Emma
2005-09-11 14:56:24 UTC
I found this on a website.
Interesting.....
Answers are wonderful when they are true and keep
us on the human and spiritual path. But answers are not
wonderful when they become something we have as an ego
possession, allowing us to be arrogant, falsely self assured,
and closed down as a person.
In other words, answers are a plus in the technical and
practical world, but a liability in the world of the
mysterious ways of the Spirit:
My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways
As high as the heavens are from the earth so are my
thoughts above your thoughts says Isaiah 55:8-9.
This depth and mystery to God leaves all of us as perpetual
searchers and seekers, always novices and beginners.
It is the narrow and dark way of faith.
Search and you will find, knock and the door will be
opened to you(Luke 11:9), says Jesus.
There is something inherently valuable about an attitude
of spiritual curiosity and persistent knocking.
It creates in us what the Greek philosophers and
St. Thomas Aquinas call the cardinal virtues:
prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
These were considered the hinge virtues on which all
the other moral virtues hang and depend. If you study
each of these four virtues, you will see that
they each require an ongoing broadening, discerning,
balancing, and discovery of Gods will and Gods ways.
They are never virtues that you fully possess or have,
but they are always dependent on time, discernment,
prayer, and listening to others beyond your self.
They demand gradual discovery and humility, and they
refuse to be had! There is never any one who can say
he is perfectly prudent, always courageous and persistent,
consistently moderate and balanced, or equally just in
regard to others rights.
Jesus is asked 183 questions directly or indirectly in
the four Gospels. He only answered 3 of them directly!
The others he either ignored, kept silent about, asked them
a question in return, changed the subject, told a story or
gave an audio visual aid to make his point, told them it was
the wrong question, revealed their insincerity or hypocrisy,
made the exactly opposite point, or redirected the question
elsewhere!
He himself asks 307 questions, which would seem to set
a pattern for imitation. Considering this, it is really
rather amazing that the church became an official answering
machine and a very self assured program for
sin management.
Many, if not most, of Jesus teaching would never pass
contemporary orthodoxy tests in either the Roman Office
or the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of his statements
are so open to misinterpretation in almost all areas
except one: his insistence upon the goodness and reliability
of God.
That was his only consistent absolute.
These are the three questions that he answered directly:
1) So you are a king, then? said Pilate.
Yes, I am a king. I was born for this (John 18:37).
2) Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught
his disciples. He said to them, This is how you pray,
and he taught them the Our Father (Luke 11:1).
3) To disconcert him, one of the Pharisees put to him a
question, Master, which is the greatest commandment of the
Law? Jesus said, You must love the Lord your God with
all your heart,with all your mind, and with all your soul
And the second is like it (Matthew 22:36-37).
Interesting.....
Answers are wonderful when they are true and keep
us on the human and spiritual path. But answers are not
wonderful when they become something we have as an ego
possession, allowing us to be arrogant, falsely self assured,
and closed down as a person.
In other words, answers are a plus in the technical and
practical world, but a liability in the world of the
mysterious ways of the Spirit:
My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways
As high as the heavens are from the earth so are my
thoughts above your thoughts says Isaiah 55:8-9.
This depth and mystery to God leaves all of us as perpetual
searchers and seekers, always novices and beginners.
It is the narrow and dark way of faith.
Search and you will find, knock and the door will be
opened to you(Luke 11:9), says Jesus.
There is something inherently valuable about an attitude
of spiritual curiosity and persistent knocking.
It creates in us what the Greek philosophers and
St. Thomas Aquinas call the cardinal virtues:
prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
These were considered the hinge virtues on which all
the other moral virtues hang and depend. If you study
each of these four virtues, you will see that
they each require an ongoing broadening, discerning,
balancing, and discovery of Gods will and Gods ways.
They are never virtues that you fully possess or have,
but they are always dependent on time, discernment,
prayer, and listening to others beyond your self.
They demand gradual discovery and humility, and they
refuse to be had! There is never any one who can say
he is perfectly prudent, always courageous and persistent,
consistently moderate and balanced, or equally just in
regard to others rights.
Jesus is asked 183 questions directly or indirectly in
the four Gospels. He only answered 3 of them directly!
The others he either ignored, kept silent about, asked them
a question in return, changed the subject, told a story or
gave an audio visual aid to make his point, told them it was
the wrong question, revealed their insincerity or hypocrisy,
made the exactly opposite point, or redirected the question
elsewhere!
He himself asks 307 questions, which would seem to set
a pattern for imitation. Considering this, it is really
rather amazing that the church became an official answering
machine and a very self assured program for
sin management.
Many, if not most, of Jesus teaching would never pass
contemporary orthodoxy tests in either the Roman Office
or the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of his statements
are so open to misinterpretation in almost all areas
except one: his insistence upon the goodness and reliability
of God.
That was his only consistent absolute.
These are the three questions that he answered directly:
1) So you are a king, then? said Pilate.
Yes, I am a king. I was born for this (John 18:37).
2) Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught
his disciples. He said to them, This is how you pray,
and he taught them the Our Father (Luke 11:1).
3) To disconcert him, one of the Pharisees put to him a
question, Master, which is the greatest commandment of the
Law? Jesus said, You must love the Lord your God with
all your heart,with all your mind, and with all your soul
And the second is like it (Matthew 22:36-37).
--
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Emma
http://www.werenotafraid.com/
*~*~*
*~*~*
Emma
http://www.werenotafraid.com/
*~*~*