Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
"Hey people, The only reason you're feeling bad about losing your child is that you don't think properly. After all, Scripture says, '... as he thinketh in his heart, so he is.' So chin up. Your suffering at the loss of your child is just faithlessness."
Surely you would agree that a persons world-view would effect (to some degree at least) their suffering?
In the cold hard light of day,suffering (as in..."we do not despair as those who have no hope)at the loss of a child is faithlessness.
God is transforming us by the renewing of our minds so that we are able to stand in any circumstance.
God bless
Certainly I would agree. Someone once said he rejoiced in his sufferings (Col 1:24). It is important to me that he didn't say he wasn't suffering.
But the counter-thesis posed against mine was that suffering was the of having the wrong attitude, more or less, something like that. It was against that that I will argue vigorously. A 16 month old infant is terrified at the repeated jabs in the gut of a bout of myoclonic seizures and the parents are aching for her fear and their own? I dare you to tell the three of them it's because they thought life was painful, that their daughter's brain is in peril.
IT: According to the Bible, there were temple musicians as well as a temple choir. Where did you get your information?
Irish, every word I write is there for a reason...it says in the liturgy. Of course, to a Reformed Protestant a liturgy means nothing and a temple is like a "church," right? No, it isn't. The liturgy was and is done in the synogogues and churches. The temple was for sacrifical rituals. The Jewish sacrificial rituals were accompanied by musical instruments, as the public looked on. In this regard, Judaism was just like another pagan religion. It was a show. And it was precisely because of the association of instruments wiht pagan worship that the early Church censored the use of muscial instruments. The earliest documents about this come from around mid seocnd century.
But while the Church is like a synagogue, is also like a temple (for Christ's bloodless sacrifice). Christian liturguical hymnology is a direct derivative of the synagogal chants. But the sacrificial offering of the Eucharist is temple-like. In order to assure that the Divine Liturgy or Mass is never confused with pagan practices, the early Church disavowed instrumental music.
The early Western Church developed beautiful hymnology better known as Gregorian chants. In the East there is equally rich hymnology that is used to this day at every Divine Liturgy.
As far as your sentences, when I see the word choir, I never think of anything other than voices. When I see the word orchestra, then I think of instruments. You had two sentences one saying choir, one saying instruments. Two completely different subjects. No straw man at all.
Irish, there are choral ensenbles, Beethoven's ninth symphony (symphonies=no singining) is called choral because there is a choir as well as insturmental music. Protestant music is instrumentla and choral. It didn't used to be in the early Presbyterian assemblies because in those days even the Protestants knew that instrumental music (which the Catholic intorduced porobably under Frankish converts' influence) was a corruption of the original church liturgucal practice (and Presbyterians consider themsleves liturgical Christians as far as I know).
Dante? MD, I asked to show me where does one find that in scriptures.
So, you use every word specifically for a reason. So the next time I see you use CHOIR, I won’t think of a bunch of people singing, I will think of a choral session with voices and instruments. Choir never means singers. OK, I think I got it.
Now, what makes you think the Jews were pagans? Or did you mean by pagan, worshippers of God? Because that was what they were. God worshippers. Doing EXACTLY as God prescribed to them. God told them how to worship, they complied exactly as they could, and because they don’t worship as you do, they are pagans. And yes, they used musical instruments in their worship.
Kosta: We are in agreement on this, Irish. I am not sure your Reformed friends here are, but the Orthodox and Catholic most certainly are.***
Irish: I am absolutely positive that most, if not all, of my reformed friends agree.
I certainly agree. The comeback is always that the Reformed do not believe in free will. But you and I know that that is only from a certain perspective. What I have found is that our friends cannot or will not accept the idea that free will and God's total sovereignty (control) can exist at the same time. To them, either man is in control of everything to do with himself or God is in control and creates evil. We know that neither of those is true. God is in full control AND man has a measure of free will, depending, as you laid out.
There are some people who are just pretty darn "lucky," Irish and really have no more but an occasional ripple in their lives. Then there are those unfortunate souls who have had one bad day after a other ever since they were born. The rest of us fall somewhere inbetween.
But there is a difference between being tested and being tested! Being locked up in a basement since you can remember (as we read in some criminal cases), or starved, or beaten, or abused, and being some spoiled brat who didn't get his way is like night and day.
And then some people who undergo unpheavals, just like some who get drunk, actually become anything but saintly.
For if it were true that those who suffer the most are also those who are sanctified the most, then the world would be made up mostly of people with haloes aroubd their heads so to say. Crime would be nonexistent in poor nehborhoods. And true love and godliness would reign among such people. But in reality where there is poverty and suffering there is also little grace and transformation.
It is always those who are rather well off and who carry a lot of weight (figuratively speaking) who seem to feel they have been sanctified and blessed. Life's good after all, for the rich and famous especially.
The story in +Luke about the rich man and a poor man Lazarus reminds us that after death the injustice is reversed. Yeah, try walking on walter first.
I certainly hope you mean WATER, as I don't think Walter would appreciate being walked on :>) You really should read the sermon I posted on my blog (see my tag line) about Peter walking on water :>)
Thanks. thanks.
If it weren't for this large font, I'd probably quote the entire chapter 11 of Hebrews which is a testimony of faith. Quite a few are named (Abraham, Moses, etc.) as receiving miracles upon standing by faith in the face of great challenges.
At the end, though, I find the phrase emphasized below most telling as it is applied to those who were not named, who stood in faith and mostly were not spared:
Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of [cruel] mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and [in] mountains, and [in] dens and caves of the earth.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he... - Proverbs 23:7
Thank you brother, for all of your kind words. Although I was somewhat under the weather, our Easter was joyous indeed. I am so glad it was for you and yours too. I love to hear singing on Easter. :)
The Pope is the servant of the servants of God. I do not belong to him either. More backwards possessive?
Nice words, but would you compare the Pope being a servant to Jesus being a servant? You obviously know where I'm going with this. :) On earth, the Pope wields the power of a king.
FK: ***I also note that many Catholics refer to Our Mother in a theological sense. ***
Its only Scriptural - Our Lord giving us to Mary from the Cross. Theological nonsense, I suppose.
So, when Jesus spoke to John "Behold thy mother", He was speaking to all Christians, but when Christ gave the Great Commission He was only speaking to the Apostles and their successors? :)
FK: ...... However, under the normal course the Spirit will convert a heart and then see to it that the person HEARS the word and then believes. In either case, no works of men are done or needed, and God gets all the credit.***
The normal course? Sees to it that the person hears the word and believes? No works of men are done or needed?
All I mean by "normal course" is to exclude exceptions like abortion victims, etc. For every elect who reaches the age of reason I stand by my statement. And yes, the Holy Spirit loves His children and ushers them along to belief. Because of His love no chances are taken, else God's will is thwarted. He chose us first.
FK: ***Yes, to the extent they did not accept Him that was a part of Gods plan. God alone chooses who are to be His. In addition, I dont think that every last man of Israel was lost, but it does seem clear that many were.***
How do you know it was Gods plan? We have every evidence that He tried sincerely to get Israel to accept Him. And failed.
Because our God is not exceptionally weak. He is omnipotent and gets everything He truly wants. If you believe that God fails, then what possible confidence can you have in any of His promises? What if He fails to keep them? Is that a chance that your side just lives with every day?
If you read the NT, it is our deeds that are judged. God decides who are the goats and the sheep based upon what we have done or not done. Once we have received the Grace of God, like the parable of the talents, it is up to us what we do with it.
Apostolics always bristle when I say that I think your salvation paradigm is merit-based, by points. Yet, we know that the parable of the talents is totally based on points. Will you now say that your salvation is also based on points earned, as you appear to say above?
It depends. Conservatism is for smaller government, less taxes, and the promotion of the freedom of the individual to make as much of himself in a capitalistic economy as he can without unnecessary government interference. Liberalism is all about stopping all those things. Conservatism rewards those who work hard, and liberalism penalizes them. Conservatism is the champion of true economic freedom. Do you disagree?
On a social level, I can see where you are coming from. Conservatives do want laws against murdering innocent babies, gay marriage, child pornography, and the like, so technically that would be "less" freedom.
Well, there's the rub. On ALL matters of faith and morals, my understanding is that the Catholic view is that the ONLY ones fit are the "larger and more complex organization". On anything we discuss around here, like going to Heaven or hell, isn't that pretty much everything? :)
You're right of course.
I suppose I'm reffering more to how the suffering is taken,how it is seen,how it is accepted and how it's dealt with..."more or less, something like that" 8-)
You did give me recently a couple of examples where the clergyman was not explicitly followed. However, when decrees from the Vatican are handed down, what is a body supposed to do if he disagrees? I'm not aware that there is the option to say "no". It might be ignored anyway, but that's not the way it is supposed to work. For example, in my church any big-deal change, and most small-deal changes have to be voted on by the membership.
I really don't mean to blow this out of proportion, since it is not a hobby-horse of mine. I am looking at our respective religious governments comparatively, and I see one as being more centralized with a consolidation of supreme power, and the other as being locally autonomous. From there we have been drawing political comparisons to world governments and political ideologies.
Uh oh.
But, of course, I remained serene, with my accustomed equanimididdy for which I am so justly famous.
Yeah. It's a matter of parsing, which used to be a good thing until BJ Clintoon. All the sorrow and grief I saw, not only from patients and their parents but from an admirable, very dedicated, and loving hospital staff (pediatric people never seem to forget that people need love to get well) is suffering. I would say all were tempted to despair. Some were delivered and protected from succumbing to that temptation by grace operating through their trust in the Lord who swapped a Son for a slave and who turns evil into good. Others, not so much.
I like walking on Walter. I’m sticking with that. (Never did like that Cronkite feller ....) And when I’m done with that, I’m gonna walk on Rather some.
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