Thousands of children were torn from the arms of their parents, and the “people of God” were silent.
When there was not silence, there was justification… even when those children were locked in cages.
A few sheets of paper were torn, and the “people of God” were outraged and finally spoke up.
When torn paper is more outrageous than torn families, it reveals the heart of a people.
While the President’s recent State of the Union address revealed many things, the most glaring thing on display that night, and the days which followed, was the heart of a people.
People who profess to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth, but somehow are more outraged at torn paper than torn families.
It reminded me of a time when someone else went to the most sacred hall of a nation and held up a mirror that revealed the heart of a people.
America has a Capitol building– and the spot where the leaders of our nation gather all in one room is perhaps one of the most sacred spots of a nation.
Israel had a temple where the most powerful people gathered together– and that too was the most sacred spot in the nation.
But yet, the people who most loudly claimed to be followers of God stood behind a money-hungry leader who abused his office, and they enacted or tolerated policies that were specifically designed to oppress the poor and immigrant.
And they even did it in God’s name.
The Second Temple was divided into sections; one section was called the Court of the Gentiles. This area of the Temple was at the heart of a nation, and was a place where outsiders (non-Jews, immigrants) were welcomed in–and where they were invited to experience the goodness of God.
But, Annas, the high priest who presided over Israel, had corrupted his office by turning it into a money making scheme for himself and his sons. It is said that many common folk utterly despised him for parading himself around as the most religious among them, when in reality his chief motivation was making himself and his sons rich and powerful. However, the Religious Right loved Annas and embraced him & his family as God’s pick.
Out of his greed for money, Annas and his sons became known for turning the Court of the Gentiles– the place where immigrants and outsiders had previously been welcomed– into a crowded market that not only left no room for them, but oppressed them in God’s name. It even became known as the “Bazaar of Annas” as he rented out spaces to merchants who gouged prices on animals and exchange rates, and gave him a kickback on it all.
Immigrants had to exchange money to buy an animal for sacrifice, so they charged oppressive exchange rates to do that. And when they went to buy the animal itself (because the high priest had approval authority for which animals were acceptable or not) the price of the animal was said to be ten times the going cost.
It was the most sacred place in the nation– the place where the powerful and religious gathered, claiming to follow the same God who said, “Do not oppress the immigrant among you.”
It was also home to the leader who enacted policies that oppressed the immigrant, and who saw his position of power as a way to make himself and his family richer.
And the “people of God” were silent.
But in walks a man named Jesus who knew the truth about Annas, his son-in-law Caiaphas who was now high priest, and the conservative religious leaders who kept them in power– and Jesus protested that oppression by kicking over tables and calling out the corrupt and oppressive system.
Magically, the “people of God” were no longer silent– instead, they were outraged anyone would be so disrespectful.
In fact, they had him arrested and placed him on trial— by none other than Annas and Caiaphas whose corruption in the name of God he was protesting.
Less than 24 hours later, Jesus was dead. (Rigged!)
The “people of God” were not outraged at the sight of poor families who had their own animal rejected by the priest, and who were forced to buy one from his family market with the last of the money they had left.
They were not outraged at the sight of immigrants who traveled many miles only to discover that the Court of the Gentiles– the place saved for them– was now crowded out by the family business of the high priest.
And neither were they outraged when immigrants went hungry because what little extra money they had was stripped away by excessive exchange rates– even though the Bible itself called this an abomination.
No, the “people of God” weren’t outraged until someone knocked a few things over and creatively called their leader a corrupt fraud who didn’t even know the Scriptures. (Mt 21:12-13)
Yes, they were a people who found empty tables more outrageous than empty pockets or empty bellies…
No different than a people who find torn paper more outrageous than torn families.
And my friends, when torn paper is more outrageous than torn families, it is a mirror that reveals to us the heart of a people.
The reflection from it ought be sobering for the one standing in it:
Because when a people are more outraged at torn paper than torn families, it reveals hearts so deeply disconnected from the heart of God… that such a people would despise him to the point of killing him, were they to ever actually meet him.
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Comparing illegal border crossings to the Second Temple is a bit of a false equivalency, don’t you think?
It’s not so much that Obama’s separation of families at the border was justified. It was just unavoidable. And sadly, Trump and Biden have both had to continue it. It’s just physically impossible to do anything else when you have floods of people coming into a country illegally.
Sadly, these poor strangers from other lands have been conned and deceived, by our own left-wing politicians no less, into trying to flood into our country without the proper documentation. So, I hope you understand the Left wing politicians are the ones to blame here. It certainly was never Donald Trump. There was simply never any reason to think it was even his idea. It predated him, and continued after him.
What does the Bible say about welcoming people from other lands?
Do you people only read the stuff about sex?
I do welcome people from other lands. But that doesn’t negate the nevessity of filling out the paperwork.
I can’t find your “outrage” against Obama when he had the ‘chain cells” built to begin the process of “separating families.” or doesn’t your version of history allow that?
It is not allowed to criticize their Prince for anything. Now that the Prince’s acolyte is running for office he is off limits too. If you do they will try to hurt you because that is allowed in their world.
It is not allowed to criticize their Prince for anything. Now that the Prince’s acolyte is running for office he is off limits too. If you do they will try to hurt you because that is allowed in their world.
Did the Prosperity Gospel preachers hold a prayer meeting with Trump and his official spiritual advisor Paula White in order to ask for more toilet paper for their god Baal? Remember how Elijah mocked the false prophets saying their “god” did not answer them because he might be on the toilet. Sorry folks fresh out of toilet paper right now. Check it out.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217557012051408&set=a.1136444685559&type=3&theater
The false prophets of the prosperity gospel have recently been shouting and praying in the Oval Office with Trump probably putting in an order for more toilet paper for their god Baal. Baal, which also means Lord, is the god of the false prophets who Elijah mocked and said might be unavailable to answer them due to being on the toilet at the moment. “Sorry” came the reply, tell Baal, we are fresh out of toilet paper in all our stores just about everywhere now.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217557012051408&set=a.1136444685559&type=3&theater
Preach! Those who support Trump and are okay with breaking families apart and keeping children in cages have no moral high ground. They are supporting inhumane policies. Speaker Pelosi did nothing wrong except tear up a speech full of lies. Big deal.
Pelosi is a supporter of killing babies in the womb. She should be prevented from taking communion by the Catholic Church but they don’t have the guts to take her on. Some day Jesus will.
Who cares what she does now. Her time is over like Satan; she is just waiting to be replaced.
Why don’t the Democrats propose infrastructure legislation that would pass in the Senate and dare President Trump not to sign it? Because they don’t care about people, children in cages, hollywood rapists like their God Harvey Weinstein or anything other than Power and the Money it brings them. Good luck Nancy. May you rot in your grave as you surely will.
Trump’s killed over 45 000. You’re not too worried about that are you?
And the lockdowns will kill 45 million before it’s all over. Their death toll will continue for decades. The spirals of depression and economic catastrophe caused by the lockdowns will continue for years if not decades after the lockdowns themselves have ended.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Another liar.
My state just had a lockdown last week.
Number of people killed by covid since the pandemic started = 6.
You people can’t help yourselves.
Why do you have to lie all the time?
Is that what christianity teaches now?
The breaking of families is a natural occurrence of those families breaking the law. It happened before Trump ever thought about running for office. It will continue long after Joe Biden has left office.
Blocked.
Ben, Patheos is using your blogs because their current cast can’t get comments. Below is one of yours from Patheos with 2509 comments:
No, The Gospel Isn’t “Good News” For Everyone
JUNE 19, 2018 BY BENJAMIN L. COREY
2509 COMMENTS
Was anyone truly outraged by Rep. Pelosi’s action or is it all part of the game…the act…the social media performance? In the real, offline world, I didn’t run into anyone who expressed outrage, or even mild disapproval. And I know plenty of right-leaning people.
I remember back when President Obama gave a speech and a Congressman shouted out “You lie!” It was rude and disrespectful. Lots of people professed to be outraged. At the time, families were being separated at the border. No one was outraged then either.
You make a good point. We all knew it was political theater on the part of Pelosi. We take her about as seriously as you would an actor on the stage. She might as well be wearing one of those big wooden masks.
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From the President’s last State of the Union Address:
“Our message to the terrorists is clear: You will never escape American justice. If you attack our citizens, you forfeit your life.”
What about the brown, Muslim, and of Iranian descent “American” “citizens” terrorized at our borders? Should the Trump inspired terrorists forfeit their lives?
Since the President’s absolution, from his primaried intimidated Republican Senators, he has further torn up the Constitution in favor of Trumped up law. … lucky Stone!
33,000 emails never was a crime except in Trump’s mind, for which he and his still insist that she should be locked up. It is not a crime, fortunately for the Trump children, to play your fortunes off your father’s name. But according to Trump’s law that is not so for children with the last name Biden. Trump’s law says that all who are called (once thought to be legal) and sworn witnesses to his once considered to be crimes are traitors to the President and must be punished, and they are. It is not just families torn apart by Trump’s law. The entire proud nation of constitutional law is torn apart by Trump’s law, with no longer a legal remedy.
But yet criminal Hillary did not get elected to right all your alleged wrongs!
Biden just said a Dog Catcher could beat Trump – where does that put Hillary?
What is wrong with you? Why are you so obsessed with ignoring truth?
What makes Hillary a criminal? … Vince Foster, Pizza-Gate, Benghazi, personal server, 33,000 emails? All investigated by a Republican House and Senate as well as Bill Barr’s Department of Justice with none finding anything criminal.
You think you’re winning based on fabrication, mis-direction, fear mongering, intimidation, manipulation, … . Where does that put the nation of the people, by the people, for the people?
Because Hillary is a criminal.
She and Bill received over $500 million in contributions to The Clinton Global Initiative by selling her influence (same thing Biden has done). That is a crime for which she may yet pay.
Paying for the Steel Dossier to kick start the coup against Trump (Crossfire Hurricane). Another crime for which she may pay along with Comey, Brennan and others.
We are winning because the Mueller Report found no crimes and the fake Impeachment resulted in Acquittal. I’d say those are two very large wins wouldn’t you?
None of those are criminal, none, except in the legally illiterate mind of Donald J. Trump and his enforcers. Trump has already been convicted of tampering with his foundation funds and defrauding students of his trumped up University. And he paid!
The Steel Dossier did not start any coup and was no different than any warning of possibilities that we (as a nation) have addressed each by investigation through the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No where has it been proved, after investigation, that any in the FBI or CIA let their good sense of a crook candidate for the presidency influence their objective compiling of evidence.
You have no clue as to what you speak, or the damage you cause in pushing Trump’s addenda of narcissism, which, in the end, will not include you or yours, it never has. Why do you so wish to take us all down with you, including the babies you give no chance to live in a democracy, or maybe no chance to live at all?
The Steel Dossier was the basis for the FISA warrants. These warrants have been exposed as not justified. Carter Page will be a wealthy man. The FISA courts have to be overhauled. The process was used to spy on the President just as he said. You are wrong as usual. See the IG report since you don’t seem to know.
As far as any concerns you have for our country, your friends on the Left are doing all the damage.
Bob, I need a rest from your lynch mob minion mentality. You follow, defend and worship a proven bankrupted, lying, criminal to denigrate anyone, ANYONE, who threatens him. You literally cannot be an example of Christ’s truths, just as written in the Gospels. If you’re an acceptable Christian then that says that Christ and Christians do not share the same values. … maybe later, I’ll respond to your need to be heard and important.
You mix religious and political terms as if they are interchangeable. They are not.
One votes for a President not to worship but to hope that person carry out their promises and he is.
The Left and you are trying to destroy one man because you didn’t win. This is not the American way but it is the Progressive Way. Grow up and stop it. The election draws near. If you are correct Trump will not win. If not you get four more years to spread your lies.
Matthew 7:12 IN EVERYTHING
No.
Further to does God have a mouth:
John 4:24
(24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
“God is Spirit, and nowhere, not even in one verse, does it say that God does not have a body. He is perfect, immortal, infinite, immutable, self-existing, omnipotent, omniscient, invisible, impartial, absolutely holy, full of knowledge and wisdom, and sufficient to provide for His entire creation.
Like any other person He has names, and in His case, many names. And just as our names identify us as specific individuals, His names identify Him. He has titles by which He is known. Men and women have titles by which they are known.
The Bible shows that He has a head, hair, face, arms, fingers, hands, waist, loins, eyes, eyelids, nostrils, ears, mouth, lips, tongue, breath, feet, and back parts. God even speaks of His heart! He rests, but He does not get tired. He feels things. He eats and drinks, and the alcohol in wine, as Judges 9:13 says, has an effect on Him: It cheers His heart. He laughs. He becomes angry. He speaks in a small still voice; He roars from Zion. As a man, He wept. Sounds a great deal like us, does it not? It should because we are made in His image and likeness.
But there is even more. He goes about from place to place in a body, just like anybody else. He rides in a vehicle. He walks. He plants. He works. He lives in a spiritual place called heaven.
Yet, despite all these biblical descriptions, the men and women who claim that God has no body never cite any other passage except John 4:24 as proof. But He has revealed Himself in so many different ways in His Word that what these people say turns God into a liar who deceives mankind about what He is like.
Let us be clear: John 4:24 does not teach that God has no body. It, plus a multitude of passages that we have read or alluded to, expand our understanding about the properties of spirit—about what spirit bodies are like. Spirit is just as real as matter, except that it is a much higher type of substance and is governed by higher laws.
John 4:24 is a statement of fact, but it does not define or analyze spirit. The properties of spirit are described throughout the Bible, as those who actually saw and heard God and interacted with Him reported their experiences. Either they are right, or these modern writers are. They cannot both be right because they contradict each other. Which will we believe?”
— John W. Ritenbaugh
Judges 9:13 (NIV2011)
“But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’
Bob, read your Bible, and read Judges 9:13 in full context, hint: “be my king”.
It is truly sad that you don’t believe God can be in you and you in him/them. You are missing the opportunity of an eternal lifetime.
God has never been an animal, with one historic exception, that was when Mary was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit, and conceived Jesus, the Christ. Only an entity of spirit can be omnipresent, Jesus was not omnipresent as a Son of Man, his Father has always been omnipresent.
Mankind is only 25 million years young on an earth that is 4.5 billion years old, within a universe that is 13.8 billion years old. Moses didn’t know that, nor did Caiaphas, Peter, Paul, James or any other who cared about God 2,000 to 4,000 years ago. The Fertile Crescent was first farmed by human beings 9,000 years ago.
John W Ritenbaugh, preaching elder of the Church of the Great God only knows God by what he read from the Bible. He does not know what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t understand that all that each of God has to share with (and in each other as mankind cannot) is emotion (heart), unifier (soul), logic (mind). Spirit entities do not have physical brain synapses to run a physical body.
You and elder John are of the blind world, two of thousands of different theologies (studies of God by those who do not know God with and in them).
John 14:17 (NIV2011)
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
John 14:20 (NIV2011)
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
So, is the Father’s mouth in Jesus? Is Jesus mouth in me? Is my mouth in Jesus?
Bob, I don’t think you can bear to know the truth. Prove me wrong, dare to ask, even demand of, God to teach you the truth, just as much as you can bear, please?!?!? Can you trust God to protect you from evil?
Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV2011)
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Before Jesus died on the cross all your sins could have been forgiven if only you forgave others who sinned against you. If that’s true what true salvation did Jesus give mankind when he gave up his spirit?
What the author wrote is the correct understanding of the subject. He is not my elder just someone who wrote on the topic you can’t bear ti understand.
Whatcha got for me, Herm?
Well, after all this, I hope this is not too anti-climactic. It is not edited, only copied and pasted as originally written. If nothing else, maybe, you can tell me why Keith’s blog rejected it.
R/R, you know why I will not accept you dictating the rules as an either/or format. Please, review my last, now edited, reply, focusing on the concluding sentence. Is the developing image you have of Man or God black and white, fully in focus? Do you really expect we are here to mutually conclude a spectrum with what you’ve defined as surely “true” on one sure end and “false” on the other sure end? Caiaphas loved the Lord God he knew as true with all he had to love with as himself. Peter loved the Lord God he knew as true with all he had to love with as himself. Both Caiaphas and Peter denied Christ.
In case you have not sensed it yet, you are wrestling with God as much as you know as true, or you wouldn’t be here, within a venue committed to God as much as each participant knows is true. There are no conclusive ends to the spectrum of true/false that we can possibly define from our bounded physical perspective. What bounds does pure reciprocal spirit relationship live within constructively for all?
So, all I need to glean from you, to be constructively empathetic for you, I, Man and God, is what is true for you, and what is false for you. What is conclusively true for you today I must disagree with because I am not you, the image of Man and God I have is from my perspective supported by my experiential testing, which is how I will love you as I love myself, constructively (good) as versus destructively (evil), unless I am a masochist or saddest. I do carry my cross in empathetic, compassionate, forgiving love for you and others equally as I love myself, masochist not and saddest not.
If I am honest with you, I cannot ever conclusively agree with you, nor you I. No one on earth, agreed conclusively with the Messiah, nor do today. My answers have been true to your questions, not to your demands. It is not an omission that Christ was portrayed as never giving a yes or no answer, nor a true or false answer. Life physical and/or spirit just isn’t that easy, sure or ever conclusive. That is what makes me want so much more of it than physical life will allow. True for you???
Herm, you made an untenable assertion, and you need to be held to account. Enough equivocation.
“What is conclusively true for you today I must disagree with because I am not you…”
“The relativist fallacy (or subjectivist fallacy) is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is asserted that some fact may be true for some people but not true for others.”
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Relativist_fallacy
“Factual relativism (also called epistemic relativism, epistemological relativism, alethic relativism or cognitive relativism) is a way to reason where facts used to justify any claims are understood to be relative and subjective to the perspective of those proving or falsifying the proposition.”
There you go, trusting that you can digest the entire truth from a maximum 120 years of education/experience within the resources of discovery you have available on this puny invisible planet, you can get lost in, within a universe known to have more planets than this earth has grains of sand.
Caiaphas knew God as a fact determined within an accepted system (Sadducee) of religiously strict principles of validation. Jesus’ reasoning, God’s reasoning some would say, was assessed as fallacious by that system of strict logic.
Peter knew God as true without any system governed by strict rules of reasoning.
You make it apparent that you don’t know why I will not accept you dictating the rules as an either/or format.
It will not work to get to know how terminally ill mankind is in their relationships with one another and how eternally healthy God is in their relationships with one another.
If you can show me how you might reason to conclude, within your set rules, that spirit, separate and in physical, is true then we might work that far, but still not all the way to accepting God as logically true.
The process of true relationship with and in God I know does work for the illiterate and illiterate alike. In fact, it is actually easier and more surely achieved for those who are not constrained by pre-supposed training in any perceived theology and rigid rules of reasoning. It is not by accident that all I am commanded to love with is led by heart and lastly by mind.
You’re not a relativist:
“…so false!”
” I do react when untruths are share regarding my family I know…”
This entire discussion happened because you disagreed with a premise. You even said that truth becomes known through a “maturing process”. Those are not relativist statements or behaviors.
You’re making this up as you go, Herm. Blatant intellectual dishonesty is not loving with all your mind.
R/R, you hit the first premise I disagree with head on, “intellectual honesty” as a possible way to discover “God” or any relationship in spirit. I am not subject to nor can be defined by any doctrine, including relativism.
You will not be able to know God, who is spirit, until you deny your faithful allegiance to physical intellectualism (the exercise of the intellect at the expense of the emotions) and all its doctrines. Children do not begin to learn truth by exercising their minds, but by exercising their hearts. Their hearts lead to react to threats as versus gifts much faster than their minds can begin to digest an order of things.
Religious adherence to intellectualism is what each of the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Priests, and religions had (have) in common to intimidate and manipulate their disciples into fear of spiritual forces and trust in them. Just hanging on the wall an image of the Son of God forever nailed on a cross, dead, is physical intellectual intimidation, even unto just as the empty idolatrous cross is meant to sell people into their physical sanctuary, safe from now appeased spiritual influences. These all are physical examples of intellectual ownership that we could discuss but only relative to physical truths, not truth in spirit.
In your intellectual travels through the Gospels have you noticed that Jesus did not speak to encourage any physical rules, laws, doctrines, rituals or creeds. Jesus, through what seemed to outsiders as being made up as he went, spoke purely to relationship that was true and in common with Man and God. Religious intellectualism defeated God physically but did not defeat his newly introduced relationship with God, in the Spirit of truth, for many of mankind who trusted first with their heart, as like a child, more than their mind could bear to accept intellectually. Judas Iscariot, the treasurer, rebelled by the truth from his mind but ultimately and finally repented from the truth of his heart.
In your mind you’ve defeated me, owning the image intellectually developed of my body hanging dead on my cross, with the sign over my fallen head describing my crime of “Blatant intellectual dishonesty is not loving with all your mind”. Your last reply makes your state of heart and mind palpable. As a child of Man, I feel the pain, suffering alone. As a child of God, I feel the pain shared by all with, in and of God. I know that you are not playing a game, as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Priests, religions and all their strictly disciplined disciples of intellectualism were surely not playing games in their pursuit of a sure algorism to assure them each a place in the survival of the fittest forever, we of mankind, individually and collectively, will not manage to achieve. There is nothing to fear finishing in death because it is no more than never being aware or influencing another ever again.
To achieve awareness and influence without end is no more difficult a “doctrine” to abide in, than, in everything, do to others as we each would have others do to us. Jesus’ church, built on a secure foundation by way of the Spirit of truth, is not a religion begun from mind to heart but begins from heart to mind, as how all children of Man, for 120 years maximum, and God, with no end, learn, savor, honor and worship truth of all and for all. Jesus definitively recognized with, and in, my heart of spirit, has no name to apply to physically chronicled family tree, as we each do to own our physical family in our minds. My sharing in savor and adventures of learning with all I recognize in spirit are chronicled forever to be stored in my mind for review and further focus. We do share in images that develop more in focus from my heart as I can bear to assimilate in my mind, as was true with my growth with and in my family of Man beginning as a child.
As born a child of Man of flesh, emotionally and intellectually all others than me are external to me. As born a child of God of spirit, emotionally and intellectually all others are with and in me, and I in them. The strict doctrines defining temporal intellectual honesty (truths) do not apply to eternal relationships. All are defeated over time because one of the accepted intellectually arrived at truths is that all who are individually physical will cease to be independently able to be responsible to their awareness and influence.
I know, accept and apply ohms law because I tried and experimented with actions/reactions allowed only with developed and focusable test equipment (multimeter/scope) that made the feel of shock from free electrons visible to my intellect. I know, accept and apply the law of gravity because I tried and experimented with action/reaction allowed in my childhood by jumping and falling and sensing the pain of exceeding safe practice, not first by an intellectual truth. Now, the four types of quarks I might trust as true but beyond conjecture I cannot apply them to my library of intellectual truth. I apply intellectual truths by testing what others share with me as their intellectual truth. All that has formed my intellectually applied rules of thumb have been first experienced and then facilitated through education in math, reading, writing, social studies, spiritual studies, physical studies. I didn’t begin as an intellectual child of physical Man but as an emotionally aware and influential child. No one can begin as an intellectual child of God but those of Man, but each can begin from an emotional sense of the image of God.
R/R, by my experience, if you cannot relate to others independent from intellectual doctrines, dogma, rules of physical logic, and any regime of thought dictating your mind’s algorithmic derived sense of security, you will never become immersed in the truth of spirit, the image of God from which we all of Man can develop an effective, constructive, secure and eternal awareness and influence relationship with others. I can share how that might become a reality to you, because once I was a free thinking, debating, responsible disciple of Man founded on structured intellectual dependence, as are you, before knowing, no longer dependent on an intellectual study (theology), God as emotionally true and trusted with and in me, and I in them.
You began this thread by trying to define what intellectual study in spirit that we had in common (Zealots, Sadducees, Publicans, Essenes, Agnostic, Atheist???) and then, not able to pin down my study of influence, tried to dictate the rules of intellectual engagement (meeting of the minds). By your demands, you make it known that you only feel emotionally secure when you think you’ve developed a tried and true intellectual method of mental assimilation. From my perspective in spirit, and supported by the Gospels which we might find some commonality, it is you who is making this up as you go to fit your mind’s image, relative to any truth you think you’ve defined of spirit.
Only those of mankind who come as children can enter the kingdom of God. Children own nothing. Children know nothing. Children are intellectually bereft of associative experience. Children are emotionally driven in the beginning. Children are invested in no more than they choose to be receptive to what is offered. The heart of a child dictates receptiveness first. The only way to begin to accept life in spirit is as a child accepting what God offers. That is the most I know how to share with you from what I know we have in common, heart felt not mind ruled. I was born a child of God, 25 years of Man ago because Intellectualism failed. Today, I grown to learn from and experience with Jesus, without calling him by name because none of God are known by a name. Relationship in spirit has none of the separations of physical boundaries mankind must deal with. All hearts, souls, minds of God are with and in all hearts, souls, minds of God.
I love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, with all my mind that I can bear, and like that, love my neighbor, friend or foe, no more or less than I love myself, very much including you. Love can only be fully known, accepted and exercised from the heart, and can never originate from any mind of intellectual defined accumulation. I claim to be no more than a child, an infant, from whom the love I can fully give today is compared to the love graced me, and us, by the will of his heart, not the knowledge of his mind, of my Father. Hopefully you read through this child of God’s rambling, though the odds are you aren’t ready. You are loved as you are physical and spirit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think you’re pretty awesome, and you’ll dodge, deflect, and smudge basic definitions until you affirm your need to feel “spiritually” superior. It’s become old hat. I mean, Christ resurrected with a body, right? Was that not a “physical truth”?
“In your intellectual travels through the Gospels have you noticed that Jesus did not speak to encourage any physical rules, laws, doctrines, rituals or creeds.”
Wrong. He quotes from the Torah (“As it is written…” “You heard it was said.. “) both for his own preservation against temptation and to speak on issues of divorce, almsgiving, etc. These are lessons about the physical, Herm. This bifurcation of the physical and the spiritual, the mind and body, completely misses the point of Kingdom ON EARTH as it is in heaven. I think you need to read the Gospels more openly and honestly.
I have more truth than you can bear, Herm. Woe to the Pharisees who “for a pretense…make long [Disqus posts]”. Maybe you should take on the example of the child Christ who, according to Luke, listened, asked questions, and learned from the teachers of “religious intellectualism”. Become as a child, Herm. And learn to love with ALL your mind.
Maybe Jesus was a moral relativist…
Does he want to kill gay people?
Is he angry that I eat pork?
Interestingly the teacher Christ child would have listened would have been the liberal Hillel.
Probably why Christ quotes him.
Maybe Jesus is a frisbee on a roof?
You should probably tell ol’ Herm about Hillel.
Maybe he is
I’m more interested in why God changed his mind on certain things.
Must make him a moral relativist.
Me too!
Sorry, what piece of paper has been torn? I’m a Brit; some of these American cultural references are meaningless over here!
Nancy Pelosi on television, tore up her copy of Donald Trump’s speech after it was presented.
Ah! Right, that makes sense. Thanks Herm 🙂 How you keeping, bro?
Tony, my brother, I’m getting by, thank you!
I was out of action for over six months, and have been crawling back way too slow, for my infant mind, but better than can be expected for my 75 year old body, for another 8 or so months. I had to give up my esophagus to be able to learn for a few more additional years. On my 6′ frame I went from 200 plus pounds to where, today, I weighed in at 150.8 pounds. I now have energy but the endurance is sorely lacking. I’m having to learn to eat enough all over again, and not nearly as adaptable as I was with an infant body. God blesses me in so very many ways with this opportunity to do more, yes, though more slowly, before I have to give up this challenging life.
How are you? I haven’t searched for your web activity for a long while now, though I do think about you quite often. It is nice to hear your spirit!
Hehe yours too, despite your infirmities. Bit of a rough time there, bro, and I sympathise. Yeah I’m doing ok; the grief comes in waves and atm I’m in a ‘trough’, but God holds me through it all. He’s speaking to me on a level so deep that words can’t express it… On the web, I’m only really doing stuff on my blog and a bit on Facebook, not so much on here. Just dropped a prophetic bombshell on a local Pentie church who are holding a ‘prayer for revival’ event, and I suggested that they keep their eyes open because the revival they have been praying for for like 40 years has already started :D. All very gentle and respectful, a million miles from what it can get like on Disqus eh 🙂
I am so happy to see that you value life so, and are responding to the Word of God that no carnal words can express. Love you!
You too bro 😀
Which is childish, petty and illegal.
Why is everything that is in disagreement with the President illegal? Childish and petty is not shaking hands with the second in line to the Presidency.
Its not a cultural reference. It happened when Trump gave his speech to congress.
Fair enough, but I didn’t see it. Not all USA news makes it outside your borders 😉
Except Im British too! It was on the BBC and Channel 4 news, Sky etc etc…
Haha lol guess I should watch the news more then! Cheers mate 😀
No one was truly “outraged” about it. It was more of that faux “I have 10 minutes to fill on cable news” kind of outrage. No one was talking about it 36 hours later. Folks had moved on to the next “outrage.”
Part of being an adult is knowing how to solve a problem. Let’s take immigration for example. The Left seems to want open borders. The Right wants border security. Open borders boils down to people coming to our country. Right now there are about 1.0 million legal immigrants per year. Why not:
1. Agree on an acceptable number: 5, 10, 25 million…
2. Pursue Congress to formulate a passable a bill with that number.
3. Spend all energy and dollars now wasted in hatred towards a goal.
People can do amazing things if they know the goal. Right now there are only political talking points. Who is benefitting from that situation? Certainly not the immigrants to be.
Part of being a responsible adult voter in a democratic republic is to make an effort to research the issues before they speak about them “The Left” do not, and never did want “Open Borders”. That is only one Trumpism fear-fauxism designed to paint his opponents as extremists welcoming drug cartels, rapists and jihadists without restriction. Wake up and smell the truth. What do the majority of the discerning citizens want and why? Is the Republican party always “Right”, so therefore correct and the Democrat party always “Left”, so therefore wrong? …..groooooaaaaan!
Just about always.
Most people realize that Democrats favor mass immigration – open borders. Apparently you have a reason to mislead?
Even a brief search shows what Democrats want.
Why would any one want “mass immigration”? That doesn’t make any sense what-so-ever. No, most FOX News students might have been taught that lie but most people, of the United States of America’s electorate do not believe “Democrats favor mass immigration”. President Obama, a Democrat, stiffened immigration and expanded deportation relative to what any President before him did, Republican or Democrat. The difference between he and Trump is that he didn’t lie and he was humanitarian (in everything, doing to others as he would have others do to him).
Trump’s, Mexican paid wall, is a straw horse fraud when most drugs come through the legal border entries and nothing can be done to totally close off all our water borders, nor the northern border, nor the southern border. It is physically impossible.
Most illegal aliens came into the USA legally under visa and stayed.
Research, Research, Research … don’t be lazy and accept as fact all you hear from his, and his stooges, lying mouth. Unless, of course, it is your pleasure to be the stooge of a liar!
so if the majority democratic position is not open borders, what is it?
humanitarian borders, actually loving our neighbors as we do ourselves
You understand nothing. The Great Commandment is a summary of the Ten Commandments not a replacement of them. And not only that you are not competent to judge situations using it.
Bob, don’t ask me, ask your theologian what all the Law and all the Prophets is.
Notice Herm did not answer directly but I am guessing a humanitarian border would have a Liberal guard with brunch and counselors available.
Bob, humanitarian borders, as were available to your family of immigrants when they sought asylum is a direct answer, think Ellis Island opened in 1892 and closed in 1954. If we really are a nation under God, where all of Man are created equal with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, wouldn’t humanitarian be a respect for all of Man seeking asylum from nations not allowing them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Claiming to be a Christian, with ancestors who immigrated to this nation, one would think that humanitarian would be understood as both “love your neighbor as yourself” and, “in everything, do to others as you would have others do to you”.
If liberal means making sacrifices for other children of Man to live, then that would be a quality I would look for from those charged with guarding our borders, in the example and spirit of carrying our own crosses to remain students of Christ.
Herm…your platitudes are still open borders. Coreys emotive and straw man statement of we are concerned about torn paper more than torn families–straw man argument and a platitude.
I am open to immigrants and immigration. We have a system and when followed immigration can be open, fair and helpful. I have friends from India who have recently immigrated and as they look at the system–especially the situation on our southern border–they are quite frustrated. The couple I know did it legally and it has been a long process. I also have a friend in the border patrol and he finds our system of open borders hideous. Your platitudes are unhelpful. One can love people and demands basics–like truth and respect for the laws of the host nation.
The democratic party position as espoused by its primary voice pieces is indeed an open border and all I need to see that is the position taken by the party in the early years of President Obama.
There seems to be total confusion over who is running the country(President Trump) and who is trying to destroy it in the name of illegal immigration (The Left).
Fear, in the name of Trump, is running this nation. Poor little ole’ Trump has to stand up against the big, bad “Left”. You are confused if you really believe the country is Trump’s to run and not the people’s to run. One would be an autocracy and the other would be a democracy.
Is the Declaration of Independence incoherent, also? Look up “When in the course of human events…”.
Everett, it is against our present asylum laws, to stop anyone seeking such, before they reach our borders. The only panicked remedy for escaping immigrants was to go around, cross the border, and passively wait to be arrested as “illegal” aliens.
To be as fair as I can, because of Central American economic (very much weather/climate related like Syria) collapse, the Obama administration did not find a perfect solution for meeting our laws regulating asylum (like Ellis Island served for an exceptional number of asylum seeking immigrants). He increased the guards, improved border security, deported record numbers of unqualified aliens but could not find enough court remedies to satisfy the numbers requesting asylum.
For the past twenty years plus, per capita: We have not had an increase of illegal drugs crossing our borders to supply our demand. We have not seen an increase of bad characters crossing or recrossing our borders. Most of our illegal aliens are visa jumpers.
The very first illegal Mexican rapist mentioned from the escalator was a fabrication no less a lie than Barack Obama was born in Kenya. There never was any justification for a Mexican paid wall, not based on present and past facts. Trump instilled fabricated fear, like of the alien Kenyan invasion, of out of control invasion of the brown rapists. We have lost the war on terrorism when we paint asylum seekers as terrorizing Invaders. Trump’s governance through intimidation and manipulation fear mongering has divided and terrorized our nation more than ISIS (true terrorists) or any brown, black or Islamic immigration ever could.
I am sorry you see humanitarian and, in everything, do to others as you would have others do to you as platitudes with no significance as to how we should measure the enforcement of our borders. The solution is not ever going to be build an impenetrable wall and hide behind it. Wars happened between human beings fearing what is going on behind their neighbor’s walls, like once were the mountains between France and Germany. There is not enough time or space to sufficiently solve this problem here. What you call platitudes are planting seeds not meant to be the solve all.
I see you failed to grab the Spirit of my comment above?
No Bob, no I didn’t. I spoke to that spirit who lies that, “The Left seems to want open borders.” It doesn’t.
If you actually followed the lead and example of Jesus Christ you’d know there is no limiting number to those allowed to immigrate into the kingdom of God. If you trusted God to provide, there would not be a limitation for welcoming every immigrant needing our support to survive. “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
Love those who would love you. Show mercy to those who would be merciful to you. In everything, do to others as you would have others do to you. What would you have done to you if you applied for asylum to the United States of America to escape certain death, imprisonment, and the unshakable fear of gang violence?
I feel so really sad that you, claiming to be Christian, think that humanitarian borders was not a direct answer.
You don’t even have a clue that this isn’t a right or left, right or wrong issue. Most of our nation, most of our world, are somewhere in the middle of left and right. There is wrong in the left and right. There is right in the left and right.
This immigration problem is a major determinate to the survival of mankind. If you believe that the Shiloh family will survive without the rest of mankind, then close the borders of your house. If you really believe mankind behind the borders of the USA will survive without the rest of the world then close the borders of the USA. Reality is we, mankind, are dependent upon the support of all mankind on this earth who are constructive and productive as they would have the rest of mankind be constructive and productive.
Caiaphas reminds me of the line in JC Superstar, “We need a more permanent solution to the problem.” Trump has said that Schiff has not paid the price yet. Trump’s retribution has begun. Who knows how far he will go?
So chilling.
Yes, a lot further. He plans to incarcerate Schiff and Nadler shortly for “defying the One President.” This crime though rare will be mercilessly applied to these two traitors.
Where in the hell is this law that makes it a crime to defy the One President? I thought that was exactly why we revolted against the monarchy of England. That was the impetus behind the original Tea Party. Does the Freedom Caucus believe the same as you?
No such thing as the “one president”. You conflate your religion with your politics.
Sorry. This was tongue in cheek for Herm…
Hey Bob, Maybe you should try injecting yourself with disinfectant.
Wow! I keep waiting for something good and Godly to happen these days but believe I have a long wait yet.
I look around me, at the carpenters and the fishermen, not the Pharisees, Sadducee and Caesars, and I see good and Godly is alive and well.
What so many of these Trump supporters do not realize is that the original speech is in the National Archive while the spoken form of it is in the Congressional Record. Speaker Pelosi tore up a copy. It is rather ironic that Trump has been allowed to violate decorum while he and his supporters will continue to attack what they see is every little breach of it when their opponents. (“You lie” to Obama by a Republican)