#unionwithgod — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #unionwithgod, aggregated by home.social.
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Quote of the day, 25 March: Blessed Marie-Eugène
Before the Annunciation, Mary was the daughter of God in prayer. Certainly, she didn’t yet know about her divine motherhood. She was aware of her grace, the treasure she possessed, the abundance of this grace; yet she remained unaware of herself in the sense that she didn’t recognize the superiority of this grace over ordinary and common grace.
The Virgin was concerned only with uniting herself to God. It was this self-forgetfulness, this purity, that allowed God to pour Himself into her. She continually sought Him, going to find Him in the Temple, and orienting herself toward Him like a child to her Father.
Let us not think that simplicity implies limited horizons. From a human perspective, Mary surely does not seek satisfaction for her faculties; no, she turns solely toward God, practicing in her external actions—required by this simple orientation—the virtue of obedience, like a child who does what is asked without seeking anything beyond it, without even becoming attached to the work itself.
We, on the other hand, are restless in our faculties; Mary is not. She finds this peace in faith. Everything else would be an unnecessary distraction, diverting her from her contact with God. For her, this contact is entirely simple, without ecstasies or raptures, for her faculties are flexible enough to receive and endure—without leaving a trace in her senses—the brilliance and anointing of the Divinity present within her.
What matters, in fact, is not strength but flexibility. The strong are inevitably broken; the flexible bend and endure. In the Virgin, simplicity and flexibility reach perfection. Nothing externalizes itself in her. “She is so simple that I fear she will not be recognized,” they said about Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The same can be said of the Virgin at that moment.
Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus
La Vierge Marie toute Mère (The Virgin Mary, All Mother)
Présence Maternelle: La prière de Marie (Maternal presence, Mary’s prayer)de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2019, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.
Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
Featured Image: This detail from The Annunciation by the Italian artist Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1623 for Charles Emmanuel I, the Duke of Savoy. It is one of the masterpieces found in the collections of the Musei Reali di Torino. Image credit: Adobe Stock (stock photo)
#Annunciation #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #prayer #unionWithGod -
Quote of the day, 21 January: Mother Agnès of Jesus
Recently a tiny shellfish gave me a lesson in interior recollection. I had difficulty in opening it because it resisted strongly, and I said to myself: “It is quite a vigorous little creature: no one would think it is so far from the sea.”
It taught me a great lesson. I must be sufficiently filled with the water of recollection to resist as strongly as he did the pressure of work and various happenings of the day, anything that could make me lose the drop of water which makes possible my union with God.
Mother Agnès of Jesus, o.c.d. (Pauline Martin)
Little Counsels of Mother Agnes of Jesus, OCD Saint Therese’s Sister, Pauline (excerpt), Compiled by the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Ada (Parnell) Michigan
Featured image: Comboni Missionary Father David Bohnsack, mccj captures the humble, contemplative gaze of a child in Abéché, Chad. Image credit: David Bohnsack, mccj (By permission).
#counsel #MotherAgnesOfJesus #PaulineMartin #recollection #unionWithGod
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Quote of the day, 21 November: Blessed Marie-Eugène
Before the Annunciation, Mary was the daughter of God in prayer. Certainly, she didn’t yet know about her divine motherhood. She was aware of her grace, the treasure she possessed, the abundance of this grace; yet she remained unaware of herself in the sense that she didn’t recognize the superiority of this grace over ordinary and common grace.
The Virgin was concerned only with uniting herself to God. It was this self-forgetfulness, this purity, that allowed God to pour Himself into her. She continually sought Him, going to find Him in the Temple, and orienting herself toward Him like a child to her Father.
Let us not think that simplicity implies limited horizons. From a human perspective, Mary surely does not seek satisfaction for her faculties; no, she turns solely toward God, practicing in her external actions—required by this simple orientation—the virtue of obedience, like a child who does what is asked without seeking anything beyond it, without even becoming attached to the work itself.
We, on the other hand, are restless in our faculties; Mary is not. She finds this peace in faith. Everything else would be an unnecessary distraction, diverting her from her contact with God. For her, this contact is entirely simple, without ecstasies or raptures, for her faculties are flexible enough to receive and endure—without leaving a trace in her senses—the brilliance and anointing of the Divinity present within her.
What matters, in fact, is not strength but flexibility. The strong are inevitably broken; the flexible bend and endure. In the Virgin, simplicity and flexibility reach perfection. Nothing externalizes itself in her. “She is so simple that I fear she will not be recognized,” they said about Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The same can be said of the Virgin at that moment.
Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus
La Vierge Marie toute Mère (The Virgin Mary, All Mother)
Présence Maternelle: La prière de Marie (Maternal presence, Mary’s prayer)de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2019, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.
Featured Image: This detail from The Annunciation by the Italian artist Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1623 for Charles Emmanuel I, the Duke of Savoy. It is one of the masterpieces found in the collections of the Musei Reali di Torino. Image credit: Adobe Stock (stock photo)
#Annunciation #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #HenriGrialou #prayer #unionWithGod
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Yes, dear Madame, my happiness has never been so great, so true as it has since God deigned to associate me with the sufferings of the divine Crucified, so “I might suffer in my flesh what is lacking in His passion” (Col 1:24), as Saint Paul said.
I think I will soon be going to join your little Cécile in the bosom of Light and Love. Together, we will turn God’s graces and gifts in your direction…. We will watch over your dear son so He may keep him wholly pure, wholly worthy of the home where God has willed to shelter him; and also allow our little Marie-Madeleine, your beautiful little lily so beloved of my heart.
For you, dear Madame, we will ask, if you allow, those graces of union with the Master that give so much strength to the soul for passing through any trial and that transform life through continual contact with Him!
If you knew how well cared for I am in my dear Carmel, what a Mother I have unceasingly near me…. She is a true mama for her little patient. You would have tears in your eyes if you could see through the grilles the goodness lavished on me by this heart whom God has made so motherly.
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity
Letter 326 to Madame Farrat, around 18 October 1906
Note: Cécile was the granddaughter Madame Farrat had lost. The Farrat family were neighbors of the Catez family. The “dear son” would have been young Olivier, who made his first Communion on 17 May 1903. Marie-Madeleine was born on 13 September 1901 in Dijon.
Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, translated from the French by Nash, A, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Latvian photographer Aleksejs Bergmanis captured this view of sunset above a sea of clouds in October 2017. Image credit: Aleksejs Bermanis / Pexels (Stock photo)
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/17/sabeth-18oct06/
#CarmelOfDijon #fruit #goodness #intercession #loveForNeighbor #prioress #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #StPaul #unionWithGod
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How did Our Lady pray?
We could say almost the same thing about her prayer as about Our Lord’s.
Prayer is a request, a lifting up of our soul to God. But in the Virgin’s case, this union with God is constant, and even her outward activity in no way detracts from this union. Could it be an expression of need? But she found everything in her union.
Yet the Virgin prayed.
She prayed, too, to pay God her homage of dependence, but above all she prayed because she was a mother: the mother of humankind.
The Virgin bore an immense grace that united her to the Word. She prayed for this grace of her Son to pass into souls and be realized, for his reign to come and for the Mystical Body to be constituted.
Under what conditions did Mary pray? Did she need and seek silence?
Yes, but she needed it so much less than we do! Her union with God removed her, almost as a matter of course, from the noise and bustle of external events. For the Annunciation, the Virgin was in the solitude of Nazareth, and later she returned there, far from the noise.
This is a lesson for us: we must seek solitude and silence to pray.
How did the Virgin pray?
Vocal prayer, most likely, with all the people, singing the psalms. It was an act of submission to God. But we need to go further to understand her prayer: we need to return to Our Lord.
Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus
La prière de Marie (excerpt)
Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus 2019, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.
Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
Featured image: Henry Ossawa Tanner created this stunning painting of Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures, seen here in detail, around the year 1908. Executed in oil on canvas, it comes from the Dallas Museum of Art. Image credit: Dallas Museum of Art (Public domain)
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/13/grialou-virginpray/
#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #grace #MysticalBody #OurLady #prayer #Psalms #silence #solitude #unionWithGod #VirginMary #vocalPrayer
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How did Our Lady pray?
We could say almost the same thing about her prayer as about Our Lord’s.
Prayer is a request, a lifting up of our soul to God. But in the Virgin’s case, this union with God is constant, and even her outward activity in no way detracts from this union. Could it be an expression of need? But she found everything in her union.
Yet the Virgin prayed.
She prayed, too, to pay God her homage of dependence, but above all she prayed because she was a mother: the mother of humankind.
The Virgin bore an immense grace that united her to the Word. She prayed for this grace of her Son to pass into souls and be realized, for his reign to come and for the Mystical Body to be constituted.
Under what conditions did Mary pray? Did she need and seek silence?
Yes, but she needed it so much less than we do! Her union with God removed her, almost as a matter of course, from the noise and bustle of external events. For the Annunciation, the Virgin was in the solitude of Nazareth, and later she returned there, far from the noise.
This is a lesson for us: we must seek solitude and silence to pray.
How did the Virgin pray?
Vocal prayer, most likely, with all the people, singing the psalms. It was an act of submission to God. But we need to go further to understand her prayer: we need to return to Our Lord.
Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus
La prière de Marie (excerpt)
Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus 2019, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.
Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
Featured image: Henry Ossawa Tanner created this stunning painting of Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures, seen here in detail, around the year 1908. Executed in oil on canvas, it comes from the Dallas Museum of Art. Image credit: Dallas Museum of Art (Public domain)
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/13/grialou-virginpray/
#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #grace #MysticalBody #OurLady #prayer #Psalms #silence #solitude #unionWithGod #VirginMary #vocalPrayer
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Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.
Introduction
At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.
In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]
But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.
Ephesians 2:11-22
For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)
So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.
This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.
And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.
Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]
Conclusion
The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.
We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.
[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93
[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.
[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”
[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”
[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”
[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”
[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”
[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’ of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”
[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”
[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”
[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”
[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”
[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”
[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”
[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”
[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”
[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”
[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”
[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”
[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”
https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/
#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor
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Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.
Introduction
At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.
In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]
But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.
Ephesians 2:11-22
For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)
So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.
This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.
And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.
Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]
Conclusion
The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.
We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.
[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93
[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.
[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”
[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”
[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”
[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”
[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”
[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’ of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”
[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”
[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”
[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”
[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”
[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”
[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”
[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”
[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”
[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”
[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”
[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”
[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”
https://laurenrelarkin.com/2024/07/21/6623/
#Beloved #ChoosingLife #ChristianNationalism #DividingWall #DivineLove #DivinePeace #Division #DorotheeSölle #Ephesians #Hope #Jesus #LawAndGospel #Love #LoveOfNeighbor #MarkusBarth #Peace #UnionWithGod #UnionWithSelf #UnionWithTheNeighbor
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Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness
Scripture
And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)Reading
Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4
Prayer
O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of thee.Mention your request
Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.Let’s continue in prayer…
- Day 1 — What profit is there?
- Day 2 — An open wound
- Day 3 — Your heart in peace
- Day 4 — An imitation of his life
- Day 5 — Supreme goodness
- Day 6 — Guided through the dark night
- Day 7 — Surrender
- Day 8 — Inspired with love
- Day 9 — All things are forgotten
All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.
Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.
#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness
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Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness
Scripture
And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)Reading
Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4
Prayer
O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of thee.Mention your request
Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.Let’s continue in prayer…
- Day 1 — What profit is there?
- Day 2 — An open wound
- Day 3 — Your heart in peace
- Day 4 — An imitation of his life
- Day 5 — Supreme goodness
- Day 6 — Guided through the dark night
- Day 7 — Surrender
- Day 8 — Inspired with love
- Day 9 — All things are forgotten
All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.
Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.
#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness
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Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness
Scripture
And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)Reading
Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.
The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4
Prayer
O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of thee.Mention your request
Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.Let’s continue in prayer…
- Day 1 — What profit is there?
- Day 2 — An open wound
- Day 3 — Your heart in peace
- Day 4 — An imitation of his life
- Day 5 — Supreme goodness
- Day 6 — Guided through the dark night
- Day 7 — Surrender
- Day 8 — Inspired with love
- Day 9 — All things are forgotten
All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.
Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.
#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness
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The Big conversation Why it matters
Looking at our small community we must remember that it is God Who calls and for what we can offer in our community He takes what we have and makes it go further!
- Church is the place to bring empty lives for God to fill.
- Church is about meeting not just meetings!
In our previous postings we also pointed out that some people may have a wrong opinion about unity and expect all people in a community to say the same and to act the same. But “being one” doesn’t mean “being a clone”. God blesses unity! And we should have and should share our unity in Christ and unity with Christ. All being one in following the teachings of Christ, believing what he says and following up what he asked his followers to do. Not just following a church because it pleases us but because it follows the teachings of the son of God, Jesus Christ, and stays truthful to the Words of God, following God’s Will and willing to share His Gospel. Our union should be in the love for God which should be noticeable for outsiders, being a union of loving people, loving Jehovah God and His son Christ Jesus, Jeshua the Messiah, as lovers of the truth, sharing this love and Good News and spreading unselfish, mutual, unconditional Agape brotherly love and love for all creation under the Covenant of love as beloved disciples and as Bible lovers making a circle of love under the Royal Law of love.
Having different people coming together there should be allowance for every one to have their say. All gathered should have respect for all present and give them the opportunity to share their ideas. Being together it also must be an occasion where public confession, based on a word from God, can take place. This may demand courage to stand up and declare truth, but in a real church of God this should not be a problem because that has to be a place of sharing the love of Christ and working at getting the love of God.
Spending time together to study the Word of God, must do something to those present. Change is inevitable…
except from a vending machine
said Arne Roberts, on October the tenth, at the Big Conversation. For him it is clear what is going to happen to other Bible Students which all came form the same source.
Here’s what will happen to Jehovah’s Witnesses: They will become increasingly like the religious group that influenced Charles Russell: The Christadelphians…
The Christadelphians were once an outspoken, vibrant, edgy “Christian” group who spread their urgent end-times message far and wide. They grew exponentially in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but their heyday is long past. For several decades now they resemble a heavy rusty old steam locomotive that is running out of speed as it lumbers along ill-kept tracks, but still tries to muster the motion needed to take on steep mountain slopes.
The Christadelphians ooze sad irrelevance and faded glory of times well passed. They are an old people’s religion – old people who don’t have the self- and other-awareness to see that they are clinging to a dead dream. The Christadelphians have long since passed their used-by date and the only ones who still ‘practice’ this religion are older individuals who cannot muster the strength to look out their windows at the real world passing them by.
This is the future of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who will not go out with a bang, but who will slowly whimper to an ever slower crawl as the decades pass and the world, in its infinite fascination with religious novelty, will fix its distractable attention on to other more modern belief systems.
For Arne Roberts that is not the end. He asks us to keep in mind that we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
We as followers of Christ should make sure that the Clarion of the Torah may sound. We hearing the sound loudly should make sure that there might be a stimulant for others in our community to become co-workers, helping each other, not working against each other, or not considering each other rivals. As individual beings, planets or stars, we may be totally different, but together we are one part of the universe, just some small elements in the creation of God.
Our very tiny community at a Breaking of Bread gathering at our regular meeting place, the service centre in Heverlee, Leuven.When people just not come to join others because they are part of a small community than that community shall never have any chance of growing. When people keep waiting before willing to join a small community because it does not attract them for it is so small that they shall be noticed, we do have to convince them that they should not hide themselves behind the numbers. It is true that when there is a small church people will be noticed. In a mega church nobody shall notice it when you come in later, slip out earlier, shall fall asleep or shall not be attentional. When we encounter such doubting people who are afraid to join a small church we can ask them
How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
It is up to us that God is in our life and that we want to share it with them. They should not be afraid to feel having a naked identity it such a small group, because as followers of Christ Jesus we have abandoned our sinful ‘I’ and actually have taken an other identity, no identity of our own apart from our union with Christ. Not that we have no unique personality or value or purpose, but that Christ defines our new life. It is that inseparable connection within Christ as a believer, which unites us and in the love of Christ we found the love for each other and have to show the world that we want to share that love. When we fail to see our true existence in Christ and fail to find our life and, thus, seek it outside of Christ we shall become victim of our own vain pursuit that only leads to frustration and angst in our God-thirsty soul.
We must understand that whatever happens the majority of people will not want to take the divine Creator as their God and lots of people shall prefer to be part of the contemporary world, belonging to it, being in it, and enjoying a worldly philosophy, inventions of men designed to rob you of your inheritance (Col.2:8-10) and as such shall not be so much attracted to the Christadelphian world, which demands a change in their attitude. The friendship with the world is for most people much more important than the friendship with God loving people. Most shall prefer to stay in the Godless world having not to wonder about their own responsibilities.
It is up to the lovers of God to show the others the light of the world and that no one should worry to much about living in this world. When people could come to know that New world better they might think twice and be prepared easier to leave the Old world for what it is, looking forward to a better and perfect world. We understand it is not easy for man to get away with the worldly traditions, so this shall always be some of the obstacles to join or to stay in our community. But people should not be afraid that they cannot take part in worldly events in a Godless world. Christadelphians for sure also can enjoy worldly life, having enough time fore worldly pleasures, and not to become frustrated under the yoke of the world.
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Preceding articles:
The Big conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
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Additional reading
- A call easy to understand
- Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
- How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
- Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
- He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The business of this life
- Church sent into the world
- Work with joy and pray with love
- Love for each other attracting others
- How do you keep people from stealing your joy?
- Love is like playing the piano
- Creator and Blogger God 9 A Blog of a Book 3 Blog about Prophecy
- Not all christians are followers of a Greco-Roman culture
- Misunderstandings concerning C.T. Russell
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Was Russell and Rutherford “Illuminati”?
- Charles Taze Russell and what he started
- Jesse Hemery and the The Goshen Fellowship
- To remove the whitewash of the Jehovah Witnesses as being the only true Bible Students and Bible Researchers
- Using the name Jehovah but not a witness of that name
- Different approach in organisation of services #1
- Different approach in organisation of services #2
- Different approach in organisation of services #3
- A man from the North wanting to have control in Belgium
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- Dissolution of Bijbelvorsers (Bible scholars), Association for Bible study
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Who are the Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Christadelphian people
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- About the Belgian Free Christadelphians
- What Christadelphians teach
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- 19° Century London Christadelphians
- Breathing and growing with no heir
- Preaching to an unbelieving world
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- What part of the Body am I?
- The Church, Body of Christ and remnant Israel synonymous
- United people under Christ
- Fellowship
- The Ecclesia
- The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
- The ecclesia or Christadelphian church
- Our relationship with God, Jesus and each other
- Our ecclesia or Christadelphian-church
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- An ecclesia in your neighbourhood
- Communion and day of worship
- Christadelphians today
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Harvest in Belgium
+++
Further readings:
- I Once Was Blind but Now I See
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Cornerstones
- Narcissist Case Studies – How We Know The Pharisees Were Narcissists, Part 2
- Jesus The Cornerstone Of The Church
- Hey You, Cornterstone! (Who???….me?) Yeah, You!
- God Is Not Human
- Where to Draw the Line: Culture vs Religion
- The Cornerstone: The Response of the Church in Violent Times
- Gospel Doctrine 2015 – Lesson 39 – “For the Perfecting of the Saints”
- Finding Joy in the Little Things
- Word Wednesday: Jesus Our Cornerstone
- The Cornerstone of Your Life
- Cornerstone
- Walking With Intentionality
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
+++
Related articles
- Jesus Christ is not REAL to most Christians (finalcall07.wordpress.com)
- Loving the Sinner (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
- We stand together proudly (chronicle.augusta.com)
- A Perfect Inheritance (birdchirp.wordpress.com)
- Spiritual Growth (faithandfootsteps.wordpress.com)
- “By the Power Invested in Me” (breakawaybylintrollins.wordpress.com)
- Victory (myspiritualbreakfast.com)
- Torah for Today: What does the Torah say about the migrant crisis? (jewishnews.co.uk)
- Slavery (thought.dcwillis.com)
- The differing origins of humankind (iol.co.za)
Rate this:
#19Century #Agape #ArneRoberts #BeingOfTheWorld #BibleStudents #BrotherlyLove #CharlesRussell #ChristadelphianCommunity #ChristadelphianWorld #Confession #Cornerstone #Courage #FellowCitizens #FollowersOfChrist #FollowingAChurch #FollowingChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingTheSon #FollowingWordOfGod #FriendOfTheWorld #Frustration #Gathering #GodCalling #GodlessWorld #HouseholdOfGod #JehovahWitnesses #JehovahSWitnesses #LightOfTheWorld #LivingInThisWorld #LoveForChrist #LoveForCreation #LoveOfChrist #MegaChurch #ModernBeliefSystems #Respect #RespectForEachother #Share #SmallChurch #SmallCommunity #Stimulant #toGather #TorahSClarionCall #Union #UnionWithChristJesus #UnionWithGod #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityWithChrist #WordOfGod #WorldlyLife #WorldlyTraditions
-
The Big conversation Why it matters
Looking at our small community we must remember that it is God Who calls and for what we can offer in our community He takes what we have and makes it go further!
- Church is the place to bring empty lives for God to fill.
- Church is about meeting not just meetings!
In our previous postings we also pointed out that some people may have a wrong opinion about unity and expect all people in a community to say the same and to act the same. But “being one” doesn’t mean “being a clone”. God blesses unity! And we should have and should share our unity in Christ and unity with Christ. All being one in following the teachings of Christ, believing what he says and following up what he asked his followers to do. Not just following a church because it pleases us but because it follows the teachings of the son of God, Jesus Christ, and stays truthful to the Words of God, following God’s Will and willing to share His Gospel. Our union should be in the love for God which should be noticeable for outsiders, being a union of loving people, loving Jehovah God and His son Christ Jesus, Jeshua the Messiah, as lovers of the truth, sharing this love and Good News and spreading unselfish, mutual, unconditional Agape brotherly love and love for all creation under the Covenant of love as beloved disciples and as Bible lovers making a circle of love under the Royal Law of love.
Having different people coming together there should be allowance for every one to have their say. All gathered should have respect for all present and give them the opportunity to share their ideas. Being together it also must be an occasion where public confession, based on a word from God, can take place. This may demand courage to stand up and declare truth, but in a real church of God this should not be a problem because that has to be a place of sharing the love of Christ and working at getting the love of God.
Spending time together to study the Word of God, must do something to those present. Change is inevitable…
except from a vending machine
said Arne Roberts, on October the tenth, at the Big Conversation. For him it is clear what is going to happen to other Bible Students which all came form the same source.
Here’s what will happen to Jehovah’s Witnesses: They will become increasingly like the religious group that influenced Charles Russell: The Christadelphians…
The Christadelphians were once an outspoken, vibrant, edgy “Christian” group who spread their urgent end-times message far and wide. They grew exponentially in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but their heyday is long past. For several decades now they resemble a heavy rusty old steam locomotive that is running out of speed as it lumbers along ill-kept tracks, but still tries to muster the motion needed to take on steep mountain slopes.
The Christadelphians ooze sad irrelevance and faded glory of times well passed. They are an old people’s religion – old people who don’t have the self- and other-awareness to see that they are clinging to a dead dream. The Christadelphians have long since passed their used-by date and the only ones who still ‘practice’ this religion are older individuals who cannot muster the strength to look out their windows at the real world passing them by.
This is the future of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who will not go out with a bang, but who will slowly whimper to an ever slower crawl as the decades pass and the world, in its infinite fascination with religious novelty, will fix its distractable attention on to other more modern belief systems.
For Arne Roberts that is not the end. He asks us to keep in mind that we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
We as followers of Christ should make sure that the Clarion of the Torah may sound. We hearing the sound loudly should make sure that there might be a stimulant for others in our community to become co-workers, helping each other, not working against each other, or not considering each other rivals. As individual beings, planets or stars, we may be totally different, but together we are one part of the universe, just some small elements in the creation of God.
Our very tiny community at a Breaking of Bread gathering at our regular meeting place, the service centre in Heverlee, Leuven.When people just not come to join others because they are part of a small community than that community shall never have any chance of growing. When people keep waiting before willing to join a small community because it does not attract them for it is so small that they shall be noticed, we do have to convince them that they should not hide themselves behind the numbers. It is true that when there is a small church people will be noticed. In a mega church nobody shall notice it when you come in later, slip out earlier, shall fall asleep or shall not be attentional. When we encounter such doubting people who are afraid to join a small church we can ask them
How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
It is up to us that God is in our life and that we want to share it with them. They should not be afraid to feel having a naked identity it such a small group, because as followers of Christ Jesus we have abandoned our sinful ‘I’ and actually have taken an other identity, no identity of our own apart from our union with Christ. Not that we have no unique personality or value or purpose, but that Christ defines our new life. It is that inseparable connection within Christ as a believer, which unites us and in the love of Christ we found the love for each other and have to show the world that we want to share that love. When we fail to see our true existence in Christ and fail to find our life and, thus, seek it outside of Christ we shall become victim of our own vain pursuit that only leads to frustration and angst in our God-thirsty soul.
We must understand that whatever happens the majority of people will not want to take the divine Creator as their God and lots of people shall prefer to be part of the contemporary world, belonging to it, being in it, and enjoying a worldly philosophy, inventions of men designed to rob you of your inheritance (Col.2:8-10) and as such shall not be so much attracted to the Christadelphian world, which demands a change in their attitude. The friendship with the world is for most people much more important than the friendship with God loving people. Most shall prefer to stay in the Godless world having not to wonder about their own responsibilities.
It is up to the lovers of God to show the others the light of the world and that no one should worry to much about living in this world. When people could come to know that New world better they might think twice and be prepared easier to leave the Old world for what it is, looking forward to a better and perfect world. We understand it is not easy for man to get away with the worldly traditions, so this shall always be some of the obstacles to join or to stay in our community. But people should not be afraid that they cannot take part in worldly events in a Godless world. Christadelphians for sure also can enjoy worldly life, having enough time fore worldly pleasures, and not to become frustrated under the yoke of the world.
+
Preceding articles:
The Big conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
++
Additional reading
- A call easy to understand
- Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
- How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
- Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
- He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The business of this life
- Church sent into the world
- Work with joy and pray with love
- Love for each other attracting others
- How do you keep people from stealing your joy?
- Love is like playing the piano
- Creator and Blogger God 9 A Blog of a Book 3 Blog about Prophecy
- Not all christians are followers of a Greco-Roman culture
- Misunderstandings concerning C.T. Russell
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Was Russell and Rutherford “Illuminati”?
- Charles Taze Russell and what he started
- Jesse Hemery and the The Goshen Fellowship
- To remove the whitewash of the Jehovah Witnesses as being the only true Bible Students and Bible Researchers
- Using the name Jehovah but not a witness of that name
- Different approach in organisation of services #1
- Different approach in organisation of services #2
- Different approach in organisation of services #3
- A man from the North wanting to have control in Belgium
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- Dissolution of Bijbelvorsers (Bible scholars), Association for Bible study
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Who are the Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Christadelphian people
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- About the Belgian Free Christadelphians
- What Christadelphians teach
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- 19° Century London Christadelphians
- Breathing and growing with no heir
- Preaching to an unbelieving world
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- What part of the Body am I?
- The Church, Body of Christ and remnant Israel synonymous
- United people under Christ
- Fellowship
- The Ecclesia
- The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
- The ecclesia or Christadelphian church
- Our relationship with God, Jesus and each other
- Our ecclesia or Christadelphian-church
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- An ecclesia in your neighbourhood
- Communion and day of worship
- Christadelphians today
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Harvest in Belgium
+++
Further readings:
- I Once Was Blind but Now I See
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Cornerstones
- Narcissist Case Studies – How We Know The Pharisees Were Narcissists, Part 2
- Jesus The Cornerstone Of The Church
- Hey You, Cornterstone! (Who???….me?) Yeah, You!
- God Is Not Human
- Where to Draw the Line: Culture vs Religion
- The Cornerstone: The Response of the Church in Violent Times
- Gospel Doctrine 2015 – Lesson 39 – “For the Perfecting of the Saints”
- Finding Joy in the Little Things
- Word Wednesday: Jesus Our Cornerstone
- The Cornerstone of Your Life
- Cornerstone
- Walking With Intentionality
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
+++
Related articles
- Jesus Christ is not REAL to most Christians (finalcall07.wordpress.com)
- Loving the Sinner (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
- We stand together proudly (chronicle.augusta.com)
- A Perfect Inheritance (birdchirp.wordpress.com)
- Spiritual Growth (faithandfootsteps.wordpress.com)
- “By the Power Invested in Me” (breakawaybylintrollins.wordpress.com)
- Victory (myspiritualbreakfast.com)
- Torah for Today: What does the Torah say about the migrant crisis? (jewishnews.co.uk)
- Slavery (thought.dcwillis.com)
- The differing origins of humankind (iol.co.za)
Rate this:
#19Century #Agape #ArneRoberts #BeingOfTheWorld #BibleStudents #BrotherlyLove #CharlesRussell #ChristadelphianCommunity #ChristadelphianWorld #Confession #Cornerstone #Courage #FellowCitizens #FollowersOfChrist #FollowingAChurch #FollowingChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingTheSon #FollowingWordOfGod #FriendOfTheWorld #Frustration #Gathering #GodCalling #GodlessWorld #HouseholdOfGod #JehovahWitnesses #JehovahSWitnesses #LightOfTheWorld #LivingInThisWorld #LoveForChrist #LoveForCreation #LoveOfChrist #MegaChurch #ModernBeliefSystems #Respect #RespectForEachother #Share #SmallChurch #SmallCommunity #Stimulant #toGather #TorahSClarionCall #Union #UnionWithChristJesus #UnionWithGod #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityWithChrist #WordOfGod #WorldlyLife #WorldlyTraditions
-
The Big conversation Why it matters
Looking at our small community we must remember that it is God Who calls and for what we can offer in our community He takes what we have and makes it go further!
- Church is the place to bring empty lives for God to fill.
- Church is about meeting not just meetings!
In our previous postings we also pointed out that some people may have a wrong opinion about unity and expect all people in a community to say the same and to act the same. But “being one” doesn’t mean “being a clone”. God blesses unity! And we should have and should share our unity in Christ and unity with Christ. All being one in following the teachings of Christ, believing what he says and following up what he asked his followers to do. Not just following a church because it pleases us but because it follows the teachings of the son of God, Jesus Christ, and stays truthful to the Words of God, following God’s Will and willing to share His Gospel. Our union should be in the love for God which should be noticeable for outsiders, being a union of loving people, loving Jehovah God and His son Christ Jesus, Jeshua the Messiah, as lovers of the truth, sharing this love and Good News and spreading unselfish, mutual, unconditional Agape brotherly love and love for all creation under the Covenant of love as beloved disciples and as Bible lovers making a circle of love under the Royal Law of love.
Having different people coming together there should be allowance for every one to have their say. All gathered should have respect for all present and give them the opportunity to share their ideas. Being together it also must be an occasion where public confession, based on a word from God, can take place. This may demand courage to stand up and declare truth, but in a real church of God this should not be a problem because that has to be a place of sharing the love of Christ and working at getting the love of God.
Spending time together to study the Word of God, must do something to those present. Change is inevitable…
except from a vending machine
said Arne Roberts, on October the tenth, at the Big Conversation. For him it is clear what is going to happen to other Bible Students which all came form the same source.
Here’s what will happen to Jehovah’s Witnesses: They will become increasingly like the religious group that influenced Charles Russell: The Christadelphians…
The Christadelphians were once an outspoken, vibrant, edgy “Christian” group who spread their urgent end-times message far and wide. They grew exponentially in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but their heyday is long past. For several decades now they resemble a heavy rusty old steam locomotive that is running out of speed as it lumbers along ill-kept tracks, but still tries to muster the motion needed to take on steep mountain slopes.
The Christadelphians ooze sad irrelevance and faded glory of times well passed. They are an old people’s religion – old people who don’t have the self- and other-awareness to see that they are clinging to a dead dream. The Christadelphians have long since passed their used-by date and the only ones who still ‘practice’ this religion are older individuals who cannot muster the strength to look out their windows at the real world passing them by.
This is the future of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who will not go out with a bang, but who will slowly whimper to an ever slower crawl as the decades pass and the world, in its infinite fascination with religious novelty, will fix its distractable attention on to other more modern belief systems.
For Arne Roberts that is not the end. He asks us to keep in mind that we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
We as followers of Christ should make sure that the Clarion of the Torah may sound. We hearing the sound loudly should make sure that there might be a stimulant for others in our community to become co-workers, helping each other, not working against each other, or not considering each other rivals. As individual beings, planets or stars, we may be totally different, but together we are one part of the universe, just some small elements in the creation of God.
Our very tiny community at a Breaking of Bread gathering at our regular meeting place, the service centre in Heverlee, Leuven.When people just not come to join others because they are part of a small community than that community shall never have any chance of growing. When people keep waiting before willing to join a small community because it does not attract them for it is so small that they shall be noticed, we do have to convince them that they should not hide themselves behind the numbers. It is true that when there is a small church people will be noticed. In a mega church nobody shall notice it when you come in later, slip out earlier, shall fall asleep or shall not be attentional. When we encounter such doubting people who are afraid to join a small church we can ask them
How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
It is up to us that God is in our life and that we want to share it with them. They should not be afraid to feel having a naked identity it such a small group, because as followers of Christ Jesus we have abandoned our sinful ‘I’ and actually have taken an other identity, no identity of our own apart from our union with Christ. Not that we have no unique personality or value or purpose, but that Christ defines our new life. It is that inseparable connection within Christ as a believer, which unites us and in the love of Christ we found the love for each other and have to show the world that we want to share that love. When we fail to see our true existence in Christ and fail to find our life and, thus, seek it outside of Christ we shall become victim of our own vain pursuit that only leads to frustration and angst in our God-thirsty soul.
We must understand that whatever happens the majority of people will not want to take the divine Creator as their God and lots of people shall prefer to be part of the contemporary world, belonging to it, being in it, and enjoying a worldly philosophy, inventions of men designed to rob you of your inheritance (Col.2:8-10) and as such shall not be so much attracted to the Christadelphian world, which demands a change in their attitude. The friendship with the world is for most people much more important than the friendship with God loving people. Most shall prefer to stay in the Godless world having not to wonder about their own responsibilities.
It is up to the lovers of God to show the others the light of the world and that no one should worry to much about living in this world. When people could come to know that New world better they might think twice and be prepared easier to leave the Old world for what it is, looking forward to a better and perfect world. We understand it is not easy for man to get away with the worldly traditions, so this shall always be some of the obstacles to join or to stay in our community. But people should not be afraid that they cannot take part in worldly events in a Godless world. Christadelphians for sure also can enjoy worldly life, having enough time fore worldly pleasures, and not to become frustrated under the yoke of the world.
+
Preceding articles:
The Big conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
++
Additional reading
- A call easy to understand
- Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
- How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
- Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
- He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The business of this life
- Church sent into the world
- Work with joy and pray with love
- Love for each other attracting others
- How do you keep people from stealing your joy?
- Love is like playing the piano
- Creator and Blogger God 9 A Blog of a Book 3 Blog about Prophecy
- Not all christians are followers of a Greco-Roman culture
- Misunderstandings concerning C.T. Russell
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Was Russell and Rutherford “Illuminati”?
- Charles Taze Russell and what he started
- Jesse Hemery and the The Goshen Fellowship
- To remove the whitewash of the Jehovah Witnesses as being the only true Bible Students and Bible Researchers
- Using the name Jehovah but not a witness of that name
- Different approach in organisation of services #1
- Different approach in organisation of services #2
- Different approach in organisation of services #3
- A man from the North wanting to have control in Belgium
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- Dissolution of Bijbelvorsers (Bible scholars), Association for Bible study
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Who are the Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Christadelphian people
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- About the Belgian Free Christadelphians
- What Christadelphians teach
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- 19° Century London Christadelphians
- Breathing and growing with no heir
- Preaching to an unbelieving world
- Commitment to Christian unity
- Parts of the body of Christ
- What part of the Body am I?
- The Church, Body of Christ and remnant Israel synonymous
- United people under Christ
- Fellowship
- The Ecclesia
- The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
- The ecclesia or Christadelphian church
- Our relationship with God, Jesus and each other
- Our ecclesia or Christadelphian-church
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- An ecclesia in your neighbourhood
- Communion and day of worship
- Christadelphians today
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Harvest in Belgium
+++
Further readings:
- I Once Was Blind but Now I See
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Day 28: Where Are They?
- Cornerstones
- Narcissist Case Studies – How We Know The Pharisees Were Narcissists, Part 2
- Jesus The Cornerstone Of The Church
- Hey You, Cornterstone! (Who???….me?) Yeah, You!
- God Is Not Human
- Where to Draw the Line: Culture vs Religion
- The Cornerstone: The Response of the Church in Violent Times
- Gospel Doctrine 2015 – Lesson 39 – “For the Perfecting of the Saints”
- Finding Joy in the Little Things
- Word Wednesday: Jesus Our Cornerstone
- The Cornerstone of Your Life
- Cornerstone
- Walking With Intentionality
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
+++
Related articles
- Jesus Christ is not REAL to most Christians (finalcall07.wordpress.com)
- Loving the Sinner (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
- We stand together proudly (chronicle.augusta.com)
- A Perfect Inheritance (birdchirp.wordpress.com)
- Spiritual Growth (faithandfootsteps.wordpress.com)
- “By the Power Invested in Me” (breakawaybylintrollins.wordpress.com)
- Victory (myspiritualbreakfast.com)
- Torah for Today: What does the Torah say about the migrant crisis? (jewishnews.co.uk)
- Slavery (thought.dcwillis.com)
- The differing origins of humankind (iol.co.za)
Rate this:
#19Century #Agape #ArneRoberts #BeingOfTheWorld #BibleStudents #BrotherlyLove #CharlesRussell #ChristadelphianCommunity #ChristadelphianWorld #Confession #Cornerstone #Courage #FellowCitizens #FollowersOfChrist #FollowingAChurch #FollowingChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingTheSon #FollowingWordOfGod #FriendOfTheWorld #Frustration #Gathering #GodCalling #GodlessWorld #HouseholdOfGod #JehovahWitnesses #JehovahSWitnesses #LightOfTheWorld #LivingInThisWorld #LoveForChrist #LoveForCreation #LoveOfChrist #MegaChurch #ModernBeliefSystems #Respect #RespectForEachother #Share #SmallChurch #SmallCommunity #Stimulant #toGather #TorahSClarionCall #Union #UnionWithChristJesus #UnionWithGod #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityWithChrist #WordOfGod #WorldlyLife #WorldlyTraditions
-
Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
Tuesday-night at the meeting of the Ecclesia Brussel–Leuven we read Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 1+3, looking at the difficulties we have encountered the last few months and how we had to cope with it but also how we should continue our way.
Sometimes we do get to recognise we could not re-conciliate but have to turn over the page and leave those who did not want to be amicably connected with us on their own. Sometimes a community has the priority to protect its own flock and has to take measures which do not seem so pleasant for all people involved. When certain people prefer to stand on their own and are not willing to co-operate the community than has to decide to let them go their own way, but when they themselves did everything to blacken that community, they should not have to keep contact any more. As such we decided to leave the man from the North and his organisation far what they are, and shall concentrate ourselves on bringing people to Christ ourselves, without their help.
Jesus Christ is the man who opened the way to his Father. He is the One Mediator between God and man and is the cornerstone of the Church of God.
We do trust the Most High, Elohim Hashem Jehovah, Who shall call people and Who shall guide us and give us that what we need according to His time.
In Him we trust and give all our hope to build up His Church in Belgium and other parts in the world.
+++
Related articles
- New on the ASOR Blog- Ecclesia Diaboli (I Thought It Was Going to be about the Methodists…) (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
Alexander Michalak writes: My preliminary examination of several Second Temple texts, 1 Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, Joseph and Aseneth, Testament of Job, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs indicates that there is already at this time a connection between demons and the cult of foreign gods, although they are not always explicitly identified with one another. Sometimes the demonic spirits are said only to lead people astray, that is, to lead people toward Gentile worship and toward idolatry, whereas in other cases it is the demonic spirits who are the objects of worship, or the pagan gods themselves. - The House of Worship (causeitfeelsright.wordpress.com)
The Greek word that should have been translated to church was only used twice in the New Testament. It means “the Lord’s” and was used for the Lord’s day and the Lord’s supper. But this instance is ecclesia. It means “to call forth from out of”. Matthew says if you and the other person can’t work out your problems go get help. Go find a few more people to help because maybe they’ll understand a different perspective. If that doesn’t work go find the ones who have been called out of darkness (1 Peter). When you are in darkness you can’t see clearly and when you are “in the dark” you are ignorant which simply means you don’t know. So someone who has been called out can see clearly, or they are knowledgeable or “in the know” which is having “inside” information. - Mary, Martha & Lazarus – the family in Bethany (hadvarim.wordpress.com)
The gospel narrative then is largely concerned with Christ exposing the apostate Jewish leaders, and building up his apostles as “other husbandmen” to replace them. The parables recorded of the Kingdom of heaven throughout Matthew describe the kingdom of Israel in existence (Mat 11:12), under the governance of the prince of this world – the apostate Jewish leaders (John 12:31, 16:11, Eph 2:2, Luke 10:18, Mat 24:27), and then later to be replaced with the new heavens founded upon Christ as the Abrahamic seed stars are raised to the political heavens (Gen 15:5, Dan 12:2-3, Psa 19:4, 1 Cor 15:40-49, Apoc 4:1).
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A people for his Name
Christ is described as the second Adam as compared to the first Adam (1 Cor 15:45-47). Both of them the “son of God” (Luke 3:38), and both typically created the same way. The body of Christ is the Ecclesia εκκλησια (Eph 5:23, 30, Col 1:18,24), and it is being formed from the Abrahamic dust, the seed of Abraham according to the promises of old; compare Gen 2:7 with Gen 13:16, 28:14.
+The mortal children of Israel are described as Elohim, mighty ones, or as we have in the AV “gods”. Elohim describes the the mental state of the person, not their physical nature. Ambassadors of the father, regardless of whether they are mortal people or immortal angels. If they are empowered by the will of the spirit, they are indeed mighty ones.When mortal Elohim, mighty ones, do not keep the commandments of Yahweh then they are not immune – by any means – to the consequences of their actions. They will “die like men”.
Therefore we ought to take earnest heed to the things which we have heard. We have all the scriptures… even the testimony of the Son, which brings with it great responsibility (Heb 2:1-3). We comfort in that if we turn from wickedness we will be forgiven. Yet vigilant in the warning that turning to wickedness means rejection (Ezk 33:11-19).
- Ecclesia Plantanda (vicaranne.wordpress.com)
Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787) … Englishman William Carey … Both men understood that sharing good news need not and must not wait for people to learn the evangelist’s tongue. - church oh church1 (ozyikhiedwardblog.wordpress.com)
why substitute “ecclesia” for “kyriakon”?to support the regular congregating of early Christians,who didn’t understand what Paul and Silas were doing!
What did the New Covenant writers mean when they used the word “Ecclesia” to describe a Christian body of people?? We can safely denote that they intended to convey the original Greek meaning of the word:”A body of Christian called out of Roman and Judean systems of Government,to live under a seperate civil mentality,”a politically autonomous body of Christians,under no other King but Yeshua,under no other civil laws,than that of Yeshua.But some misguided folks misunderstood the missions of Paul, that was why these Christians ran into trouble with kings and rulers,were arrested,crucified,and martyred. They dropped Caesar as their King,and took up Christ. The writers of the New covenant didn’t substitute “kyriakon” with “Ecclesia” to mean entertainment every Sundays,and Tuesdays,and so on! - Apostasy in the Highest Places (mysteryoftheiniquity.com)
The church, the Ecclesia, is a body of people who are redeemed called out to represent GOD and HIS Authority which means they are called to carry our HIS Laws. We are granted the responsibility of not only this but we are accountable for these actions.
The fact that the church is failing man is an undeniable truth but it’s also devastating to the people. How do I mean they are failing the people? - Priority to form a loving brotherhood (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
There might be people who do not like that others share the love of Christ with each other and do not mind being under Christ instead of being under one or the other organisation. - Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Coming together in each-others houses, forming housechurches as a church of disciples they also were an assembly of learners. We too so many years later should be like them a church of Christian disciples and an assembly of persons who believe the things of the Kingdom of God, and of the Name of the lord Jesus, and, thus believing, have been immersed into Christ and patiently continue in the faith and well doing of their vocation, reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting all things revealed in the scriptures of truth.
In the readings of today we look at the brothers and sisters in Corinth some 2000 years ago.
In Belgium the community has been troubled by persons perhaps wanting to claim to have the right to make foundations and to direct the groups of people wanting to come together under the name of Christ.
Paul the Apostle, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We remember how the apostle Paul makes the argument that he has borne witness to the people of Corinth, he has shared the gospel, he has brought them to Christ and showed them the way but that he has to be sad because he only could see division between those who should be united as brethren and sisters in Christ.
The apostle Paul in his 5th letter to the Romans and his first three letters to the Corinths, also talks…
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- New on the ASOR Blog- Ecclesia Diaboli (I Thought It Was Going to be about the Methodists…) (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)