LP675

(At the risk of appearing as though I’m jumping on a band wagon) I have to concur.

LP675

Maybe he knows what is best for us.

dmarker

Perhaps a stronger example is needed. Suppose, in order to follow Jesus you have to abandon your child:

Matthew 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

Would the Christians in here abandon their children to follow Jesus?

Magdlyn

In the book, the Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, the author, Robt Price makes a good argument that 2 kinds of disciples are referred to in the gospels: the ascetic wandering preacher types, and the more ordinary, householder, wage earner types. Who have the means to support the poor wanderers.

Both are blessed and legitimate.

Mary called Magdalene and her sister Martha, Salome and other women are written to monetarily support J and his 12. Jos of Arimathea was wealthy enough to offer his tomb for J's burial. Etc.

Does that make sense?

Chili

It means hate and should mean hate but it does not include the word forever to suggest that we should hate them forever.

Notice that it is about "becoming a disciple" and not about becoming a believer or becoming a better believer. To become a disciple we must enter into the reign of God and for this we must have exhausted all our worldly pursuits for happiness and cannot even have one eye asquint towards the world and what it can possibly offer us . . . lest we become enriched by the angel of light instead of God and that is the real urgency of the message here.

'To have reached the end of our world' or the Western end of the world because we were placed East of Eden is a similar metaphor. So are beyond exhaustion, beyond theology and beyond surrender, but is also why Joseph returned to his place of birth where he was beyond theology and there gave an account of himself.

This would exclude our ability to respond to an altar call (Mary led Joseph to Bethlehem) unless we think that the angel of light is sufficient in which case we will have to burn our daily scriptures to keep the flame alive.

Chili

Believers are "ark builders" and to be an ark builder we must also be "tomb hewers" for when we get to the other side of life we will need a place to bury our past.

Hewn as if out of stone implies that we earned our salvation and succesfully have stocked our life-houseboat with all of the animals . . . including the wolves so we could get to the other side. The riches of Joseph was his real life experience and he had 12 apostles to prove it.

jbernier

Interesting.

This actually makes a lot of sense, given that the Jesus movement (imho) has a lot of affinities to the Essenes - and this description fits what we know about the Essenes. It also fits well with some of Paul's statements later, which (again) would make perfect sense in some sort of Judaism that is somewhat analogous (at least sociologically) to the Essenes.

Lugubert

jbernier,

It would be an asset to the board if we could subscribe not only to topics, but to persons posting as well. I wouldn't want to miss any of your posts.

You know, of course, that you are not exactly alone in finding parallels between Jesusism and the Essene teachings. These, as well as many writings labelled as "Gnosticism", are too often ignored when interpreting the canonical scriptures.

Regarding the 'hate' bit, I just want to remark that even if that word is taken as the correct translation of the Greek, it still has a wide span. It is quite a difference between saying "I hate killers" and "I hate math". I find it in order to interpret the "Luke" verse as "If you aren't prepared to reject what others have taught you, you can't be my follower."

Chili

Except that this verse is not about how we can be a follower but how we can become a follower and to become a follower our very preparations must also be rejected to say that our entire faculty of reason must be left behind to arrive at the right state of preparedness.

dmarker

Why must you leave behind your reason?