Crush them on a tuna sandwich or eat them right out of the bag.
I forget to find out if they are Kosher. If not, I'll use a marking pen and draw a circle with a K in it for our Messianic guests. I'll take the heat for causing a brother to stumble.
Posted on 06/14/2006 8:05:55 AM PDT by NYer
We believe in the Blessed Trinity because we believe in Jesus, Who revealed the Trinity. God had prepared the Jews not only to welcome the Messiah, but to recognize through revelation what philosophers like Aristotle achieved through reason: that there is a God and there can only be one God.
Moses said to the Jews, “Acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other but to believe in God Who is the only God.” When the Messiah finally came, He revealed a huge mystery that went far beyond what the Jews were expecting: that the one God in Whom they believe is not solitary, but a unity, a communion of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Messiah is the Son.
He told them explicitly that the Father and He are one (Jn 10:30). He told them that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26, Jn 15:26). And when He sent them out to baptize in the name of God, He didn’t give them instructions to baptize in the “names” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — as if they were three different gods — but in the “name,” for they are fundamentally a union of three persons. This is what the term Trinity means. It was devised by the early Church apologist Tertullian around the year 200 from the Latin words “unitas” and “trinus,” literally “unity” and “three.” It signifies that there is a unity of three persons in one God.
Since the beginning of the Church, theologians have spent their lives trying to penetrate this mystery and explain it to others. St. Patrick used the image of a three-leaf clover. St. Augustine used the image of the mind, with memory, reason and will. More recent minds have used the image of H20, which can exist as ice, water, or steam. But none of these analogies — though interesting and somewhat helpful — do justice to the reality of the mystery of how three persons can exist in the one God.
When St. Augustine was in the middle of his voluminous and classic study of the Blessed Trinity, he took a walk along the beach in northern Africa to try to clear his head and pray. He saw a young girl repeatedly filling a scallop shell with sea water and emptying it into a hole she had dug in the sand. “What are you doing?” Augustine tenderly asked. “I'm trying to empty the sea into this hole,” the child replied. “How do you think that with a little shell,” Augustine retorted, “you can possibly empty this immense ocean into a tiny hole?” The little girl countered, “And how do you, with your small head, think you can comprehend the immensity of God?” As soon as the girl said this, she disappeared, convincing Augustine that she had been an angel sent to teach him an important lesson: No matter how gifted God had made him, he would never be able to comprehend fully the mystery of the Trinity.
This, of course, does not mean we cannot understand anything. If we want to get to the heart of the mystery of the Trinity, we can turn to the most theological of the Apostles, who meditated deeply on all that Jesus had revealed and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said simply and synthetically, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16). For God to be love, He has to love someone. None of us can love in a vacuum; there must always be an object of our love. Who is the object of God’s love? It cannot be man, or the created world, or the universe, because all of these existed in time and God is eternal and therefore existed before time.
It’s also impossible to say that God merely loved Himself in a solitary way, because this would not really be love but a form of egotism and narcissism. For God to be love, there needed to be an eternal relationship of love, with one who loves, one who is loved, and the love that unites them. This is what exists in the Blessed Trinity: The Father loved His image, the Son, so much that their mutual and eternal love “spirated” or “generated” the Holy Spirit. They exist in a communion of love. The three persons of the Blessed Trinity are united in absolutely everything except, as the early Church councils said, their “relations of origin,” what it means to be Father, what it means to be Son of the Father, and what it means to proceed from the Father and the Son.
These theological insights about the blessed Trinity may seem theoretical, but they become highly practical when we reflect on the fact that we have been made in the image and likeness of God and called to communion with God. To be in the image and likeness of God means to be created in the image and likeness of a communion of persons in love. Our belief in the Trinity — the central teaching of the Catholic faith — has given the Church the deepest understanding available to human beings of the nature of man, the meaning of human life, and what it means to love.
They are salvifically MEANINGLESS.
There are cultural, liturgical, and wholistic reasons why some might engage in them.
Jewish Christians, for example, shouldn't be required to eat pork. That's not what you're saying, are you?
I believe that you will find that for both XeniaST and Buggman, they do not require others to follow their path, but they believe they have been called to that path for themselves.
Quite frankly Jewish Dietary laws are a way to preserve the Temple of the Lord. Char Broiled Angus Bacon Cheeseburgers, while undoubtedly the most wonderful food ever devised by man, if taken in high dosages can shorten your life and in that sense defile the Temple of God.
Personally I have been called to eat bacon. My Messianic Brothers probably know what they are missing so their sacrifice is great. We should honor it instead of ridiculing it. However, if they should happen come to my house for a barbeque, they will be tempted. I will make sure of that.
I don't eat pork Mr. Marlowe, and now I read where Montsanto is looking to patent the pig for its exclusive use. I really worry what they are doing to that poor pig.
Since they aren't gonna eat those ribs, you might as well invite me, Corin, and DrE.
I'm thinking some fresh corn on the cob would be real nice too.
What's the date?
Ohh....
and while I'm thinkin' of it
I prefer the sauce to have a bit of a bit to it.
:>)
Ohh....
and while I'm thinkin' of it (Again)
I prefer the sauce to have a bit of a BITE to it.
:>)
That is why God invented Habanero Chilies. (Tabasco Sauce is for sissies).
I appreciate your sacrifice. That means more for me.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to turn the Italian sausage over.
Habaneros BOTH cure altzheimers and cause it.
Depends on where you're at beforehand.
:>)
Crush them on a tuna sandwich or eat them right out of the bag.
I forget to find out if they are Kosher. If not, I'll use a marking pen and draw a circle with a K in it for our Messianic guests. I'll take the heat for causing a brother to stumble.
Now that's an indulgence I can buy.
We'll build St Peter's Cathedral anew.
This is a phrase that drives me crazy-it always has as a Protestant. (And it's a short drive these days.) How do you know precisely one is called to this path? I believe somewhere on another post there were some nuns who felt "called" to be priests even though the Church forbids it.
People use this phrase all the time to justify their actions. Truth is that no one really knows what is the best choice outside of what is written in God's word. If God says "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.", then it's difficult to argue with that. Sure someone might wish to give up pork, but why not sugar? Wouldn't it amount to the same thing?
Let's get a bit more of the quote in there.
Do you eat roaches? termites? centipedes?
Why or why not?
But...if some New Guinea convert to Christianity does, then more power to him. I still ain't gonna.
:>)
I'm no holier for not eating, and he's no holier for eating.
The reason Jesus did not give the responsibility of the care of his mother to his siblings was his estrangement of them. Instead he gave this responsibility to John, his cousin. His siblings were not even present at the crucifixion.
His own brothers attempt to get him killed in John 7:1-12. They knew the Jews were waiting for him, encouraged him to go anyway....but then left without him. He, using subterfuge, goes incognito later. Do you not actually think these are brothers. If you believe they are just followers, and not flesh and blood, you are greatly mistaken. Followers would not act this way.
Jesus was a constant thorn in their side. They call him crazy in Mark 3:20-21. He publicly rebukes them in Mark 3:31-35. The reason for all of this was "they did not believe in him".
Later on, James of course, after the resurrection becomes a leader in the early Church. [Acts 15:19] [Galatians 1:19]
Hegesippus If you can read this and not come away believing that James and Judas are flesh and blood then you should read it once more.
If that doesn't do it for you try this.
The fact that he had flesh and blood sibling flies in the face of mainstream Christianity doctrine. The doctrine is wrong.
The Bible uses the Greek word “adelphos” which means brother, and doesn't use any other word to specify cousins or any other relatives of Jesus. By the way, Plato also used “adelphos” when he meant "kindred or relatives."
Also, keep in mind, the Bible mentions the existence of 3 women named Mary.
Mary, mother of Jesus.
Mary Magdalene
Mary, the wife of Cloplas and mother of James (Jesus' cousin) the one you think is his brother. She also had two other children, Joseph and Salome.
Virgin Mary's sister Joanne, Jesus' Aunt, was the mother of James and John (son's of Zebedee.)
In those days, and even in our days, many of us Christians call ourselves “brothers” and “sisters.”
Acts 2:14. But Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke to them: Ye men of Judea, and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you and with your ears receive my words. Link
Acts 1:15. In those days Peter rising up in the midst of the brethren, said (now the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty) Link
By your logic, Mary had 120 children at the time.
The term "Brethren of Jesus" was the term used at the time.
Act 11:26, And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Link
As the Bible indicates, the term Christian was used first at Antioch and not before.
Mark 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; Link
And the father wasn't the Virgin Mary's husband, but Clopas who was the husband of the other Mary as in Mary of Cloplas (Alphaeus.) Mary of Cloplas as I mentioned above had 2 sons, James and Joseph:
Mark 3:18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite. Link
You can see for yourself in Mat 27:56: Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children. Link
Cloplas (Alphaeus) had other children as well - Jude and Simon were Jesus' cousins not brothers, and their mother was Virgin Mary's sister:
Act 1:13: And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James [the son] of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas [the brother] of James. Link
In Jude 1, Jude Introduced himself as the brother of James, who we know by now was the child of Mary Clopas:
Jude 1: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ” Link
Jesus' disciples and believers were called brothers and sisters:
Mark 3:35 Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother. Link
Considering that the Virgin Mary is Mother of millions, I should also emphasize that we are not her flesh and blood children, but spiritual ones.
Wow, thanks for that interesting analysis! I always wanted to take more bible study. I had 4 years of theology in high school but that was it! And I forgot most of it! :-)
You're welcome.
The doctrine of perpetual virginity is not scriptural....it is a false doctrine perpetuated by ignorant clergy with no regard for the truth. It is of no use to your salvation....it is meaningless.
Psalm 69:8-9 tells us that Mary did indeed have other children. Why this is so hard for you folks to understand is beyond me.
The disciples remember that this was written of The Lord.
Jesus "did" become an alien to Mary's other children; James, Joses, Judas, Simon and at least two sisters that we know of [Mark 6:3]. Like I said in my previous post....they did not believe in him, hated him, and tried to get him killed [John 7:1-13].
The Bible uses the Greek word “adelphos” which means brother, and doesn't use any other word to specify cousins
Colossians 4:10 The Greek word is Anepsios and is used here. If The Holy Spirit wanted us to believe that our Saviour had no flesh and blood siblings the inspired word would have been Anepsios (cousins) as Mark and Barnabas are herein described. I know that this is what your organization wants us to believe about Jesus and his siblings. It doesn't wash.
Here is another view. The Holy Spirit inspired the difference between Adelphos and Anepsios.
Plato also used “adelphos” when he meant "kindred or relatives."
I normally don't turn to Plato for my scripture. Plato also taught the foolishness of soul immortality if I'm not mistaken.
*chuckle* Years ago, before I became Messianic, I was having dinner with a vegetarian Christian and a Muslim, both of whom are good friends. I suggested that since in Rom. 14 Paul suggests that he who eats meat is of stronger faith than he who does not, I was dillegently working to prove that I had the greatest faith of all by coming up with a food that would break every kosher law at the same time.
Their looks of horror were well worth the terrible exegesis.
and...
And certainly one of the greatest testimonies to the fact of the Trinity are Christ's words Himself...
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" -- Matthew 28:19
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