of Love and Peace. Sing all you want — it’s not happening in any demonstrable way anywhere on earth. Not even San Francisco or Santa Cruz, and Woodstock has long since died.

Yet 2,000 years ago Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are the Peacemakers — they will be called God’s Children.” Doesn’t it seem reasonable that people who claim to be “followers” of Jesus would be (more so than any other persons) “peacemakers”? Yet very few actually seem to bring “peace” or “love” into the troubles of this world.

Certainly, self-proclaimed Christian, President Jimmy Carter (Nobel Peace Prize winner!) is a highly public figure who travels about the world trying to “make peace”. But he’s also highly criticized for appearing injudicious if not half-witted by trying to extend the Olive Branch to dictatorial leaders known for their inhumanity to their own people as well as others. No “peace” has ever blossomed where Jimmy’s feet have trod.

Furthermore, Donovan sang of the “hurdy gurdy men”. These traveling minstrels compare well with Jesus’ commission to all His followers to bring the “Gospel” into all the world. Now, many people think the “Gospel” is a theological creed to which a person is required to mentally submit in order to keep from going to hell. But that’s not biblical — it’s just an accumulation of centuries of religious manipulation and strategies intended to control people and populations in Europe and around the world.

No — the word “Gospel” literally means “Good News”. Which makes me think of the Good Humor wagon which traveled the streets of many neighborhoods in years past, bringing cold popsicles and ice creams on hot summer days. When that tinkling musical van stopped near your house, you’d get a quarter (back then) from Mom and run out to catch him before he hustled on down the street to more children — excitedly waiting a block away. And when you gave him your quarter, do you think he’d hand you a tract and say, “If you don’t follow this ice cream van with your whole heart, you’re going to be thrown in hell forever!”? I mean, you might call that twisted idea “gospel” but could anyone ever call it Good News?

Not honestly.

“Praying for World Pease” hasn’t fared well amongst “Christian” groups. Very few “followers of Christ” (?) have truly brought either peace or love — not even amongst their own neighborhoods or their religious sects. With Christians in the national news on a regular basis being appropriately lambasted for hypocritical or even criminal choices in areas of money, sex, and power, Christians en masse just don’t seem to be coming up to even a low standard of love, joy or peace.

Jesus set the bar for love, joy and peace 2,000 years ago. In His maturity, He traveled through literally hundreds of small villages in the land of Palestine, healing “all who came” and delivering all “who were under the power of the devil”. [New horror movie? "Freddy Krueger Meets Jesus". It's a really short film, sort of like the well known "Bambi Meets Godzilla".] And wherever He went, showing the compassion of a loving God through healing and deliverance, Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. (More could be said about that, but suffice it to say the Kingdom of Heaven beats the Age of Aquarius all to hell… so to speak.)

So — in our world so ravaged and ruined in so many ways, so many lives lived in boredom or misery — where are the “hurdy gurdy men”? Where are those people — filled with the Love of Jesus Christ, filled with the Joy that conquers all weariness, and filled with a Peace that helps us to be overcomers in the face of life’s familiar trauma and anxiety? Where are the true “followers of Jesus” in our lands today?

And would it tweak our sensibilities too far to consider Jesus Christ to be Heaven’s own “hurdy gurdy man”? The Gift from God of a traveling Minstrel singing songs of Life — songs around which people could gather with more than high-spirited laughter and merrymaking but also with broken hearts needing to be mended and misery needing to be set right?

Donovan touched on this when he declared the Spirit of Love to be unconquerable by the inhuman cruelties of this world. In his mind, “songs of love” were already “winging” their way into the troubled human condition.

Heaven’s hurdy gurdy men — followers of Jesus who truly carry His effectual power and love into the lives of their neighbors… Where are these minstrels today?

Not so much in church. Churches are often gatherings of religious people needing continual reaffirmation that they’re “right” and most others are not; gatherings of the gullible who believe “faith” means believing what is un-believable; even the gathering of people who want someone else to take care of them and tell them how to live, what to think, when to “worship”…

No. The “hurdy gurdy men” of the Kingdom of Heaven are mostly in the streets — the streets of your city, your town, your neighborhood. They’re there, but to find these true heralds of Jesus’ “Good News”, one must look for those who are bringing hope into the middle of people’s hours of crisis or arguing for love and reconciliation in contradiction to society’s cultural or economic protectionism.

And above all, if you keep your eyes and heart open, you’ll find the hurdy gurdy men and women of God to be the very ones in the course of your daily lives whose brief touch leaves you with greater peace and joy than you had before. These are the ones who wear on their sleeves hearts of love, patience, care and honor which (in place of putting others down) lift others up. Up. Up higher than themselves — higher and higher until one begins to hear and feel the very Songs of Heaven in the moment of life’s considerable challenges.

Image via Wikipedia

Gen 3.3-5
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD Godhad made.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Though the concept of human souls being immortal is traced commonly to Greek philosophers (such as Plato), it’s clear from Genesis that this lie originated with Satan (the Father of Liars) in the very beginning of human history — in the Garden of Eden.

Though belief in the immortality of the soul has been dominate throughout Christian churches for at least 1700 years, the idea doesn’t come from the Bible — it’s not taught anywhere in Scripture. What the Bible actually teaches is that no person is immortal other than God Himself. Paul puts it this way in 1Tim 6.13ff:

I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things and Christ Jesus… Who alone is immortal…

God’s Plan was not for the human soul to be immortal… His Plan (all along) was to draw individuals into Himself — and since He is immortal, in Him, we are as well.

As difficult it is to step back from concepts we’ve accepted (as taught) for much of our lives, when we discover that a belief we’ve held is rooted in pagan philosophy and not the Scriptures, it’s critical for us to re-evaluate that belief. This particular belief, in fact, has serious consequences for the hope which we hold for the Afterlife.

EmDog

Related articles

• Is Man Naturally Immortal (brakelite.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia

The legalistic mindset wants rules. It wants boundaries and wants them clear-drawn.

The legalistic mindset not only want clear-cut rules, it wants them to apply in every instance… no exceptions, no grey areas, no ambiguity.

The legalistic mindset loves a statement like the apostle Paul‘s when he wrote, “I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law…” Gal 5.3

The legalist loves the words “every man” — they’re clear. Inarguable. They contain a certain power — not the power of God but the power of that which is sharply-defined; the “law of the excluded middle” which has determined that out of two contradictory propositions or ideas, one (and one only) may be true.

Concerning those who “become circumcised”, “every man” becomes a debtor to keep the whole law and those who are not circumcised do not become debtors to the law. The game of “either/or”.

But then, in Galatians, Paul writes:

Ga 5.6: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which works by love.”

If the act of being circumcised makes a man “a debtor to keep the whole law…”, then circumcised is pretty important. So why does Paul contradict himself and say that neither circumcision or uncircumcision is important?

Ga 6.15: “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision — what counts is a new creation.”

Again, Paul says this terribly important issue of being circumcised or not — isn’t important. But then we have this confusion:

Ga 2.7: “But contrariwise, when they saw that the Gospel of the Uncircumcision was committed unto me [Paul], as the Gospel of the Circumcision was unto Peter…”

Now, wait a sec! How can there be TWO “Gospels“? And ONE of them is the very thing (circumcision) that can make a man “a debtor to keep the whole law…”?

Either these passages do NOT convey the God-breathed Word, or they do. If they do, then God seems to play fast and loose with clear-cut definitions and black-and-white judgments in life. And here’s where the legalistic mindset lands into a fearful place:

if the Rules aren’t clear-cut, if the divisions aren’t black-and-white — the only way to find safety and control in life is to forsake safety and control… and confidently depend on God to supply both.

After all, the “righteous” always live by faith.

Cover via Amazon

Thoughts kindled by Jill Bolte Taylor‘s Stroke of Insight

The question of how and why a person might go to “Heaven” or go to “Hell” after the death of their flesh can’t be resolved by studying Scripture — mostly because the meaning of these words isn’t clear-cut nor are they used consistently throughout the Bible. What’s more, the hardest problem isn’t even trying to define “Heaven” or “Hell”.

Really, the hardest problem is defining the word “me” or “person”. What is ‘me” or what is a “person”? Who can define ”person”.

You and I certainly think we know what “person” means, but “person” isn’t defined anywhere in the Bible. You might think that “person” doesn’t need to be defined since we all know what it means… but the truth is, no one really knows what “person” is. Or what a “me” is.

A recent best-seller, My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Taylor, highlights the problems in understanding what is a “person”. On Dec. 10, 1996, Jill — a well-known neuroanatomist and brain specialist — suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. She woke up that morning, sensing something wrong had happened in her brain. Later, she discovered that she’d experienced a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. Over the course of the morning, this stroke gradually shut down the left half of her brain. Since the left hemisphere contains the language center, she remained conscious but lost that chattering, inner “voice” that never stops tagging and keeping track of her moment-by-moment existence. She lost the sensation of her skin being the ‘boundary” between her and the rest of the world around her; she completely lost any sense of herself as “I”. In losing the left hemisphere, she also lost her inner “clock” that had previously broken ever moment of her life into consecutive, brief instances so she lost any sense of the passing of time. In her own perceptions, she was in a timeless state (not that she really was, but she couldn’t perceive time passing.)

Jill says, “It was clear that the ‘I’ whom I had grown up to be, had not survived this neurological catastrophe. I understood that Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor died that morning, and yet with that said, who was left?… Without a language center telling me, ‘I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I am a neuroanatomtist. I live at such-and-such address and I can be reached at such-and-such telephone number. I felt no obligation to being her anymore.” [Stroke of Insight, pp.69f]

Jill never recovered that sense of self that had been physically destroyed by the stroke. Over months and years, she had to re-learn how to speak and read, and in order to have some semblance of being “who” she was before the stroke, she watched hours of video lectures she’d given in previous years. She successfully “rebuilt” a “self” or an “ego” that works for her, but is definitely not the same one as before the stroke.

Considering that “sense of self” is actually a neuro-chemical process that occurs in the brain, when a person’s flesh dies what exactly remains? After all, the cells in the brain die quickly, stopping all cellular processes. When the “I am” ceases to function (as it did in Jill’s left hemisphere), what “person” remains? With Jill, with the half of her brain that still functioned properly, she was conscious in a limited sense… but “Jill” was gone, completely and permanently.

Let’s do a little “thought experiment”, especially significant for Evangelicals and Fundamentalists: Assuming that the person of “Jill” had at some earlier point in her life, accepted Jesus as her Savior”, now that “Jill” had disappeared, is she still “saved”?

Another “thought experiment”: When a person has an accident to the brain-stem (which connects the two hemispheres), sometimes what develops are two, distinct persons — one manifested by the left hemisphere and the other manifested from the right. Generally, these two, distinct person’s are not similar, even antagonistic. If, before the splitting of the two hemispheres, the person had “accepted Jesus as Savior”, are both persons in the same skull automatically “saved”?

I’m sure that most people’s response will be something like, “Well, if that person — uh, the original person — made that decision, it’s eternal. So, yes, death will usher that person into Heaven.” But this may not be a well-considered response. Why would the automatic response be, “Yes — heaven” when the person(s) had utterly and completely become different.

The new “Jill” is apparently a well-respected person in her own right. But what if another person has a different response? How about if a well-respected Episcopal minister — beloved by wife, children and parishioners alike — loses his “I am” through a similarly massive stroke. But in the process of trying to “rebuild” a sense of self, the “new” minister’s person is a thief and a sexual deviant? Does the original “person” eventually “go to Heaven” and the post-stroke “person” go to hell?

In the New Testament, Jesus turns the Sadducees on their ears because they loved this kind of speculation, but engaged in it without knowing either the power of God or the Scriptures. But in a sense, this is precisely the kind of person this article intends to challenge: the person who (not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God) has settled for some simplistic notions of “who goes to Heaven” and “who goes to Hell”… If, upon dying, that “person” goes to [wherever], then whether or not a “person” exists as an unchanging (solid) entity is vital. But if a “person” is able to be modified by external forces, if “person” can fluctuate with the varying neurochemical changes in one’s brain, then it’s doubtful if one’s “person” goes anywhere after the death of the body.

When something “goes to Heaven” or “goes to Hell”, what is it? For example, what part of the apostle Paul exited his body [soma] in order to be “present” with the Lord when he shed the temporary “tent” of that flesh in which he dwelt? [2Cor 5.8]

Consider an ridiculous suggestion: Does the flesh of the brain leave the body and go… somewhere? Of course not. But if it’s absurd to think the flesh of the brain goes somewhere, then the neuro-chemical patterns that function within the flesh of that brain don’t go anywhere either. Without the flesh of that brain, these activity patterns cease. The “sense of self”, the “ego” — this “me” of my conscious thought-life doesn’t live on after the death of the brain.

There is no biblical definition of this part of a person — the closest “description” being one’s soul. But thoughsoul is used throughout the Bible and is closely inter-related with the very nature of God as Spirit, it still isn’t defined for us in Scripture. Moving from one (biblically) undefined word (person) to another (biblically) undefined word (soul) is useless for resolving any of these questions.

Again: does a person go to Heaven or Hell after death? And the response is, “What is a person?” Tell me exactly what is the eternal, personal (non-neurochemical) part of a human being, and the question may resolve itself as to what any person’s eternal destiny might be.

Someone calls out, “the spirit“! and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes! Yes! Paul is saying that his spiritgoes to be with the Lord after physical death!” But most people would have a serious problem with this. Is the “person” that I consider to be “me” the same as my “spirit”? Did Jill — after the destruction and rebuilding of her “person” — did she have the same “spirit” as before? And people gleefully shout, “Of course!”

But here’s what most people won’t want to accept. If the spirit of a person is NOT the same thing as a person’sego — if Jill’s “person” could die with the death of her left hemisphere and need to be rebuilt in her right hemisphere, then spirit is not the same as “me”.

People often ask, “Will I know my loved ones in Heaven?” to which I uselessly respond, “Who knows? Maybe… But the Bible doesn’t tell us one way or another…” Someone says, “But Enoch and Elijah still were obviously Enoch and Elijah when they stood beside Jesus on the Mt. of Transfiguration!” And my response is, “The Bible doesn’t explain if they were visions, physically real, or what… so we can’t draw a conclusion from that one instance.”

People typically don’t want to know if their spirit is eventually “going to Heaven” — they want reassurance that their familiar sense of self is going to “be there”. “Will I see my Aunt Georgia?” and even, “Will I see my beloved Fido in Heaven?”

It’s here that many people pop up and say, “Like I always said, you die, you’re dead, There’s nothing that remains and any notion of ‘going’ somewhere else is absurd.”
But that neither lines up with Scripture nor with the dreams and desires of tribes, nations and peoples throughout all the world. In every primitive culture, stories and rituals related to a life after death abound. Even cultures like the Jews which had very few concepts about an afterlife still spoke to themselves of sheol, a dreary underworld inhabited by the shadows of the dead.

If a person chooses to believe that there is no “individual” existence of any kind after physical death, then they can lay all these issues aside and make pour themselves a nice aperitif before dinner.

But if one believes within both heart and mind that there is “life after death”, it’d be wise to shelve everything that has been so casually taught to them in the past about this transition; in place of the religious myths and speculations which have gone so far apart from Scripture, Scripture itself is the only reliable source to begin rebuilding a sense or expectation of will one day happen to each one of us all.

Questions to focus on biblically:

(1) After physical death, does the individual “me” still exist, or is “me” a manifestation of neurochemical processes of the brain (a sort of “Theater of the mind” in which the sole actor is “me” — until the curtain falls.)

(2) If it is my spirit which transfers from this flesh after its death, does any of my familiar, conscience “me” go along? If so, and if I’ve had an accident, will it be my first “me” or both “me’s” that accompany my spirit.

(3) What does the imago dei have to do with our eternal being? We’re created in the Image of God, so does this impact our ideas about an afterlife? And right in line with this, does the Name of God, “I AM”, impact these speculations? Note that not only did Popeye declare himself as, “Aye is what Aye is!” but so did Paul who declared, “By the grace of God I am what I am” — simply quoting the words of God to Moses in Exodus when God said, “I AM what I AM.” Are we, as humans, “I AM” creatures? Is an “I AM” nature what separates us from the animal kingdom? (Does my dog have an “I AM” nature?)

(4) Finally, if it’s our spirits which “go to be with the Father”, how would it impact your understanding of “Heaven” or “Hell”? Will you eventually “walk down streets of gold”? Will it be “you”? If our “me” doesn’t go to “Heaven” (but our spirit does), does this require that we accept the Hindu notion of Nirvana in which our spirit becomes one with Brahman when the bodily incarnation dies, losing any sense of individuality?

Remember — I take Scripture as more sound than my speculation or your. I’m really not asking for ANYONE to share their opinion (dear God, please don’t) but share what you can find in Scripture that helps respond to any of these issues.

Understand: The object of this paper isn’t to introduce a new set of teachings, but to dismantle a set of Christian myths that neither reflect the Scriptures accurately nor make sense of the realities of human experience. The goal isn’t to do away with any ideas of an afterlife, but to reexamine these issues — understanding that humility is of utmost importance in any true understanding of these things, and an honest integrity cannot be discarded.

EmDog

Related articles

• A Stroke of Insight (clarbojahn.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia

In a recent blog, I remarked that when one goes through all of Scripture, gathering onto one page the many verses pertaining to “Heaven” and “Hell“, and then compares them to each other — they paint an inconsistent, even incoherent, picture.

Have I got something against Hell? (Or Heaven, for that matter?)

Not at all. But I DO have something against mixing Mediterranean or European folk-lore in with biblical truth. As far as I’m concerned, learning that most of what people today believe about “Heaven” and “Hell” came from Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante‘s The Inferno is a deal-breaker as far as my continuing to propagate these traditional misconceptions — no matter how defiantly people hold onto them, absurdly espousing their non-biblical depictions both of the Afterlife and of God Himself.

But it’s natural for “people with inquiring minds” to simply want to know what’s going to happen after people die in the flesh. Some are afraid of being conscious of the fires of Hell, some are afraid of being conscious of worms eating through their corpse, while some are afraid of losing consciousness altogether. Fear drives a multitude of people to persuade themselves that the Afterlife exists and is not fearful. Little do they know that, fundamentally, they may be correct — but never for the reasons they devise for themselves.

“But,” Christians often feel, “surely the Bible settles these issues? If the Good Book has any purpose, it’s foundational purpose is to prepare people for Eternity? Right?”

Not to get into it here, but the Bible’s stated purposes are not to prepare people for living in Eternity but to prepare people to live on earth — now. Not that Scripture doesn’t give certain “hints” and “whispers” about what happens to human beings after their physical death, but its primarily focus is shaping how we live and experience and righteously use our human lives here and now.

Yet the question remains, “If the Bible doesn’t give us an explicit picture of “things to come”,  why not?

The answer is simple: in terms of God’s desires and purposes for us here and now, we don’t need to know or understand precisely what happens after the life of this flesh is over. Actually, since all God does is good, we can rest assured that if knowing details and specifics about life in Eternity had some significant value to human beings today, God would have told us.

One of the greatest barriers to people accepting this rather humble and inoffensive perspective is that many feel that information about what happens “later on” is crucial for evangelism. That is, if you can’t “warn people” about “the unquenchable fires of Hell”, they won’t be motivated to “repent” and “become Christians”. All I have to say to that is that I don’t expect this blog or anything else I ever write or say will change their dogma. Since the ideas about Heaven and Hell that they’ve chosen to champion aren’t found in the Bible, nothing less will persuade them either.

Still, the idea that people can be “scared into Heaven” is deeply embraced in countless churches everywhere. That doesn’t excuse the wrongness of that perspective, a wrongness that disregards that the power that God holds over humankind to bring them to repentance is not fear but blessing. Far from remembering what Paul wrote in “Romans”, many Christians have never even heard that “it’s the goodness of God that brings men to repentance”.

Bottom line: Why doesn’t the Bible clear up this cloud of “not-knowing” in respect to Heaven and Hell?

Because what matters is not tomorrow, nor the Day After Tomorrow — but how I live Today in the Power of the Presence of Jesus Christ, sharing with others the transforming Power of His Love.

Emil & Shell Swift

www.KingdomScribes.blogspot.com

A blog informed me recently that “as Believers, God expects more from us than just going to church on Sunday morning.” Instantly I thought, “Who says God expects us to go to church on Sunday morning?”

After all, there’s no passage in the Bible that tells us, “go to church every Sunday”.

And actually, dear Reader, there is none.

Those who know the Bible well enough will point out that in Acts 20.7, it mentions that the disciples in Troas came together on the first day of the week to “break bread” and listen to Paul preach before he left the region. But it doesn’t say they met every “first day” — but that they did on this “first day” when Paul was giving his last sermon in person to them. Maybe they met every week. Maybe not. This verse doesn’t settle that issue.

Others might point to 1Cor 16.2 which records Paul’s admonition that “on the first day of the week” the Corinthian “saints” were to “set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up so that when I come no collections will have to be made.” But this doesn’t make any reference to “church” since the request is for them to lay aside these funds in their homes until Paul came again to collect them. No reference to Sunday church at all.

You might think I’m making an argument against “Sunday church”, possibly trying to convince you to do your services on Saturday or maybe even not at all. All I can say is, “Certainly not!”

But what I am saying is that what typically happens in churches on Sunday morning (or Saturday, for that matter) is not commanded of us anywhere in the Bible — New Testament or Old. What we’re doing today is not only not what they did back then, we’re not even doing today what was commanded then.

Again, some will point to Heb 10.25 which says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

For those who defend traditional church-going on Sunday or Saturday morning, if they use this verse they fall into serious difficulty. In a word, this verse doesn’t describe one of today’s typical church service (and that includes high church, low church, Greek church, Roman church, Protestant church or even Mu-church!)

Since this verse is a fragment of a sentence that started two verses earlier, we need to look at the whole paragraph in order to understand it:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way opened for us through the Curtain, that is, His Body, and since we have a great priest over the House of God,

• let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
• let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And
• let us look intently at one another, to spur one another on towards love and good deeds.
• let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

In these verses, we’re told to do four things in reference to our Worship:

(1)  draw near to God

(2)  hold unswervingly to our confidence in God

(3)  look intently at one another to spur one another onwards in love and good deeds, and

(4)  not give up meeting together.

“Meeting together” is clarified by the prior verses. What we’re supposed to “forsake not” is not the familiar and traditional religious assemblies we’re used to on the weekend, but gatherings in which — through our confidence in God — we boldly come into the Presence of God (in the Holy of Holies), and into the presence of one another, examining one another intently to provoke each other onward spiritually.

Does this accurately describe your regular Sunday (Saturday) assemblies? Notice that in this “definition” here in Hebrews, it says nothing about sermons or teachings, about pastors and pulpits and religious programs (or even shoes and ships and sealing-wax!) All it describes is what each and every person in an assembly is to do, within their spiritual community. And it doesn’t even say that these “gatherings” are on the weekend! What is described can in fact be accomplished when two or three are sitting down for coffee at Starbucks. (“Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there will I be in the midst of them.”)

Again, there’s no passage in the Bible that tells us, “go to church every Sunday”. There’s no passage that says Christians can’t go to church every Sunday if they like. Or every Saturday. Or Thursday, Tuesday, Monday or whatever. After all — what day of the week are we not able to come into the Presence of God to enjoy Him, and into the presence of our Brethren to strengthen them?

Maybe Christians would make a better showing in our nation and world if the normative “church experience” were trimmed back for awhile to what the Bible actually does say about those “gatherings” that we’re not supposed to forsake. And consider this: If your regular “worship” or “church” meeting is not helping you fulfill these four purposes, then you are amongst those who have forsaken the gathering yourselves together.

After all — if what you do or experience in your regular weekly services is not what Hebrews tells us to hold onto… then you have forsaken these four, biblical characteristics.

So think about this for a bit and consider changing something in your spiritual life: If what you’re practicing every weekend in your religious services is not what Hebrews tell you to be doing, how about taking a sabbatical from those religious activities for awhile, see if you can find some Believers in Christ who also want to fulfill the instruction given to us for our “gatherings” (our koinonia). And finally…

… stop forsaking the gathering yourselves together as the habit of some are!

EmDog

Somehow, this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with “marriage” as described in the Bible. And it seems to have even less to do with “marriage” as a spiritual union of two people: “a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one.”

So when does “marriage” happen?

To the “saints” in Corinth, the apostle Paul warned that if any men partook of the invitation of temple priestesses and had intercourse with them (helping the women fulfill their necessary vows to their goddess Aphrodite), the man and the woman “became one” — a union which is intended to take place between that man and His God, not some strange woman who made herself available for intercourse.

But here’s a key: if a man in Corinth can become “one flesh” with a woman — a stranger — merely by becoming “one flesh” literally in the act of intercourse, this suggests that “becoming one flesh” (i.e., “marriage”) may have little or nothing to do with civil licenses, representatives of the state, ritual ceremonies, bridal gowns, engagement rings, bridesmaids, groomsmen, flowers, First Dances or cutting the cake. “Becoming one flesh” — and thereby fulfilling the “leaving and cleaving” — seems to be at the heart of what becoming “married” is all about.

So — when are two people married? Two people who love God and desire to be one for the rest of their earthly lives and are committed to one another heart and soul…

And flesh?

Does the Marriage of Two Hearts take place when these two lovers have sexual intercourse — notwithstanding any culturally acceptable ceremonies?

If you think about it, the fleshly “event” you might say is preceded by a particular mental “event”. That is, before these two lovers engage in intercourse, they “engage mentally” — before they can say, “Here’s a bed,” they must first — in mind and heart — decide (or discover) that they are One in their minds and in their hearts. The physical “union” must by its very nature be preceded by a “union” — a union that is mental, emotional and spiritual.

In a sense, by the time two Lovers lay in a bed or even stand before a pastor, judge or JP, they are already One. The ceremony is a manifestation of the Union that has already occurred in their minds, hearts and spirit. Even the first time they “know” each other is a manifestation of the Union that has already occurred.

When is the Point at Which Two People are Married?

It’s the Point at which they know each other, when they know their Love for each other and know that they are — without interruption or cessation, without hesitancy, waffling, wavering, dithering, stalling, dawdling, delaying — they know they are One and will be so for the rest of their lives together.

How these two lovers manifest their Union — their “marriage” — to the rest of the world is simply up to them to decide.

And what God has joined together, let no man put asunder… Oh yeah!

Ever have to move a couch from its accustomed location, only to discover an astonishing amount of dirt underneath it, not to mention lost pens and kid’s toys, gum and things better left unidentified? There’s a certain joy in bringing into the light of day the things that have been allowed to disappear into the darkness under the sofa!

This joy — bringing into the light things that have been allowed to be hidden — certainly applies to the joy of seeing how spiritual truth illuminates areas of life and custom that have been needlessly hidden for way too long. One such area which “comes into the light” when considering the freedom Jesus Christ has brought to us is that of sexual customs.

It’s amazing what traditions and social customs have been allowed to parade as “godly” or “Christian” when they are neither. Well — “amazing”, as well as depressing and even dangerous. Like the dirt and trash building up under a sofa long undisturbed, so the ideas of what kinds of sexual positions and roles and interests are “acceptable for Christians” is largely rubbish as well. In fact, much of what is considered mandatory for Christians is actually YAFOL (“Yet Another Form of Legalism”, pronounced, “Yay! Foul!”) Anytime one’s standing with God (or with church people) is measured by one’s performance or behavior, it has left God’s Kingdom and entered into the darkness of legalism once again.

Looking first at a broader picture, Believers are typically confused about what their freedom in Christ actually looks like. For example, activities that should be of no concern regularly dominate entire congregations, typically provoking sinful judgment, malicious gossip & misplaced feelings of guilt.

The activities which should be of no concern whatever could easily include such things as choosing what one wears, frequenting bars or not, smoking tobacco or weed (or not), attending church on Sundays, Saturdays or not.

For Believers, these & many other practices shouldn’t define “sin” any more than keeping days of feast or fast, in choosing what to eat or drink, or celebrating a particular festival or a new moon or sabbaths — or not. [i.e., Col 2.13ff.]

Amongst the practices that are of no concern are those concerning “the marriage bed”. Briefly, how husbands & wives choose to pleasure themselves is only of concern to them. What follows is a more explicit explanation of how or freedom in Christ affects the spiritual relationship of lovers. This “exhortation” is quite practical even though it rates no more than an “R” rating.

First — when tempted to rationally & cold-bloodedly evaluate what practices you will or won’t “practice” with your mate — don’t. Don’t try to think about how you might feel about sex until you’re in the middle of doing it! (And whatever you do, don’t let your fellow church members do your thinking for you!)

For example, try this experiment: The next time you spot your lover on the street or in a store, walk up to each other and without hesitation, stick your tongues in each other’s mouths for a minute or so.

For most people, even the THOUGHT of doing that (“cold turkey” is unacceptable. In fact, for many, the mere thought of doing so without a bit of smooching or necking ahead of time would be gross!

But given some privacy mixed with some cuddling & bingo! French kissing seems like the most natural & exciting thing around!

Now, lets focus on one of the strangest examples of cultural legalism — oral sex. In oral sex — for either partner — kissing, licking or sucking on their lover’s genitalia OFTEN seems “gross” — until they’re in the middle of an insanely passionate & erotically explosive Moment — and THAT’S when kissing your lover’s most sensitive & volatile places seem perfectly reasonable! What adds to the pleasure is that when you see how your lips & tongue can skyrocket your lover into places of joy & ecstasy never experienced before, it boosts YOU into greater places of ecstasy then YOU’VE ever experienced.

In other words: thinking about it apart from the Moment of intense passion can easily engender feeling of repulsion — not thinking about this practice until the Arousal of Love allows a person to choose in the right environment.
But it’s of the UTMOST importance to understand that NOWHERE in the Bible are any sexual positions or practices between lovers prohibited. ALL such prohibitions are man-made & vary from culture to culture. The only Law governing how lovers play together is the Law of Love: “What pleases my Lover pleases me; what does NOT please my Lover does not please me.”

Underlying all of this for Believers are two fundamental, spiritual realities: (1) that of the Freedom Jesus brought to us & (2) the nature of the marriage relationship as portraying the Love Relationship between God & those who make up the Bride of Christ.

First freedom. In Gal 5, Paul warns us to not let go of the freedom Jesus secured for us on the Cross. In line with this is his teaching in Rom 14 that what defines “sin” for Believers is their own consciences. That is, if one person feels that a particular act is sin, then it is sin for him. If another person doesn’t feel that that same activity is sin, for him it is not sin! In Christ we are no longer bound by the rules & regulations of the Law (which was nailed to the Cross with Christ) but have been made free from the Law of sin & death. We now live under a new “Law” — the Law of Love.

Second, as shown to us in Eph 5, earthly marriage reflects the spiritual Marriage of Jesus Christ & His Bride, the Church. The relationship of the husband & wife is that the wife is to allow her husband to nurture her in every way,& the husband is to care for her as he does for his own fleshly body. Implicit in this is that their relationship will always be mutually edifying — including their sexual relationship. The idea that “sex is dirty” is from the pit, not from Heaven. God is the Creator of sexual relationship, and it’s a physical representation of the degree of intensity with which Jesus desires for His Bride — the Church.

So the combination of a passionate desire to edify your beloved & the freedom in Christ to do all that does not violate the conscience of either, forms a strong foundation for lovers to pursue ALL that edifies each other. There is truly not more restriction nor restraint than whatever lovers choose for themselves — in Christ!

What is the “Apostolic Reformation”?

It is a Church filled with believers that are part of an apostolic reformation. Don’t be left out. Join the revolution and catch a life-changing anointing …

And you don’t have to be left out! For only $9.95 you can buy my book which tells all! And for an offering of only $39.95 you can receive my new video series revealing to you the existence and purpose of Apostolic Ministries in the 21st century…

But not only that, for only $349.95 you can attend the online Apostolic School of the 21st Century! Upon completion, not only will you receive a tasteful, framable Certification of Completion, but with it you gain access to online Directories and Maps automatically locating all the recognized Apostolic Ministries and Ministers in any given geographical region! A must for your going to meet and sit under Apostolic Ministry!

Your life will never be the same!

(Nor will your bank account… I seriously hope I don’t have people sending me money to get in on this once-in-a-lifetime offer.)

In the Bible, “Marriage” specifically refers to the UNION of a man and a woman — a Union which reflects the reality of our Union as Believers (the Bride) with God.

The time in which we live is ripe for Believers to break completely that unbiblical bond between true, spiritually based Marriage and the government-run version of “marriage”? What would that look like? If two Believers wanted to get Married, they’d get Married before God. But if they wanted to arrange a legally valid contractual relationship between themselves that is recognized by the civil court system, they’d go to the local courthouse to purchase a License to Marry and subject themselves to whatever government regulations applied and file forms with their banks and execute all other legally required actions. But — understand this! — this is not Marriage in a biblical and spiritual sense. These two different “marriages” need to be separated in the minds and lives of Believers. And ultimately, whoever the civil government allows or disallows to “get married” in their civil processes has nothing to do with true Marriage — a man and a woman, united together into one flesh before their God.

EmDog