A Scriptural Rewrite Maybe?
Matthew 10
34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Well this is just great! Whatever happened to "Peace on Earth, good will to men," or " to men of good will," ??? Depends on which Gospel you read. If this is Jesus goal on earth, he can just run for President! Humans already have the no peace/sword thing down to a science. Personally we don't need this kind of teaching as humans will use it to justify all kinds of religious chicanery and deceit. Besides we can't tell the Jesus wars from the human ones. 35For I have come to turn“‘a man against his father,a daughter against her mother,a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
Just great! Whatever happened to lions and lambs and little children leading them? Why did I sing , "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak but he is strong..." if he is going to destroy my family and make us all hate each other! I thought Jesus "loved the little children of the world!?"
Besides, we don't need anyone causing MORE of this stuff. We need something that causes LESS of it! And I thought you said I wasn't suppose to have any enemies I didn't love? Now you tell me I am the one, or you are the one Jesus who makes my enemies for me and those from the people I love! You ain't right.
37“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "
Why can't we love our parents AND be worthy of YOU? Didn't your Dad say something to us about Honor your mom and dad so we can live long? Did I miss something? Do you and your Dad get along? I'm only asking because in our last "bad teachings" discussion we should note that Paul said your Dad ordained all the kingdoms and the leadership in this world as his agents for good, and yet in Revelation, you set out to take down these guys and make them do it all your way. I'm just sayin.... Seems we have a Father/Son disagreement here! Hey, is that why you feel this way? You are at odds with your own Father so think we all have to be too to follow you? Am I psychoanalyzing you too much? Ok, sorry....
Anyway....
Dear Jesus,
Do you understand how much trouble this is going to cause in the gabillion denominations, sects, cults, schisms, splisms, slivers and splinters your "we are not divided, all one body we," churches? Men will use this to cover justify all kinds of narcissistic control and supply for the nut case pastors who demand the people do just this. These words, badly used, will cause all sorts of heartache and chaos in human lives and families and for no good reason. Whole armies of the spiritually retarded will go to war and not care if they live or die because they die for you...or so they think but we know better don't we???
Here, let me rewrite this for you...
34“Know you that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I came to bring peace, cookies and milk.35 I have come to turn“‘a man back to his father,a daughter back her to mother,a daughter-in-law back to her mother-in-law—37“Anyone who loves his father or mother imitates and loves me; anyone who loves his son or daughter imitates and loves me;
38and anyone who does take his cross and follow will be well pleased .
39 In this love you will find your life and lose it not. In as much as you have done it unto the least of these dear people, you have done it unto me. Amen
There...that's better. :)
Dennis C. Diehl
11 comments:
Oh, now Dennis, you know very well that we have to love Jesus more than anything because we will be the Bride of Christ.
Having said that, can you please reveal what being the Bride of Christ would shape up to be for us guys? How often, for example, would we get to see Jesus?
I'm sure you can come up with a good answer.
In the meantime, don't get too hung up on the other loves of your life, because you are going to be the Bride of Jesus... I suppose. (Talk about mysteries.) I just wouldn't ask him at the wedding whether the wedding garment made you look fat.
well yes, actually i was asked thiso once by a guy who was uncomfortable with being "the bride of Christ." All I could think of was women must also be uncomfy with being the "Sons of God."
We just smirked at each other. I guess it means we're all bi...or something. Gosh, kinda creepy :)
Do I have to wear a wedding dress??? :(
Dennis, I don't have any answers at all, since we will also be like the angels, neither marrying nor being in marriage. But still the Bride of Christ.
Douglas, you are right! I forgat that!! Ok, so we are the Brides of Christ but do not marry but are like the Angels. So Angels don't marry. We know God and the Holy Spirit don't marry but did have a child together somehow. I thought we mortals weren't supposed to do stuff like that? Oh well. So earthly Jesus did not marry but the heavenly one will but not us but us at the same time being like and not like the Angels.
I'm confused. Can I just be a Friend of God instead?
No! No! No! At least I think, No. I'm not sure.
You know very well that Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament and was married to Israel.
When he died, he went back into bachelor status and decided to be a new groom. We will be the Bride of Christ. The physical Israelites are just Sure Out of Luck (SOL). There was one henpecked husband who was dying to get out of his marriage. That is sort of why he (well, was it suicide by Roman?) died. Well, that was one reason. He had others.
As a Bride of Christ, Dennis, you have to be warned that according to Scripture he wasn't particularly good looking, if that matters. I think he's probably strong, being a stone mason involved in construction. The good news, he's a legend when it comes to being a good provider, although the record isn't too impressive yet, since it is the meek who will inherit the work... er, the earth and it will be difficult for those arrogant rich, like Herbert Armstrong to enter into the Kingdom (I mean, doesn't $2 Billion to $4 Billion during his career count as being rich? And with all those resources so he could buy gold, silver, crystal and fly by personal jet, even though he didn't own anything -- which is a real mystery, since he seemed to have had a $500,000 per year salary).
Anyway, I think we've pretty much cleared everything up except when the wedding will be.
Since Jesus will come back on the Feast of Trumpets to fight a war and the Leviticus law says a married man shouldn't go to war for a whole year so he can cheer up his bride, it just isn't clear how this works, because you'd think the bride would be wedded immediately at his return. Is the wedding in the 8 days between the year of the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement? I thought the saints were to fight with the Lord with his return.
The latest things of the ACoG is that there will be a near miss return on the Feast of Pentecost and everybody will go back to heaven. Oh, don't ask me who started this idea, I hear tell from Art Braidic it started with James Russell. Anyway, I don't see how this can work: A near miss and go back to heaven? No, I don't think so.
The more we pursue this, the deeper the mystery, well, deepens.
So Dennis, with my admitted limited knowledge, and in light of the fact that you were once in the cadre that was in the know, with all knowledge, wisdom and keys to the Kingdom, I wonder if you can enlighten us with some off the wall speculation -- which we have become so used to, given 5 hour sermons by Gerald Watermouth.
It's a mystery. I was in the cadre but I was not in the loop.
Im thinking that garments dipped in blood would be a nice touch if we have to through this. Personally if we are going to have to be wed to the groom, I prefer the one who changed water into wine and not the one who has a sword coming out of his mouth in Revelation. I imagine a Holy Kiss would produce stabbing pains in my eye or environs. I don't want to think about it.
Anyway, if we are all married to him, yet like the Angels, that would make us harem mates so at least we'd get to talk from time to time and figure this out.
Are you absolutely sure it was wine?
I prefer grape juice.
Touche, Dennis. You have a knack for taking the ridiculousness of scripture and opening it up for the nonsense it is.
As to the wine or grape juice thing, I think a capenter/stone mason (or whatever) like Jesus supposedly was enjoyed a hearty drinking time with the boys from time to time.
I'm rather moderate in drinking anything but I'll still go for something alcoholic if I'm going to be part of something that weird.
What were the people who came up with those concepts, decades and even centuries later, drinking or smoking?
'Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven'?
In a nutshell: oversimplification easily creates contradictions.
Reduce everything down to binary logic or black and white, ignoring the infinite shades of gray, then any high school essayist can create doctrinal inconsistencies.
The point is there must be WAR and PEACE in the course of good overcoming evil. We'll experience both at various times in the struggle.
Its easy to deceive, but hard to make peace.
Oh, I don't know... have you ever tried to go to war against the Armstrongist Churches of God with their really nutty ideas, with the doctrines stolen and perverted from other religions? To go to war with Satan and his lying minions in the ACoGs?
It's harder than you might think.
Certainly harder than sitting around with no conflict in peace with no commitment to the truth and no, shall we say intestinal fortitude, and have peace.
Good men go to war.
As for peace, it comes only after the war is won.
And yes, it does look now as though I will have the ad on the front page of "The Journal" web site.
Should the Bride of Christ have testicles?
Some think not, and have gone "under the knife" in order to please YAH and become eunuchs, because of YAH's scriptures such as the following (KJV)-
For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Hmmmmm...."that shall not be cut off"?
That's a mighty sense of humor, YAH.
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