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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Do you love Jesus?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I want to love Jesus because he first loved me.
How?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Two way?
Two way interaction between us and Jesus?
No. I used to think so but have come to the conclusion that it was my feelings/conscience/hope/imagination at play - not Jesus.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In what way? How?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In what way? How?
The same way as every two way interaction: I talk, he listens. He talks, I listen. Interspersed with times we sit together without needing to say anything.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Must be a girl thing.
My wife reckons her intuition is Him talking back.
I can nearly buy that for a dollar.
I know Jesus says tell Our Dad everything, so I do, in intense burst transmissions usually. Most coherently in the shower. Thank you at night and in the morning. Walking in the park. I spare Him nothing. I have to remember to reach out from my pits of intrusive self condemnation, ravening lust or whatever else is afflicting me (dread one way or another and my utter unfeeling heartlessness) and invite Him and Jesus in just as I disgustingly am.
The doing of it is always in His presence even when I'm overwhelmed by the perfect completeness of physicality otherwise: that there is no need for God whatsoever to explain anything. Apart from Jesus.
I'm invoking Him. Even when I have no rational basis for believing in Him. I feel His helplessly mute presence in the cave blackness. Close but ... remote. I could feel it JUST then.
The way the unknown genius who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing perhaps did. And poor Mother Theresa lost.
I make Him up, imagine Him and there He is. And it's as if He's really there. And He really is because of Jesus. And hopefully there is some overlap.
Or is that actually Him zenning at me?
I'm astounded that I still believe and that all will be well in the face of my ghastly limitations, my fear, horror, decline. That there are no answers, there is no magic wand.
But there is headspace. And a sense of incoming goodwill from an otherwise unbridgeable abyss. Regardless of how bad it gets and how much worse it's going to get. Before it gets transcendentally better.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Must be a girl thing.
I've got the flu and will restrain myself except to note that the above is damned offensive.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm sure it is in form, and so in substance. Like the OP.
[ 30. March 2017, 18:58: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Must be a girl thing.
I've got the flu and will restrain myself except to note that the above is damned offensive.
I don't find it offensive - but it is plain wrong
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That's more like it. No bloke here ever admits to it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I want to love Jesus because he first loved me.
How?
How did he first love me? Well, he was there with me at the beginning, will be there at the end, and at all points in between.... I could mention the atonement too, but I suspect it's not a popular theology here.
Or do you mean how do I want to love him? I'd like to love him in the way I live my life, in how I treat others, in my commitment to the spiritual path that he set, in developing the faith that he urged upon his followers.
Note that I was careful to say that I want to love him. That doesn't mean I'm any good at actually doing it.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
A fine answer according to faith.
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Love wins
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Martin, if you're back at your habit of evaluating other people's answers rather than engaging, I'm out of here.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
I love Jesus as the Christ, the second person of the Trinity. God is love, and invites us to participate in the loving mystery of the Trinity. Therefore, to be in relationship with God is to love the second person of the Trinity.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Strange question this as I thought loving Jesus is a prerequisite for the Christian, (maybe it's directed at those who do not identify as Christian).
Loving each other is the thing that historically has been the eternal bug bear for Christian brothers and sisters. Something that must make the whole thing, with plenty of justification, appear as a pile of hypocritical nonsense to the outside observer.
On a personal level I also find the question slightly invasive, a feeling like disciple Peter may have had when the Lord asked him 3 times 'Do you love me....?'
Loving Jesus Christ as a pseudo Zen Concept is the nearest I can get to to feeling any real spiritual benefit. As much as I've tried, the narrative in the Bible leaves me cold a lot of the time.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Martin, if you're back at your habit of evaluating other people's answers rather than engaging, I'm out of here.
This is what we do LC. We'll work it out. It's a pond thing too. Ever met a guy who just loves houmous and camomile tea? Me neither. Ever seen a guy or his pretty abdomen in an advert for constipation remedies including yoghurts for 'digestive transit' and 'bloat'?
I've only ever encountered women who have full two way conversations with God, like a Sooty and Sweep squeak conversation mediated through Mr. Corbett or Bob Devereux translating Skippy's tuts or Elizabeth Taylor's understanding of Lassie's barks, growls, whines and woofs, which are ones feelings in response to ones questions. A way of being in touch with oneself, accessing, externalizing, formalizing, differentiating ones thinking from compressed feeling. I've had changes in perception, in mood, in realisation in prayer, in God's provision, ineffably, unknowingly by, in the cloud of the Spirit too.
It's all the same.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I love Jesus as the Christ, the second person of the Trinity. God is love, and invites us to participate in the loving mystery of the Trinity. Therefore, to be in relationship with God is to love the second person of the Trinity.
I'm glad that has meaning for you. It cannot transfer.
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Love wins
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Two way?
Two way interaction between us and Jesus?
No. I used to think so but have come to the conclusion that it was my feelings/conscience/hope/imagination at play - not Jesus.
Karl Rahner wrote an essay where he described St Francis of Assisi's vision of the Nativity which led him to develop the creche as a Christmas crib. If I could remember Rahner's writing correctly, he wrote to the effect that he didn't believe that Francis literally transported back in time and saw the historical Nativity of Jesus, rather Francis imagined and dreamed the story and it provided him spiritual benefit.
Rahner goes on to write that God was working through his imagination, that grace was operative even through his dreams and creativity. A very problematic stance I find is to assert that if it comes from imagination, it must not come from God.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I find it problematic to be both to the point of meaninglessness. It's not problematic at all if it's just us, if it was just Francis. It's most problematic if it were God. But not as meaningless. Just wrong.
[ 31. March 2017, 17:04: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I love Jesus as the Christ, the second person of the Trinity. God is love, and invites us to participate in the loving mystery of the Trinity. Therefore, to be in relationship with God is to love the second person of the Trinity.
I'm glad that has meaning for you. It cannot transfer.
It was very difficult to try and put into words a position I have come through over a long period. I don't see myself moving from it, but who knows? The centre of it is that love comes from God and love creates us and holds us in being. Therefore I love God because I am because He, love is, and I love Jesus as part of loving God.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Martin, I haven't a clue what you're talking about, except that you seem to be doubling down on your assertion that only girls experience this sort of thing. Which can be taken as an insult to either gender, depending on your viewpoint.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Martin, I haven't a clue what you're talking about, except that you seem to be doubling down on your assertion that only girls experience this sort of thing. Which can be taken as an insult to either gender, depending on your viewpoint.
I can't work it out. I've never thought of you as being generally homophobic, Martin - is there something about men loving Jesus that has a particular negative resonance for you? Is he the only man I'm still not allowed to love?
I completely disregard, and dismiss, any such prohibition, but remain interested in the answer.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What the Hell? I mean, what the HELL? And am I specifically homophobic then?
I'll let you in to a little secret shall I, I'm extremely hetero. But not 100%. Know what I mean?
Never in my WILDEST hypnagogic dreams has it occurred to me that Jesus might be a sex object. By anyone mildly sane. A straight woman, a gay guy. Anyone in between.
I mean, I know eros covers a lot more than sexual desire - longing, loss - and will be involved in all of our desire for Jesus, but physical?
No.
I just know He wouldn't have been my type.
No.
Even though ecstatics deceive themselves.
No.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Martin, I haven't a clue what you're talking about, except that you seem to be doubling down on your assertion that only girls experience this sort of thing. Which can be taken as an insult to either gender, depending on your viewpoint.
Fwiw and to lambs point it is very much mr Cliffdweller of the two of us who is more apt to hear Jesus speaking to him on a regular basis
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What the Hell? I mean, what the HELL? And am I specifically homophobic then?
I'll let you in to a little secret shall I, I'm extremely hetero. But not 100%. Know what I mean?
Never in my WILDEST hypnagogic dreams has it occurred to me that Jesus might be a sex object. By anyone mildly sane. A straight woman, a gay guy. Anyone in between.
I mean, I know eros covers a lot more than sexual desire - longing, loss - and will be involved in all of our desire for Jesus, but physical?
No.
I just know He wouldn't have been my type.
No.
Even though ecstatics deceive themselves.
No.
I apologise: the reason for my post was honestly a desire to tease out which part of this was creating your discomfort. Is it the idea of an emotional attachment to a deity, and therefore to a non-being, who was also a being through the Incarnation, to which I know we share a devotion (hence, in large part, my confusion).
I don't believe that ecstatics are deceiving themselves; they're (and, on certain occasions, I have concluded, this includes me) simply having a very particular experience of God. One of the things I believe with particular fervour is that God was perfectly aware of what God was doing when we were created in infinite diversity. Every person, who is the unique object of God's love, relates to God differently.
Some have the relationship you have described as ecstatic, and which certainly sits outside your sense of rightness. Others don't - have you ever?
Apologies for making this about you, but I hope you will see why the persistent questioning. I have at least (in my own estimation) made a similar level of self-disclosure.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thank you ThunderBunk. All good. We're all finding a way forward together here. I've had my moments and now put them all down to entirely personal psychology with no transpersonal aspect. I yearn for the Spirit nonetheless, for the ultimate conversation, but would rather the dark glass remained occluded than deceive me and will have to wait for the face to face.
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Love wins
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I've had my moments and now put them all down to entirely personal psychology with no transpersonal aspect. I yearn for the Spirit nonetheless, for the ultimate conversation, but would rather the dark glass remained occluded than deceive me and will have to wait for the face to face.
My feelings exactly.
I had many 'mountaintop' experiences which I totally and completely believed in. Not any more - I wasn't aware of it but I was deceiving myself.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
A very short while ago I would have agreed with Gamaliel but I did not count on the almighty.
Now I want to bring in the discussion the Radio 4 series Unforgetable. Please note these are 'conversations' between a living person and the recordings of a dead person's words. It is an imaginative exercise but if it is to work the recordings used have to do more than echo the living person's words, they have to contribute something different. Therefore the conversation is not so much what is aired but the long hours spent dealing with the archive and deciding what goes into the aired piece. Now, of course, what comes out may not be what they would have said if alive but it should reflect their character.
Now, this is closer to what it is like to have a conversation with God than much of the simpler readings for me. There are two texts that I pay specific attention to. One is, unsurprisingly for a Christian, the Bible and the second is creation which Calvin refers to as God's theater. The Bible requires not simple recitation but an attempt to dive deeply into the text. To try to garner as much as you can about it. Creation requires an awareness, not just of the natural order but of the human realm as well. The times when I suspect I am hearing most accurately are not those when the Bible and creation confirm my predilections but the times when I am surprised by what I gain. I must admit the surprises can be pleasant as well as critical.
I must admit, I enjoy engaging in philosophical theology. I like to see how far I can push conceptual ideas and see what they may reveal of the divine. However, I also see this as fun and not to be put on an equal footing with the struggle to try and discern the revelation that comes through taking the works of God seriously.
In a sense, I have fallen for the character that has chosen to be revealed by this process. It is nearly alway the characters move towards me that unsettles and draws me towards it. It is totally unsettling to believe in to accept some on so fundamental for existence itself actually desires intimacy with me. It is not what I see in human society, where the powerful have little regard for the individuality of those less powerful than they. Yet I cannot shake my sense that it is so with God.
However, love is a two-way relationship and you cannot command someone to love you. How do I love this character back? Simply in the way Gamaliel suggests, by trying to obey his commands as I discern them and trying, to be honest to the integrity of his revelations. I do it not over the desire for Heaven or from my fear of Hell but for the fact that I accept God loves me.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing with me or not, Jengie Jon, not that it matters one way or t'other ...
Other than the finding of common ground, of course.
As it happens, I find myself agreeing with your post and I'm not sure how it's at variance with anything I might have posted on this subject hitherto.
Yes, of course scripture is there to be engaged with and it's not all about simple recitation or repetition - and scripture, of course, points us to the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, full of grace and truth ...
And yes, Calvin was right to identify the physical world as 'God's theatre' where the divine economy is worked out and portrayed / acted out as it were ...
Yes, it's also true that love is a two-way thing. We love God because he first loved us ... and there's more to that than simply 'common grace' and the blessings and mercies we all of us see and experience - whether we are believers or otherwise.
As the Orthodox Liturgy puts it, God is good 'and a friend of man' - or 'mankind' / humanity (if they were to adopt less gender-specific language).
I'm not denying the place of the 'affective' sentiments if you like - the 'religious affections' as Jonathan Edwards called them.
Far from it.
There should be a warmth about our Christianity.
It's not anti-cerebral or anything of the kind ... but neither is it slushy and sentimental.
We should love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength ... it's holistic.
Our total-being should be engaged and involved.
Obviously we aren't always (if ever) aware of that - and that's just as well - otherwise we'd get puffed up with pietistic pride - what the Russians call 'prelest' I think ...
But there should be something there ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Even though I often think Christianity might be based on a peculiar happy deception I am still content to lend an ear to it, if not pursuing as vigorously as in the past, and yes, Loving a deity is part of that. I don't think we should be embarrassed by that.
It is the *accepting* I am loved by God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, (or whatever the whole kit an caboodle actually is), that I sometimes struggle with, or resist? I don't know. However, if a mountain-top moment does happen along once in a while I inwardly say 'Thank You Lord!' as I do still believe these things come from an External Source.
Deception? Some may think this to be the case, others fervently believe it not to be so. I am straddled between the two, usually wondering --'Does it really matter that much?'
Sorry if my views/musings cause offence to anyone. None is intended.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Now I want to bring in the discussion the Radio 4 series Unforgetable. Please note these are 'conversations' between a living person and the recordings of a dead person's words. It is an imaginative exercise but if it is to work the recordings used have to do more than echo the living person's words, they have to contribute something different. Therefore the conversation is not so much what is aired but the long hours spent dealing with the archive and deciding what goes into the aired piece. Now, of course, what comes out may not be what they would have said if alive but it should reflect their character.
Now, this is closer to what it is like to have a conversation with God than much of the simpler readings for me.
The thing with the "Unforgettable" approach is, while it's perfectly valid and useful in many ways it's NOT a relationship with the person or a real conversation with them. Similarly, asking my own questions of the Bible and picking the most relevant answers provided therein - while perfectly valid and useful in itself - isn't the relationship or conversation with God/Jesus that's being referred to by some in this thread.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Marvin
Please read for comprehension, not caricature. If you read the bible like you read my posts then I am not surprised you have no relationship with the text.
I do not choose the most relevant bit. A relationship to a text is a relationship, just ask about a third of the researchers at your university. It takes time and an acknowledgement of the integrity of the creators. Anyone can take a text and make it mean what they want. To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
That's as maybe, but it's still not a relationship with the author.
I can, very occasionally, for maybe an hour or so on one of my better days, accept that God loves me. But even then I find it very difficult to conceive of a reason why I should love Him back*. Follow, worship, obey, serve - these I can do, albeit imperfectly and frequently resentfully. But love? I can't do it - it just doesn't compute. So yes, I read the Bible to find answers rather than to "have a relationship" with it. More like a textbook than a love letter, if you will.
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*= and no, that He loves me isn't a reason to love Him back, any more than some random person coming up to me on the street and telling me they loved me would be a reason to jump into a relationship with them.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@rolyn. How could anyone possibly?
@Marvin the Martian. Excellent. Do you not find yourself moved?
Many passages move me, Oh & enN Tee. Weakly and ignorantly human in response to the divine though they be. And beautifully divine in the human.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Marvin the Martian. Excellent. Do you not find yourself moved?
No, not really.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Fascinating. Would you say that your faith is logos and ethos based, flavoured (80) much more than pathos (20) as that is the way you're wired? Which looks like I'm asking if you're a psycho!
[ 05. April 2017, 17:40: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Marvin
Please read for comprehension, not caricature. If you read the bible like you read my posts then I am not surprised you have no relationship with the text.
I do not choose the most relevant bit. A relationship to a text is a relationship, just ask about a third of the researchers at your university. It takes time and an acknowledgement of the integrity of the creators. Anyone can take a text and make it mean what they want. To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
Jengie
This looks like very careless language to me. Is it theological pornography?
By this I mean something that doesn't answer back, doesn't interact except in one's own mind. Imagined responses and meaning, not actual. That creates excitement, interest, arousal.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I don't see how Marvin not having much of a relationship with the entity that is above the evolving 'inspired' 600 years of authors' understanding of Him is in any way connected with having a relationship, whatever that is, with their evolving text.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
That's as maybe, but it's still not a relationship with the author.
Authors.
66 or so books, how many authors with very different ideas and motivations for their writing?
No wonder it's an art and a work of great patience. God can inspire us as we read, I would think. Maybe God inspired the original authors 'tho some are inspired to violence. But surely the inspiration now is in us, not the original writers.
Great sermons come from great understanding and interpretation imo. They could craft an equally good sermon from Shakespeare. If the preacher were say, Sikh, the stories would be different but the message very much the same, I think.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Fascinating. Would you say that your faith is logos and ethos based, flavoured (80) much more than pathos (20) as that is the way you're wired?
Er, maybe? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:
Which looks like I'm asking if you're a psycho!
I'm not a psycho, I'm a nutter.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
That's as maybe, but it's still not a relationship with the author.
Authors.
When discussing "a text" in the abstract, as we were, it's more grammatically correct to refer to "the author".
I'm well aware that the specific text we call The Bible had multiple authors.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
To sit and get to know a text so it starts to shape your thinking is an art and a work of great patience.
That's as maybe, but it's still not a relationship with the author.
Authors.
When discussing "a text" in the abstract, as we were, it's more grammatically correct to refer to "the author".
I'm well aware that the specific text we call The Bible had multiple authors.
I know.
I was pointing to the idea that God was 'the author' and that we have a relationship with him through reading God's book.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Me too Marvin, me too. But the only thing that works for me is how it feels. How the Jesus story feels. In its logic and fairness. It feels transcendent.
And I understood you on text and author.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@rolyn. How could anyone possibly?
@Marvin the Martian. Excellent. Do you not find yourself moved?
Many passages move me, Oh & enN Tee. Weakly and ignorantly human in response to the divine though they be. And beautifully divine in the human.
There are actually bits in OT that move me. The bits that aren't to do with putting someone's eye out or God banging the drum of vengeance and war. Maybe I find the NT to be a little Full on.
Guessing you may have picked me up on the 'embarrassed' Martin. Dunno could be a bloke thing.
I love Jesus can sound a bit soppy for a fellow if said out aloud. I know we are not talking about that kind of love but the kind you eloquently decribed in an earlier post
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
IMHO it sounds soppy for a woman too. Which is why I avoid the words, particularly in speech. Doesn't mean though that they aren't true. Just ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) .
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
...longing, loss - and will be involved in all of our desire for Jesus,
That was the line I liked, Thunderbunk also described love of/for Jesus very powerfully too. As of course have others on this thread.
I have to fall back on the line from Psalms -- "More than words are able to express".
Don't think I am capable of describing love without going into a painful ramble, which could mean I am trying to describe emotional dependence.
A Telly-evangelist once described the Love of God/Jesus as being like the beam of a giant search light. We are free to move into the beam or out of it, so one might suppose the action of love on our part is necessary when consciously stepping into that Light.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@rolyn. How could anyone possibly?
@Marvin the Martian. Excellent. Do you not find yourself moved?
Many passages move me, Oh & enN Tee. Weakly and ignorantly human in response to the divine though they be. And beautifully divine in the human.
There are actually bits in OT that move me. The bits that aren't to do with putting someone's eye out or God banging the drum of vengeance and war. Maybe I find the NT to be a little Full on.
Guessing you may have picked me up on the 'embarrassed' Martin. Dunno could be a bloke thing.
I love Jesus can sound a bit soppy for a fellow if said out aloud. I know we are not talking about that kind of love but the kind you eloquently decribed in an earlier post
Dear me rolyn, no I'm not picking you up on the 'embarrassed' or anything else: My 'How could anyone possibly?' was in response to your 'Sorry if my views/musings cause offence to anyone.'.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sigh. '... be offended' or 'How could they possibly?' might have been a tad more semantic of me.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Ah right, I see. Forgive me for guessing wrong.
Yes the disclaimer makeweight tacked onto the end of my post re 'Happy deceptions'. H'mmm
Confrontation avoidance maybe. Unseemly squabbles can occur between Christians on the matter of loving Jesus, which is always a grotesque irony.
The question Do you love Jesus? obviously wasn't seeking yes or no answers, so was probably guarding against myself treading on a stimulating debate.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The apology is entirely mine rolyn.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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