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Burl

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Everything posted by Burl

  1. Micah 6:1-8 6Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. 3O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 4For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord. 6With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? << >>Note: 6:8 is such a succinct statement of what God requires of us.
  2. Agreed. Unexpectedly relevant and a pleasant surprise. I love it when that happens!
  3. Well, that is what I think and why I thunk it. It's just my opinion. The guy gets invited to fancy weddings and brings the wine. Not rich and not poor. Middle class. What is your opinion?
  4. Thank you, Takiri. I'll read through that thread.
  5. Mark 1:20 James and John had hired servants. I would say that puts them in the wealthy category. The fishemen had capital equipment, boats & nets, and they controlled the major source of protein in Galilee. They were kind of like the cattle barons in the American west. Tektons were craftsmen, sometimes wood but usually stone. They had tools and skills well above the common peasant laborer. If you go with Luke's decription of the flight to Egypt Joseph could afford to pass up work for a while. I think middle class is a safe assumption.
  6. Jesus' occupation as a tekton and his association with the fisherman place him as middle class. Not wealthy, but not a peasant either. The fishermen were wealthy with established businesses, some having paid servants. I read the 'physician' quote in Mark as sarcasam and an indication of wit and intelligence. I think a lot of the humor in the Bible is competely missed by grumblepussed theologans. Reaspiritik is correct in that Jesus healed a lot of physical and mental conditions. Jesus was a physican in that sense, no doubt about it.
  7. What is Pure Land and how does it differ from Zen, Lamanism, Shaolin or all the other variations?
  8. Why are we asking this question? It's interesting to noodle on but I don't see it leading anywhere.
  9. I think Jesus was literate. He was certainly educated and had an encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture. Perhaps Jesus learned by rote. Difficult but possible. A convincing point for me is how often Jesus prefaced his quotation of Scripture with, "It is written that . . .". Not conclusive evidence, but substantial. Ben Witherington has posted a thorough treatment. See the third of four blog posts by BW3. If deeply interested flip back to the first and start there. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2011/11/04/was-jesus-illiterate-part-three/
  10. My favorite train of thought revolves around Hebrews 5-7 and Jesus as King Melchizedek of Genesis 14, the priest/king/prophet of Salem who blessed Abraham. I had a very nice post because I know not everyone here is a biblehead but I lost it and now I am too frustrated to redo it. I will try again tomorrow.
  11. Yes. Interesting that the parables are not at all like Jewish parables but much more like Sufi teaching stories. Also interesting that the Greek 'tekton' has a wider semantic range than just 'carpenter'. It can apply to anyone who works with their hands. The only true carpenter reference I remember is in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas where Joseph cuts a board too short and Jesus miraculously stretches the board to the proper length.
  12. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. The gospels are not comprehensive, and state many additional books could be written about Jesus. But the conversation is drifting off topic, which is that is a well-accepted (but minority) Christian interpretation that we are not saved by believing Jesus is God ourselves, but rather the entire world was redeemed by the strength of Jesus' faith.
  13. I do have direct knowledge and experience of Jesus' divinity, so his teachings are an important subset of Jesus' existence to me as well. If one recognizes Jesus as God, one must recognize Jesus in everything. That includes Islam, Buddism, athiesm and Rom-eranianism. I'm not diminishing the value of Jesus' teachings. I'm just putting them in a much larger context.
  14. Exactly! If we are saved (whatever that means) through Jesus' faith in God instead of through our faith in Jesus a much more universal picture appears. I personally find the universalist arguments persuasive. I think it was what Jesus DID and WAS that was critical. His teachings are important, but secondary. Intellectual artifacts.
  15. It's still funny. Samson was a fool not a hero.
  16. It strikes me how much Trump is a replay of the final Hebrew judge, Samson. Samson was irreligious, profane and a cheater yet he was the annointed political leader. Yuuuugge ego. Strong but rather dim. Samson was even famous for ignoring his religious vows and just grabbing the honeycomb. Samson successfully destroyed the pagan Temple of Dagon by toppling the two pillars much as Trump has destroyed the thoroughly corrupt Democratic and Republican pillars of the pagan UniParty. And the importance of the hair??? Case closed.
  17. Good question. Two big observations pointing to 1Timothy not being written by Paul. One is the fact that there is a hierarchical church in place which gives it a later dating, and the second is that the vocabulary and style is very different from the undisputed Pauline writings. Still we have a mixed congregation and not a sexually segregated one as with Judaism at that time, but the original ethos of sexual equality was indeed being replaced by male dominance. An improvement but backsliding a bit. Jewish women were not only forbidden in mixed worship, but were uneducated. In 1 Cor 33 Paul has women disrupting worship with dumb questions. He instructs the men to teach their wives at home (take that question offline) which was a progressive attitude at the time. I see an echo of this immediately preceeding the section of 1 Timothy when the author needs to tell the women to stop dressing immodestly, so it seems the men in Timothy's church were not teaching their wives as they should.
  18. 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 10Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11For it has been reported to me by Chloes people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12What I mean is that each of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. 13Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Note the mention of Chloe. Even at this early date Paul had women in leadership positions.
  19. The authors of Job describe God as beyond human understanding, and give an extensive and persuasive argument as to why. I do not think any reasonable person would not be convinced. Indeed, it has persuaded billions of people for millinea. If you can find fault with the book I would be interested in hearing which section you are reading.
  20. Troll away, my friend. God is not recognized by any church or government as a legally authorized fiduciary agent. He cannot be a corporate officer nor can he authorize the legal transfer of assets. So he cannot accomplish steps 1 and 2.
  21. For the second time, give me your solid definition of God so I can answer. Or are you simply trolling me? The subject is Spong and church reform. Let's stay focused on that. What have you read by Spong, and how would you reform your church? We can compare strategies.
  22. John 1:29-42 29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me. 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel. 32And John testified, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, Look, here is the Lamb of God! 37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, What are you looking for? They said to him, Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are you staying? 39He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four oclock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peters brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas (which is translated Peter).
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