Topics of Discussion
A. Disposition of Character
In 1 John 3, John is giving a warning to those who see men do wicked deeds but claim righteousness. This is a reoccurring theme during the early stages of the church, many pagan rituals were trying to be carried over, especially sexual immorality. I believe this is most notable in the case of the girls of Corinth who were sleeping with others at the temple because of men's old beliefs that such acts brought you closer to God.
The matter I'm particularly interested in though is how John tells us to be aware.
1 John 3:5-9
1 John 5:17-20
And to answer this, how can we know? For in the end James comments that we can know we have eternal life and to build up our confidence in faith. I do not take this to be literally, I simply think James is trying to give us confidence in faith, and faith always rests upon a certain amount of uncertainty. And in Revelation it is said that we are judged by our deeds, and there is but one judge, so we would have to be God to know in a literal sense where our fates lie. However, I do think he means to say that in abiding in Christ, through deeds of righteousness and following the commands without them being grievous (1 John 5:3), that we can have a good idea. That's perhaps left for another conversation though.
In 1 John 5:2-3 we find that to love others we must love God and follow his commands and that it is not grievous to us. Anyone can follow a command, but to not be grievous requires a desire to follow it. Now I might say that I follow commands everyday because I have an intellectual desire to do God's will, but it still burdens me in doing somethings like...being nice. There is some desire some lacking, for grief is an emotion, and it is the emotional desire that I lack. In fact I would say sometimes it is grievous for me to follow God's command. Insofar as this is the case I am closer to God than say the man that has committed the sin that leads to death, but I am not among the ranks of John and the like. For here a man has aligned all his parts in such a way that his being as one cries out in concordance to be with God.
WARNING: TANGENT AHEAD
And in looking at the word for sin "hamartia" or the verb "hamarton," we see it means to miss the mark as in archery. Sometimes we're closer or further from the bullseye. It is this reason why I say that faith is a process, and not black and white. If I am sinning, then certainly I am not with God, for my shot has gone further away from the target. And The Law was a mentor which sinners cannot follow and which the righteous have no need for, for they are lovers of the Good. So what we are forced to conclude is that there is this state between the sinner and the righteous which The Law was made for. And from Scripture and experience we see that sometimes we do good and sometimes we do evil, but we are generally moving towards one or the other. So even within these three states, I do not believe it's a jump from A to B to C. But that each is a spectrum in and of itself which we can grow more in or away from.
So what are we to say about sinning leading to not knowing, seeing, nor abiding in Christ? Surely, at that moment you are not, for what is in God, can do no evil. And the thoughts and desires leading to that moment were devoid of God. And we cannot say that we are being, for God alone is Being, and what we call the Nought, the Void, Chaos, is not a thing, just a word to denote lack of being. Our lives are in a state of becoming, and as such whatever we are as a whole is a result of many actions, founded upon thoughts and desires, resulting in some disposition of character. If we are righteous than our state is that seeking virtue, and if we are wicked, then we seek to go against God.
Looking at James and Romans we can build a delightful concept of faith and works which so intermingled that to separate one from the other is death to ourselves for works mix with faith and faith is made perfect. And while each has its merits it is the perfection of the two that we seek. James shows us signs of what this Sanctification is like, that we should love others, work virtue in them, love them, pray for them, and love God and his commands, taking His will for our own because we love it, not because we feel forced to.
B. True Believers/Christians
This isn't something that I've derived from John's First Epistle, but rather from conversations with my brothers and sisters about belief. Often times passages that are interpreted as black or white when it comes to belief result in these ridiculous dichotomies such as "True Christian" or "Christian." I say ridiculous not to create an argument by ridicule, so allow me to explain how absurd it really is.
If we say "True Christian" to delineate ourselves from "Christian," then the word "True" is the differentia by which we are trying to separate ourselves from others. Now, if we as the "True Christians" have Truth and the "Christians" do not, and things are either True or False and there is no middle between the two, then we are implicitly calling them "False Christians." But how can a thing be false to itself?
When I say X, it is derived that when I point at the thing it is True that it is X. It is superfluous to add "True" onto a thing. Assuming it was not, we would say something like this, "Well it was false that X is X until I added true to it." But with such implied statements, what we are saying is that X is not X until we add truth to it. Unfortunately man has no such power, and for a thing to not be itself is simply to to exist.
In 1 John 5:20 it says "true God." Didn't you say we shouldn't add on "true" to things?
In every day talk, we are apt to say "The One True God." And in this matter we are making a judgment by holding up other gods to ours. What it is we are saying isn't so much superfluous as it is to judge these other gods, insofar as they exist as ideas, to say ours is true. The meaning behind such words is implicitly talking about existence of being as an idea, in reality, both, or neither. Surely other gods exist, otherwise God would not have commanded us not to worship them. But this not go to say they exist in reality, in fact we say they exist merely as ideas. Others might be called the null set when fully played out, for while we say the Roman and Greek gods are ideas, when someone is apt to say all are perfect, and perfection has no hatred towards itself, those gods fought one another. The important thing about saying true in this sense is that it is a matter of the type of existence as being true or false coupled with an intellectual judgment. Truth when ascribed to believers is often a moral judgment and is done to separate ourselves from our brothers. But John speaks much about those who claim to love God but not their brothers as being liars. So there is a difference in the usage, one being wicked and one being righteous.
Now in a loose sense I understand what it is people are wishing to do, delineate those who claim to be Christians and those who live it out. We must be careful with such claims, for surely we know some to be true by their deeds, but even then we must not compare, but rebuke a brother gently, for there is but one law and one lawgiver, and He alone is to judge. We are commanded to love, so let us keep such things in mind when we wish to discuss such matters. Let us look at our brother and sisters actions, and help them to stop if it be sinful before it becomes a state of character. For once this is done, what fellowship does righteousness have with the unrighteousness(2 Cor 6:14)? And though righteous men are cautious with friendship, the wicked lead them astray(Proverbs 12:26).
C. Laws
When we say The Law it refers to the Pentateuch, or the first five books of Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Specifically we often mean The Ten Commandments and/or the 613(?) Levitical laws. Through Christ we were lifted from The Obligation of The Law, no longer having needed the mentor. And now we say The Law was never made for the righteous, nor the sinner, but for those who see God and want him, but lack the willpower, intellect, and right heart to pursue such noble things.
What I want to talk about is this nonsense I keep hearing amongst Baptists and Methodists that we don't need laws or rules anymore because we love God and we can be forgiven.
In John's First Epistle he says that in order to love one of the requirements is to keep God's commands. Do we not see in the Gospels that Christ says if you love me, then you shall keep my commands?
Yes, The Law is gone. But are all laws gone? No. Christ gave us two commands which summed up The Law in a way that it is both "new" and "old" if we use these terms loosely. It is no longer a command to avoid doing a thing, but to do a thing and do so through love.
During one of my trips to Savannah I got to listen to a man stand-in for the pastor talk about how he couldn't keep up with a few laws and somehow concluded that its impractical that he should be commanded to keep up with many, ultimately concluding that we don't need laws because of The Christ. False.
That argument not good enough? Let's go again.
And one more for fun:
Let's reformulate:
Whooo, what a workout. That's good stuff. In conclusion, commandments are laws so let's not confuse "laws" with "The Law" when given commandments.
D. Testing of Spirits
1 John 4:1-3
But what about speaking truth all the time? As Christians do we not say that the Apostles were righteous men? Those who sought out the Lord, loved their neighbors, and find the end of sanctification? The Spirit was always with them so they always spoke truth.
This is quite the exception though. As earlier stated, we are on a spectrum, and I see the Apostles as on the end, and most of us somewhere down the line from there.
If someone tells me, "Jesus Christ came in the flesh and is the Lord." Then I must conclude by this passage that it is the spirit of God which speaks in them. Does this mean that everything that follows from their mouth after must be true? God Forbid. I would wish to be in such a world but alas, it is not. We can see this with our brothers and sisters who have arguments over points of doctrine. Since they take logically opposite sides, they both cannot both be write though they both claim Christ is King.
All I can say is, at that moment of that utterance, given it was a belief in God and not a factual belief, the person had the spirit of God within them. Anything else we are left up to decide through good conversation with men and women seeking piety. We must reason through love and seek consistency with the Scriptures and tradition, for novelty does not equate to Truth and change as an unqualified thing is the enemy of God.
Any sort of spiritual experience we have, whether communal or individual ought always to have careful deliberation and thought. For any experience we have, there is always an interpretation, John knows this and is telling us to "be sure the spirits are of God." This takes thought process and not a feeling, for to be sure it is of God, if we are to be consistent with the rest of this Epistle, we are making a knowledge claim about God. And to know God it is said we must love him and our brothers, and follow his commands. If we never think of any of these things while experiencing something we think is spiritual, then we have no justification for thinking what we are experiencing is Christ, having not taken our commands and advice from our Christian brother and Scripture seriously.
Now conjoin these two ideas and what you have is that you can test a spirit, figure out it is God, but whatever follows after that isn't necessarily also of God. We can sing songs, have images, and so forth, but we cannot be certain for we must always be testing such things. We do however have probable reason that whatever experience follows is also from God. But even then if there is some message, prophecy, or whatnot, we must hold it and test it. Prove all things, test all spirits, but always be open to spiritual experience, and know faith is always with uncertainty. As John says, we can know Christ, abide in him, see him, but this says nothing about other knowledge claims. So I'm just trying to formulate a reasonable way to deal with such experiences from common sense. We must have faith that if we keep His commands and love him and our neighbors, that good things will follow through diligence and love of what is Good.
I've been doing this since I got up at 8 for breakfast. It's now 1. I'd say it's time to end my prayers and get back out to my people. For just as Christ prayed in the morning to his Father, he also lived with his brothers and sisters by day.
Kyrie Eleison,
blake
A. Disposition of Character (1 John 3)
B. True Believers/Christians
C. Laws
D. Testing of Spirits (1 John 4)
E. Agapao
A. Disposition of Character
In 1 John 3, John is giving a warning to those who see men do wicked deeds but claim righteousness. This is a reoccurring theme during the early stages of the church, many pagan rituals were trying to be carried over, especially sexual immorality. I believe this is most notable in the case of the girls of Corinth who were sleeping with others at the temple because of men's old beliefs that such acts brought you closer to God.
The matter I'm particularly interested in though is how John tells us to be aware.
1 John 3:5-9
5And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. 6Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. 7Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.Now let's look at what we can take from this with some simple logic. I'm going to use the present active tense for "sin" because the verb in Greek is hamartano which is present active. Now I'm not sure if it's simple, sin, or continuous, sinning. I'll use sinning for kicks but remember it could be the simple present active.
1. If you abide in [Christ], then you are not sinning.Now, if we take the street corner fire 'n brimstone minister interpretation, we end up with the idea that Christians do not sin. If you are sinning, then you never knew Christ, regardless of prayer, baptism, spiritual experiences, etc. But let's skip ahead to the end of the Epistle to look for another clue:
2. If you are sinning, then you do not abide in Christ. (contrapositive)
3. You are sinning.
4. Thus, you do not abide in Christ [modus pollens]
1. If you are sinning, then you have not seen nor know Christ.
2. You are sinning.
3. You neither know nor see Christ. [modus pollens]
By conjoining these I can say
1. If you are sinning, then you are not abiding in Christ, do not know him, and have not seen him.
1 John 5:17-20
16If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, we shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. 17All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. 18We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. 19And we know that we are of God, and the whole word lieth in wickedness. 20And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.Some like to read passages as if it is always written to them. I do not doubt that Scripture is written for all Christians. But there are different ways to inspire or make people think about their faith. E.G. If I read Ephesus or Corinthians and it said "you," it would be unfounded for me to think it meant Blake Tipton. He is writing to the leaders of the church at those places. And while we can be inspired, the things he claims with certainty about his brothers and sisters there is from a relationship he had with those people, which is not the case between us and say Paul. However, John makes no personal references here, but in order to be consistent we must say that whoever the listener is to which he says "we are in God" must also be one who is not sinning. So when James says we're in God, can hear God, and so forth, this is on the presumption that we are already righteous. Surely James was, but the question here is, our we?
And to answer this, how can we know? For in the end James comments that we can know we have eternal life and to build up our confidence in faith. I do not take this to be literally, I simply think James is trying to give us confidence in faith, and faith always rests upon a certain amount of uncertainty. And in Revelation it is said that we are judged by our deeds, and there is but one judge, so we would have to be God to know in a literal sense where our fates lie. However, I do think he means to say that in abiding in Christ, through deeds of righteousness and following the commands without them being grievous (1 John 5:3), that we can have a good idea. That's perhaps left for another conversation though.
In 1 John 5:2-3 we find that to love others we must love God and follow his commands and that it is not grievous to us. Anyone can follow a command, but to not be grievous requires a desire to follow it. Now I might say that I follow commands everyday because I have an intellectual desire to do God's will, but it still burdens me in doing somethings like...being nice. There is some desire some lacking, for grief is an emotion, and it is the emotional desire that I lack. In fact I would say sometimes it is grievous for me to follow God's command. Insofar as this is the case I am closer to God than say the man that has committed the sin that leads to death, but I am not among the ranks of John and the like. For here a man has aligned all his parts in such a way that his being as one cries out in concordance to be with God.
WARNING: TANGENT AHEAD
*BoNuS 1: One of the many reasons I am not a Baptist is because Baptists believe that all sin is equivalent. Clearly we have a delineation between sin leading to death and sin not leading to death. Now categorically I could say something like, "Of course all sin is the same, it's a will turned against God." But this is not what Baptist doctrine states, nor what Baptists who do their homework believe. Baptists traditionally say all sin is the same in the sense that God views judgment of it equally, that is to say rape and murder and drunkenness and licentiousness are equivalent.OK, TANGENT IS GONE. WE'RE GOOD.
*BoNuS 2: Now I could be wrong about Bonus#1 because I said doctrine. Baptists don't actually have doctrine because there is no history, there is no unity. There are optional conventions in which people still split on beliefs and there is no unison amongst peoples claiming to be the same thing - "Baptist." This is why there are still Free Will Baptists and Determinist Baptists. And insofar as there is no unison amongst churches in the Baptist Denomination, and not amongst congregations either, "doctrine" would not be a choice word.
*BoNuS 3: All in all it reminds me of this one time where the churches were all in disarray and no one agreed on anything and everyone had questions and lots of nonsense was going on. How could we be brothers and sisters if we couldn't even agree on what His commands were? So what happened? Oh yeah, the Apostles organized the churches geographically, led them all, and took to writing letters to them so that doctrine was established to end all the chaos. And what happened to those letters? They went on to become Scripture. But you know what, that is all bologna. We should be individualistic about our beliefs and congregations should build the church because Scripture probably doesn't know what it's talking about anyway... God save the U.S.
And in looking at the word for sin "hamartia" or the verb "hamarton," we see it means to miss the mark as in archery. Sometimes we're closer or further from the bullseye. It is this reason why I say that faith is a process, and not black and white. If I am sinning, then certainly I am not with God, for my shot has gone further away from the target. And The Law was a mentor which sinners cannot follow and which the righteous have no need for, for they are lovers of the Good. So what we are forced to conclude is that there is this state between the sinner and the righteous which The Law was made for. And from Scripture and experience we see that sometimes we do good and sometimes we do evil, but we are generally moving towards one or the other. So even within these three states, I do not believe it's a jump from A to B to C. But that each is a spectrum in and of itself which we can grow more in or away from.
So what are we to say about sinning leading to not knowing, seeing, nor abiding in Christ? Surely, at that moment you are not, for what is in God, can do no evil. And the thoughts and desires leading to that moment were devoid of God. And we cannot say that we are being, for God alone is Being, and what we call the Nought, the Void, Chaos, is not a thing, just a word to denote lack of being. Our lives are in a state of becoming, and as such whatever we are as a whole is a result of many actions, founded upon thoughts and desires, resulting in some disposition of character. If we are righteous than our state is that seeking virtue, and if we are wicked, then we seek to go against God.
Looking at James and Romans we can build a delightful concept of faith and works which so intermingled that to separate one from the other is death to ourselves for works mix with faith and faith is made perfect. And while each has its merits it is the perfection of the two that we seek. James shows us signs of what this Sanctification is like, that we should love others, work virtue in them, love them, pray for them, and love God and his commands, taking His will for our own because we love it, not because we feel forced to.
BoNuS 4: Man I'm ragging on the Baptists today. I suppose these discussions just remind me when I was first discovering I wasn't a Baptist. I'd feel bad but what can you do with group of people so fundamentally convinced that they don't need any leaders for The Church then read The Book which shows the opposite? Anyway, another reason is the widespread idea of justification alone as well as the concept of being "saved" as if it's all done and over with, lest we forget to work out our faith with fear and trembling and mix it with works. Did not even the Apostles shame themselves in their times of faithlessness, or when Peter denied Christ thrice? There are times when we do evil, but our overall actions, our state of character can be cultivated to virtue in such a way that we can remain in Christ and be forgiven. It isn't a matter of being "saved" but of a good conscience towards God coupled with an active life of piety through our own lives and our works in others.Going back to the beginning. If it be sin, then I would say it speaks to the moment of the sin that we are devoid of God. If it be sinning, then I say it speaks toward a particular state of character that is developed through this active way of life in which sin is the primary character of a person. The key was not in disproving anything or trying to be brutal, but in merely asking, "What exactly is sin and what does it mean to be sinning?" Good questions lead to good answers. God prevails.
B. True Believers/Christians
This isn't something that I've derived from John's First Epistle, but rather from conversations with my brothers and sisters about belief. Often times passages that are interpreted as black or white when it comes to belief result in these ridiculous dichotomies such as "True Christian" or "Christian." I say ridiculous not to create an argument by ridicule, so allow me to explain how absurd it really is.
If we say "True Christian" to delineate ourselves from "Christian," then the word "True" is the differentia by which we are trying to separate ourselves from others. Now, if we as the "True Christians" have Truth and the "Christians" do not, and things are either True or False and there is no middle between the two, then we are implicitly calling them "False Christians." But how can a thing be false to itself?
When I say X, it is derived that when I point at the thing it is True that it is X. It is superfluous to add "True" onto a thing. Assuming it was not, we would say something like this, "Well it was false that X is X until I added true to it." But with such implied statements, what we are saying is that X is not X until we add truth to it. Unfortunately man has no such power, and for a thing to not be itself is simply to to exist.
In 1 John 5:20 it says "true God." Didn't you say we shouldn't add on "true" to things?
In every day talk, we are apt to say "The One True God." And in this matter we are making a judgment by holding up other gods to ours. What it is we are saying isn't so much superfluous as it is to judge these other gods, insofar as they exist as ideas, to say ours is true. The meaning behind such words is implicitly talking about existence of being as an idea, in reality, both, or neither. Surely other gods exist, otherwise God would not have commanded us not to worship them. But this not go to say they exist in reality, in fact we say they exist merely as ideas. Others might be called the null set when fully played out, for while we say the Roman and Greek gods are ideas, when someone is apt to say all are perfect, and perfection has no hatred towards itself, those gods fought one another. The important thing about saying true in this sense is that it is a matter of the type of existence as being true or false coupled with an intellectual judgment. Truth when ascribed to believers is often a moral judgment and is done to separate ourselves from our brothers. But John speaks much about those who claim to love God but not their brothers as being liars. So there is a difference in the usage, one being wicked and one being righteous.
Now in a loose sense I understand what it is people are wishing to do, delineate those who claim to be Christians and those who live it out. We must be careful with such claims, for surely we know some to be true by their deeds, but even then we must not compare, but rebuke a brother gently, for there is but one law and one lawgiver, and He alone is to judge. We are commanded to love, so let us keep such things in mind when we wish to discuss such matters. Let us look at our brother and sisters actions, and help them to stop if it be sinful before it becomes a state of character. For once this is done, what fellowship does righteousness have with the unrighteousness(2 Cor 6:14)? And though righteous men are cautious with friendship, the wicked lead them astray(Proverbs 12:26).
C. Laws
When we say The Law it refers to the Pentateuch, or the first five books of Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Specifically we often mean The Ten Commandments and/or the 613(?) Levitical laws. Through Christ we were lifted from The Obligation of The Law, no longer having needed the mentor. And now we say The Law was never made for the righteous, nor the sinner, but for those who see God and want him, but lack the willpower, intellect, and right heart to pursue such noble things.
What I want to talk about is this nonsense I keep hearing amongst Baptists and Methodists that we don't need laws or rules anymore because we love God and we can be forgiven.
In John's First Epistle he says that in order to love one of the requirements is to keep God's commands. Do we not see in the Gospels that Christ says if you love me, then you shall keep my commands?
Yes, The Law is gone. But are all laws gone? No. Christ gave us two commands which summed up The Law in a way that it is both "new" and "old" if we use these terms loosely. It is no longer a command to avoid doing a thing, but to do a thing and do so through love.
During one of my trips to Savannah I got to listen to a man stand-in for the pastor talk about how he couldn't keep up with a few laws and somehow concluded that its impractical that he should be commanded to keep up with many, ultimately concluding that we don't need laws because of The Christ. False.
1. Commands are laws. [e.g. Decalogue]
2. Christ gave us commands.
3. Therefore, Christ have us laws.
That argument not good enough? Let's go again.
1. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not him. (1 John 2:4)
2. Commands are laws.
3. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his laws, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (substitution)
And one more for fun:
1. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
2. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
3. Commandments are laws [oh snap!]
Let's reformulate:
1. If you love God and keep his commandments, then you love the children of God.
2. Love of God is to keep his commandments and doing so is not grievous.
3. Commandments are laws [simple baby]
4. If you keep his commandments and not do so grievously, then you love the children of God. [substitution 1,2]
5. If you keep his laws and not do so grievously, then you love the children of God.
Whooo, what a workout. That's good stuff. In conclusion, commandments are laws so let's not confuse "laws" with "The Law" when given commandments.
D. Testing of Spirits
1 John 4:1-3
1Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirit whether they are of God:because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.It's hard to tell if someone is telling the truth. What's worse is when they claim spiritual words for you. "I had a word for you from God" is the sort of situation I mean. How do we discern such things? The short answer is faith and testing and waiting to prove all things. Hold a hypothesis, it either comes true or it doesn't. We can over time discern what a person's spiritual gift is based on such things.
But what about speaking truth all the time? As Christians do we not say that the Apostles were righteous men? Those who sought out the Lord, loved their neighbors, and find the end of sanctification? The Spirit was always with them so they always spoke truth.
This is quite the exception though. As earlier stated, we are on a spectrum, and I see the Apostles as on the end, and most of us somewhere down the line from there.
If someone tells me, "Jesus Christ came in the flesh and is the Lord." Then I must conclude by this passage that it is the spirit of God which speaks in them. Does this mean that everything that follows from their mouth after must be true? God Forbid. I would wish to be in such a world but alas, it is not. We can see this with our brothers and sisters who have arguments over points of doctrine. Since they take logically opposite sides, they both cannot both be write though they both claim Christ is King.
All I can say is, at that moment of that utterance, given it was a belief in God and not a factual belief, the person had the spirit of God within them. Anything else we are left up to decide through good conversation with men and women seeking piety. We must reason through love and seek consistency with the Scriptures and tradition, for novelty does not equate to Truth and change as an unqualified thing is the enemy of God.
BoNuS: This is why I hate the word "progressive," people always bring along baggage that is not contained within the concept itself, such as better, good, etc. This is also why I have strong moral problems with President Obama's election tactics, it preyed upon such wrongful and weak thinking. A brother in Christ ought not do such things. Ambiguity puts hope for those in despair to fill in the blank: change for ______ which is another horrible thing to do. The only time change unqualified ought to be considered is when things can be no worse. But this is never the case on earth, for I can always imagine something worse. And I might go as far to say that such circumstances are impossible.On a second note, when worshipping we find people often caught up in the goosebumps and the guitar chord so much that they attribute it to God. And in that moment that say "Yes Christ, yes you are real and you love me" or some such thing. Though they use the word Christ, I would say sometimes they put the name Christ on the feeling, and are not actually speaking of Christ. In such cases I am fine to say, "Though you claim to speak of Christ, I do not think you are doing so."
Any sort of spiritual experience we have, whether communal or individual ought always to have careful deliberation and thought. For any experience we have, there is always an interpretation, John knows this and is telling us to "be sure the spirits are of God." This takes thought process and not a feeling, for to be sure it is of God, if we are to be consistent with the rest of this Epistle, we are making a knowledge claim about God. And to know God it is said we must love him and our brothers, and follow his commands. If we never think of any of these things while experiencing something we think is spiritual, then we have no justification for thinking what we are experiencing is Christ, having not taken our commands and advice from our Christian brother and Scripture seriously.
Now conjoin these two ideas and what you have is that you can test a spirit, figure out it is God, but whatever follows after that isn't necessarily also of God. We can sing songs, have images, and so forth, but we cannot be certain for we must always be testing such things. We do however have probable reason that whatever experience follows is also from God. But even then if there is some message, prophecy, or whatnot, we must hold it and test it. Prove all things, test all spirits, but always be open to spiritual experience, and know faith is always with uncertainty. As John says, we can know Christ, abide in him, see him, but this says nothing about other knowledge claims. So I'm just trying to formulate a reasonable way to deal with such experiences from common sense. We must have faith that if we keep His commands and love him and our neighbors, that good things will follow through diligence and love of what is Good.
E. Agapao
I was going to do a section on the love of God, brothers, and its relationship with commandments but I ended up having to talk about it other sections. Agape is the noun for selfless God-like love, agapao is the verb form. Huzzah hurrah!I've been doing this since I got up at 8 for breakfast. It's now 1. I'd say it's time to end my prayers and get back out to my people. For just as Christ prayed in the morning to his Father, he also lived with his brothers and sisters by day.
Kyrie Eleison,
blake
