For a Text-to-Speech rendition of this webpage, see the audio player below:

If God exists, and creates creation, it is His Responsibility to rule that creation. Surely, as God, such a Responsibility and Right must be His: who else would have all the facts? Who else could truly ensure Justice? Who else would have the most vested interest in the welfare of His own Handiwork? Would this God go to such trouble to make and maintain mankind (which the Bible claims He WILLS every second, nothing is on "automatic pilot")....only to throw it away like tissue paper?

We saw in the "Does God Exist?" page that God would not have it in Him to do such a thing. In order to protect people, any government must have a lawful use of force; this would be even more true in the case of "God". Proper judicial systems, policing and sentencing, are a must for an orderly society to be free of fear; how much more would this be true in the case of "God"? Absent these protections, absent Justice, the government would not deserve to rule. Who but God can monitor and ensure Justice? In all events, even lawful violence to protect the populace must ALWAYS be the instrument of last resort. How much more, in the hands of God, who in the Bible has His Own Son pay for all mankind? It isn't as though God depreciates Christ...

Now, let's look at why the claims in the OT are falsely portrayed as God committing genocide or murder.

• the warning time to the Canaanites that they should 1)believe in the Lord, or 2) leave Canaan ("drive..out" phrase in Bible passages) was a minimum of 40 years. People who accuse God of genocide tend to forget that. From the time of the Exodus, the news of the miracle/plagues in Egypt spread like wildfire across the Levant (cf. Bk. Joshua). Yet Israel did not enter the "Land" until 40 years later. Between those two points they did not fight on God's orders unless they were attacked first. [cf. Exodus, Numbers, Deut...read whole books to get the full picture, for they retell the same stories to highlight different lessons. ('Like Genesis 2 recasts Genesis 1 to explain WHY the earth was restored in those six days, so approaches the topic in reverse order.)]

  PRINCIPLE: a vast Gospel-PR campaign, in advance, gave the Canaanites plenty of time to "repent" (change-mind, in Heb or Greek), or..to leave.

• Why? Let's look at the (ahem) 'lovely' lifestyle of these people:
  • child abuse (their own, and others');
    
  • child immolation (their own, and others) --i.e.,to "Molech", among other demon-idols;
  • drug/alcohol abuse as part of the cult rituals;
  • self-mutilation, and mutilation of others, again as part of these rituals;
  • human sacrifice (for a wide variety of "appeasement" reasons, and in orgies);
  • rape (both homosexual and heterosexual, including pederasty);
  • bestiality, homosexuality of a violent type, pederasty, incest -- you name it;
  • widespread adultery/fornication as part of the "worship" of their demon-gods (which meant more rape; often the children would be sacrificed in order to improve orgasms, which apparently increased in proportion to the children's screams);
  • skinning people alive for sport (the Hittites apparently were best at this; it was a favorite way to celebrate the raiding of a town or the end of a battle);
  • widescale banditry, theft, kidnapping, extortion, done to surrounding areas (and the captives of course were used in the phallic cult, per the above);
  • frequent raiding parties that went into towns and put everyone to death (like Tamerlane was to do, later on in history, but at least Tamerlane did it for military reasons -- these people, by contrast, did it for the sheer love of being violent);
  • widescale murder/theft/abuse of visitors who had the bad luck to encounter them;
  • apparently, some cannibalism.

PRINCIPLE: God ordered their execution for all of these crimes for the sake of the people in all the surrounding territories. Should God not administer Justice?

If it were true that infants or children were ordered to be slaughtered (and after you read what follows, you will doubt such things happened), since all children who can't have had enough opportunity to believe in the Lord go to heaven anyway, isn't that a mercy, versus a life of abuse and torture in the 'lovely' society listed above?

• The Canaanites were a mix of Greek and Arabic and Persian peoples; the Arabs are a brother race to Israel (also descended from Abraham...about 13 tribes, at least). They were not the only people in the Levant; further, many of them had intermarried with Edom, Moab, and some of the protected Ammon tribes, so were left completely unscathed, at God's order (read the protection clause to Abraham's progeny and the protection clauses to these groups, which are passim throughout the OT).

PRINCIPLE: Genocide simply couldn't occur, therefore. Mathematically the number of folks in the affected cities at the time of their destruction was too small, and the races were dispersed all over the Levant.

• The Bible's list of battles in Joshua (where these alleged genocides occur) is very detailled, and a careful reading of each will prove the following:
  • At Jericho, the long-lead time mentioned above, plus the protection of all in Rahab's house meant that anyone could have left before the seige began (because it was well-announced to give everyone in the town a chance to believe in the Lord and avoid death); anyone could have left during the seige, or during the 7th day of it, when the battle actually occurred.

    ===> This is a pattern of the other battles. How many other "Rahabs" were there in each town? Just because the Bible doesn't list them all doesn't mean there weren't any. OT's main purpose is to teach doctine. So, its narratives are patterns for people to learn. So, the OT has a tendency only to list great believers, great failures, or great negative people. (It isn't meant to be a blow-by-blow description of history.)

  • At Ai, even greater lead-time was given (Jericho occurred first, and was one of the best-built fortresses in the ancient world, as archeologists even claim today). So, the ability to escape was even greater. Moreover, careful reading reveals that only men and women were killed. (We women can be just as evil as any man.) The children aren't mentioned, which is important, since the Bible carefully categorizes who is to be killed, what is to be destroyed, in each case. (The death penalty had to be visited upon only certain cities and groups.) So, the children had been evacuated, or had been used up in the orgiastic cults (children were often sacrificed before battles to win the demon-god's favor), or..who knows.

  • The other battles listed talk of only the armed forces being killed, or "all inhabitants" -- which would mean all who were still in the city at the time of the well-advertised advance attack. Now, think..how many people would really be left? How many would slip away in the night? What woman with child, if she is at all human, would stay there? What man? See, anyone who actually remained would be beyond-rehabilitation, given the wide "press coverage" (as it were) of the Israelite victories. (Heck, when Caesar invaded Gaul, he only had to fight a few battles, for all Gaul to want to make peace with him.) In short, the lead-time for the cities after Ai was VERY long. Read Joshua for details.

  • Not every attack was ordered by God. More often, not every peace treaty was ordered by God, either, but even so, God didn't override any of those treaties (e.g., the story of Gibeon and its allies in Joshua). Now, if God is omniscient, didn't He know in advance that He'd be disobeyed? So, why didn't He burn those people up with fire from Heaven? Well, if you look into the details, you'll find out the people were at least somewhat positive to the then-Gospel message (Christ was known simply as "The Lord" in those days). Judges lists the many peoples that Israel spared against God's orders. Numbers, Joshua, and Judges have passim references to the attacks Israel made which were NOT ordered by God.

• God did not spare Israel (who were mostly all believers, by the way), either. Almost all of the adults who came up out of Egypt in the Exodus were executed by God, because they were so hard-hearted toward Him. Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy records their insane behavior and negative attitude ("manna" is a derisive question, "What is it???" said in a nasty tone). So, they were gradually executed over the 40 years (which is why they had the delay). The incidents of
  • the quail,
  • Korah rebellion,
  • the golden calf "gold" death-penalty,
  • the cobra bitings ("fiery serpent" is "fiery" feeling...the Hebrew term is for Egyptian cobras)
  are but a few examples.
  • Thus, those who entered the "Land" were largely the children of that recalcitrant Exodus generation. Even so, as Judges unflinchingly reveals, they too later became hard-hearted. So God's Justice then had to order for them what had been ordered for the Canaanites, periodically.

PRINCIPLE: God is Impartial. As a Ruler, He must be. (See Heb2:1-2,10:18ff, and 12:5-10 if you think a believer ever gets away with anything.)

What other principles do we see here?

• Crime can only be restrained by a greater violence which is lawful and impartial. This spares the society from yet more victimization. A thoughtful, careful examination of Judges proves that because Israel did not kill those whom it was ordered to kill, the inhabitants (both Jewish and Gentile) suffered the more.

• War's right purpose is to stop tyranny and save lives. To do this, those waging war honorably must do so without hesitation, because all tyranny respects, is defeat. The A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a last-resort attempt to stop the War in the East. It succeeded. Japan surrendered, and as a result many Japanese, Asian, American soldiers and civilians were saved the horrors and/or death of continued war -- bought by the sacrifice of the Japanese lives in those two cities. We owe them much.

• A half-hearted war, such as we saw in Vietnam (politicians determine policy, not generals), wastes lives and provides no conclusive, peaceful outcome. Either fight fully, or not at all. The Bible calls this "count[ing] the cost".

• No human being in his right mind WANTS to kill. How much more, God, who sacrificed His Son? (Rom5:8, 8:28-30)

PRINCIPLE: So if God kills, it is a last-resort attempt to cut through all that negative scar-tissue of unbelief, and prevent the person from going to Hell, without coercion.

Here we see the root issue: Justice must bless or punish in order to provide and protect the person. Absent Justice, the blessing or punishment may be too much, too little, bad timing, or a host of other wrongs.

• The ultimate expression of this Justice occurs at the 2nd Advent. On the first day of it, literally MILLIONS of people are killed directly by the Lord upon His Return (apparently through a explosion of blood vessels). The passages are detailled and gruesome. No "middleman" usage of humans to sidestep the issue. So, if someone wants to accuse God, here is the example to use, not the OT killings (which are small in number and tame by comparison).

• Why do this? At the 2nd Advent, think: according to the prophecy, these folks have witnessed the Lord "riding" on horseback in the air (God can do what He likes), with angels and believers en train, visible all over the atmosphere (it's pitch black, then suddenly light! from this long train of riders-on-horseback). They are seeing it. Yet they don't believe. This process of arrival has to take some time..hours, at least. Yet they don't believe. All the clamor about "why doesn't God give a sign?" ..but they get many, and still don't believe.

• So, by the time He reaches the Mount of Olives, and splits it in an east-west direction* to create an escape route for the fighting Israeli forces (thus making Jerusalem a seaport for the duration of history), folks all over the world have seen His arrival. They have had plenty of time to believe. Yet do not.

  So, what else can break through to the hearts of those still refusing? Only a painful death. The Bible doesn't say how long it takes to die, but it does say that for those slain in Israel (the war is worldwide, but not all the details are given) the blood of those slain flows like a river 180 miles long and about five feet(!) high (I'm estimating how high a "horse's bridle" is). ('Ergo my conclusion of exploding blood vessels, since combat doesn't have so much bloodletting.)

PRINCIPLE: Shouldn't God go to such extremes, to most jolt these people into believing in Him, so they can choose Heaven instead of Hell? Wouldn't any sane person do everything possible, short of coercion?

• We don't know how many of them will, by their last breath, change their minds and believe. We do know this is not gratuitous violence. After all, what kind of person would still disbelieve? Someone as bad or worse than the Canaanites. Someone just as bloodthirsty, probably even worse (given the events of the Tribulation, which total 7 years of signs and wonders, yet still people scoff). It's hard to imagine such people can exist..until one picks up the newspaper, or turns on the TV. Murder, rape, torture, all over the world; terrorist activity in the name of "democracy" or "freedom". We hear it daily.
  Need more proof? Get the book Dangerous Places from Amazon, if you don't believe we have any "Canaanites" today. ('Book is written by Robert Young Pelton, who is apparently not a believer, so not "biased" to favor Christianity.) Or, look up details on Hitler's Germany (Shirer's book); or the French "Terror" (aka French Revolution); or the wanton destruction in Russia by Communist and peasant alike, when the Czar's family was imprisoned. ['Flight of the Romanovs, or any of the Communist biographies (Beria, Stalin, Kruschev, Grigorenko, etc.)]

• Justice must be executed. It is, by a Lord who paid for all these people, with His Own Blood, first. Love must take a back seat to Justice. So, Isa63:1-6 and Rev19 thus occur (among other cites): the Day of the Lord, Operation Footstool.

So Hell is not going to be populated with "nice" people. After all, it takes an extraordinary amount of arrogance to accuse God absent any homework in the Bible, doesn't it? Imagine how much more arrogant, in a whole lifetime? How "nice" is such a person? For more on how "not-nice" people who reject God become (including Christians!) -- and why they become not-nice, click here (it's a LOT to read, though).

May we all learn to be less guilty of accusing God...

Or, at least more creative. Look: we get sick. People die tragically, senselessly. Every Day. All kinds of natural disasters happen. Clearly God must control them, since only He can order such things. Evil governments oppress people all over the world. Can't God stop them? Of course He can. People are robbed, maimed, raped, even maligned every second the Earth 'turns'. Criminals aren't caught. Christians do horrible things every second. Why not blame God for all of that, too? If you're gonna blame God for what you don't even know the Bible really says, why not go all out -- blame Him for every mishap? Every snagged nylon? Every speck of dust? Don't be coy about it -- be honest, instead. God blesses honesty, you know: talk to Him. Be frank with your accusations. Why not?

But why then does God let bad things happen? "To teach". See Deut8:3-4. See, God turns every bit of "bad" into a blessing (i.e., Ex20:6-7, Num20:18). The only way to avoid the blessing, is to reject God. Even then, there's a de minimis level of blessing God nonetheless transmits to the rejector: why, that's the only reason why 'the wicked prosper'. As we just saw, above, with those who Israel was ordered to kill: they got plenty of advance notice, so they could leave -- or, accept the Gospel. Was that not a blessing? Their lives were horribly insane. Was it not a blessing to be warned? In the only language they could understand -- violence? Right up until the very last minute?

Don't we all sometimes need a bit of suffering as a wakeup call that something's wrong? That's the purpose for pain sensors in the body -- to alert us to a problem. What happens if we ignore the body's correct transmission that something's wrong? We get sicker. So, what happens if God ignores our wrong? We get sicker. Should God do that? Should our parents, while we are young, avoid punishing us? What happens if they do not? We get sicker. So, is punishment a blessing, then? Of course. Surgery hurts -- but it hurts in order to heal. That's a good way to look at God's punishments: hurting in order to heal.

PRINCIPLE: Shouldn't God go to such extremes, so we can stop getting sicker in our souls? Wouldn't any sane person do everything possible, short of coercion?

Of course, a lot of the bad stuff which happens is the natural consequence of our bad decisions. We naturally have quite a difficult time admitting we are to blame -- it's sooo much easier to blame someone ELSE -- God, for example. Frankly, a lot of the Divine Discipline folks receive is simply God's allowing the natural bad consequences of their own decisions to occur. For more on how this works, click here.

Furthermore, God doesn't gerrymander reality. If your body will get sick at a certain time, He already knows that. So, he 'baptised', as it were, that illness with some blessing you can get out of it, which is FAR bigger than the suffering. Why would He do that? Because He Himself has to KNOW that pain. (God is Infinite, so is not emotional: so 'pain' etc. are knowing-things, not feeling-things.) In short, for His Own Sake He blesses. So, He blesses everything. Of all persons, Christ was the Most-Blessed, right there ON the Cross. For more on how that could be true, click here (it's a LOT to read, though).

The deeper reason God doesn't gerrymander reality: God loves Truth. See, "Truth" is an attribute, not merely a collection of facts. Being Omniscient, God knows everything all-at-once. It's like a bizillion TV screens playing the same scenes over-and-over. All at once. "Truth", though, is much more than this: "Truth" is a QUALITY, a STANDARD of "being true, faithful" to truth. To what's Right. Well, "right" includes Reality, for reality is true. To be unfaithful to reality is to be UNtrue to a thing which is true. If God only allowed to exist facts He LIKED, none of us would exist, for the fact of how we are His Righteousness won't tolerate -- it's unJust that we offend Righteousness, see. That's why there is a Cross -- to make our badness 'okay' before Holy Righteousness. That frees His Love, so it no longer matters how bad we are. (See, all other definitions of "God" fail to recognize that Righteousness must be propitiated. That's a BIG HINT that the Biblical God is the "right" one.)

Moreover, God loves Freedom. Why? Because God is totally Free. So, you ALSO are free. He made you with free will. No one can take it from you. NO ONE. So, shall God take your free will from you, or from anyone, by gerrymandering reality? Of course not.

Galatians 5:1 says: "It is for Freedom that Christ has set you free." That's the root point. (Again, 'big hint as to why the Biblical God is the right one -- what other version of God provides for a person to get free of this choking life? Only a dingdong believes he can truly free himself. Life beats us all down.) God will not restrict freedom. He foreknows what will occur and without altering freedom, He will turn every evil into benefit for all parties. To obtain this benefit, sometimes the prospective recipient must be positive toward God; at other times, Justice requires the benefit, irrespective of the attitude in the recipient. The Bible explains some of the underlying principles in Leviticus 26, and Deut 28, which apply to believers and unbelievers alike. For believers, added principles are in 1Jn, Hebrews, James 4, to name but a few added places.

Because of Christ's Payment on the Cross, even if you have never believed in Christ -- GOD LOVES YOU. He made you PERSONALLY, at birth. No one but God made your soul. That's the real "you". Now, think: why would God go to all that trouble, if He didn't want you? Would He want you just to be sadistic? If He were sadistic, why not just torture animals who procreate? On the other hand, if He does love you (and He does), IF HE IGNORES PUNISHMENT, that would mean He didn't love you. Don't you WISH God to love you? See John 3:16,18,36; Romans 5:5-11. Again, God's Justice must punish to PROTECT the person, give him recourse to change his mind. For "God is not willing that any should perish" -- 2Pet3:9. See also Heb12:5-10. No one gets past the Loving Justice of God. It's not FAIR to the person to leave him alone in his error. The person is helpless! Would he have gotten into the error in the first place, if he really knew how bad the error would hurt him? Shall not God help, by hurting him for a little while?

As a person who was kidnapped and tortured as a child, I solemnly attest to the fact that God's blessing is FAR greater -- forever! than any suffering ever was or could be. Even if the person never believes in Him. Of course, why not believe in Him, since it costs you nothing, but it cost Him everything? And, to Him, that cost was pure joy (Heb12:2)? After all, "it is for freedom, that Christ has set you free." You've got the free will He gave you. You can use it, right now -- "Believe in Christ, and you shall be [permanently] saved!" [Acts 16:31 -- "permanently" is conveyed by the culminative aorist tense of Greek verb sozo, "be saved". Because "believe" is also in the aorist tense, it hooks up with the aorist of "saved" to mean that the SECOND you believe, you are saved. (Aorist was a point-of-action tense, at the time the Bible was written.)]

---

*Recently some geologists from (I think) University of California at Berkeley found that that location is an earthquake fault-line, which, if activated, could trigger a kind of earthquake making Jerusalem a seaport. I have the information in writing somewhere, and if you'll email me I'll look up the exact citation. (The Lord can do anything He likes, and creates the laws of nature, some of which we know, so I don't need this data to feel the Bible is genuine, but it is true.)

CAUTION: This site isn't yet rewritten to take into account how another human being would 'read' it. These are live, raw notes. (Writing like this helps me focus, but its current form might not be useful to you.)

---

What my pastor calls "application" of Bible Doctrine (which with maturity progresses to living on it) is called by other names by other pastors. I don't know what your pastor calls this circulatory function. (Watchman Nee, for example, seems to call it "intuition" and "leading" and some other words which sound to those not accustomed to his vocabulary as mystical.)

Foundation

1Cor2:16+2Pet3:18+Eph3:15-21 (among many other passages) make it clear that the objective of the post-salvation life is to obtain the Thinking of Christ as a replacement for our own thinking: as a result, we become like Him. 1Jn covers that latter topic on a micro level, and Eph covers it on a macro level. Hebrews appears to cover it on an applicational level (writer really starts the thought process from Chapter 1, building it to a series of crescendoes).

KEY ==> Every verse in the Bible is designed to become a LIVING part of the person. God is Truth. His Attribute of Truth is reflected in the Word, and since the Word is "alive" (Heb4:12), this Living Truth put into our souls creates Integrity, since the Truth (being an Attribute of God) likewise is colored (for lack of a better word) by His Other Attributes (like Righteousness, Justice, Love). Reflection verse in 1Cor (13?) and "from glory to glory", etc.

One needs to be saved for this Truth to be depositable, since God's Word is spiritual -- can't get spiritual information without a spiritual life, and can't have a spiritual life if not saved. (Morality truths are technically subsets of "the" Truth, but since they are man-man truths, unbelievers can live on them.) So, one needs to be routinely using 1Jn1:9 for the information to even get IN the soul, and one needs to be routinely studying Bible under his right pastor-teacher in order for anything to be transferred BY the Holy Spirit from the human spirit TO the soul. Then, volition has to "eat" believe what the HS transferred, so the information can become epignosis and circulate in the kardia (portion of the soul where one uses Bible Doctrine, 8 kardia categories, etc). Only then can the Bible's printed words become LIVING Words which govern (eventually) every aspect of your thinking. Spiritual growth results solely from this. No human effort or works or erudition can make it happen. That's how we are to be made into companionable "Bride" for Him: we have to BECOME something, not 'do' something. Some theologians call this process by the neutral term, "experiential sanctification". (Nee seems to call it variantly the second type of salvation, or "release of the Lord's Life": his vocabulary seems to come from the double-entendre word play of sozo and zoe in Scripture.)

Ok, then. The Bible's verses all are on topics, and those topics are paradigmal and dynamically-organized: hence Bible Doctrine (another word for organized Truth) results. Ergo yet another reason to compare Scripture with Scripture. So the person can come to think categorically. So, eventually, in any circumstance, on any topic, he can instantly discern the Lord's Opinion, the relevant facts underlying that Opinion, 'G-2', and a wide variety of other things relevant to volition's needing to respond to whatever the item in question may be. From the littlest of things, like whether to brush one's teeth and how often and when, to the so-called 'big' things, like whether one should move or marry.

Usage

"Application", it seems to me (so far), is sorta like "flying on instruments": one has metabolized ("eaten"/believed) pertinent doctrine but isn't totally familiar with the usage. (Not sure this wording is good enough.)

"Living on Doctrine" is a mature version of Application. The "instruments" are the reality, and whatever is sensed is totally unimportant by comparison. Breathing it, instinctual. At Spiritual Maturity and beyond, it's Seeing Him, really, and the 'living-on-doctrine' part is a sort of expression of Seeing Him. Seeing through His Eyes, so to speak, more than through any other 'eyes'. (It's real, but not a dream/vision or other nonsense.) However, one can come to live on a given doctrine much earlier -- but of course one needs to accumulate the whole realm of doctrine to get the full 'mosaic picture', so to speak. Instantaneity of fluency is a prime characteristic. The Lord's lightning responses in Matt4, the fluency of His usage in the Gospels, Paul's intense breathing of it in Romans/Ephesians/Colossians, the flow in Hebrews, Isaiah's writings -- all of these show how a person LIVING on doctrine thinks.

Therefore: whatever circumstances one is in, the FIRST question which should hit the soul is, "What does GOD mean me to learn/know?" The actors/props of the situation are simply that. Self doesn't matter, others don't matter, feelings/lackings/havings all don't matter. JUST that question. For the FIRST thing is to know what HE thinks, and then to exhale a response HE likes. For, the Father hears every thought, and the Son wants us to please the Father. All else docks under that FIRST purpose, and of course is (ideally) motivated by Reciprocity (having come to know the Love for Christ, e.g., Eph3:15ff). Cry all the way to the bank, baby.

Naturally, the process of growth is glitchy. It takes time to get the doctrine metabolized, to get the kinks (e.g., false interpretations which inevitably barnacle onto true ones) worked out, etc. 1Jn1:9 and sustained daily study under the pastor will do this. After all, even if the pastor is wrong, the Holy Spirit is not, and He'll correct any errors in due time. If the Holy Spirit wants the believer to quietly and without complaint go to a different pastor, He'll make that clear to the believer in question. So, in the final analysis, we don't have to get nervous/anal over whether we or the pastor have some error; instead, we should keep using 1Jn1:9 and turn what we are learning over. We can always talk (aka 'prayer') with God about what we are learning (speeds up learning). The Holy Spirit is the Sovereign Executive. He knows His Self-Chosen Job, and He'll cause anyone to see any error in due time, if the person is positive (cf Jn14, etc).

So, the Holy Spirit will constantly communicate. Any conversation, any activity, any circumstance will be used. After all, how can we obey without instruction? What if the purpose for the item in question IS instruction? Certainly it would be:1Cor2:15-16 insists on it! We don't instruct Him, but instead we have the Thinking of Our Beloved Christ FOR "reproof, instruction in Righteousness" -- as Paul also told Timothy. Certainly He has something He wants to say. So, then: if I'm stuck in traffic, how does He want to use that to my edification? If someone is insulting me, same question. It sounds sooo very selfish, yet nothing could be more humble. HE is really the one talking. Not the actor or prop. Not even 'me'. HE is out to make me compatible with my Groom-to-Be -- and NOTHING will be unexploited towards that goal. So, listen. If I'm listening, I'll not have much brain left to get upset about traffic or the person who insults me. I'll not have much brain left to be 'correcting' someone. Heh. Looks like it's finally a virtue to be selfish, in a way Ayn Rand didn't mention! The Lord was, really, the most Selfish Person -- He just went on and on with listening to the Holy Spirit. Look what happened with that! Ahhh, the WORD of the Cross! Heh. "Hear what the Spirit says to the churches"; "he who has an ear, let him hear"; "This is My Beloved Son: LISTEN to Him". Ahhh.

Doctrinal Orientation on Issues related to interChristian relationships

So, onto interChristian orientations, so to have a base for applications (which can then eventuate into the advanced "living" stage). These are in no particular order (yet).

The Rebuke thingy: Matt7:2 scares me to death. I don't see any circumstance when a person is supposed to be 'rebuked'. Maybe pastors have this job, but it seems pretty ineffectual, the way it's used: everyone just fights with each other, so all look foolish. There must be a time and place for it, but I don't see any call for me to ever 'rebuke' another person. The few times I felt I had to do it, I was sick for hours. How can anyone stand to do this? Moreover, all it seems to do is make whoever got the 'rebuke', more hardened. Reciprocity reflex: if I'm nice to someone, they will have a soul-urge to be nice back. The reverse is also true. Worse, both the rebuker and the rebukee get their eyes on each other, rather than on the Lord. It seems the last thing in the world which one would naturally want to do. Still, what's the DOCTRINE on this topic, irrespective of how I feel about it?

Doctrinal bases for my application(get verse cites later): the way the Lord talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, 2Tim2:26-3:7, esp the last two verses; Lev 19:18+Jas2:8 plus all the "Royal law" passages in 92SD (idea being that the Lord did not reciprocate, and why); Paul's+James' warnings to avoid controversies plus the who-is-Apollos verse in expanded context (don't create divisions, don't go-to-court -- don't publically criticise someone). Tharsete verse in Matt9, too -- that would be the mental attitude and goal of any words, too.

Ok, but what about where something said is incorrect? Seems the true right approach is generally to write-in-the-sand. If the person ASKS for what 'I' think, then I reply honestly but dispassionately, and on a principle-level: encyclopedically, so that we're all looking UP at the principle, and NOWHERE else (like at who might be 'bad'). Initiative here seems not to be God's Will: Peter's apologia verse is passive, being ready in season and out of season to ANSWER -- not initiate. Obviously a pastor would have some call for initiative; there would be like exceptions (root: where one has authority over someone else so MUST take initiative as part of the job). Of course, any URGE to initiate is probably carnal. God doesn't have 'urges', but the 6arxz sure does.

What about the help-thy-brother-in-his-error stuff in Jas5? And 1Jn5? Well, that should be balanced against the log-mote verse. In Jas5 and 1Jn5 both situations are talking about PRIVATE and INTIMATE relationships. So 'initiative' is actually desired on the part of both persons (e.g., close friends WANT to know what the other one thinks). Yet there, it's even dicier, for who wants to say something which he KNOWS will hurt someone he loves? Nay, he will go out of his way to couch whatever 'correction', in the most Tharsete-type terms! Like the Lord did with the paralytic in Matt9, or the adulteress. Or, the prodigal son conclusion: he was lost, but now is found: STRESS THE POSITIVE.

And that's the point: would I 'correct' my beloved mother or best friend with the same words I would 'correct' the stranger who's insulting me in #scripture? Or, who I think is spouting some heresy? Heck NO! So, then: why not 'borrow' that same love-attitude I'd have toward those I love -- toward those 'distant'? Is ANYONE 'distant' from the Lord? Did He not die for ALL MANKIND? Of course He did. So, then: because He is not distant from anyone, and I am not distant from Him, and we all died in Him (Cor verse, plus Rom6), then I am not distant from anyone ELSE, either -- nor they, from me. So, then: why should I talk to them with any less tenderness than I would toward those close? This issue goes way beyond 'do unto others'. It's 'do unto Christ', imo: since we are all in Him, and since He saved me and gives me this awesome grace of being able to learn His Word so to be "conformed to the image of His Son", "to produce a reflection" -- wow, that means 'do unto others as the Lord has done to you.' The Royal Law upgraded 'do unto others'. The latter is like an abacus, and the Royal Law is Pentium Omega.

Ok, but one shouldn't go too far to the left, either. Granted, most of us wouldn't be on-trial like Stephen or Paul, where whatever we say can and will be held against us by the hearers -- but many is the time when one KNOWS the hearer will negatively react, no matter how nicely-said the reply. The Lord had no hesitancy to turn over tables, or condemn the Pharisees, or speak in really STRONG terms. But He didn't always do that. Seems like the criteria He chose was two-fold: a) He Himself is the Ultimate Authority, so the "authority" rule REQUIRED Him to "brace", at times. Certainly if He didn't, people would have been misled (e.g., versus the Pharisees' spin on the OT). Next, b) He seems to have AIMED short,sharp,shocks (sorry, Mikado) kinda like one rips off a bandage -- so it was a kindness. But does should average person do this? Seems like this kind of usage is the ONLY kind Christians delight in -- like they have the same authority as the Lord. Hmmmm.

Ok, but it IS true that one should not refrain from at least ANSWERING a truth, despite how it is foreknown to hurt -- if there is NO way to get around it. I can't tell someone who asks me if there is a hell, "no". There IS. I can't tell someone who thinks that faith in Christ as the ONLY way is somehow discriminatory that there is some other way of salvation. Nor can I sugarcoat these facts. Nor do I want to. Ahhhh. Looks like we are back into the wait-until-asked mode. Simple answer, stated matter-of-factly. No apology needed. They ask, I answer. Ok.

Ok, but it is likewise true that if one is considered to have answers, and something comes up -- but one remains silent -- isn't that also misleading? The Lord did make oral forays before answering, and took the initiative (e.g., the Samaritan woman again, but there are other examples) -- and often He talked in parables.

Maybe a good approach is like an advisor role. If one has some kind of reputation for knowing Scripture, and is in some venue where a topic comes up, maybe then it's okay to just state an answer in a matter-of-fact manner -- again, encyclopedic. That's worked very well, but again -- if an 'urge' is behind it, it's probably best to stay quiet.

This topic isn't finished yet, but the parameters are getting clearer.

"Heretic" questions. This topic is way dicey. In the first place, I understand now how if I don't use EXACTLY the words someone is accustomed to in explaining some doctrine, their programmed-definition beeps "Heresy!" -- and they can't hear a word. Conversely, I too have found myself reacting with that same reaction if the words I hear don't fit definitions I think I know.

For example, I see "separate" as a better English word versus "distinct" when explaining that there are Three Persons in Trinity. "Distinct" in English is not necessarily independent: toes are "distinct". Hydra heads are "distinct". The Godhead are Each God, so They aren't related like toes, for crying out loud. Moreover, 2Cor13:14 has THREE monadic nouns with THREE monadic definite articles, and "separate" is how one MUST interpret any instance of multiple nouns each with a accompanying definite article (converse of the Granville-Sharpe rule). Yet when some people hear the word "separate" they go ballistic, because to them, "separate" can ONLY mean tritheism (why, I don't know). So my striving for a better English description of Trinity, yet using some kind of word which sticks to the Bible's own meaning (and it's Greek there, so "separate" is the Greek grammar rule) -- my striving upset someone else.

Reverse example: Nee uses colorful language, and since his stuff is translated from a very mystical language, Chinese, it's real easy to mistake what he says as being new-age. You have to read and read and read his stuff to realize he's not trying to make the 'spirit' some mystical experience. But oh, how the language sounds mystical! "Pneumatic Christ"? Sounds Gnostic or modalistic, and the A&C; articles don't do much to dispel this impression. Yet, when you read how Nee describes "Spirit of Christ" (which is, after all, a Biblical term), you realize "Pneumatic" is merely a descriptor to help the believer orient to Our Lord's Indwelling the believer. (I still prefer the simple term "Christ in you", but that's my preference: "pneumatic" in English means something running on compressed air. Heh: maybe that's why they picked the term, too?!)

What do I thus conclude? It's real important to LISTEN. Slow to speak, quick to hear. Bible stuff, even more than human language, tends to get defined in people's minds in VERY narrow terms. Mine, included. So what one says and what I say -- well, we might be speaking French and Spanish. Some words sound sufficiently alike that we THINK we're communicating, but oh -- we aren't! Kinda like getting the wrong tone in mandarin, you can be saying "curse", "horse", "hemp" -- or, "mother" (ma sound).

A lot of 'heresies' then, might not be. Technically, it shouldn't be an issue to me whether someone else believes some heresy. That's the Holy Spirit's business, not mine. However, to be SENSITIVE to the other person matters (brotherly love), so I may need to know what that person thinks so as not to become a stumbling block. At least, not any more, heh.

Related to this is the long history of Christian infighting. Seems like what generally happens is that definitions become too narrow. In a sense, this is a good thing, for we all know that since it's the Word of God, and He is Perfect, all definitions and doctrines are to be PRECISE. However, where we all seem to go wrong, is this: the Bible is always BIGGER in its PRECISE definitions than we seem to accord it.

For example, "salvation" in the Bible is multilayered. Ground-level: you get eternal life. Means you go to Heaven if you die. But "salvation" is also used like a multi-story building to explain "deliverance" while in this body down here. Further, the objective is to grow up to maturity (Eph3:15-21, again), so "endure to the end", "hold the confession", "promise" verses -- they all reference the goal. Nikaontes, conquering. Krateis ho echeis -- master what you have (Rev). Hebrew and Greek scholars (really, any linguist of a language) all know that a literary work like the Bible has multilayered-meanings on purpose. They call it "deliberate ambiguity" (according to Wallace). [They of course aren't in agreement as to how many, or what layers are in view, with respect to the exegesis of a given verse.]

Same could be said for "baptism", "faith", and a lot of other Biblical keywords. Seems that some people see ONE layer of the meaning, but others see another layer, and -- instead of concluding that maybe one layer is ATOP another, or BESIDE another, they assume the two layers are contradictory. Same problem as the authors in Holy Blood, Holy Grail had: because Christ said 12 different things on the Cross, all the accounts of what He said were contradictory, the authors concluded. I remember laughing aloud, when I read that: "What? He couldn't have said ALL 12 things?" Oh well.

It must be a problem of being in Adam. We just can't think our way out of a paper bag. So, the Protestants yell at the Catholics that salvation is permanent, but the Catholics trot out salvation verses which (if there were only one 'layer' to 'salvation') buttress their position that ya-gotta-do-something-besides-believe. Or, some see all the Holy Spirit verses, and stress those, whereas others see the rules, and stress those. The stress then becomes some kind of legalistic thing (you HAVE to 'get the Ghost' or you HAVE to do-do-do). Again, maybe the topics combine, rather than contradict. That seems to be the reason for all the crusading and upset within Christendom, even until now. "Rightly dividing the Word of Truth" turns into dividing-ourselves-over-'truth'. It's kinda backwards. Instead of recognizing that there are boundaries in a truth (i.e., like multiple stories in a building), we think the boundaries LIMIT the truth we're looking at. But God is not limited. He IS Absolute Precision (which to me is the best way to apprehend what Infinity really means).

What do I 'do' about this wrangling? Nothing. Just know it. People who think of their denominations like football teams they must be loyal to lest they dishonor the Lord -- i can't do anything about that, except be sensitive to it. They have a right, just as I do, to their understandings before the Lord.

Actually, all this competition ends up being a good thing: if we're gonna chop out meanings in the Word, if we're gonna draw boundaries eisegetically, then we need everyone talking/arguing/chatting etc. to be sure that the 'truth' isn't covered up, like it was before the Reformation. ALL churches tend toward corruption, because all are so hot on being the 'right' interpretation. Everyone shouts, "Me! Me! I'm the Faithful One!" LOL! If we really WERE so right, we'd not have to shout it. God the Holy Spirit is keener than we are on Witnessing to Truth. Seems like any church, even a small one, starts to turn sour when it organizes. We need to keep the bureaucracy to a minimum, then, and not worry about who will hear our 'right' message. God will provide the hearers. We don't need to beat the bushes, or look longingly at another man's territory.

Take this verse, for example: Rev2:2b. In Nee's Orthodoxy of the Church.. book, page 16, he gives his version of the translation: "And you have tried those who call themselves apostles and are not, and have found them to be false." He interprets "tried" as the keyword there, signifying that there WERE other apostles besides the 12, which is why they needed to be "tried". But wait! The same verse (in English, anyway) could also be read as signifying that there ARE no other apostles, but that the Ephesians didn't KNOW that, so "tried" them. I'm not trying to say what's the right interpretation. Instead, I'm just pointing out that we Christians make our interpretations, and then ally with them -- maybe, in error. So we NEED COMPETITION, to rethink whatever interpretations we have. "Unity" is the worst thing that can happen to us, for we still have our fleshy Energizer Bunny trying to glom onto God's Word to make self feel whole, again. Self, not God. Glorify self, not God. Bad motive! Need competition, for protection!

Frankly, all this preoccupation with building the Church is just so much ego. Who owns us? THE LORD. Who's the Authority? The Holy Spirit. So it's up to Him how He organizes the CHURCH. Not to us. If we go crusading ourselves, we are making Him a liar, and His Truth is not in us. ONE Lord, ONE Bible, ONE Baptism. All of these are God's. None of these are ours.

So, Ephesians 1,3,4 and some of Timothy is about the Body being knitted together -- BY GOD. How does He do this? Well, the apostles are gone (of course, some people who want to claim an apostolic mantle will dispute this, lol. But the Canon is completed.) "Joint of supply" verse is about a pastor-teacher teaching his congregation. As always, spiritual gifts are dispensed by the Holy Spirit, not by man's consensus. So, there are many pastors, many buildings where people meet, but the Body=The Wife/Bride = The Church. IN CHRIST. Granted, some local churches might think they want to all wear some like-moniker, as an identifier and disclosure to those thinking of getting teaching there. But isn't that the limit on what it should be? Do we have to add to the Word some kind of pride thing, "our church is good/best" whatever-is-the-advertisement? If God doesn't promote, it's not promotable.

Now, family members fight, but they are still knit together as a family. Fighting is helpful (well, it can be), and brothers are brothers, still: even if they can't/won't 'fellowship'. Seems to me that this whole idea of us somehow striving to make the Church 'ready' is completely misplaced. That's the Spirit's Self-Chosen job. That's why the Father blessed us with "every spiritual blessing". Knit together. Knitting goes against resistance (needle against needle, yarn against yarn). Result is that every 'stitch' has a place. Again, competition/resistance protects. So, even our evil natures, which vy with each other for who's-most-loyal-to-the-Word, become in His 'Hands' but needles and yarn -- we accomplish nothing, God accomplishes all. He works "to will and to do". We think we work, but..well, heck. The Bunny just can't stop trying to take over God's job now, can it? :)

So, then: how much time should be spent in so-called Christian fellowship, given how Christians tend to wrangle? This is a way dicey question, too. Seems to me the best usage is to do something like go on #scripture, where there's a certain amount of impersonality -- so people are freer to talk. Best of all, we can talk about the BIBLE, which in the real world is nearly impossible. Somehow physical presence creates a pressure on someone, especially when some highly-personal topic (God!) is discussed. Invariably it descends into banalities. Maybe others have had real "Christian fellowship" of some quality in-person. I've yet to experience it in any group.

Oh, but aren't we supposed to have Christian fellowship? Well, aside from the didaskolos verse (Eng: 'not forsaking the assembling themselves -- FOR HEARING TEACHING -- a purpose which those who tout the verse rarely note) -- I don't see much requirement.

People make much out of the customs and practices in the Bible. They seem to think that, since it's in the Bible, God somehow mandates it. In the OT, you see this problem often -- at least they had some excuse. Yes, God did say stuff about eating -- but it had a MEANING. Mainly, good health. Yet you see, even today, people who time and again castigate those who don't practice their food taboos. Or, who consider the observances somehow 'holy'. Yet the Lord had explained that it wasn't what went INTO a man which defiled him, but what came out: thoughts, etc. And Peter was sharply rebuked: "What God has called holy, you must not call common". And Paul wrote in Cor and in Romans how observances etc. were up to each individual before the Lord, NOT a 'holy' tradition (etc) which everyone, baby, better obey!

So also, people have made water baptism into some kind of required ritual, when it was always a voluntary thing, a sort of celebration of retroactive and current positional truth: go down into the water, identifying (BAPTIZO) with Christ at the Cross; come up out of the water, identifying (BAPTIZO) with Christ in His Resurrection. Romans 6. And it was a common custom for Hoplites (and later, Roman) soldiers to "baptise" their graduation swords in pig's blood, to identify with their new status as soldiers. So, are we. But, that's a custom. But oh! It's in the Bible, so we must REQUIRE it?!!! Really?

The only ritual command the Lord gave was the observance of the Eucharist: "keep on doing this in memory of Me, until I come". He didn't say how often. Further, He didn't require the physical practice of footwashing, but instead DID it to show the ATTITUDE we should have. He didn't require water Baptism, nor did He require any other do-thing. Well, except the study of the Word, which He not only exhorted, commanded -- but even PRAYED for to the Father as the means of His Own Glorification: cf John 14-17. Hmmm, seems like the Lord had different priorities. No Traditions, just THE WORD. JUST REMEMBERING HIM. Which one can 'commune' in -- and indeed is FIRST commanded to do with all one's soul and mind and heart -- all the time. Not just during the official Eucharist. After all, one meaning of eucharisteo is, "to give thanks". And Paul told us that's to be our attitude in "everything give thanks, for this is the Will of the Lord concerning you." Hmmm. Gratitude is an attitude.

Even so, the Lord's Commandment can be turned down. So where do we believers get off telling other believers what practices they should do? It's a sure sign of apostacy that we spend so much time with our eyes on people, with our eyes on physical practices and moralities and NO time on private fellowship with the Lord -- well, except to make one feel holy: the morning devotional is done, we are good boys and girls. Disgusting.

"All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful." Ok, then: so we study Scripture on these do-thingy's to see if they are good ideas or no. But, just as the Communion Table is corrupted, if it is not entered into with the fragrance of memories, so also any practice is no good per se. If the ONE ritual the Lord commanded is no good apart from the Word, then nothing else can be. So, then: if the WORD is in you, ANY practice can become "helpful". Obviously, you won't WANT to murder, etc. because sins derail you from fellowship. See? It's so simple. Why do we humans so complicate the Word with all our works ideas? Degenerating into "a form of godliness, but deny its power"? (Cf. 2Tim3:1-7.)

Certainly one is to help fellow believers, and it's of course DESIRABLE to be around someone who at least knows He Lives. After all, He's the Most Important Person Ever, the Joy of our Existence. It hurts not to be able to talk about Him, and to instead have to settle for football scores and politics, to have some kind of passing connection to another human.

And we are to "avoid such persons as these" -- the folks in 2Tim2:26-3:7. Since that description really embraces a lot of folks, maybe being isolated (so long as one is getting doctrine) isn't bad. After all, didaskolos is the purpose. FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD, not people. And for that, we need His Instruction. If it's less of a stumbling block to self or others to get that Instruction from a pastor on-tape, well and good. If it's less of a stumbling block to get that Instruction face-to-face in a church (say, if a person feels he lacks the self-discipline), well and good.

Conversely, if I'm growing spiritually, I don't have to go hiding somewhere because some screwed-up people are 'out there'. That's silly. If I'm so advanced, then why hide my light (presuming this is true, ok?) under a bushel? That's going too far to the left. So what's God's litmus for Christian fellowship?

In a convo about the meaning of the local church, dissidens made the perceptive observation that when Paul was talking about knitting in Eph4 (and elsewhere), he meant the WHOLE. So, while didaskolos is indeed the main purpose, the other stuff is also necessary. The togetherness of it was essential to worship and discipleship, etc. Not just teaching in a vacuum. The latter would fragment the Body in that 'part', and that 'part' itself has to also be a whole, a kind of microcosm. My counter to that observation (not to debunk it, but just to flesh out Paul's meaning more) was that a sort of satellite function would not invalidate that wholeness: that physical proximity wasn't the ONLY way to properly 'knit'. So, believers of the same church might be in widely-disparate locations, but through some satellite gathering point they could still retain their connection with the home base, as it were. Example I gave was missionaries, during (and after) the time they are setting up indigenous local churches in some foreign locale. Why should the essence of that 'mission' remain solely foreign? I mean, 'missionary' means someone from country A going to country B to help those in B learn the Gospel, believe in Him, and then indigenously establish and support new local churches.

So, what about a domestic 'mission', though 'missionary' would no longer be the right moniker? If a local church is supposed to set up satellites (and only God determines that, it's not a required thing), then wouldn't the FIRST priority be the home country? Salt? So, then: wouldn't a satellite have to have some start, a lone person? Who, assuming the Lord is in it, gets used to show others in that distant locale who they need as their own right pastor and right local church? Especially, in this age of advanced technology? A new hub gets developed. So there is still a body-proximity, not a disembodied through-TV or through-audio isolation. However, whoever would be at the beginning of that hub would be in isolation, temporarily. After all, Moses was isolated for 40 years before the Lord sent him back. We're not Moses, so how much MORE should we be isolated, too? God is FIRST. HE gathers the flock for whomever is their right pastor. After all, my right pastor is in Texas, but I heard about him from my freshman college roomate in California!

Looks like God's litmus is this: hi, believer, here's My Plan for your life. Part of that plan is where you belong on the spiritual 'team', for I'm building up a Body for My Son; a Bride for His Body. And the slot I planned for you, won't be the same slot as for another. It might be similar, it might be very different, even opposite, but it is YOUR slot. You'll get spanked if you don't get to it, grow in it, and stay in it -- until I move you somewhere else. Christian Soldier!

Bible uses so much military vocabulary to describe Church structure and function. And there are BRANCHES of military. There are BASES (seems like that's the analogy for the local church), there are field bases (in-country hq's), there are logistical connections for them all, etc. So maybe one local church has to deploy folks in the field: domestic, or foreign, depending on the country (Kingdom, heh) need. And no soldier is his own general. He is slotted, he is deployed, he goes or stays as ORDERED.

So, for some Christian Soldiers, that means be in close body-proximity to the base. Stay there, learn there, worship there, discipleship there (whatever 'discipleship' means -- people seem to use it as a people-to-people thing, but I only find the God-appointing-disciples role in Bible). For other Christian Soldiers, that means move out. God help us if we misidentify or go AWOL from our orders!

Gal5:1. We are to be set FREE, not fettered by being together with each other. Frankly, if we aren't created to be a peripheral expression for the Godhead to enjoy Each Other, life would be totally intolerable. If God's Happiness in any way was affected by anything in me, EVER (even in eternity!), I couldn't live with the burden. Who could? Even Christ didn't use His Human Power (and certainly not His Divine Power) to fulfill the Father's Will for His Life: instead, He submitted to that "still, small voice". Matt4 was about what God wanted, NO MATTER WHAT. All else was 'peripheral'. Just as it should be. Just as we ought to think about ourselves and others. Relationship to God? THE WORD. Relationship to life (people, things, self)? THE WORD. All else is and should be peripheral. Only then is life enjoyable, because only then is life not needed. Need obstructs enjoyment. The Word gradually erases need for anything and anyone but Him. And He is total Enjoyment incarnate, so needing Him doesn't obstruct anything. Rather, He frees. Just as Gal5:1 promised.

Freedom must be fought for. What's so way cool about Rev2:16-17 is the wealth of information it provides on this topic. Superficially, it seems to be merely a warning to Pergamum to get rid of their legalism (legalism is just as much fornication as the grosser kind, for it worships its rules more than God). But, look at the wording (corrected trans in caps, else NAS):

16 'CHANGE YOUR MINDS, therefore; or else I am coming to you SUDDENLY, and I will make war against YOU with the BROADsword of My mouth. 17 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who CONQUERS, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white PEBBLE, and a new TITLE written on the PEBBLE which no one knows but he who receives it.'

There's so much in this passage. In verse 16 and 12, ROMPHAIA is used. That was a huge broadsword. Verse 12, though, has "two-edged" in it, which therefore ALSO references the Roman two-edged 'knife' in Heb 4:12. What would have been surgery (getting Doctrine, Heb4:12) in a state of rest becomes a weapon of war. Easy way, or hard way. Moreover, Deut 8:3 as well as Matt4:3-4 are in view, because of the word "mouth". The REMA (spoken Word) also becomes the weapon of war. Like it says in Eph 6, demolishing strongholds. So we can get the Word in peace, or in war. It is equally effective in both. Buying freedom, no matter what. Not works, not rituals, not what-we-do-for-the-brethren, but ONLY the WORD. And Who wields this Word? The Lord, for it's His Thinking (1Cor2:16). And Who puts into us this Word which can do the smallest surgery or the biggest wiping-out of the enemy? The Holy Spirit (v.17). So we become conquerers through Christ, as it says in another war passage, Rom8:37 (the war context begins in the Greek of Rom8:31).

As a result of which, we get the "pebble", which at the time of writing was a way folks cast votes, gave citations, etc. which one could easily carry. Also, passes -- instead of having an id card, you had a special pebble. Inscribed. (The "which no one knows" phrase I'm not gonna comment on because I don't remember more about it except that it isn't 'secretive' forever.)

Which brings up another topic: why do we get so hot about our beliefs in the first place? I really wonder how much of that 'hot' attitude is satanic, and we don't know it. The Lord was RELAXED. Like a superbly-trained athlete. He was FLEXIBLE. He could be sharp, or gentle. Talk in parables, or directly. Rebuke, or compliment. And He's constantly using humor (wish the English would bring that out), even in the worst of times! Matt4:4 is funny! Heb 5:8-9 is funny! Even the Eloi, Eloi verse has humorous word-play, because He's obviously thinking of Ps22 -- and He's ON the Cross while screaming it! The Petra-petros verse is hilarious!

I can just hear some believers reacting: "ONLY study? That can't possibly be honoring to the Lord. We are supposed to present ourselves as 'living sacrifices'! We are supposed to do for the brethren! We must have a good testimony!"

Yeah, and what testimony is it, when all the sacrificing is what you do? Who died on the Cross, huh? Christ did. What work is then left, huh? NONE. Tetelestai, finished. Imagine how disgusted the Father must be (anthropathising Him, for sake of illustation): all these people with their dead bodies running around telling other dead bodies what God wants?! Let the dead bury their own dead. Our sins were paid for by what He THOUGHT on the Cross, and now we have that Treasure in WRITING, but ..what, it's not enough? Oh, we have to do something? Like Paul said, if there were anything left to do, then Christ died dorean, for nothing. But He was Resurrected. So now He's dorean, a Gift. The Indescribable Gift. Heh. A Gift is FREE. No sacrifice. THAT's the testimony.

And what is this 'living sacrifice', then? "Living Stones", as Peter put it. God never liked humanly-made stones for His Altar. He still doesn't. The Word is the Cornerstone, and the Word "builds up". All else "puffs up". Epignosis is knowledge God builds upon; gnosis (take that, gnostics) is knowledge man builds upon. Aha: the Sure Foundation, the Anchor behind the Veil (Heb6:18), is rejected by the builders of works! So, what got sacrificed by them? The Word was "crucified afresh". No, thank you. After all, gold, silver and precious stones cannot be manmade. They can be superficially aped, glommed onto, played with. But only God can make a Tree. And it's finished, thank you.

So what's with the hot competition? Why do we get so hot about our beliefs? I sure got hot just now...

It seems to be this: believing in Him is a traumatic thing to live with. We have this perfect human spirit, in which Righteousness and Eternal Life reside permanently. But we still have our sin-tainted soul, and the genetically-depraved body. They are all constantly at war (Rom7,8). So, in a war, one has to be 'more' loyal to keep up motive, maybe. So we are more strident here than elsewhere.

Also, children..don't know anything. Mommy and Daddy are the child's survival. Anything which seems to threaten Mommy and Daddy, the child can't take, must react! Of course, any newborn will consider as "mommy" whomever first handled him during those formative years. Uh-oh.

Satan can play 'mommy' as well as anyone. And loves it. Still, it's real easy to tell God isn't "in" something, because that human spirit can't be corrupted: it's a spiritual entity with uncorruptible Divine Righteousness and Eternal Life firmly and permanently in it. Only the soul can be attacked (well, the body can, but the attacks on the body are always designed to hit the soul, just as the attack on the Lord's Body in Matt4 was designed to make His Soul slip). In short, even if we are in a carnal state, the Holy Spirit can send disciplinary reminders 'down the pipe', so to speak. So our souls can be disquieted. Since the Holy Spirit will not coerce volition, we'll get only so much of a 'signal' from the Divine Broadcasting System as our volition can handle. Like, "Do you do well to be angry?" For, when we're carnal, like Jonah we're angry, however sweet we tell ourselves we are. Do we hear the "still, small Voice"? He who has an ear...

Ok, but it's STILL not rational, to get so hot about what we believe, versus others, once we are at least physical adults. We either believe rightly or wrongly. If rightly, what does it matter if someone else agrees? If wrongly, wouldn't it be better to fix it? I'd fix my toenail if something were wrong with it, and wouldn't be ashamed that was needed. So why not have the same attitude with respect to a belief about God? It's no shame for me to be wrong.

Well, some people are hyper-insecure. They didn't grow up even humanly speaking. Ergo the need to constantly be right, tell others they are wrong, claiming that's somehow 'brotherly love'. And when asked for details, a remarkable thing happens: they can never articulate their rightness or another's wrongness well. Instead, they parrot, or quickly degenerate into personal attacks. Others..hide. We all do something like this on some subject. Ahhh. We didn't grow up on that thing. But we CAN...

And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut loves to write. The old sin nature, our nature in Adam -- it CAN'T be rational. It's still trying to recapture Eden. Dissociation. And, since the original sin was against God -- then the Lady-MacBeth urge will dissociatively hit the strongest whenever "God" is even remotely in view! Ok, then. No solution here. Dead body, Energizer Bunny running down...

But wait! We do have genuine loves. I mean, why do most of us believe in Christ in the first place? Isn't it because we are attracted to God? It's not natural to choose Him. Granted, the fear of hellfire is a bottom motive, but the bigger motive is that we want to be with Him. We have no clue who He really is, or what being with Him is really like when we first believe in Him (that takes a spiritual life, which as unbelievers we don't yet have), but..we take that step. We metanoeo and pisteuw. We change our minds about the Gospel (to positive), and believe.

That's a kind of love -- and all loves can be 'kidnapped' (deflected).

Ok, so now let's argue FOR taboos, works, and rituals, because it isn't solely an ego thing. It is also a love thing. And we aren't supposed to just sit on our study, lol!

In Cor, Paul talked about the brother who, if he saw Paul eating at a restaurant which was known to get its meat from idol sacrifices (slaughter was sold after the offering to the idol, to the restaurant), would feel Paul was sinning. Why? Because that brother still considered that if one ate what was offered to an idol, that eating was somehow blasphemous against God. To that brother, that was his conclusion. So, Paul concluded, Paul would not want to eat at such a restaurant, for the sake of his brother's conscience. James also mentioned something like this, to the effect that if someone does something he knows is wrong, "for him it is sin".

Now, what makes a person conclude that if he doesn't get baptised, if he doesn't avoid drinking and dancing, if he doesn't avoid meat (or whatever), he's sinning? Well, in the first place, that person clearly assigns a meaning to the activity which is deeper than, say, I do. For me it is not sin, because to me the meaning is nothing (like that verse where Paul says that eating any meat, offered to idols or no, means nothing). But it's not a sin to me, BECAUSE it means nothing. I have no particular attachment to it, or against it. I'm neutral.

Kinda like a OB/GYN who is male, examining a woman, the activity is clinically viewed, rather than pruriently viewed, an individual might value an intrinsically-neutral activity as such. Dancing itself isn't necessarily bad. Neither is drinking wine. However, I can assign a value to that activity and MAKE it bad. If I do, it becomes 'sin' to me -- REALLY DOES -- because I've assigned such a value to it. The rich young ruler assigned a beyond-intrinsic value to his wealth, so the Lord told him to give it all up. He couldn't. If something 'causes' your eye to sin, cut out your eye, is the idea.

Hence, since whatever we think or do, we think or do as 'unto the Lord' -- a thing can really BECOME a taboo for us, which is not a taboo for another. In which case, for the individual who does view it as a taboo -- it IS a taboo for him. Again, "all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful." It's not gonna be helpful for that person, unless and until he comes to value the activity neutrally.

Islam has a real problem with women's clothing. Yet, within that taboo, there is a wide variety of what's considered 'proper'. Some adopt a full burkha; some, just a headscarf. Some, just a modest but Western dress. THEY consider the exposure of the female form a major taboo.

Many Christians are similarly affected. Some think it sinful if a woman wears makeup; doesn't wear a hat in church; wears nail polish or colorful clothing; enters into 'mixed bathing', or smokes. Ok: to those people these items have a non-neutral value. For them, it truly becomes a sin to do them.

Others are surrounded by scantily-clad women and barely notice it. It's custom, it's common -- ho hum. So for them, it's not sin. Again, it's the ATTITUDE toward the thing, not so much the thing itself, which makes it sin.

No problem. The person then adopts whatever taboos he feels he needs to adopt. After all, I have a few of my own. Keyword here though is PERSONAL: for me they are needed.

It's likewise fine if people who have similar personal taboos get together and live a church lifestyle based on them. We should have a good conscience before the Lord. So the various denominations, at root, with their senses of what is right and wrong -- well, that's their collective conscience. Like Paul said, observances are for the individuals to determine, before the Lord.

In short, our loves are touched, so to speak. And, because we feel that we should live some kind of way before the Lord owing to love (however immature we may be at the time), we need to find an expression of that love, and conscience (at that time) will dictate that. SO, it's not simply a question of Mr. Energizer Bunny trying to make ego king. It's also a love question. Nascent love, maybe: but love, nonetheless.

Therefore: it is inevitable that if I think a thing is right, and 'you' disagree, we will both feel uncomfortable about it. After all, either I really am right, or I am not. Same for you. So this discomfort will naturally manifest in one of us trying to get the other one to switch sides, so to speak. THAT is where evil begins, and THAT is the core of the problem with the infighting/denominations. In short, it's okay that we all differ, but it's NOT okay that we try to get the other guy to go our way. Yet, the urge to do it is strong: not just because of the Energizer flesh, but because we have some idea of how we must express our growing Love for Him, and our taboos/practices are an integral part of that.

Ok, then: so, motivated partially by fleshy Energizer sin-in-Adam, and by our interpretation of Scripture, our 'love' also influences us in this matter of conscience. But the following categories are (we all know), generically true:

• Some things are intrinsically RIGHT or wrong, whatever our interpretation or attitude toward them. For example, not believing in Christ is always wrong. Murder is always wrong. Theft is always wrong. Lying is always wrong. Disobeying the First Commandment is always wrong. Adultery/fornication is always wrong. Etc. Believing in Christ is always right; doing one's job competently is always right; loving one's parents is always right; loving one's enemies is always right.
• Some things are potentially right or wrong, depending on the circumstances (irrespective of our attitude about them): 'rebuking' may be wrong; doing something which is offensive to another may be wrong; doing something 'nice' for someone may be wrong. This is a thorny category, and requires so much precise understanding, we all screw up here regularly.
• Some things are potentially right or wrong, depending SOLELY on our attitude toward them (i.e., what is intrinsically neutral, but over-undervalued, versus the proper 'slot' for that thing in God's Value system). Examples were covered in the "For..taboos" section above, but added to that list could easily be: eating quantity/balance, what one wears, what one says, what one doesn't say..very big list!

There's a sort of hybrid category: how we read Scripture. If we read Scripture incorrectly, it is technically sin, because the incorrect reading is due to some past sin condition which now blocks the will's readiness to hear the correct answer, and that sin condition is still what the will, wills. Any rejection of truth must be due to sin. Even if ignorance is present, the person COULD have chosen to know earlier, and did not. So, he sinned by choosing to stay ignorant.

On the other hand, whatever our incorrect reading of Scripture is, if we 'buy' that interpretation, then to us "it is sin" if we disobey it. So, we're trapped! We sin by rejecting truth, and thus come up with an incorrect interpretation; we sin if we reject the incorrect interpretation, too! What???

Ahhh. We'd FIRST have to learn that interpretation WAS incorrect, in order for it to be RIGHT to reject the interpretation. Until we KNOW it is incorrect, to reject a wrong interpretation is "sin", to us. Once we know, however, then the cause of the rejection is no longer a rebellion against the former 'truth' we believed, but rather a calm recognition that the thing we used to believe, is not the truth. See? ATTITUDE, MOTIVE.

This last issue needs an example. A lot of people feel they must give 10% of their income to the Church. That's based on a misinterpretation of the Old Testament income tax, usually rendered in English as "tithe". (The Temple was the storehouse of State money, not simply temple money, so when people shallowly read the order to bring the tithes to the storehouse, it's to the STATE portion of the temple. It's income tax.)

To the people with this wrong interpretation, they are bound by the 10% they believe in, because they accepted the authority of that incorrect rule. It's totally anti-biblical (Bible has only and always said any giving was SOLELY voluntary), but these people have bound themselves to that interpretation.

So, if George bought that interpretation, and he stints on the 10%, he's sinned. If he has heard that the "tithing" was really income tax and still doesn't believe it, he's sinned. If he uses the income tax excuse but he only is using it as an excuse, he's sinned, because he's STILL not rejected the 10% for the right reason.

Wow! No matter what we do or think, we're bound to be wrong! No way we can get the interpretation right the first time, and no way we won't excuse ourselves from whatever we DO believe! Who will deliver us from this body of death! Thanks be to God the Father, through Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Ok, so this is yet another reason to be EXTREMELY wary of the 'rebuke' thingy. It's not humanly possible for me to have a wholly-correct interpretation. The Holy Spirit does, though. Even so, when my mouth opens, some of what is the from-Him correct interpretation will become inevitably mixed with, at least, 'fuzzy' words: fuzzy to the hearer, if not to me. And, vice versa, for what any speaker tells me. So how in the blazes can any 'rebuke' not become sin, unless the person speaking is DIVNELY-appointed and thus required to do so? By "DIVINELY-appointed" I mean an authority over a given person/group of persons which God has ordained: like, parents over their own children; pastors over their own flocks; bosses over their own employees, etc. Even here, it's going to be impossible for a perfect transmission: some of what is said might be correct, but something in the wording or in the hearing will corrupt it. The Holy Spirit then is more vital than ever, as the Arbiter! 1Jn1:9 is a lifeline. For, who can avoid sin-by-improper-understanding? No one.

A natural corollary worry is illustrated thus: "Well, I've got these websites. Maybe they shouldn't even be here!" Who wants to mislead others? Then again, since it is only a website, the reader still has his privacy; nor do I promote the site; plus, it sits like a needle in a haystack -- wouldn't the Holy Spirit warn a person who shouldn't read a thing in it, or filter it so that whatever He wants communicated, still is? That protection doesn't absolve me of trying to write accurately, first because the Father is hearing me, and second because someone else might also. Yet I can't just cringe for fear of speaking, either. In fact, by writing the site, because it's 'public', I take more care in reassessing what I've learned and have come to believe/know as a consequence. Grace will out. For the reader, and for me. We can't but make mistakes. The Law proved this, and the New Law in Christ proves it even more. Thanks be to God the Father who through Our Lord Jesus Christ has delivered us from this body of death!

Another natural corollary is to beware of assuming one knows enough about another teacher's teaching to be able to competently comment on it. It's one thing to generically talk about something one is fairly certain is a doctrinal error. It's quite another to say that a particular teacher is right or wrong on that topic. It's even more dicey to assume that whatever seems to be wrong with that pastor's teaching, the person under him views it the same way as 'I' do! So, if that person ended up still having the 'right' interpretation despite being under someone 'I' see teaching it wrongly, what have I done? Matt7:2!

Roman Catholicism bugs a lot of people, and after exposing myself to its doctrines enough to establish due diligence before the Lord, I'm certain it's not right, either. HOWEVER -- many Catholics I know don't hold views which the average Protestant would find heretical (e.g., many only consider Mary to be the archetype of a faithful believer, and don't even buy the perpetual virgin and other stuff -- they make fun of RCC people who do). So, isn't the real issue what the person LEARNS from his teacher, rather than the teacher? Would the Holy Spirit be wrong to allow Catholics to stay Catholics, if they still manage, thank you, to get the 'right' teachings anyway (since the Holy Spirit, not any man, is the ONLY one who can put the truth in a believer)?!

Many have no hesitance in ridiculing me or my pastor. I had no idea my understanding of Scripture was such a problem for them, until I got on IRC. It has been a very surprising, but helpful, experience. So also, during the 30 or so years I've been under my own pastor I've been amazed at the number of people who know absolutely nothing about what he teaches, but oh boy, they sure think they do! Query them on any data they think they know, and it's truly bizarre, the answers one receives. Likewise, I should expect that 'my' idea of another pastor's teaching will be way off.

Part of this problem is that, kinda like marriage, God has designed for each believer his own right pastor-teacher. As we saw above with the 10% thingy, the authority one accepts is the authority one is bound to, and like divorce, there is no proper grounds for rejecting that authority except for 'adultery'. Here, 'adultery' would be an adulterous interpretation of the Word which one comes to see accurately of itself, and not as an excuse to disobey. So, it doesn't matter if the person's pastor is right or wrong, because that is the authority to which the believer has submitted. Ideally, he submitted because that pastor is the person's God-chosen pastor.

In any event, he did submit. So to break would require 'adultery' to justify it. And that's the point -- the individual submitted. So for any of us to tell him he's wrong is like someone trying to interfere in a marriage. Or, worse, get him to commit adultery with us. After all, if the Lord said that a man committed adultery with a woman simply by having lustful thoughts, how much more might we be guilty by lusting to take that believer away? What if the truth is, WE and not that believer are in doctrinal error? And how can we NOT be in doctrinal error if we're urgently pressing on him a claim he's in error? Do you ever see even God manipulate, coerce, deride or entice? It's possible to be wrong, even though right. As my pastor loves to say, "A right thing must be done in a right way" (explaining meaning of Greek word kalos). After all, the fact that we are of some different doctrinal position ALONE provides a "still small voice". Or, theirs, to us. We don't need anything else, and ..neither do they.

Now, we submit because we are attracted. The 'right' person it might not be, but it might have some of the essential characteristics of the right person, and since we were designed for someone similar, well..we slipped. Attraction, be it to a similar or truly-right person, will naturally produce a desire to be loyal. More deeply, there is some kind of compatibility of communication. Like castle walls in a marriage (illustrated by the sanctity of sex only-for-marriage), this compatibility means that some other pastor will be incompatible -- even if he interprets the Bible (largely, since no two are identical) the same way. So, a person under pastor "A" will have a tendency to NOT like pastor "B", simply because pastor "A" is (so he thinks, or truly) right for the person. The younger one is spiritually, the more vehemently he will feel the urge to defend pastor "A", and the more any teaching from any other source will be considered 'heretical'.

This leads to a lot of rash talk. Complicating this problem is the fact that pastors, just like anyone else, are themselves in some kind of spiritual development process. They cannot be wholly right about what the Bible says, because the Bible says a LOT -- even a whole lifetime spent studying intensely will not scratch its surface. Due to the Holy Spirit's ministry, a pastor can be caused to be essentially right, relatively right, etc. on a topic -- but he will never be bopped with fully-inerrant interpretation on all topics. Not even the writers of Scripture got that. Therefore, pastors might make some bloopers, too (who of us does not).

Therefore, maybe the immature or hypersensitive believer who needs to support pastor "A", might correctly see some blooper in pastor "B". Additionally, maybe there are others who are not territorial, and likewise accurately recognize the same blooper in pastor "B". So, if these folks talk about that, those under pastor "B" will feel a need to defend him. And that's how the devastating, satanically-inspired Christian infighting gets going. Log-mote violation, eventually spiralling out of control.

How sad. We should be collaborating to learn from each other so we can better see our own motes; eager to hear another's 'slant' so to account for our own spiritual mistakes -- versus being so needy on excising theirs. This latter has to be a form of adultery, for its lusty urge is completely patent.

What's the antidote? First, it might be a good idea to really READ what the so-called errant pastor/sect teaches in some detail. Of course there will be errors or at least seeming-errors in any ministry. A good bit of the 'errors', though, will be due to the READER interpreting his own mindset onto the writer. This is especially problemmatic where the writer uses words seemingly laden with heretical-sect flavor (as noted in the 'pneumatic Christ' comment earlier in this webpage). ACCURATE INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION IS IMPOSSIBLE IF THE TWO PARTIES DON'T SPEAK THE SAME INTERNAL LANGUAGE, AS WELL AS EXTERNAL LANGUAGE. "Unequally-yoked" doctrine is based on this fact. There's a certain deminimis of structure needed for communication to occur. Hence, the need for the Cross. Hence the need be (spiritually) "born again". That's the basic idea.

My college professors (and I) had wanted me to get into the foreign service. That means, learning diplomatic intercourse. (Cf any book by Sir Harold Nicolson). God had other ideas. Still, I didn't know God's ideas until graduation, so the meanwhile I majored in International Relations, and spent some time in Asia. During those years, I learned that the art of diplomacy depends on first being quite sure you are understanding your host country's position in its own mindset. This, because mindset is a type of language. "Mindset" means the hierarchy of values concerning God, self, others, one's country, world. German term is Weltanschaung.

A more comprehensive term is "faith". "Faith" in the original languages of the Bible is generally used in a passive sense: body-of-beliefs. (This is especially true when it is a noun; but if a verb, "Faith" often means the function of believing.) "Faith" means everything believed, and all beliefs are hierarchical, because all values have to become organized in case there are competing needs. For example, Marines will not leave a wounded comrade on a battlefield. Think over the implications: one's own life is less important than saving Private Ryan. Thus all items in a faith are in some kind of authoritative hierarchy.

Everyone has a faith, though generally they will not recognize it. One can't even learn without faith. I have to BELIEVE 1+1=2 in order to LEARN it. Once believing, I also have to VALUE that item in some kind of hierarchy, a 'slot' where that belief belongs. Hence, when you add up all the items, you have a whole 'doctrine' of beliefs in order to view all your things and relationships in life. Everyone has a weltanschaung, a faith. Can't be human, without it. Therefore, it's ESSENTIAL to be able to understand the 'language' of a person's faith in order to have any kind of constructive dialog, to get along!

Thus is the essential idea in diplomacy: look at the national mindset/weltenschaung/faith, in order to find the language of diplomatic discourse with that nation. And, we are "ambassadors for Christ" (1 Tim 2, I believe).

For example, Chinese doesn't translate into dry English very well. English prides itself on dryness, in the name of objectivity. Chinese prides itself on syncreativity, so BLENDS fact and feeling. To the Chinese, 'objectivity' only exists where there's a harmony between the feeling life and the factual life. If you study the etymology of Chinese idiographs, you'll see that fact clearly.

The same analogy holds for pastor/sect differences. One must first determine the orientation. Let's take Watchman Nee's books as an example (I'm reading them these last few days because they are sooo very Chinese, I've been a Sinophile all my life, and many of the doctrines in them are delightfully expressed). Nee's writings demonstrate that he had a very secure classical Christian training. His ministry was phenomenal in China; where the Waigworen (Westerners, but the term is a little disparaging) failed, he succeeded. Chinese need a thing to be Sinofied before they can accept it; 'foreign' is a bad word to them, much like 'strange' is a bad word in the Bible. Nee managed to express the Bible in terms which a Chinese could 'own'. If a reader doesn't understand this, he will misunderstand Nee's writings.

China was largely illiterate, but literacy was important. Chineseness (then and now) is largely pragmatic, as well as emotional: put-it-to-use-NOW is very important. Again, synchronizing both the feel and the fact is a paramount virtue in Chinese minds for millenia. Again, Nee succeeded here. The dark continent which for hundreds of years had, like Japan, seen frustration from its contact with the West; the huge civilization which remained dark and insular yet highly-intellectual, finally got a true freedom, and from one of its own. (I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know so many Chinese are saved!)

In the West, there is a parallel. Christianity quickly devolved into a maze of practices, customs, traditions. Over time, these have become the topic of much legalistic wrangling and many have lost their lives over how these practices should be done. (Praxis, in fact, is a very important part of Eastern Orthodox religion, and it's over that and some doctrinal issues that the East eventually split from Rome.) In short, new believers want something to DO. And many of the teachers, both then and now, came up with frameworks to give the children something to DO. The idea was to learn by doing; over time, what ended up happening is that the doing eclipsed the learning, so Bible Doctrine mutated into men's doctrines: it was routinized into a soundbyte catechism few actually understood, or it was rudimentarily taught. People stayed spiritual children, at best. The Reformation didn't do much to reverse this problem, though it helped for awhile.

Today, although it is hard to detect beneath the noise, the world is at an all-time-high of interest in what constitutes the post-salvation life, and knowing God personally is the major motive. So, because knowing Him is now so much more important, the idea of studying Him is much more popular than it ever was. God meets that rise in interest with a rise in pastoral competence: during the last 50 years, there has been a huge surge in our accuracy to translate what the Bible MSS actually say. (Of course, Satan beefed up the counterfeit 'experts' and hecklers, too!)

Yet both in East and West, pastors/sects still divide over essentially two approaches to spiritual growth: a) praxis-first, or b) study-first. Everyone fits somewhere between a) and b). Doctrinal divisions would be like a vertical divisor. So you'd have a square grid, with every church falling somewhere on the horizontal axis (praxis left corner, study, right corner), and somewhere on vertical axis (doctrinal divisions).

God wants balance, and we all know that, but our ideas of that balance vary a lot. Further, what really is the best way to get to the balance? Do you just study first, study a little bit first, just practice first, just practice a little first?

Getting the balance right is the key. Imbalances are the bane of Christianity: some stress "getting the Ghost" or other emotional activity, calling it spiritual -- the fact that it makes God look stupid is written off as beyond-reason, which is allegedly holy. Others stress ritual and corporate activity: and the rosy glow of all that is deemed holy because it is organized and solemn. Still others stress works, which to them are the sine qua non of the spiritual life. And yet still others stress study so much, the spiritual life becomes some dry life of flashcard-like knowings. Strong's meanings (ugh). Church Fathers wrote this. "Heresy" is that. Facts facts facts and no live understanding at all. All the while, people people people define the spiritual life, rather than God God God!

KEY==>Notice how each "stress" degenerates into a kind of roteness. Oversimplification due to stress transfers 'magic' onto the thing stressed, so it becomes de rigeur to 'do' it. From there, everyone gets judged by this LONE 'do'. And God? Oh, He was in a movie once. Wasn't it the "Ten Commandments"?

Over the centuries, the middle two stresses have displayed full-circle results: sterile fruit. The first and fourth were always around as bit players, but in the 19th and especially 20th centuries, the first and fourth SEEM to be taking over the middle two in popularity. It's the popularity which bodes ill. Popular always means "shallow". And see how shallow it is! If you don't feel something, if you don't have some supernatural experience (which makes you feel selected, holy, special!), then maybe you're not even a believer! Or, just as bad, if you don't KNOW this or that writing, if you don't KNOW this or that verse/doctrine, then you aren't spiritual! Yikes, will we believers stop sheeping around?

These four stresses account more for the divisions among Christian churches than anything else. These four stresses stress out Christians more than anything else. Sure, some pastors also teach as 'doctrine' some things which are WAY out of kilter with Scripture. But, those teaching those things might be caused LATER to reverse that error by the Holy Spirit. He might be working on some other thing with the errant sect/pastor at the moment. I mean, God doesn't give us perfect parents. We were not perfect children, either. God doesn't require a pastor to be perfect, either -- to use him.

Balance is far more important to progress than whether some denomination gets it exactly right about the role of water baptism, or how many apostles the Lord appointed. All doctrine is important to get precisely, but we can't get it all precisely right away. It takes a lot of time to grow. Here in the 21st century the many vicissitudes of the Church, its struggles to find what's the correct interpretion, now forms a HUGE database of commentaries and views. So, for the new crop of pastors, it will hopefully be a much faster process to dig in the Word and get even better interpretations than the pastors of the preceding generation. I don't yet see much evidence that pastors are refining what went before; one only hears a lot of nonsensical interpretations like "head and heart belief", "Lordship salvation", and too many more silly things to list. Falsehood is always loud, though -- so the good teachers would not be likely above-radar.

Still, this is good: parishoners aren't perfect, pastors aren't perfect, Church history isn't perfect; and, everyone being so VERY imperfect -- competes. Which creates a tendency toward balance (aka "equilibrium" in macroeconomic theory). Heh. Looks like Romans 14-15, Eph4, 1&2Tim, who-is-Apollos etc. verses take on even greater significance when viewed from the macro angle of aggregate Church 'progress' in figuring out the Word, huh? Seems like a body of accumulative gaffes and genius is being knitted together...?

Seems like the Judgement Seat of Christ is about how far one progressed spiritually with whatever version of faith he had. So, then in the wider sense, the many divided sects in Christianity operate in aggregate like a school system, from kindergarten to Phd-level. There are different schools. There are different grades. When a student graduates from a particular grade in a particular school, maybe God moves him to a different school (church). Conversely, if the student flunks a particular grade, he's moved to somewhere else to catch him up. And so on. Obviously, if a student will never want to progress to Phd level (for in God's plan, it's the desire to learn God, not human IQ, which makes for advancement), he'll end up at death in some particular grade of some particular school. The schools, of course, all rank. Then, the Bema reveals who-did-what. LOL we will ALL regret not using our spiritual assets, better! And won't care at ALL to 'lord it over' someone who didn't get 'as good' a reward as 'I'! Wow, what a time that will be...

Wait! I got it wrong! It's MILITARY school, and at the same time, being in God's Armed Forces, when one graduates! Look: even when one is a student at a military academy, there is plenty of 'war' going on. That's how a plebe grows to become a graduate. He 'battles' with all the body resistance to physical training (logistical hassles in learning the Word), he 'battles' with his classmates, and also collaborates with them. So, from day one he's a little-bit functional as a soldier. This little bit grows and widens and deepens..Eph3:15-19 being the goal. After graduation, he's moved out, or given a non-moving post. Temporarily, permanently, whatever. God the Holy Spirit is the Supreme Commander. The pastor is the local HQ commander, or maybe a commander of "x" number of HQs/bases, etc. There is no merely human Joint Chiefs of Staff or Commander-in-Chief (i.e., no pope or council of churches dictating policy).

Yeah, this is the right idea. So each church plays some role as well, corporately, within the developing Bride. One church might be in the 'army' branch. Another, 'air corps'. Another, quartermaster corps. Of course, each corps would within itself have to be a 'whole' also, but with respect to its own internal function. Kinda like how the Army needs to have its own air wing, not the Air Force's planes. Modularity is a linchpin in all military structure, function, deployment.

The Bema then is EXACTLY that: Our Commander-in-Chief gives us our o.e.r.'s for our time down here. Doesn't matter if a guy was a private peeling potatoes all his life. Did he peel as unto the Lord? Then he was faithful in little, and shall be appointed over much. Was a field officer faithful in his duties? After all, who MADE him able to rise in ranks to be a field officer? The Holy Spirit! So, then: was he faithful? Etc. The Order of the Morning Star is a battlefield award. So also for all the crowns, pebbles, whites, etc.

Ok, I get it now. This military analogy clinched it. No soldier has a right to go outside channels. It goes outside channels, the heretic thingy, the rebuke thingy, the you-should-see-Bible-my-way thingy. No matter what angle I pick to analyse this whole interpersonal/ intersect Christian interrelating topic, I keep coming back to the same answer: LEAVE EVERYONE ALONE UNLESS ORDERED OTHERWISE! Whew. Only God is omniscient and Only God has the right to Judge. He truly has delivered us from these bodies-of-death!

One quick postscript: God's assignment of a person to church A versus church B has a lot to do with the essential soul structure of the person. For example, my soul just can't 'get it' until I know a whole lot of technical information. I literally have to know how to build a watch in order to competently know what time it is. Once I know that, I'm real good at telling time (though that HAS to be the Holy Spirit making me good even secularly, for I'm famous for being unable to competently put on a stamp!) Until I know that, I can easily believe someone telling me what time it is, but I don't ever understand how that person could tell time. In terms of learning Him, I just can't 'get' a teaching until exposed to the "ICE" (e.g.,exegesis) of the supporting verses. Until that point, I can easily see the sense in the teaching, use it, live on it..but only shallowly. I don't know why I'm like this: maybe it's a spiritual gift, which means apart from that gift, I can't function at all. Once I get it that way, the keyword or exegetical point the HS used to lock in the understanding remains as a sort of moniker, a zip file which instantly opens whenever that keyword or exegetical point comes to mind. Same, for verses, etc. So I'll sound rather strange, to others whose souls don't work in a similar fashion!

So, then: to some, a person like me is intimidating, because they don't know that academics need that mode: it's not a greater intelligence, just a different type. So, then: a person who can just run with a short instruction on how to read a watch..isn't he superior in that way? So, then: wouldn't his soul structure warrant a church which teaches things more simply? I NEED all that doctrinal data to function. He doesn't, maybe. Again, looks like these are part of the category of spiritual gifts -- some need the instant-types, some need the detailled-types. We all have slots on His Military Team. Woe to us if we don't identify and function in our God-designed slot!

Corollary: seems to me ALL relationships in life could be modelled on the interChristian paradigm, too. Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother? Didn't Christ die for everyone? Granted, one shouldn't be unequally yoked -- but that's what 2Tim2:16-3:7 and Phili 3:15-18 also say -- and those passages pertain to BELIEVERS! So, live and let live; don't make a stink out of another's wrong, but keep quietly apart where apartness would be commanded. Don't interpret that or ANY Biblical command to buttress/excuse self (like the Corban gimmick). Neither to the right, nor to the left.

What a surprising relief! All this nonsense in Christendom's endless football playoffs gets left in a discarded TV Guide. All I do is learn how to hear and respond, privately in my spiritual life before the Father as the Son desires, in the power/teaching of the Holy Spirit, under my right pastor. Very very very intense thought life -- for who can instantly recall the appropriate doctrine, capture every thought, without lots of unrelenting practice under the Holy Spirit -- but freedom from inter-believer wrangling. So, 'a vacation! Heh. Yeah, the Hebrews 4 rest! And, when and if some kind of 'fellowship' is needed, He'll make clear what and when, so that the poisonous kind is avoided. Whew. It's NICE to be a doula...

So what Divine Policy (for me) applies to intercommunication? Say, in the chatroom? Well, using the bullets above, I get:

It is always right to ANSWER a QUESTION ASKED of me. I should try to answer it dispassionately, with a view toward correctness. Good view would be this one: the Question Asked is a Question the Father wants to hear answered -- like, an oral exam. So that would demotivate any Energizer-in-Adam feelings, but motivate correct communication. Succinctness would also be critical, for a chatroom only allows for soundbytes. Arguing, of course, is verboten.

It might be circumstantially right to initiate. When the convo slows down, or gets mired in personal attacks, it's restful to propose another topic to ease tension or boredom. In this case, it wouldn't matter if the view expressed in the topic was controversial. In fact, that would be a good thing, for then people can get into the discussion with more interest and zest. Baiting-type wording of course would be verboten.

Another circumstance of initiation being okay would be to just make a comment or two, as one would do in a normal conversation. Not trying to 'sell', just expressing. Still another example would be to offer an idea if someone is having a problem with something -- but here, it's just an offer -- not a prescription. Other circumstances seem to be divided into corollaries of these two categories.

Motive determines the rightness or wrongness: rightness, when the motivation for the comment or statement is to express or give refreshment. Wrongness, when the motivation is to just blurt out something (a failure of mine since I was a kid) -- doesn't matter that enthusiasm over the idea or statement motivates the blurting. The blurting didn't get checked with the HS FIRST for whether HE wanted it conveyed. Doesn't matter how right the statement might be, either -- the blurting bypassed the HS guard, and should thus be 'shot'. Every thought must be brought into captivity. The essence of evil is that it seeks to be good apart from God. God's system for creating our independence always remains CONNECTED to Him, never apart. When we 'kidnap' His Word or His Good and run with it ourselves, we commit Satan's original sin. Doesn't matter how 'good' we are, we're repulsive, in the extreme! Of course, that's the essence of our sin in Adam: an independent lust to be good (fig leaves).

Obviously, motives like judging, gossiping, etc. (Mental Attitude sins) would all taint any statement, so the statement should be 'shot'. Less obviously, as any diplomat can tell you -- one should first check the statement against this criterion: what will the hearer HEAR in the statment made? It's downright rude to make a statement you know will upset someone. If you must make it (and be dang sure of the 'must'!), then you must. Otherwise, stay silent. Or, find a non-offensive way to state it. God is not the God of discord. He's also not a God of compromise, but there are hundreds of ways to not compromise the truth, and simultaneously not upset the hearer. Lots of skill here is needed, just as in the "circumstantial" bullet category. Obviously, being quick to HEAR and slow to speak is vital!

Yikes, I need a lot of practice, because I routinely fail in these categories!

So what Divine Policy (for me) applies to how often I should intercommunicate? Say, in a chatroom? Well, the "ABC" litmus always governs. "A", Alpha: what should the Father 'hear' me think-and-do? "B", "Body" (living in this body) -- what are the logistical and organizational needs of the day? "C", "Charges" -- what do others need of me, this day? Anything which violates A will violate B and C. Anything which violates C will violate A and B. So, then: I can approach the answer to the question of how often by entrance into any of A or B or C. From there, to refine the answer, ferreting out any misdiagnoses of what applies. So, for example, if I don't yet know the "A" answer, but know something in "B" and "C", use those. Kinda like a detective figures out who-done-it. This, of course, is Occup, coupled with GODO (Grace & Doctrinal Orientations), and all the PSDs in between (with Rebound,F-R, PL-Father, IL, +H being tied into Occup, as the "reciprocity" motive).

The Father's Plan is ABSOLUTE (demonstrated so wonderfully in Romans 8:28's Attic drama use of Simple Accusative of ton Theon and the intransitive-converted-to-transitive-by-Hero of sunergei): My Hero, My Lord unites all disparities and disconnections, converting all into intrinsic/absolute/ultimate good! [Besides getting "unites" from both the high drama and the context before and after the verse, I also get "unites" from the fact that the accusative is sometimes used in Classical greek in place of the nominative, in order to shout that noun; plus the first sentence in Wallace, p.177, and the last sentence in Wallace, p.205. Idea, respectively, of the accusative being queen of classical greek cases and the nominative being the king. Heh. Paul is really on a roll, here. No wonder he concludes as he does in verses 31 and 37-39! Uniting weakness and suffering, Our Hero conquers all! How I love this passage!]

Ok. Father's Protocol takes into account the fact that people have their own protocols. Free will. Living in Harmony (e.g., 1Tim2). So, then: He does want me to be in the chatroom at times, because of the way the entire circumstance came about, and its results. Ok. Which times, though? Well, let's look at the "no" answers: it cannot be at a time when I've something else which "B" or "C" demands be done, lest there be a compromise to "B" and "C". It cannot be for the wrong motive, either (e.g., I'm frustrated with something going in in "B" or "C" or "A" (lol!); or, I miss the people there and want to just sit with them, etc.) It has to be HIS ORDER, and if that's not my first motive, I'll do only evil to self or others by disobeying.

Given how "B" and "C" are for me now, the positive answer is this: I can only seldom go there. Also, it means I really screwed up royally by going there so much, before. Granted, the HS used ALL of what happened there to give me a great deal of understanding, to advance my spiritual life -- but that wasn't His First Choice. I get that, now. Ok, so I'll be disciplined for those past failures, to backstop the weakness. Moving forward, it looks like it will be a rare thing to justify going there again. Hmmm -- should I try to orchestrate my "B" and "C" to make time to go there? I don't yet know. Gotta think about it more.

[Rewrite, discard, or move the following topic. It needs a lot of work.] Let's return to this issue of intersect Christian differences, but focus this time on current trends. The overwhelming evidence is this: Satan is busy! There is a direct correlation, throughout history, between the fragmentation/polarization in Christianity and the uncovering of some major MSS (or text (or teacher) which greatly improves the interpretation of the MSS). It's truly astonishing. (I saw this trend most recently by accident, while rereading Sir John Glubb's Short History of the Arab Peoples -- Glubb is decidedly pro-Arab, so he wasn't trying to draw that correlation. In fact, though he talks about what he saw as the correlation of three-to-four generation dynasties -- without, it seems, remembering the Biblical four-generation-curse doctrine -- he doesn't recognize that the rise of Islam effected a pogrom on Christianity. But I digress...)

Example: massive MSS discoveries were made in the mid-1800's (e.g., Tischendorf) -- and a good part of the Christian world was embroiled in various types war (civil and otherwise). Of course, the papyri discoveries 'just happened' to coincide with the darkening-toward-war which characterized the so-called "West" at the end of the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th. That period, of course, was when the Industrial Revolution so coalesced that the so-called imperialistic countries had spread out round-the-globe. Bringing, of course, Christianity with them. Classic case of overstretched logistics. So what we see is a suddenly-more-available accuracy in Scripture, barnacled with war. Interesting.

What I see happening since 1900 or so is a widespread rebellion against formalism, and this rebellion has seeped into church interpretations as well. Granted, the Reformation didn't go very far, though its repurcussions have rumbled on ever since. More broadly, with the coalescence of the industrial age came a demotic tendency to treat any formalistic views as snotty, uppity, arrogant. So also, in the views of how to read the Bible. Thus, by about 1950 and following, although much new and very important knowledge of what the Bible actually means has come to light, so also much rebellion against prior precepts of it has fumed. Baby thrown out with the bathwater, this.

Innovation has become an idol, even. So, naturally, those who still hold to older renditions of how the Bible should be interpreted are necessarily more strident in their defenses. So also, those innovating. The result has become an increasingly polemical debate, even down to whether one should call the Greek article "definite", anymore! Puleese.

A kinder, gentler interpretation is also the more accurate: don't box Scripture into some mindset. Just see what IT says, first. If it says what it says in a manner which more accords with an 'old' rendition, so what? If what it says more properly reflects some innovative concept, so what? Don't we only need to care what IT says? All our formulations and reformulations (such as whether Greek case system must be five or eight) -- these are but tools. They are not as important as Scripture. So, if Scripture deliberately uses what would be considered "bad" Hebrew or Greek, well..what point is God making in doing that? Let's see -- rather than argue.

Overall, the interpretation which is least self-contradictory would be the one most like Scripture's, for the proper interpretation of a verse/passage/doctrine would be the one which is wholly consistent -- for, God is Consistent. Since no one has all of the interpretation right, collaboration is essential. Not compromise, nor egregious competition.

What bugs me about most teachers and teachings is that they are oversimplistic and overdogmatic -- or, the reverse (under- ). They stand pat on their definitions and react with hostility if someone proposes some other meaning. So, what I like the most about my own pastor is that he keeps on rechecking and refining whatever he's taught us before. As a result, I've heard folks lambast him for being too 'old-fashioned' (i.e., still Dispensational) -- or, conversely, for being too innovative. LOL he can't please anyone. But, when I compare what he's taught over the 30 years to anyone else, his teachings fit together better and explain what most others call "inscrutable" or "problemmatic" passages. Since he's not shy about crediting someone else for something he came up with due to them, I can also know the path-of-discovery he traversed. And thus, better use the doctrine myself before the Lord. After all, He won't excuse my own lack of due diligence, either.

What bugs me about Christianity today is that it is way too anthropocentric, and stuck in God101-type arguments/doctrines. The idea of just knowing God for Himself is relegated to "inscrutable", or -- worse -- emotionality. Moreover, its formulation of the post-salvation life is incredibly fuzzy and people-oriented. The spiritual life is relegated to something one DOES, rather than someONE one LEARNS. (Seems like folks of 100 years prior had a more balanced view, though fuzziness was a problem, even then.) Worse, the need to systematize Biblical grammar has taken on too much quantative emphasis, and folks are trying desperately to 'simplify' it, make a McDonald's hamburger set of rules for its interpretation. At the cost of a lot of eisegesis. No wonder folks opt for Strong's meanings, ritual/emotionality, or works!

It should be immediately apparent to even a four-year old that Christ saved us, not our works. Even a five-year-old can grasp that if the First Commandment is to love the LORD -- it's the LORD, not people, Who is first. Even a six-year-old can grasp that there's a need to grow up on the inside -- which is way more important than what one does. I am to live with Him forever, not my works. He saved everyone individually; I didn't save them! So what do they need of me? If I couldn't save them, what can I do for them, or they, for me? And what are we all here for, anyway? Isn't it "to grow in the grace and knowledge of Our Lord and Savior.." (2Pet3:18)? And THAT leads to glory. Even a seven-year-old can read that verse and see it's GROWING IN KNOWING, not in works, which is God's Objective. Bride is a person, not a set of works. And, people are who they are on the inside. I am 'me'. What I do is merely a discrete function, at a given moment. A product of 'me', at most -- but NEVER 'me'. Even an eight-year-old can understand that much.

No Christian, if asked, would say God was second, lol. Yet, the life propounded by today's churches makes Him a very distant second. Which of them teaches that the inner life before the Lord is the ONLY thing that counts, all else being merely condimental? That, after all, IS the First Commandment: Love HIM with all one's heart and soul and mind. ALL, not some. LOVE, not use-as-designer-label for works/experience.

So I am to place first priority on my thought-life before Him, and if people are involved, fine. If not, fine. God first. People are optional. (Ironically, if people are optional in the spiritual life, then people are treated better, for the ego has no need for their approval/disapproval, etc.)

Of course, we all are around each other, optional or no -- so there are indeed requirements for human interaction. But if these requirements are viewed FIRST as "How am I thinking before the Father, as the Son commands?" then..the requirements would be much easier to do. For against love, there is no law. And, Love covers a multitude of sins. It's kinda hard to be thinking of Him and sin at the same time. In fact, impossible.

In sum, today's Christianity again suffers: part of it is making vast-but-quiet strides in understanding what the Lord's Thinking really is. The louder part is strident, activistic, shallow, works-yelling. This, because Satanic polarization is again on the rise. Drowns out doctrine. Prelude to war (Hosea4, Isa28). But again, these are my brethren, and like me they are learning also. So for me, a kinder, gentler interpretation of their own vicissitudes is just that: live and let live. Surely the HS can use anyone in any point of his view of the spiritual life to bring him forward into whatever correct path he should take. That, too, is not my affair. Instead, I must tend to my own back yard. If I am to be used toward another human, then my Commander-in-Chief will make it clear. Hupotasso, under orders!

Whew. Yet another reason for just staying quiet!

How Bible Translations Become Hearsay, and then... Heresy

Note: this page is now deprecated

This page has been deprecated by Caveat2.htm, but re-added solely if anyone will find it useful.

---

Please use 1Jn1:9 while you read, so to be online ("Filled") with the Spirit, and thus profit.

Thank you, my patient friends who beta-tested this page! GIST: Bible translations amount to hearsay evidence, rather than God's Actual Testimony. (Caveat #2 is longer version of the problem.) You needn't settle for such imperfect, second-hand testimony. God's FANTASTIC Plan is to build Christ's Own Thinking IN you by teaching you to read for yourself the exact words of the PERFECT Bible the actual writers wrote (called "the Autograph" in theology). You WANT supernatural proof of God? Learn The Original Words of THE WORD, IN the Word. His Gift to you: you just bring a willingness to learn and breathe 1Jn1:9 -- He'll provide the power and the teaching system to learn, customized to YOUR needs. Then you'll see the spiritual life is SO much more than merely being rescued from Hell.

Most Christians would love it if they had continual supernatural proof of God. Many would love to be in that first century, among those Christians. And everyone salivates over some ossuary or other relic as 'proof' of God. Yet what bigger proof, than the very WORDS originally penned by the "God-breathed" writers themselves? 'Cost God roughly 1500 years to "yatser", "plassw", sculpt, a whole Book of those words. Well, "books", actually. 66 of them. Biblioi, aka, "the Bible". So if He went to THAT much trouble to preserve the God-breathed Scripture EXACTLY as written by Bible writers, the very words being EXACTLY what He wanted said to mankind; the very words bearing the mark of Divine Authorship; and if He then PROMISED to TEACH you those very words! Tell me: what sane Christian could refuse that Divine Gift?

For that's exactly what 1Cor13 promises, in the very words Paul was given to write. THOSE words tell us that God would replace the temporary and lesser spiritual gifts, with the Greatest Gift: His Son's Thinking IN WRITING, SCRIPTURE. For when the Perfect Soul has been Completed in Writing, teleios! you do away with the partial and childish. Moreover, He promised to preserve this Perfect EXACTLY as THEN written throughout history, so anyone IN history can HAVE HIM "written on your hearts and minds", as they say. Well, the Holy Spirit said that, and often, too; even interrupting the writer of Hebrews' thoughtflow, to remind him, in the Greek of Heb10:15-17. After all, the writer had begun with the Jeremiah 31 theme, of everything now going through, that Soul. So who would miss, the ol' Ark? We have better things! The Anchor behind the Veil, Heb 6:18-20.

And so, He KEPT His Promise, finishing up with Book of Revelation, circa 96AD; no more temporary spiritual gifts, after that; tongues was Isa28 playing out its fulfillment, so ended with Temple destruction in 70AD; healing and miracle gifts phased out too, since they were but letters-of-spiritual-credit; the other temporary gifts of knowledge and prophecy, died as the finished Canon got into people's hands; for, as Hebrews 1 explains, everything now comes through Him. Through Him, the post-Canon spiritual gifts of communication would be primarily two: evangelists and pastor-teachers; the former, to be roving Johnny Appleseeds; and the latter, to be the authoritative husbandmen; everyone else, ranked below, so the crop could be harvested in an orderly manner. All this, to plant and rear, His Seed: all for Him, and through Him, and by Him, and grown via the Holy Spirit ONLY, building His Offspring, His Crop, His Body: that is, NOW, "Church", us; making us into, Bride. Promise of Ephesians, fulfilled: Father's Wedding Gift to Son made by 'mom', The Holy Spirit! For Him, the Groom. Heh: a better begetting, than some ol' snakegod's son Ion, got! [Read Euripedes' play, "Ion", and then Ephesians: the Holy Spirit had Paul use the play as a tweaking framework to show God's superior begetting. "Right" Pastor? link at pagetop reviews the pastoral role in detail.]

"Him", the Son: Him, The Dramatic Accusative, the One Who Created the universe in that nanosecond's breath of Gen1:1, as a Gift to Father Who Ordained it all in the Decree of the Divine Trinity Corporation, to declare and fulfill Their United Intent; Their Love; Their "Oneness", all wordplay on Their Identical, like-Triplets, Infinite Essence, and Their Voluntary Family-ness: Father, Spirit as 'Mother', Son as Heir. To inherit a unique Ruling Priesthood, so that His Thinking, replicated in them, circulates pleasing 'aroma' for Father, eternally. Nurtured, by 'Mother'. All for "Him", the Son; the One Who controls history, the YH+WH, the One Who Always Was and became, Our Savior.

So His painstaking collection of God-breathed manuscripts of His Own Thinking, which we call "Bible", is titled by theology, "the Autograph". As in, Genuine Article. As in, God's Own Handwriting. Graphologists explain that every handwriting has an embedded 'personality', such that you could IDENTIFY THE AUTHOR of it, given sufficient handwitten material. 'Kinda like a fingerprint, only MUCH harder to fake. Very much harder. So much harder, in fact, that anyone trying to imitate that handwriting -- translate it, so to speak -- CAN'T.

For the Hand of the Writer necessarily displays the Soul of the Writer. As in, His Soul. Christ's. In 66 little books. Well, one Book, one "pistis", Doctrine: HIS. His Faith, His Thinking, the Bible, EXACTLY as originally written. So, THE VERY ORIGINAL WORDS! still preserved. Words He learned, when in His Human Body down here. Words He thought, even on the Cross. Words in His Own Head, so THOSE SAME WORDS, can go into our heads. THOSE words. Not, someone else's.

So, OUR Bible is His Soul, for He became the Truth, and the Bible IS Truth. Disclosure ("manifestation"), codified in writing; so now His Soul can get INTO, our own. So His Handwriting, becomes ours, as we are lithoi, stones to be written on, and He's the Hupogrammos, the CopyBook Whose embedded Personality, through those same words He thought down here.. embeds us! Just as He repeatedly promised to David, viz., in Ps138:2. Heh: He 'autographs' us through the Autograph! So, He's REPLICATED in us. One learned Autographic Thought at a time.

The process of building these Perfect Thoughts in a believer is as fragmented and painstaking, as it was to even COLLECT the Word we have. It took CENTURIES of suffering work by thousands of dedicated folks, many risking or otherwise trashing their own lives! for us to even HAVE a Bible. For there has never been a collection of books so persecuted, in history. That is why we have these manuscripts IN PIECES. Thousands of them. Grand trashing-of-Bible scheme began from the day Moses penned Genesis, and has been going on, ever since; however, when the NT was written, the persecution stepped up BIG-TIME. Persecution spawned sequestration, and even today there are probably many caches of Scripture hidden in caves within the more-remote areas of the Middle East; or, directly below the cities, which after all were built on the ruins of prior cities. So who can find them, now? You can't displace a whole population to go looking, can you?

So we have mostly pieces of Scripture. So, in the 1800's, brave folks like Tischendorf and Tregelles and legions of others, fought to get, collect, preserve and protect, what manuscripts we could find. Pieces or no. Amazingly, those two gentlemen were to find the two largest, most-complete of the manuscripts: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. So, with incredible patience, the manuscripts were assembled, catalogued, compared and a whole "Bible" text, could be proven. Because, what God writes, has God's Personality embedded in it: fakirs then become obvious, and fakers are exposed. Word-by-word, in the Word. So, we've not had the complete Canon in PROVABLE form, until the last 150 years!

So too, in the believer, only fragments of Truth, daily, are painstakingly deposited by the One Who Wrote the Autograph. After all, He knows what the whole content is, all its connections and meanings. So a few dots at a time, doesn't inhibit Him. We who get these dots, for a long time see nothing from them. We just memorize them, or believe them, and as we do, everything in our nature tries to tear those fragments, those little stones, in even smaller pieces. Just as the hunt to destroy Scripture was, such that we have many pieces, so it is in our souls. Still, each such moment requires one VOTE for getting more dots. It hurts, to vote. We're confused, bewildered; God seems unfair; this learning process seems too hard; but a mosaic is being built.

So if we persist (and we won't, unless God is more interesting than the competition), eventually Scripture will collect in our souls. And then, coalesce. Kinda like the knitting of fetal parts, which prompted Paul to quip how he was on the point of giving birth (literal Greek) to the Galatians, anxious for Christ to be born "in" them. (Gal4:19; it's pregnancy wordplay tieing to Isa53:11 in BOTH LXX and Masoretic.) For the Head to get into their heads, had to go in one dot of truth at a time. But the Writer of the Book, knew how to connect all those dots!

So each believer CAN eventually become a living Bible. Head-into-head, a replication of the Autograph. Living, surviving all the fragmenting onslaughts of disbelief. A true miracle, bigger than all others. "Christ in you, the confidence of glory." We were in Him on the Cross, so now He gets in us, by His Thinking getting in us. We are in Him from the moment of our spiritual births, and He indwells us (as do Father and Spirit) from that moment onward; but.. do we ABIDE IN HIM? Or are our minds, 'dwelling' somewhere else? That's the harvesting task, the meaning of life down here. Bringing every thought into captivity to His, heh: learning One Autographic Thought at a time.

So without doubt you can tell Who wrote THIS Book, despite 44+ human agents over 1500 years. Despite thousands of mind-boggling fragments of Scripture which required a good century to piece together. So No 'council' ever proves the Autograph: it proves ITSELF. Daily. To you. In your head. From the Spirit Who Empowered the Head to learn the SAME WORDS. To You, if you are willing to examine it objectively. For, the first meaning of "Bible" is TESTIMONY. Legal documents. Deposition. Will and Testament. So, provability must be claimed. And, it is. "The ear tests truth", Elihu said to Job. And, "judge for yourselves" (refrain in the NT, NIV's version). Notice HOW you prove it: by READING it yourself. For, the claim is supernatural: as you read, breathing 1Jn1:9 as needed, God HIMSELF (no one else) will DEMONSTRATE it to you. All those verses about the Word not 'returning void', are sample affadavits of this demonstration.

See, thought is like handwriting. It has characteristics through which you can identify the SOURCE, if you have enough material. Well, this is God's Thought, and we have a lot of it. Each word, each case ending, each smidgen of etymological and other wordplay is so rich in interconnected MEANING, so incredibly interwoven pan-Bible, flawless, plousios, wealthy! Even the tiniest particle so thoroughly integrates with the entire Bible, it would require a lifetime to write out all the meanings in just one passage! So engrossing is the INTEGRITY of all this Thought, you could go on gazing for YEARS, entirely forgetting everything else. For the "Word of God" is the Autograph, and it is LIVING, since Thought itself is alive, even though printed on a page. Replicating, in you...

How did This Thought get to be in some manuscripts we call "The Autograph", also known as the "original-language manuscripts" of "Scripture"? Well, think: thought is invisible, and it replicates. You are reading the page. The thoughts written on it are now in YOUR head, yet still ON the page. Immaterial, begetting. And that is how Scripture came to be: God's Own Thinking replicated in selected individuals (not automatonic, sheesh -- they LEARNED from the Spirit); then, written out on the page.

So, that's what Scripture is designed to do for YOU: go from the page, into your head. Not mindlessly, but you think over what it means. Constantly, using 1Jn1:9 to stay 'online' with the Spirit, else you will only understand hot air. For, this is Spiritual Thinking, not human. Put into a Human, Christ. So now, His Thinking in you. All this, was promised in Isa53:10-12, centuries ago, since the Christ paid for our sins WITH HIS THINKING. Nailed to a Cross, surely He didn't do anything: lambs EAT and DIE, they don't 'work'. Now, His Thinking is in your hands so you can learn to THINK AS HE DOES. Such always was the biggest promise in the Old Testament, one which every OT writer yearned for. But they only got some; but we Church can get All of Him. Easiest translated verse to see this promise? Jer31:31-34. The fulfillment of it is explained in Heb8-10:17's Greek. [If you reread Hebrews a good 24 times, the first 6 times reading just to get familiar with overall epistle structure and words; then, analyzing more and more during each subsequent 'pass', you might be able to see the explanation in translation. Breathe 1Jn1:9 like crazy, and ALWAYS parse/outline any epistle. Everyone always misses the forest for the trees, when it comes to Scripture.]

This Autograph must be tested, then, á la the command about income taxes in Malachi 3:10. Genuinely preserved all these centuries, so Provable, and you are to do that. Due diligence, baby. Directly from God himself showing it to you: 24/7, as you are willing. No go-betweens. Better still, no more visions, dreams or other feely-thing to doubt afterwards, since you can always check the "Writings". So God has replaced ALL 'tongues', with those Writings, written in the 'original tongues' of Scripture itself. Which 'tongues' the Holy Spirit will ENABLE you to LEARN and really understand, yourself, COMPLETELY irrespective of human handicaps.. [Even the mentally-ill or brain-damaged people benefit from the study. Theoretically there should be some too-great handicap level, but it seems that so long as the person has an active volition (i.e., not comatose, though I'm not sure even that's a hindrance), that's enough. Obviously learning speed may be impacted, but the RELEVANT data, wow -- grasp is brilliant. Don't underestimate the power of the Spirit. IQ thus rises, too. Sometimes, dramatically. Must be a side benefit, or necessary to study.] Just as promised, from 1Cor12:31 on the "better way", as Paul puts it. Enabled, to anyone who wants it; enabled within a sane, supernatural teaching system (1Cor2, 1Cor12, Eph4). The Autograph of God Himself, in your head. The Genuine Article.

The teaching system is covered in the "Right" Pastor? link at pagetop. Gist is that the pastor is the conduit for learning, and you have to find out who is the right one for you. It's strictly a personnel-matching question (so neither institution nor denomination are relevant, nor excluded). Keyed to your LEARNING needs, no one else's. Use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's name to lead you to your right pastor. God does this usually in a witty/ironic manner, so don't close the ears. Because the pastor is a conduit, you still have no go-betweens; rather, your learning is FACILITATED, kinda like a good ventilation system. For the Spirit teaching him, is also teaching YOU, so you get the benefit of BOTH what the pastor is learning from the Spirit, and the Spirit Himself, teaching you. MUCH faster way to learn, much more provable and reliable, than study on your own. Like: zipping through space, rather than hobbling on foot.

The right pastor might solely be teaching from a translation, might know NOTHING about the Autograph, etc. But, if YOU are interested in the Autograph, then your right pastor either teaches from it already, or studies from it and teaches the results of that study. Again, this is a personalized teaching system, so only God can show you who your teacher should be, or should change to be (depending on your growth in Christ). You really can't evaluate this on your own, so depend on Him, talk with Him. You don't need human help, though you will always need a teacher. Unless, of course, you are male and have been given the pastor-teacher's gift from the Spirit. In which case, He will cause you to come to know that.

So, you don't need a translation, since you can learn the Original which Spirit Himself wrote, via those human authors. This Greatest Gift is available to ANYONE. Because He will also empower YOU to learn to read it. Since it's God's Power alone doing all the work, He's not limited by the fact you don't know the original tongues of Scripture. He's not limited by anything, except that He won't coerce your own desire to learn. Love never coerces, see. So the only limit, is how much you WANT what He so carefully preserved.

This Original is a Person, really, not mere text. Oh, for a long time in the beginning, while you 'eat' (=learn+believe+think over, Bible metaphor) Scripture it will seem like any other type of academic knowledge. But you're really learning data about how He thinks. For it's HOW a person THINKS, which makes or breaks enjoyment of his company. So the ideal way to learn the Autograph is by FIRST focusing on stuff about God, Himself. If you're learning basic stuff like salvation and the commandments, can you 'see' aspects of His Personality, Attitudes, WHY He designed/constructed, within the 'printout' of that data? Do you see the Grace, yet the Uncompromising Righteousness? OF course, at this stage words like "Grace" are.. well, still only words. Meaning comes later. But keep on SEEKING meaning, with whatever you know now. Don't just memorize or account growth by how many verses you read. Seek MEANING CONTENT, not quantity consumed.

All too often learning is made dry or rote, collecting data but never learning how to CONNECT it, which is why Christians get into silly debates over whether the God Who AUTHORED science, is compatible with it. As if the RELEVANT data for the debates, could ever be collected! So of course the young believer feels threatened by what sounds 'intelligent' and inimical to Bible study. The idea that God does miracles, is somehow shameful to admit. Never mind, that God by nature IS a miracle (never-born)! Man's objections always betray his genetic urge to FEAR God. See Gen3. We inherit the sin nature GENETICALLY. Duh, since God creates the soul individually, AFTER the body is outside, pattern of Gen2:7 (see Caveat#4 on Home page for details). So it's NORMAL to feel queasy or 'defeated' if you trust God. Stupid Energizer Bunny (old sin nature, my term for it) just has to beat the drums...

So, if INSTEAD the believer just gets into the nature of God Himself (no more fascinating Subject in the universe), the more he learns, the less it will matter HOW the Flood happened, etc. People use 'science' to justify disbelief: they create tautologies of finite measure, which of course INFINITE God will 'fail' (finity can't detect infinity, duh). But their seeming erudition won't bother you, once you know the Person through the Word: you'll realize, hey, there's an answer to all this 'science' stuff, and God knows what it is; so I don't need to find out NOW what it is. Then, AFTER you've stopped the angst, God will just spring the answer on you, lol. And He'll do it, with a GREAT deal of wit! So all that ersatz angst over what the world deems itself 'wise' to question, will become a chuckle of satisfaction. Did for me, anyway. In the OT there's this running refrain that God will answer you when you're not looking for the answer (i.e., because you trust Him). He sure lives up to that refrain!

Again, studying Scripture to see Him is the whole point FOR Scripture, since Scripture is really a Person's Thinking. His. [If Bible was about right/wrong, then its length would be about 30 pages; just the broad rules, from which you could derive the corollaries. So Bible is here for a DIFFERENT reason, 2Pet3:18.] So, the more you learn Scripture and TURN OVER THE MEANING of what you learn, the more you see the PERSON Whose Thinking, Scripture is. That's when life, starts to mean something: seeing Him. For example, this is the One Who, before He added Humanity to Himself, made a COVENANT WITH A PHALLUS. Abram's. What a sense of HUMOR! Nothing degrades Him, see. So He has no degrading thoughts about us, see. We think He is angry, or displeased with us: well, that's projection, a defense mechanism born of Adam's fall. But not the truth. All this, you know just by thinking over, WHY the Lord picked CIRCUMCISION to make a covenant!

In the Autograph, every verse is chock full of humor, irony, wordplay on so many levels you'd have to RETIRE to even write down the categories of them. So as you learn to read the text, you can't help but notice the unending Happiness of Him Who saved us. For example, in Heb5:8-9 there's a pun of two words, emathen and epathen: learning and suffering. Doesn't sound funny, but when you know about Jewish wit, you realize, is it suffering, if it's learning? (Jews PRIZE learning above all else.) So, you really DO come to know Him, as you analyze and turn over, what Scripture you learn. You ARE 'around Him' (aware of Him) in the study, and during the rest of the day; eventually, He 'surrounds' you (the REST of your awareness comes to be 'inside' your awareness of Him): because the Scripture literally runs in your head, 24/7. Not, some endless parade of quotes like chat channel nitwits post. OH NO. Snippets in various languages of Autograph or translations, concepts they illustrate, keywords, VALUES, all kinds of delightful connections, run through the mind: whether focused on some necessary or unpleasant task, or just relaxing. Prayer is conversation, not tiresome i-want listings.

It's a RELATIONSHIP, you see. So you keep on SEEING Him, through 'whatever' in your day. No woo-woo supernaturality. Because, it's a RELATIONSHIP, see. Living. Kinda hard to describe. And you get into and get the most out of that relationship, if you learn to read the Autograph. Because, all those nifty witty uses of every piece of grammar (who thought grammar would ever be FUN?), they are the real key to hermeneutical understanding, and even more, the key to how He sees things in general. Nothing too small. Infinity takes no space. Little is Big. Stuff like that. Sure, if your pastor studies in the Autograph and then gives you the RESULTS without much teaching you the Autograph, you can come to have a VERY happy relationship with the One Who Saved you. But if you want to max out the enjoyment of that Relationship, find a pastor who teaches his congregation the Autograph itself. Nothing like it. What started as a lot of seemingly-dry stuff about tenses and cases and parts of speech, became -- for this believer, anyway -- a treasure of pleasure in knowing HOW HE CRAFTS, hence HOW HE THINKS. Nothing like it. Wish I didn't have to eat or sleep.

With respect to people, learning His Thinking has this marvelous effect of RELAXING YOU. The typical Christian is uptight, á la Eph4:14, so thirsts for either agreement, or conquest. Prone to think his agreement with another benefits him or the other person, not realizing yet how agreement with God, not people, is what "unity" means. Bible to him is all about right or wrong, my-doctrine-is-better-than-your-doctrine. He judges everything, is nervous about anything, is threatened by a feather, and miserable. Spiritual childhood is like this, and the only way to break out of it is to start learning Scripture JUST TO SEE HIM. Never mind about who's unscriptural compared to you. Irrelevant question.

Just study to see Him and how He thinks and Why He thinks as He does in Bible. Just because. When that desire is born, when a person begins to study Scripture to SEE HIM, childhood recedes and finally ends. Then, happiness begins. Because Happiness is knowing Him, and all else is.. well, condimental. So you relax about people (gradual, maybe you won't notice it for some time). So now you don't NEED people so much, you don't NEED things so much, your self-image matters less. Because, you're more and more busy, looking at Him. This is Love built by those deposits of His Thinking, as promised in 1Cor13. And it spills over to other people. Relaxes them, too. Paradoxical, that by not caring for people but for study, makes the life with people better for them and you!

Now look what happens when some human CHANGES the original tongues of Scripture 'for' you, via PUBLISHED BIBLE TRANSLATIONS: you lose the Autograph, and replace it, with HEARSAY. Because, OTHERS looked at the Autograph, NOT you. Upon whom you RELY, to tell you what THEY think It means. Ahhh, so there are 'middlemen' between this Autograph God gifted, and you. So, predictably, the 1Cor13 promise in the Autograph, that His Head is to be poured into yours via the very LEARNING of the Autograph, 'disappears' in translation; never mind, that it's PAUL'S CENTRAL THESIS! Which began, back in 1Cor1:5. (1:5's PITIFUL mistranslation throws the whole letter's translation, off-kilter; since the translator MISSED THE MEANING in 1Cor1:5 (PURPOSE of the letter), he couldn't properly translate the words throughout the letter. This gaffe is common, so most mission-critical verses are messed up throughout Bible; though in defence, it must be said translating the Autograph's ASTOUNDING wordplay is impossible: too many layers. Still, come on, now: in 1:5, "Speech" there is the famous word LOGOS in the plural (it's with one of Paul's favorite buzzwords, ploutizw, very strong; to MAKE YOU FABULOUSLY WEALTHY in Word) so at LEAST should be translated "WORDS", as in "SCRIPTURE"; not mere lip movements of men. Did NO one see the VERY SPECIAL TERMS in the verse? Aaaarrrggghh.)

Thus the translation is NO LONGER God's chosen 'tongue', no longer perfect but corrupted. For, men changed it. Men, not God. So in translation, 1Cor13 is predictably anthropocentric, rather than God-centric. For in translation, 1Cor13 seems to be about some emotion called "love". But the Autograph says the opposite. For the Spirit had Paul choose the word "agape", which is NEVER used for human love; rather, ONLY for Divine Love. For God is Love, and God is Pure Thought: so His Thoughts are INNATELY Love at all times. Love is Thinking, not emotion; for emotion is housed in the body, but Deity is Infinite, non-bodied. Hence 1Cor13 focuses on how, just as Christ's Own Human Thinking was built by the Spirit, so also He will build Him in your own; and He will use this Autograph to do it. Because, IT is Christ's Thinking and hence alive (i.e., Heb4:12, 1Cor2:16, 1Cor13); because, He is Head, and you are part of His Body. That's Christ's Legacy for Church: so you CAN get His Own Thinking. Which the Spirit gradually deposits into you, as you learn Scripture. So YOU too become Love, the more Scripture of the Autograph, NOT a translation, you supernaturally accumulate under the always-unfelt Power of the Spirit. Because it's the Autograph, which is CHRIST'S OWN WORDS. Assiduously-preserved Words. Run-by-Spirit's-power-LEARNED Words. So no human handicap, matters.

So it's a SOUL TRANSFORMATION God has in mind for you (see also Rom12:1-3). But, you won't see any of this in translations. For the translation Cuts God Out as the Actor of 1Cor13. For this chapter is about Christ as Head over the Body, the climactic chapter of the entire letter. But the translation chops His Head OFF: in favor of a human emotion none comprehend!?

At least "agape" should have been translated "Divine Love", since that's the ONLY meaning of the term. Well, the WORDPLAY on Thinking=Love going into the believer is there as well. Since, "Love of God" verses in Greek always have a subjective and objective genitive 'circle', showing how His Love CREATES your own: BECAUSE His Head goes INTO yours. But, noooo, translation instead truncates all to that ever-fuzzy, "Love." Yeah, decapitating Him; wow, then call the decapitated text, 'holy writ'?!

Surely no translator did this decapitation knowingly. One handy device which causes decapitation is the insane "one-English-for-one-Greek-word" rule, which would get you shot for incompetence, in olden days. This incompetent rule is behind what publishers tout as "literal" translations, and you must follow it. (Never mind that when a Jewish guy many centuries ago used the same rule to try to discredit the LXX, the rule proved itself insane; poor guy was discredited.) So you DON'T get literal translation, you get instead, TRUNCATION. No longer literal, really, since as here, HALF THE MEANING AND ALL THE ACTOR, is missing. For "DIVINE LOVE" is the literal translation of "agape", and it's NO LONGER "agape" once you snip out, "Divine" (Greek has other words for non-divine love). So, following the insane one-word-per-word truncation rule, well, heck: cut out "Divine". THUS CHANGING THE ENTIRE MEANING OF THE TRANSLATED TEXT, so now the Head-into-head wordplay is ENTIRELY obscured. Fantastic. White becomes black, but still can call itself white.

So in one fell swoop most DIVINE LOVE verses in the Autograph, REVERSE MEANING in translation. So the translated verses by the hundreds, lie against the True Holy Writ. So when you see a command to "love the brethren" (i.e., 1Jn3:14): since you don't know that's agapaw (DIVINE LOVE, verb, so no human CAN do it), you ALSO won't know that you CANNOT love the brethren; UNTIL, His Head-of-Love is built into your own. So, you can nicely fool yourself that your warmfuzzy emotions are the love God intends, all the way to your date of death. Devastating.

1Cor13, Gospel of John, and 1Jn are used as the main highways of interpretation for what "Love" means in Bible. So to snip meaning HERE in 1Cor13, wrecks any hope of competent interpretation, anywhere else. So you'll occasionally see dippy commentaries that agapaw can actually BE done by humans, due to our position in Christ. NO. In the Autograph (but no translation) of 1Cor13 (and many other passages, adjunctively), you learn EXACTLY the MECHANIC of HOW this Love gets into you, for CHURCH believers. But until you learn it, you DON'T get into the spiritual life; but rather enter into Satan's counterfeit (works, emotion, competition). Utterly devastating. No wonder Christians are so miserable all the time.

But watch how a true expert who wouldn't follow that one-for-one rule, also decapitates. For, if the translator knows the Autograph TOO well (and many do, it's their livelihood); he'll FORGET his audience. Thus, he'll translate it "Love" also, even though he KNOWS it means Divine Love; for, he himself doesn't need elaborative English words, since he already KNOWS the Autograph. So now the READER of the translation who does NOT know the original -- virtually every Christian ever born! -- will misunderstand all "love" verses. Okay, but isn't that's what pastors are for? Yeah, if the pastors know the Autograph. But, if they don't, then pastors (and their congregations!) are misled, too.

There's a more subtle problem, too: if pastors know, they mightn't teach their congregations the real meanings of passages like 1Cor13, judging them to be 'unready'. For, if they DID teach the Head-into-head meaning here, the whole myth about Christian 'works', would instantly dissolve; angry at having slaved for so long in vain, Christians would defect in droves. Because, spirituality is ONLY this process of His Head getting into yours. Quite a political problem, then. If the pastor braves the defection, he'll turn out ok. But he'll need a LOT of Divine Guidance and Comfort, to assure himself that the hurt of all those defecting believers, is beneficial. Don't know of too many pastors, who brave defection like this. When mine did it, he lost many among his congregation, decades ago. Those since who came, were taught this doctrine up front (I was one of them), and because of it, stayed. Funny thing how seeing the Autograph skyrockets your faith and courage...

Satan must be laughing his head off. Do you notice how evil always comes from altruism? You TRY to do something GOOD. And you may even be VERY COMPETENT at it. But what happens, anyway? Evil. It's not deliberate, it's UNAVOIDABLE. It's Satan's world until the Second Advent. No getting around it; all you can do, is decide before the Lord, what should be YOUR OWN RESPONSE.

Since the translation cuts God out of "Love", you can't see 1Cor13's promise of His Thinking being poured into your own. So you don't know to GET it. So you ALSO don't know that Romans 5:5 TIES to 1Cor13 to mean His Thinking; because, Romans 5:5 shows Love being "poured"; because, water=Word all over Bible. So you won't see this promise, even when looking RIGHT AT it. Yet if someone claims it's there, if you want proof in your non-God-'tongue' TRANSLATION, well.. you won't see it. So you'll call the claimant, a heretic. What else can you do, when you don't see proof? Don't you have to be LOYAL? Yet in fact, YOU just became the heretic due to that loyalty. Loyalty to a tongue that is NOT God's. And therefore, DISloyal. Not meaning to be, of course.

Worse -- forget the name-calling -- you'll miss out on the greatest treasure of all time, the entire purpose of Bible, "Christ in you, the confidence of Glory" -- to develop in you, the COMMUNION OF HIS THINKING! But, you'll not know that. Since you don't know this promise, how can you ACCESS it? Nor will you even know HOW; so you'll never know what sharing His Thinking, is like. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke these very languages in the Autograph, and the thinking in it, is all His: a fact you could prove, a Person you can SEE, "if ye did but know". But, you won't. So, Bible will just be a rulebook. So, you'll do something ELSE. Like emote, or work, quote verses to show how much Scripture you know. But it will just be a book, to you. The Mind Behind the Words, you'll never come to see this side of Heaven. And you'll call your SUBSTITUTES, 'holy'. Cuz, you don't know any better. So you ALSO won't know what it means, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels", (water, again); so of course, you won't see what 1Cor2:16 means (His Head, again, "nous" means "thinking", verbal noun).

But, you'll never know all that from a 'tongue' which isn't God's. Because, you COULD have gotten God's Autograph, since the promise IS real: but in effect, you turned it down. So you won't GET ANY of that promise, though forever saved.. since you don't know it's available to get; you can't see the COMMANDS to get it; and if anyone TELLS you about it, you'll call that person a heretic. Because, YOU don't see it, so it's not there. Because also, when you see "know", you WON'T know WHICH "know" is referenced. So, you'll come to know, the wrong knowledge: the knowledge of emoting, works, competition. All this, simply because you chose a translation: not God's Autograph, not God's Own Authorized 'tongue'. So of course, you're not learning His language; but instead, the language of emotion, and the language of works! For, that's all you see.. in translation. So you also won't know how neither emotion nor works, are spiritual. Since all you HAVE, is a non-God-tongue 'talking' to you. So, like the tongues people of the first century, you too will be speaking a language you don't understand, but.. you'll think it's holy language.

There is a truly-peculiar belligerence among people who stick to translated Bibles. They are among the most prickly of humans. The irrationality, the bullheadedness, the stupidity and DEAFNESS are astonishing. It's real easy to empathize with anti-Christians and atheists, after sufficient exposure to these hug-translation folks.

Seems like getting this Autograph, is a pretty high-stakes thing. How did it get so bad, in translation? Short answer: no 1Jn1:9, used. So no Holy Spirit ALERTING the persons to the mistranslating. God never coerces. He never gives you what you don't want. You don't want fellowship with Him, then don't use 1Jn1:9. So: since my other websites illustrate so many translation errors, let's instead craft a PARADIGMAL translation error, which covers all types; to best explain the essential anatomy of how in 1Cor13, the Lord's Head got chopped off.

• Pretend God originally wrote the following 'verse': "Race the Maserati down the Autobahn, nightly."
• Pretend further, that you had to do this to be 'saved'.
• Now: pretend next, that the translation reads, "the vehicle moved down the path."

  Big difference, huh. Now, try to INTERPRET the translation as if you didn't KNOW the original: How do you get 'saved'? What's a "vehicle"? Will a donkey cart 'do'? What's "moved"? Fast, slow, staccato? Measured with reference to WHAT? Geologic time? Quantum mechanics? Your lapdog's walking pace? What's "path"? The footpath to your mailbox, the running path by the office, or the PATH train from Jersey to NYC?

  Notice that no matter HOW you read the translation you still wouldn't be saved, since none of the translated THOUGHT, is what God actually SAID. It WAS possible to better-translate His Thought. The Goal In Translation, as my pastor likes to remind us, "is to reproduce the exact thought of the writer" in the verse. But here, note: the only similarity between God's Thought and translation, is some kind of movement 'in' something that carries you along. But God's Thought was quite SPECIFIC. By contrast, the translation reads like a committee voted for it. A politically-sensitive committee.

  So now, look what evil this translation fosters:

  1. the Equinine Faith uses donkeys for its spiritual journeys, ambling along scenic wooded paths. So holy and pristine, not wasting the Earth's precious resources!
  2. At the opposite end, are the Churches of the Quantum Leap: their spiritual vehicles are astral-planes, zipping vertically around the universe, up-down, up-down: the 'path' of descent being their greatest and most holy achievement. "Down", you see. HUMBLE.
  3. Between them, straddles the Great Temple Mesordensis: not ambling or zipping, eschewing all extremes, all spiritual vehicles being welcome. Because the "path", is "middle order", balance between mind and body. So starts, stops. Starts again, always looking to that holy "Mezzanine".
  Naturally all three faiths are incompatible with each other: so they'll war when one of them grows too popular. Each nonetheless secure, that IT is the 'right' way to God. Sotto voce, of course.

So now, let's examine today's world, and see how the REAL Gospel gets heard via REAL Bible translations. John 3's translations all clearly tell you how to be saved: BELIEVE ONCE IN CHRIST and that's it, baby. Yet people 'monkey' with those words, and the chats are endless pil-pul-pits of speculation: are you PERMANENTLY saved? Did you REALLY believe in the first place, if you commit a shocking sin (defined subjectively, of course). Oh, and gee: what is "believe"? Do you do that with your head, your heart, your crumpled brow? LOL, it's ambiguous? Not in the Autograph, it isn't. God gives you ZERO wiggle room on interpretation: one nanosecond's faith, and you're forever rescued from Hell. Couldn't reverse that decision if you wanted to. You'd have to lie against the Autograph, to say otherwise.

Worse, for over a generation now, almost no one even uses the TRANSLATION of John 3 to evangelize; instead, folks latch onto NON-Gospel verses with DIFFERENT verbs like "invite", "repent" -- or worse, INVENT verses which aren't there, like "come into my heart", "head vs. heart" belief, and "make Christ Lord"; but ho, here's my all-time favorite, that inexcusable bastardization of Rom10:10, you must confess your faith to be saved, brother! Oh, brother. Endless TRIPE! -- but christen those, gospel. Then, trumpet them far and wide over every medium available. Yet one of the (also-many) clear how-to-be saved verses, John3:16, stays silent. Oh, you might see "John 3:16" on a placard at a NASCAR pre-race. But not its text. Heh.

It's downright petrifying! A lot of folks aren't saved, since they claim the WRONG VERBS as 'the' Gospel; millions of UNSAVED deluded 'christians', all misusing MISTRANSLATIONS! Just turn on Christian cable any day, see for yourself. Kinda important, don't you think, to get the REAL Gospel? Since one's entire FUTURE depends on it? How many people are out there today calling themselves "Christians" but ARE NOT? And of course, they don't know that. So: now you know how those "Lord, Lord" verses in Matt7, show people who THINK themselves "in", but are WAY "out". Um, cuz they never BELIEVED; it's not as though John 3 even in translation, isn't plain. What OTHER part of your anatomy besides your soul's volition, BELIEVES? Do you CUT YOUR OWN head off from the verb? Talk about heresy from hearsay!

Notice how HERDBOUND, the hearsay and the heresy. Translations are completely herdbound, rarely daring to differ from their older brethren, unless there's consensus. Never mind, that one should get God's Agreement, not man's. Notice too, how those who hawk the fake Gospel, are likewise herdbound, not even bothering to check the herdbound translations, which nevertheless DO reflect the Autograph, in John 3, Acts 16:31, Eph2:8-9, and like passages. But few look at or teach these passages, anymore. So hearsay of hearsay, no one checking the ACTUAL EVIDENCE even within the hearsay translations. So goats leading the sheep, all going panourgia-astray, loving whatever is dangerous to them.

So translation snips meaning and leaves a nice ambiguity for lots of warring sects. Satan -- "opposing attorney" in Hebrew -- knows this quite well. For in the Second Temptation of Matt4, Satan snipped out an eeentsy bit of text from Psalm 91, thereby REVERSING its import: passage said angels would protect the Lord if He fell, so Satan snipped the common-sense clause; then used it to justify, "Jump". The Lord's Humanity was SO familiar with the verse in both Hebrew and Greek (OT's two inspired flavors) He didn't fall for the ploy.

So, translations snip out OUR understanding. Translators aren't to blame. Teachers aren't to blame. NO ONE ON THIS PLANET ever gets up in the morning and says, "I think i'll abort the BIBLE today!" LOL. No one is smart enough to know how to CONSPIRE to snip Scripture, either. But Satan knows. Do you really think a translator could knowingly CHOP the Lord's Head off in 1Cor13? Poor guy wouldn't know how.

So here's another gem: Romans 5:8 always says Christ died "for" us in any English Bible known. That's not what the Autograph says. The Original says "Christ died as a SUBSTITUTE for us." Just like the Levitical sacrifices, depicted. But "SUBSTITUTE", which is inherent in the Greek preposition "huper" (the Autograph word God had Paul WRITE), is CHOPPED OFF in EVERY translation. Since "huper" occurs a LOT in Bible, that's a lot of sliced salami tactics nicely snipping away our comprehension. Heh. Satan misses no trick: the purpose of the Cross was, as noted in the Autograph's wordplay in Dan9:25-6, to 'cut a covenant'. Like, circumcision. Like, cutting OUT the cut-covenant, by a little deft snipping on "huper"'s translation.

Ok, let's look at the CHOPPED translation again: "Christ died for us". What does it mean? Did He pay PARTIALLY? Does it mean "offered for", like "for 60% off"? Hmmm. Pretty big difference: if "a substitute for", there is nothing to do. But if "for" some-percentage-off (making salvation cheaper, but not free), then.. must I do something ELSE, to get saved? Satan's not stupid. Little snip off the meaning, and the True Gospel, is.. what? EVERY English translation of ANY kind, late, new, old -- does that snipping, with respect to MANY words, not just one. So read them the wrong way, you're not saved, or lose out in some other way. On a path, not the Autobahn.

Yet Another Example: Genesis 2:25 says that they were naked and not ashamed, so they obviously KNEW they were naked. Can't be unashamed if you don't have something to decide 'shame' about. But look: EVERY translation of Gen3:11 says, "who told you that you were naked?" What? Is God a liar? Did He HIDE from them the fact? Of course not. But isn't this an (uh-oh).. CONTRADICTION? Nope. Bad translation, one which DENOUNCES God (Satan never misses a chance). And what's mistranslated? LOL, look! Hebrew verb "nagadth", mistranslated "tell", there, means "denounce"! "Who denounced you for being naked", the Lord asks Adam rhetorically. Yeah, Satan was the one who made Adam start sewing those figleaves. No nakedness in his new kingdom! See what a difference the ORIGINAL text, makes?

• Do you notice that Gen3:11's very mistranslation does EXACTLY what the REAL verb, is SUPPOSED to say? LOL, look: God gets denounced, since the proper translation SHOULD have been, "denounced"!
• We saw earlier how Christ's Substitutionary Payment on the Cross, was SUBSTITUTED OUT by removing "SUBSTITUTE", the essential meaning of the preposition "huper"!
• Before that, we saw (well, I didn't explain the exegesis) that 1Cor13, as indeed all of 1Cor, is about getting His Head into our heads: so in the Climactic Chapter where we get 'crowned' with His Head.. lol, the translation CUTS HIS HEAD OFF! So what's left is man's emotion, awwww.. herding him. And whyever not? Man led on the leash of his emotions to the slaughter, elected to chop out his REASON, so.. what's the loss of an unthinking, head? And so it goes. Ever since 1Cor13 has been in English. What a misused Chapter in Bible.

Do you see this demonstrably-satanic, precision matching of MIStranslation to the exact meaning of the original text? Well, there are hundreds of other verses just like these, so cleverly REVERSED. Some are blatant, like taking all womb verses which in the Autograph say "OUTSIDE the womb" (min preposition, means birth), and reversing them to "inside". Hence the prolife crusade is entirely based on mistranslation, too. But they aren't the only buffoons, nor are womb verses the only ones flipped backwards in meaning. My other websites provide much more data to illustrate and back up what's said, here; if you spend any time on them, you'll realize we are ALL pawns. But God will rescue us (Greek verb sozw, usu. quasi-mistranslated, "to save"). For now, though, just see how DEVASTATINGLY CLEVER Satan is. Oh, pray for anyone who works in Bible; they kill themselves trying to get it right. They -- heck, all of us -- are SO outsmarted. And don't know it. They need our prayer support, big-time!

This is pretty upsetting, huh: Bible translations so anti-God, yet innocent of intent to be that way. BUT RESCUE is available, so there's no need to bonfire our translations. Just remember that they're HEARSAY. Kinda like Windows, they CAN work, but need lots of tweaking. You get to know where Windows will crash, and you learn to work around it. Same, here: all translations are infected with a hopeless-in-Adam, anthropocentric 'spin'. So you read anything that sounds man-centered, with a jaundiced eye: all works verses, for example, largely cut the Actor out, just as happened in 1Cor13. That's one BIG reason you know it's NOT intentional, to mistranslate. So, you get a backhanded way to see how total the DEVASTATION (think not "blame", but "disease"), in Gen3. It's a way to begin to appreciate your so-great salvation. It's PROOF that when Bible says even our righteousnesses are "filthy rags" (Isa64:6, very graphic).. it's true. But take heart: we don't live here very long -- compared to FOREVER. With Him. Ten or 20 or pick-a-number years from now, you'll look back and LAUGH at the trouble down here.

But wait! Can't hearsay can be accurate? Yeah, but not 100%; worse, you don't know WHAT percent, WHERE.. and you CAN'T TEST what percent, without the Autograph. See, even a leaky pipe is 99% OK. But that itsy leak, if not caught, well... So what do you do? You learn to AUDIT your beliefs; AUDIT the translations; AUDIT most of all, the FIT of some idea or verse, with God's Nature. The God's-Nature test works REALLY well. Always 'audit' based on the Uppermost Truth: God. For the truth, will mesh. Falsehood, will only jar. Use 1Jn1:9, practice doing this, don't worry how silly you might feel. REPETITION WORKS. Practice analyzing, and do it over and over. The Holy Spirit knows what your soul needs, 24/7. It's real handy to actually USE 1Cor13 and RECOGNIZE that Chapter really is His Attitude toward you. It's HIS Thinking! God's Thinking! See? God never condemns.

Making mistakes is NORMAL, and no cause for shame. Else, we'd not need salvation. But here's what will kill ya: IT IS EVER WRONG TO CLOSE YOUR EARS. The minute you squinch those ears and eyes shut, you're shutting out the Holy Spirit, the Only One Who can RESCUE you from all this: so use 1Jn1:9, quick! See, it takes the DEPOSITING of His Thinking into you over some years, to rescue you from all the erroneous thinking, which is the NORM. So you become careful; you don't gloss over Scripture; ideally, you immediately start getting INTO the Autograph under whomever is your own God-assigned right pastor. If you are learning the Autograph, you can afford to keep the Hearsay. In fact, it becomes an ADVANTAGE, at that point, acting like a sidekick to your learning the Autograph. You'll see how, as you progress in Christ. [Basically, you'll end up INTEGRATING the Autograph with the translation. This is such a fantastic 'payback' I don't wanna give away its nature. Just keep on learning the Autograph, and over time, you'll see how Beautifully this integration plays, LIVE. That's why dreams, visions, and all that supernatural palaver is mere tinsel, by comparison. Glad He got rid of all that stuff. Perfect is here, NOW.]

But wait! Won't the Holy Spirit attest to any accurate statement in a translation? Well, yeah, if the believer isn't REJECTING Him, if the hearer uses 1Jn1:9 (not carnal). But even then, He'll NOT attest to what's INaccurate, since that would make Him a liar: so the SCOPE of His Attestation, is less than you could get from Him. More to the point, since HE preserves Perfect Bible, which took 1500 years to even MAKE, centuries of fighting to preserve, despite any number of kidnappers; if despite all this loving EFFORT by God, if YOU WON'T USE what He protected.. whose fault is that? Not His. He won't coddle, He won't lower the boom except in Love, but.. if you don't want it, you'll not get what you don't want.

So He'll nudge you to GET that Perfect Bible. You don't need to rely on my hearsay! I see it myself, so I am one witness. But you need His Witness. So use 1Jn1:9, ask Father in Son's Name what you should do here. Your life with Him is always sacrosanct. Each "Him".

But wait! Doesn't God gift pastors who DON'T learn and DON'T teach from the Autograph? Yep, He sure does. And if such a pastor is right for someone, that 'someone' needs THAT pastor, just the same. Pastors have free will just like anyone else, so not all pastors are equally 'obeying' their gifts so to learn the Autograph. On the other hand, they STILL have the gift, so are STILL kitted out for whomever 'belongs' to them (their flock, so to speak). For a sheep (believer), Meaning #2 and #3 of the "Right" Pastor? link at pagetop, focus on the NEEDS of the person and his WILLINGNESS to hear, as the criteria for God's selecting a "right" pastor for THAT person.

So, notice: everyone has a pastoral home. There's no such thing as equality-of-nature, or growth, since we are each unique and have free will. But "better" is who's better for YOU, not the shallow status standard the world pants after. A President shouldn't sweep floors, because that's not compatible with his skillset. A janitor should not determine corporate policy, since that's not compatible with his skill set. Both one and the other can change skillsets, but whatever the skillset is 'now', you use appropriately. So, if a person is UNwilling to learn the Autograph, he needs a pastor who will FIT that mindset, maybe. God knows all the variables. Which is why the pastor depends on God to provide the flock, and the flock depends on God to give them a shepard.

Ephesians 4 and passim in 1Cor and Romans, Paul gets into the issue of believer divisiveness. Eph4 is really about 'unity' with GOD, not among believers, but tangentially, it explains why believers shouldn't compete with each other. 1Cor and Romans are more about the competition problems. Children don't know how to love, but they instinctively are LOYAL. This is why so much fighting goes on in Christianity. As new spiritual species, we have a special kind of human spirit, fitted to Christ. But, it's 'empty' of spiritual function. The human spirit is a CPU through which the Spirit runs your spiritual life. The soul gets the Thinking of Christ built up IN it, even as Christ did (hence we could get His Thought in writing), but that's a VOLUNTARY process; so growth depends on lots of YESSES over a long period.

When those yes votes don't happen, the believer remains childish. So, shows more fundamentally the tragic nature of a spiritual life KITTED OUT for Christ, but without the knowledge fillup (Romans 8 explains). Hence, the ignorant believer will be pushy/pleading; capricious/flighty; flips between voracious desire for and against, knowledge; he shifts between being too agreeable, and too stubborn. He is constantly INSTABLE (Eph4:14). See? "Christian" and "Crazy" really DO begin with "c" for a REASON: Christ. For these baby characteristics evidence the Church believer's spiritual nature, a potential capacity for all-encompassing INTIMACY; but until he gets enough WORD in him to MATURE the nature, he's just a ping pong ball -- all NEED for intimacy, no SATISFACTION of it. Which, only the Word deposited in Him, can satisfy, á la Gen3's "Your STRONG INTIMATE desire shall be for your Husband". [Hebrew word means a strong desire for total intimacy, has sexual overtones, so in translations is truncated to mere "desire".]

When fully matured by Scripture ('takes a lifetime), 'pushy' becomes pour-out (love for others, due to inner happiness); 'capricious' becomes capacious (so is BIG ENOUGH to pour out); voraciousness FLIPS into a hunger to FEED OTHERS (got fed Scripture, so is RICH ENOUGH to pour out); agreeability and stubborness MELD INTO an unbreakable flexibility (underlying structural integrity, so the 'whole' stays intact under all pressure). ["Unbreakable" in that he doesn't permanently give up on the spiritual life no matter what hits him. "Evidence Testing" matures this last characteristic. Term is my pastor's: I extrapolated from what I learned from him about it, the "Thinking Series" on the Home Page. Part IVd and Part III are on the Evidence Tests.] So BETWEEN the baby stage and full maturity, you'll see both sets of characteristics, intermingle.

Why then isn't more said about this problem with translations, and more often? Well, frankly the recognition of this problem is at an all-time high in world history. Maybe it was higher in the 1800's, I can't prove that. The study-on-my-own movement began a generation ago when I was in highschool, now runs in the millions of believers: all of them DISTRUSTFUL of past bad teaching and translations. It's FASHIONABLE now to learn the Hebrew and Greek of Bible -- which STILL means God isn't the focus, sadly -- but the Autograph is more available than ever in the past. You can even get the text free on the internet. (But instead, get good software, shop around.)

POLITICS has a lot to do with what's NOT said about translation errors. Scholars have known these translation problems for centuries, and they'd be at the forefront of wanting correction. BUT! then the politico-religionists get involved, and it doesn't matter at ALL what 'sect' or 'denomination' it is. Pattern is always the same as the reason why Christ was crucified. Oh, people will lose faith in us if we don't get Him Crucified; if BIBLE translations are shown too faulty! Pick your excuse. And it's pretty valid too, because the masses get on their high-horse if THEY think the 'authorities' aren't right. So, no one IN authority, says much.

Of course, the errors aren't exactly hidden today, but the same keep-quiet attitude prevails in certain circles. Frankly, it doesn't matter if they covered everything up. People forget that authority isn't perfect, but even bad authority is better than none. So when the hoi polloi get all huffy about what authority does WRONG -- never mind, that everyone fails, lol -- it's not God they care about. They'll use His Name to justify being iconoclastic.

Of course, it IS upsetting to find out the translations are so flawed, and the believer at that moment is in a kind of crisis; he trusted, the trust seems betrayed, so how can he trust again? The shock of this discovery for me is gigantic, so I empathize with anyone else. Bear in mind, though, that these errors are but a part of a much larger picture of errors we humans all make, and the overall portrait, demonstrates the extreme success of Satan&Co.;, in exploiting both our disinterest in God, and our own sin natures. So fingerpointing is quite irrelevant. The RELEVANT lesson to learn, is God's Grace. He HAS a solution, and it HAS ALWAYS BEEN the initial DESIGN -- get the Autograph. If we don't want it, well.. we get what we do want. Which in this case, are anthropocentric translations. No way to avoid that outcome.

TRUE INTEREST in God, will want the solution, in a crisis; false interest will want to rail about the problem. God the Holy Spirit handles any such crisis for a believer who wants GOD, rather than an excuse to badmouth authority. Can't blame those in authority. If you want God, you'll just move on to the Autograph, as soon as you discover it's superior. Else, you won't, and pride yourself on how pro-God you are .. NOT!

But what about the past? People don't DO this with Scripture. Are they all EVIL or something, if they don't? Well, frankly, the Bible always went missing in the OT when Disinterest In The Word was popular among the people. So too, in the centuries since the Cross. By 200AD even people who SPOKE GREEK couldn't read the NT -- they didn't CARE to keep up on Biblical Greek! So, this phenomenon is cyclical, as interest in God ebbs and flows. So yeah, people DON'T do this with Scripture, and because they DON'T, they lose it. Like losing keys you really aren't USING, you forget where they are.

But in history there have been, here and there (about every 200 years) 'outbreaks' of interest in God in some locale or even a major geographical region of the globe. So, suddenly Scripture is 'found' again, or some tool to STUDY it better, is created. Bible isn't in verses; about 1100AD (I think) some folks in Paris decided it'd be EASIER TO STUDY, if Bible was partitioned off into chapters and verses. So, they did that. A definite prosperity period followed. Then, decline. The TRACEABLE history of how whole societies ebb and flow based on interest in Scripture is fascinating, but can't be covered, here. Key Symptom: people want to just HAVE Bibles for themselves. So, you'll find evidence like the Paris thingy, or Bibles being made easier to read, carry, use, etc. But, it never lasts. The 1800's seems to be the biggest period of interest, though maybe right now we're in an even bigger one. It won't last.

Now let's shift to the macro-historical picture, for you always interpret Bible IN CONTEXT. Until the 1800's, the Autograph has largely been inaccessible to the public. Moses didn't get to see the New Testament, but you do; first-century Christians didn't have a complete Bible until nearly the end of that century, but you do; between the first century and the 1800's, you practically had to be a monk to have access to Autograph texts. So people have been demonstrably UNINTERESTED in Bible, or God would have done then what He did in the 1800's, a Big Bible Rollout. And it's still going on!

This Rollout's importance cannot be overstressed. To read how the Bible got lost, found, trapped, freed from the elites, is an epic kidnapping drama: Bible was RESCUED from the fire, from being torn in pieces, hidden in stuffed crocodiles; one monk hid a whole text in his cell! Makes any action movie look BORING by comparison. The elites held Bibles under lock-and-key, had them deliberately made too heavy to use, lift (partly because theft was a problem); Bibles were chained to altars, you couldn't touch them -- Tregelles had to memorize what became known as Codex Vaticanus, not being allowed to take notes or EVEN TOUCH the manuscript: a Vatican aide turned the pages. If you were rich, you could get a Bible. If you were poor, you couldn't. For Bibles had to be PRETTY, see. So pretty few folks, had them.

Slowly, especially after Gutenberg, Bible ownership widened. But still, not whole sets (parts of Bible, not the whole). So usually, you had to rely on the elites, or those wonderful travelling friars and itinerant evangelists/preachers. And Oh! WRITING was completely indecipherable, even long after Gutenberg! It's TELLING when the illustrations and texts in Bible receive great pictographic attention, but um.. you can't read well what the text, SAYS. Just see the pretty pictures, the pretty letters. Never mind, the pretty letters are UNREADABLE! Never mind, what the pretty words MEAN! Those who nonetheless actually managed to LEARN Bible in those days, boy -- I want to prostrate myself before them in worshipful thanksgiving!

Even the Reformation didn't help much; monolithic religion was replaced by state religion, until the breakout of the 1800's. The 1800's was the most astonishing period of Scripture collection, analysis, and preservation I can find in history. But now, anyone can get and learn the original texts.

For every good side, there's a bad one. So note the problem: IT's AVAILABLE, this ORIGINAL God-breathed text. Copied over the centuries (people didn't have copier machines), and MANY manuscripts, so if someone made a copying error, it is detectable. And for over 150 YEARS, people have been detecting them, so we REALLY KNOW what's God's Word, and can prove it. Exactly. So: if now AVAILABLE, do we have excuse? Sure, if NOT available, that would be different. But it IS available. And with the teaching system from God Himself to ENABLE learning of it: Spirit's power, right pastor. So we don't exactly have an excuse to say no.

But look what's happening now, despite this oh-so-unusual gift of the Autograph. Original Word, God's. Translated like never before, into so many versions, many of which are so bad, you want to scream. So many translations, multiplying hearsays. So see how quickly, heresy: wrong Gospel is prevalent (so many not saved!); wrong teaching prevails (crusading on abortion, works, etc. which Bible excoriates in the original); wrong spiritual life (learning emotional highs and works, BUT NOT Word). All this, because NO translation avoids anthropocentric spinning, so God is cut out from Bible right and left. Bible becomes a fancy rulebook with some neat stories and poems, but remains basically a JUDGING tool: for measuring whether person 'a' is 'more scriptural' than person 'b'.

The trend is now a good 50 years running, and it's running alright, all over the world. Doesn't bode well. Lev26 and Deut28 come into play, more predictable than gravity, when this kind of rampant apostacy prevails in Christendom. As it is now. Despite this GORGEOUS Autograph, more available to more people in easier conditions than at any time in history. We're on the verge of something BIG. Dunno which way it will go, but it's BIG.

Hmmm. So what must GOD THINK of this lame excuse to avoid the Autograph, when there has NEVER been SO LITTLE EXCUSE? It's not as though you can hide the original manuscripts anymore. It's not as though we lack technology. It's not as though we don't have more leisure than ever. So what must happen? We will be held FAR more responsible than other generations, if we say "no" to This Gift. WE ARE RICH IN SCRIPTURE, and WE ARE SQUANDERING THE TIME.

Scullery maids in the Middle Ages couldn't get this. Yet you can bet if ANY of them wanted to know Scripture, God found a way to give it to them (maybe they read over the shoulders of their masters, who knows -- would make a great novel). Lots of people LEARNED ENGLISH or other languages, from whatever pieces of Bible they DID have. I know of an African guy who walks 30 miles, just to get a tape under his WHITE pastor. Do you know what a risk that guy is taking? It's not politic in Africa now to do this kind of thing. While we, fat, rich, happy by comparison.. have the freely-available Autograph. But we spend our time on stupid unconstitutional amendments, getting all hot and bothered over a pasty at a superbowl, whining about steroids and all other kinds of nonsense which in a MORE-DEPRIVED-OF-SCRIPTURE epoch, would never have reached the national level of debate in America. You'd think we Christians had a death wish.

Please don't misunderstand: I account myself just as guilty as anyone else! Actually, more! For unlike most people, I've had a near-perfect pastor for over 30 years, daily Bible study with exegesis in such profusion, the material takes up a whole ROOM of my dwelling!

WHAT do you THINK God THINKS of all this? How do we compare, to that guy walking 30 miles to hear exegesis from a foreigner he's never met, in a language not his own, of a Bible which even itself is NOT in English? Because, oh, THAT GUY is learning Scripture in the original languages at the same time! So that poor guy is learning at LEAST two languages, just to get a tape! And has to WALK 30 miles, then BACK 30 miles? Puts me to shame, boy. I prostrate myself before him, too...

So to what conclusions are we forced?

1. The person alleging that learning the Autograph is elitist, is a liar: since God enables anyone to LEARN it. So the Holy Spirit is not Filling him, 1Jn1:8,10. So the Holy Spirit is not teaching him, either.
2. The person who claims learning Scripture in the original is snobbish, puffed up, or TOO HARD, is also a liar: since God gifts ALL individuals to learn it THAT way ("when the perfect has come", 1Cor13).

Else, there's no need to KEEP the original manuscripts preserved all these centuries of toil. People were persecuted, tortured, chased all over Europe and the Middle East. MANY DIED to preserve these manuscripts. Read up on "Canonicity", sometime. Lots of good books at Amazon.

So if you ONLY want a translation, that's your decision before the Lord: remember you're electing HEARSAY. Which can easily lead to heresy BY IGNORANCE as was earlier noted. Worse, the translations are all politically-sensitive, and always have been. The KJV, for example, though one of the better English translations, was developed as a compromise between Protestants And Catholics, to END a long simmering war; else, no Bible translation could be made. Ever since, the two sides CAN argue about what constitutes salvation, since the translation is so fuzzy. Understand that Bibles like the KJV were used to CONTROL THE MASSES. Bible teaches freedom, and freedom is dangerous to those who need to keep power. So it's not ALL satanic spinning, which accounts for the comport-with-man slant in the translation. Are you SURE you want that kind of hearsay?

No political-correctness in the Autograph, however: Believe Once In Christ, no-added-verbs, and of course no works. Same kind of lucidity, for every other verse. Not that you can get an interpretation in seconds, because there are a BIZILLION LAYERS of meaning, so the difficulty is ARRANGING all the layers so you see ALL of the interpretation. Takes a LOT of time to do this. Hence the need for a qualified PASTOR, who should be doing NOTHING but studying, and teach maybe an hour a day. Find someone ELSE to visit the sick...

Still, Bible is CLEAR, colorful, refreshing, never-abstruse. God is NOT inscrutable, but the translations, are. So in the final analysis, just as always in history, amidst all the roiling and kidnapping of Bible, God will get as close to you, as you wanna get to Him. Your choice. And if you don't want to learn the Autograph, you're not ready to get close. Especially, during this window of history.

On a personal level, what one believes or studies and how, matters not at all vis á vis another human. It doesn't add to my life or yours, if we agree. Nor, if we disagree vehemently. No matter what we humans think, we all know that when rain clouds cover the sky, we better find umbrellas. Or, when the sun comes back out, we know to have fun or make hay while the sun shines. Well, in THIS window of history, the Son is shining like never before, so it HAS to mean, we SHOULD be getting this Autograph. Some big discipline is in store if we don't, because NO ONE IN THE PAST had Scripture so available, as we do. So the urgent tone in this webpage is due to THAT awareness, a sort of due diligence to report a historical connection I see after some four years of researching for these sites.

So, it's not a personal need. Wouldn't help me at all if someone else were as addicted to Bible as I am. I'm just glad it's not WRONG to study the Autograph, because I personally CANNOT understand the fuzzy language in the translations, though English is my native tongue (personal defect, I guess).

So if you want to learn God HIS Way.. start using 1Jn1:9, and ask God who's your OWN right pastor. God via him will TEACH you in THE ACTUAL BIBLE that He wrote, using the text itself, showing you Bible; God's, not men's doctrines. This is a PERSONNEL MATCHING: a teacher matched to a group, not institutional or denominational -- so not necessarily excluding any of them, either.

Your choice. No one can make it for you. "Right" Pastor link at pagetop has a LOT more info you can see in Scripture itself on how this Divine System works; original-language words and their much bigger meanings are roughly translated, but you can SEE HOW. So you can begin right now, to see how vast a difference the Autograph makes, in your understanding of Bible. How much greater your own confidence IN Bible and IN God, can become. [You'll be amazed at the depth, complexity, UNITY and GENIUS of the text; the astonishingly-precise meaning God has packed into the original, vs. a translation. Kinda like looking at a real sunrise or sunset, vs. a mere poster. If this exposure doesn't increase your faith and ability to see Him, then it can't be done. There is absolutely NOTHING more Gorgeous, than the REAL Word of God, the Autograph, the Thinking of Christ, the Bible, Scripture. Matt4:4!]

Added Bonus: in the original-language texts, which even a brain-damaged person can learn (it's not our brains, but the Spirit's), you will see for yourself that GOD wrote it. No doubt: no human being can play with words SO WELL as God does in His Preserved Word. Every word ties flawlessly and CLEARLY to every other word in Bible. No doubts about interpretation, no fuzziness, no uncertainty. It's not instantaneous, because -- lol -- Satan&Co.; Will cause trouble as you learn -- but with plodding, not smarts, you can get it. Two brain-damaged folks in my own church, did. Thus, fulfilling Jer31:31-34, you won't need anyone's hearsay, anymore. You will see it for YOURSELF. Yeah, you need a teacher to SPEED THE PROCESS; not, to take it over. You get taught HOW TO FISH, not merely given some sardines. Needn't take more than an hour a day. Many pastors who teach like this, have tape/MP3 ministries, and there are some in EVERY denomination, if that matters to you. So you can learn privately with more concentration, if need be.

Parting Shot: if someone LIED about you, wouldn't you find that wrong? So if people LIE against Scripture, isn't that more wrong? And if we are LAZY to study it, how 'obedient' is that? You decide. This page can only present a short summary of the problem, so YOU don't get shortchanged. Mankind has been NEGATIVE to Scripture so long, but now.. For the first time in all HISTORY we can get the Bible in the original, God-breathed text, just like Christians had (well, you get it all-at-once, they didn't) in the first century, AD. No elites to hide it so they can give you their hearsay, their dogma, their heresy, instead. Your choice before the Lord, what to do.