Friday, August 28, 2020

Christians Ignore Jesus' Direct "Commandments" But Are Punctilious About Things He Never Said

Image result for "pax on both houses" garrison keillor commandment

Alan: The "homily" delivered by Garrison Keillor during last weekend's Prairie Home Companion quotes at length from the well-known gospel exhortation to "take no thought for the morrow," a "commandment" that appears in the 6th chapter of Matthew and the 16th chapter of Luke.

The entire passage is set forth below. 

But before reading that passage (and throwing your life -- at least your Christian life -- into turmoil) I ask you to consider Garrison's observation that "these verses represent yet more commandments we will never obey."

Note that Keillor does not say that we humans will occasionally disobey these commandments.

He says we will never obey them.

I encourage you to ponder our universal refusal to behave in accordance with this "Jesus Command" and then contemplate refusal against the backdrop of the "red button" issues that drive conservative Christians to expend astonishing amounts of time and energy on two supposed "Moral Commandments" that Jesus never adverted. (The purpose of this cosmically-lopsided emphasis is precisely to distract "make-believers" from Yeshuah's "unacceptable" teachings to two areas of moral concern where taboo and total prohibition take deepest root in childhood.)
Image result for "pax on both houses" blaise devout

John, "The Apostle Jesus Loved," Rested His Head On Yeshua's Bosom At The Last Supper

Not only does Jesus have nothing to say about homosexuality in the New Testament, there is not a single word about abortion in the entire Bible. 

Not one.

It is not hard to validate these facts.

Go ahead. Probe them. The exercise -- like all epistemological pursuit -- will do you good.

"The Death Of Epistemolgy"

Nota bene...

Not one word concerning homosexuality or abortion ever crossed the Messiah's lips. 

And yet these two issues are THE front-and-center focus of every conservative Christian.

There are at least 27 references to poverty in the New Testament and 42 warnings about wealth. 

Do conservative Christians lather themselves over "serving two masters?" https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+6%3A24&version=NIV 

Do conservative Christians give a nano-second's thought to "selling all that they own and giving the profits to the poor?" https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+18%3A18-25&version=NRSVACE

And is there one conservative Christian in a hundred who knows that The New Testament orders, on pain of death, that all believers lay their income at the feet of the apostles for distribution according to each person's need? 
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+4%3A32-37&version=NRSVACE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananias_and_Sapphira

Not so much...

Jesus Walks Back Comments On Poor

Everything Jesus And The Apostles Had To Say About "The Rich" And "The Poor"


Take no thought for the morrow

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

"The work of heaven alone was material; the making of a material world. 
The work of hell is entirely spiritual." 
G. K. Chesterton
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox (1933)

Spiritual Materialism is real just as the materialization of spirit is real.
In Christianity, the materizlization of the spirit is often called "Kingdom Come" and is less frequently known as "the ongoing Incarnation" -- the enfleshment of the spirit, the realization of God (who is Love) -- on Earth
Too many Christians are eager to turn their backs on the divine "vector thrust of creation" in order to hasten back to the (presumably) comfortable womb of The Unmanifest Word.
This is not the direction that Creation took in the beginning and it is not the direction of Creation now.

G.K. Chesterton Quotations... And More

G.K. Chesterton On Charity, Hope And Universal Salvation




Image result for "pax on both houses" teresa of avila
"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers."
Saint Teresa of Avila

Garrison Keillor
Wikiquotes


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