Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....August 3, 2020
Its August already.....Where is the year going to??? I pray for each of you daily that God will protect and guide you in your day. Keep God's Word in your heart and He will show you the way.
This is the third in a seven part teaching series on the Mighty God we serve.
The reality that not everyone believes in Christ challenges Christians living in hostile environments to depend on the Holy Spirit of God for direction each and every day in seeking to do God's Will. This statement is so much more important in these days of unrest and evil.
I want to begin this teaching talking about pretzels....Why call attention to a pretzel other than to get attention? The story of how and why this edible illustration was invented is intriguing as it pertains to praying for God’s Will to be done in us as revealed by the Holy Spirit.
Around 600 AD, a Monk decided to make a special treat for children who learned to recite their prayers. Christians in those days prayed by folding their arms across their chests with each hand touching the opposite shoulder. This clever priest formed dough to look like arms folded in prayer. He named his creation "petiole", which in Latin means "little reward”.
This novel reminder to pray (a pretzel shaped in the form of arms folded in prayer) caught on, and soon it was used also as an object lesson to teach children the concept of the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit - One God who exists equally and eternally in three persons, yet, who act in unity. In essence One, in effect Three.
When did this concept of more than one aspect of One God first appear in the Bible?
"In the beginning God". "God" in Hebrew is "Elohim" (plural - not three separate gods but one God in three beings). God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created man, male and female He created them." Notice " us11 and "our" then the shift to "his" and "he".
So: Moses, divinely inspired author of Genesis, interchangeably used the singular and the plural in reference to God as if everybody ought to know what he knew - that the LORD God is so great and mighty that He cannot be confined or defined by finite terminology.
If we could explain God only in words that we understand, God wouldn't be God. As a matter of fact, don1t be surprised when we all get to Heaven to learn that God is so much more than we thought! (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)
Why worry about that which our minds cannot and were not intended to comprehend!
The greatest minds in history have gone to their graves still in amazement of God so great that He cannot be confined or defined by puny human terminology and explanations.
Daniel Webster, statesman and fervent Christian, was asked by an agnostic, "How can a man of your intellect believe in the Trinity?" His answer: "I do not pretend to fully understand the arithmetic of heaven - now." {Translation: I'll understand it fully when I get to Heaven!)
While finite minds try to grasp the wonder of it all - but fall short, the Word of God speaks clearly the message of salvation - that the sovereign yet loving LORD God acted in every aspect of His being to create then save lost humanity. So, how can we NOT bend knees and bow heads in worship before such a great and mighty God - Father, Son, Holy Spirit!
All three persons of the Trinity are associated with our salvation experience {as stated by the Apostle Peter in I Peter 1:2):"To God's elect . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknow/edge of God the Father, thru the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ whose sacrifice of Himself cleansed you from sin and set you apart for the service of God." Furthermore: All three were involved at the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17) ... were invoked at our own baptism (28:19) . . . are engaged in spiritual growth (2 Cor. 13:14).
Now, with this background laid out we move to the message at hand:
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul spoke of: our Trinitarian, (Trinity), concept of salvation in terms of "the wisdom of God in a mystery'' - 1Corinthians 2:6-8 ... the Spirit of God as He who reveals the wisdom of God to the people of God - I Corinthians 2:9-11...the stark contrast between earthly wisdom and spiritual wisdom, concluding that: we (mature believers) have learned to think like Christ" - 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 ...
Although none of us has arrived - in the sense that we have no further need to grow spiritually - we have reached a level of maturity wherein we are able to comprehend the meaning of the gospel message which we received from the Lord --- conveyed to us by divinely inspired persons of God and interpreted to us by the Holy Spirit.
By now, surely we have learned to make a distinction between the wisdom of this world and true wisdom that comes from God – wisdom revealed by the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom in general means having the know-how – based on accumulation of knowledge, understanding, experience and insight – to achieve desired results (outcomes).
Worldly wisdom employs a different kind of know-how to achieve a far different kind of result: satisfying selfish desires, gaining personal power and prestige.
“True wisdom” originated with God who grants His gift of discernment to saints of God for using their know-how to advance causes that are right in God’s sight as revealed in His Word to accomplish His threefold objective: redemption, sanctification, glorification!
Paul appealed to mature saints of God to lead the way for babes in Christ – recent converts from pagan cultures to the new culture made up of followers of Christ – who were still clinging to unwise indoctrination by secular forces – both human and demonic.
Paul spoke of these forces as “princes of this world" described also as rulers of darkness, manipulators of minds, communicators of false doctrine - unbelievers who bombard minds with worldly thinking, worldly solutions and worldly ideology- and who, for the most part, take their cues from other individuals who know not our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ nor are led by the Spirit.
When all has been said and done - and the final chapter fulfilled, such ways and means will have amounted to nothing of eternal value. On the other hand: Christian wisdom centers in (focuses on) God's redemptive plan thru the ages, God's plan of salvation - predestined for our glory before the creation... revealed to us by the Holy Spirit ... imparted to others by believers who have been taught by the Spirit. Pass it on.
Christian wisdom is foolishness to unbelievers, yes! But also may be seen in that way by some immature believers - "'babes in Christ "who need to grow up ... to develop a bit further until they are able to discern spiritual truth!
Mature saints have been empowered - blessed and highly favored - to make right judgments, right choices, right decisions - and to take right actions for the good of the Cause and for the good of all.
Mature Christians have so cultivated their relationship to God in Christ that the Holy Spirit is as real to them as the morning light shining through a window to signal the start of a new day.
Shouldn't it dawn on us each morning that the Lord our God is not some distant deity but is right here with us - in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit! Think about how glorious it must have been at the baptism of Jesus when all three showed up!
Each morning when we awake, God the Father is with us to see us thru the day, God the Son goes with us all the way, God the Spirit is with us to teach us all we need to know and say, to help us do what we need to do as we pray.
God the Holy Spirit is our paraclete (one who goes along side us} - constant companion, reliable friend, sustaining influence, wise counselor, comforter who along with the Father and Son never leaves nor forsakes us.
With all we've got going for us, we are bound to have the mind of Christ ... think and act as did He ... go about our Father's business as did He - by separating ourselves from the ways of the world, by seeking to live for Him a life that is true, by striving to please Him in all that we do, by seeing people as did He -sheep without a shepherd - and by seizing opportunities presented to us by the Spirit: to learn, listen, love, let the Spirit lead us in paths of righteousness! Why not just be Christians?
It's okay to be thought of as "odd”. . . to bewilder the worldly-minded by our "unusual” acts of service solely to help someone else . . . to confound the not-so-wise of this world by putting our Christian beliefs into practice in everyday life.
Don't be surprised to be opposed by "the world of anything goes" when you stand up for Jesus and live out your Christian convictions!
The message of this series of teachings is simply summarized:
On our own, we cannot know partially or fully God's wisdom, or comprehend God's Will. However, the Holy Spirit knows. He reveals to us the mind (the thinking) of God.
So, we who seek “to know God and to do God's Will" must depend on the Holy Spirit to teach us and lead us day by day!
I love you all:)
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
"He didn't look like much at first. He was too fat and his head was so big his mother feared it was misshapen or damaged. He didn't speak until he was well past 2, and even then with a strange echolalia that reinforced his parents' fears. He threw a small bowling ball at his little sister and chased his first violin teacher from the house by throwing a chair at her.
There was in short, no sign, other than the patience to build card houses 14 stories high, that little child would grow up to be 'the new Copernicus,' proclaiming a new theory of nature, in which matter and energy swapped faces, light beams bent, the stars danced and space and time were as flexible and elastic as bubblegum.
No clue to suggest that he would help send humanity lurching down the road to the atomic age, with all its promise and dread, with the stroke of his pen on a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, certainly no reason to suspect that his image would be on T‑shirts, coffee mugs, posters and dolls..... Albert Einstein!"
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
The Religions of the World...
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Eastern Orthodoxy, the smallest of Christianity’s three major branches and perhaps the least-known by other Christians, has its geographic roots in the Middle East, where the faith began. As it spread, Orthodox Christianity developed regional variations, although most share similar beliefs and practices. Today, it remains dominant in Greece, Russia, and Romania (among other countries) and is the most common form of Christianity in Muslim-majority countries like Egypt and Turkey.
Due to cultural and political differences, the Eastern Orthodox Church quickly developed differences with the Western form that became the Roman Catholic Church. It tended to be more contemplative; the Western church was more pragmatic. Although very much integrated into political life, especially during the Byzantine period, Eastern Christianity did not develop the Roman Church’s secular power. In fact, emperors tended to have influence over the running of the church, whereas the reverse was true in Rome.
Furthermore, after the seventh century, much of the Eastern Orthodox Church came under the political domination of Muslim rulers as Islam spread westward, and this influenced its theology and practice. Although the Western church lost territory to Islam in North Africa and Spain, Charles Martel’s decisive victory at the Battle of Tours (732) kept most of Europe in Christian hands.
In chapter 3, we discussed other key historical and political factors that led to schism between the Western (Roman Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) branches; there were theological elements, too. Because it produced some of the early church’s most influential theologians and writers, the East resented the insistence that Rome have the final say in all matters. This unwillingness to bow to the pope’s authority was at the heart of this growing divide.
One early theological controversy had to do with understanding relationships within the Trinity. Both branches agreed that God is one being who has existed eternally as three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. Both rejected polytheism and modalism, the heretical idea that God originally manifested himself as the Father, then became the Son, and now is the Holy Spirit. But the Western church held that the Spirit “proceeded from both the Father and the Son,” while the Eastern branch took Jesus’ words in John’s gospel about the Father sending the Spirit to mean that he “proceeded [only] from the Father.”
More widely familiar was what has come to be called the “Iconoclastic Controversy.” The Western church used statues of Jesus, Mary, and many saints in their worship. To the Eastern church, this was idolatrous, in violation of the second commandment (to have no graven image). They developed a two-dimensional art form called the icon, a picture for use in worship and prayer.
Before the final split in 1054, the Western church insisted on celibacy for priests, while marriage was permitted in the East. The West baptized infants by sprinkling; the East baptized infants by immersion. The West began giving laypeople only bread during Communion, whereas the laity in the East continued to receive both bread and wine.
Language was important in how the two branches spread and developed. The West used Latin for worship and resisted further translation of the Bible into other tongues. The East used Greek and promoted translation of God’s Word into the vernacular. The Orthodox monk Cyril developed an alphabet for the Slavic languages that bears his name; Cyrillic orthography is used today for Russian, Polish, Czech, and Bulgarian, among other languages.
Through the missionary work of dedicated monks, Eastern Christianity spread from the Middle East into Eastern Europe and northward into Russia, as well as into what is now Iraq and Iran. By the close of the first millennium, geographic expansion slowed and eventually halted. Leading up to and into the twentieth century, Eastern European and Russian immigrants brought the Orthodox faith to Australia and North America. Today, 270 million Eastern Orthodox members are organized into fellowships of independent churches, usually by country, including Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and the Orthodox Church in America, each with its own synod of bishops. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is given the honor of “first among equals” and holds significant influence but does not have the power or authority that the pope has over the Roman Catholic Church.
The Eastern Orthodox Church is also officially known as the Orthodox Catholic Church. Similar to but separate from the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Oriental Orthodox Church (though oriental means “eastern”), which includes the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and several smaller groups. These differ from Eastern Orthodoxy in that they accept only the first three of seven ecumenical councils that Eastern Orthodoxy considers to be the definitive interpretation of Scripture for belief and practice.
The Oriental Orthodox churches are of ancient origin. The Coptic Church traces its beginnings to Mark the Evangelist, while the Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces to the return of the eunuch who encountered Philip, in Acts 8. These churches refused the conclusions of the Council of Chalcedon (451) and broke away prior to the East-West split (1054). Note: The Orthodox Church of Alexandria, in Egypt, is part of Eastern (not Oriental) Orthodoxy.
How does the name Orthodox differ from the term orthodox? The term comes from two Greek words literally rendered right belief. So the term orthodox means believing in line with accepted Christian teaching (as opposed to heresy, wrong belief). Any right-believing Christian is orthodox. The Eastern Church adopted the word into their name in the conviction that their belief was correct.
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou