Conclusion from Peru and Mexico

ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.

My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.

I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.

It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.

I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.

Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."

That's pathetic, A-G.

and

What you sow if what you reap.

It is truly sad when man judges man - because he will indeed be judged exactly the same way. Judging is self-indicting.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. - Matthew 7:1-2

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. - Romans 2:1

And even if there is cause for offense, the one who judges - who harbors the resentment - is cut-off as long as he refuses to forgive.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. - Matthew 6:12

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. - Matthew 6:14-15

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them]. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. - Mark 11:24-26

But what's "pathetic" in my view is man - any man - judging God.

The error of man's judging God by his own rules of logic (e.g. either/or, the Law of the Excluded Middle) was the point of my post 4598 and the "sermon" at 4633.

In the passage, John 21:15-19, Christ reveals both predestiny and free will to Peter. On the one hand, "signifying by what death he should glorify God" and on the other, "lovest thou me more than these?" and "Feed my lambs."

The Book of Job makes the same point, the error of judging God, as summed up here:

Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every [thing], and [that] no thought can be withholden from thee.

Who [is] he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes. - Job 42:1-6

Likewise the parable in Matthew 20 sums up the error in resenting God's will for us which, in the context of this discussion, would be resenting predestination:

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? - Matthew 20:15

Man is not the measure of God.

For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9

To God be the glory!

Pope Pipus:

Man! You gotta flesh some o' this stuff out.

(Hostile way to put it: If you want to draw fire, you have to stay out of cover long enough for us to think we might have a shot.)

(Friendly way to put it: Boy? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout?)

My personal theory about ecclesia is that, yeah, as you say, it parses out to "Called out". The root verb is Kaleo. I don't know what other verbs the LXX translators had available, but they must have been aware of the similarity between kaleo and qahal.

And, en passant, I have always taken pleasure in the name some of the brethren use for themselves, "The Assembly of God", since it is so close to Qahal Adonai (Where Adonai is a reverential periphrasis for, well, you know.)

But I was left adrift by the Sabbath and the "Summary of the Law" remarks. I'd appreciate it if you'd say a little more there.

Go ahead, draw my fire. I'm such a crappy marksman I'll probably miss anyway.

While I wait, I'll work on trying to firm up my thinking on the dialectic of inclusion and solitude, of "called out" and "called together", and see if I can say something coherent.

Try this:

The phrase "exists first", viewed etymologically, has an internal contradiction.

Though English is a remarkable rich and supple language, sometimes we get tripped up by our poverty of words. The best example is "love" where the nice distinctions of storge, philia, eros, and agape would be handy.

But I am thinking here of the differences between "esse" and "stare" which endure into contemporary Spanish and Italian. Soy estupido - I am stupid, and that cannot be fixed. Estoy cansado, I am tired, right now, but a nap will take care of it. "Come stai?" we say to our Italian homies, "How do you stand"? French would depersonalize it with a verb of motion, "Comment ÃƒÂ§a va?"— How goes it? English goes an entirely different way and incorporates an action verb with, "How ya doin'?" or the interestingly redundant, "How do you do?"

But I digress - and what else is new?

Existo = ek+sisto and incorporates the "stand" verb and the preposition (hosepipe's favorite) "out from". The first whatchamcallit can't "stand out" because there is nothing from which to stand out, no background. It would have to be the second whatchamacallit OR background and foreground would have to, what, "arise" (let's say) simultaneously. That's the internal contradiction I asserted in my second paragraph.

This may seem a kind of philosophical techno-babble — heck it may BE a philosophical techno-babble! — but when we approach the subject (heads up: subject = cast under, interestingly different from hypostasis = stands under) of "being" and "existence" we have to proceed carefully, with the nicest tools we have in our armamentarium.

My point, and I do have one, is that "exist" suggests a background "out from" which an existent "stands". "Be" does not.

One could say, if my distinction is granted, that to say "God exists" could imply a kind of ontological Manicheanism, a dualism of God and "background", and so it fails the monotheism test.

... God Â“definesÃƒÂ‚” existence."

God is kind of like "background" rather than something which stands out from the background. And the way to rescue that from dualism is to say the "foreground" is the existents, the creatures.

I understand at least part of the excellence of Calvinism (and I think, despite his grievous IMHO errors, Calvin has some excellences) to be his emphasis on the radical otherness of God. The flip I put on that, with my innerleckshual background and sloppy Platonism, is to say that God is radically "same" and creatures are "other", but the point is the "difference".

Since we have called "being" and "existing" words before the dock, we have no words with which to examine them. but whatever it is that God does, we can count on His doing it so very differently from the way anything else does anything, that we must be careful if we want to attribute either being or existence to Him in the same way we attribute either to creatures.

Wow, this is good coffee!

Two quibbles:

For my money, YES Job points out the error, the self-contradiction of judging God. Somebody said trying to prove the existence of God is like lighting a torch to see the sun. Same goes fro judging Him.

BUT the good news in Job is that Job lowered his head and ran as hard as he could into that stone wall, and God had mercy on Him. Just as repentance is not a burden but a joyful gift from God, Job's comeuppance is wonderful evidence of the mercy that endures for ever.

And I want to add to the glorious "my ways are not your ways" passage, the particular, but not the only, difference, the one God goes into at some length: His word is like rain and snow which water the earth, bringing forth seed for sowing and bread for eating. Our words dissipate into the general frowst of entropy. His word makes things happen.

I walk into a dark room (I really do do this a lot, I enjoy rejoicing in my not being God, especially if I can be silly while doing so) and say "Let there be light!" Nothing happens. So I say,"Drat! It didn't work," and walk over to the light switch. But when God says, "let there be light," well, you'd better have your Oakley's handy.

Introductory Blather:

I am assuming that you are thinking of a person who has no affect of "remorse". If one is a real live sho'' 'nuff psychopath, I think we have to consign that one to the mercy of God. Some organic thing went haywire or some traumata of early life really trashed the internal economy. And only God can amend it.

There's another disorder in the affective side of what we call "conscience" and that is the problem of feeling remorse when one has done nothing wrong. Some soldiers feel remorse, as do some parents, when in both cases they have done what is right but cause some kind of suffering to others.

I answer that
conscience, rightly so called, is the "practical reason" informed by the generally innate apprehension of moral law, natural law as applied to human type personnel.

Remorseful or satisfied affect is distinct from synderesis, I suggest. In this understanding, conscience does not spring full-grown from the infant brow, but is developed and enhanced, strengthened by the pursuit and practice of virtue, weakened by vice, and wonderfully informed not only by special revelation (who knew that two wives was one too many?) and by God's acting in the individual (come to think of it, I don't even WANT two wives -- one is quite enough!)

So saying "follow your conscience" is not saying, "If it feels right, it can't be wrong." HECK no! That is what we scholastics refer to as "the Country Music Heresy", and it leads to honky-tonks where the Pearl longnecks trash the affective and discriminative functions, and then to waking up in the beds of strangers.

So I wonder sometimes if one couldn't, assisted by grace and the careful but firm application of a two-by-four to the head, get a psychopath to (a)commit himself to Christ, and (b) work out in his head what right actions probably are, and (c) resign himself to acting w/o the encouragement and guidance of affect.

But for the rest of us, conscience must be developed by thinking, study, and the practice of virtues, and most of all by God's grace, besought in prayer and sacrament.

How'd I do?

[ But I was left adrift by the Sabbath and the "Summary of the Law" remarks. I'd appreciate it if you'd say a little more there. ]

Scripture teaches that "the Law" is a teacher.. What does it teach?.. That "you" cannot follow the law.. especially Moses law.. For when you break one law you have broken them all.. i.e. where does it stop?.. Where does following the law stop?.. The answer is never it never stops.. the law is relentless.. it dogs your steps to the end and past the end.. NOBODY can follow the law exactly.. THAT IS what it teaches..

What then?.. Grace is required.. Forgiveness is required at some point.. How can forgiveness and the law exist together?.. By Love.. Love is the unifying factor..

Love the lord your God with everything in you, and love your neighbor as yourself.. Thats what the law SHOULD teach.. Many get bogged in between the law, forgiveness and love.. Jesus made it simple.. to those THAT learned the lessons the law teaches.. To those that didn't learn.. well their confusion will drive them nutz.. Probably in a sheep pen with others just as crazy.. You know an asylum..

It is truly sad when man judges man - because he will indeed be judged exactly the same way. Judging is self-indicting. Matthew 7:1-2...Romans 2:1

Funny, but not surprising, that you chose to ignore the following verses:

you are to judge your neighbor fairly. [Lev 2:15]
judge with righteous judgment [John 7:24]
The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment [1 Cor 2:15]
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you. [1 Cor 5:12-13]
do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? [1 Cor 6:2]

And even if there is cause for offense, the one who judges - who harbors the resentment - is cut-off as long as he refuses to forgive.

Who said there is no forgiveness? But forgiveness comes with repentance. There is no free lunch.

But what's "pathetic" in my view is man - any man - judging God.

Who is judging God? Me?

The error of man's judging God by his own rules of logic (e.g. either/or, the Law of the Excluded Middle) was the point of my post 4598 and the "sermon" at 4633.

The error of man's judgment is for some to presume that they are God's mouthpiece and to posit that anything that opposes their opinion or belief is judging God. As for the Law of Excluded Middle, the middle must be provable and real to show that the either/or choices are a false dilemma. The problem is proving that the third choice is real and rational. And those who peddle divine spokesmanship cannot prove anything unless one already believes in the third option as real.

You are telling me that predestination and free will can "co-exist" but you do not show how that is possible or even real. I take it that your definitions of predestination and free will are vastly different from standard definitions, in which case please define them.

To me a predestined world is a divine theater where different actors act out specific roles in order for the heavenly play to come to a predetermined, scripted end. The actors are not at all at any liberty to change the script or their assigned characters, even though they may wish it. There is no room for any free will on that stage.

Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every [thing], and [that] no thought can be withholden from thee.

The Bible states that many things are hidden from God. Go figure.

Likewise the parable in Matthew 20 sums up the error in resenting God's will for us

Some people do blame and hate God for everything. That's unfortunate. Christians believe that God is Love and His will is desire, a desire that all mankind is saved. Love doesn't impose; love only desires.

Man is not the measure of God...For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts...Isa 55:8-9

Yeah, and the good Apostle tells us "But we have the mind of Christ" [1 Cor 2:16]...as usual.

I complain about the word "dimension" because it has a meaning (darned if I can say what it is -- but that "mens" sure sounds like "measure" to me, which sure sounds like it has "extent").

I would say there are "measures" and "extents" that we know about today that were incomprehensible to those of 500 years ago. The same will be true 500 years from now. Many scientists today consider time itself to be a "dimension". I couldn't begin to tell you "where" time is. :)

I think by your measureless dimension you are headed in the same direction as we are with our non-existent being. But, of course, we're right an you're not, nyah.

OK, OK, I give, I give. A good lawyer knows when he's beat. :)

MD, there is nothing innate in human beings. If you allow your child to grow in the back yard, on a leash, feed him like, give him enough water to survive, and never talk to him, he will not be human (as in "raised human") when he reaches the "age of reason," although genetically he had the potential to become one. But in this case, he will neither speak, not read, nor have social graces. He will act like a beast that we are in our nature.

In rare instances where children somehow survived in the wild, they never became fully integrated into the civilized society. What I am trying to say is: neither conscience nor synderesis, nor anything we associate with morality is innate in us. We only have a capacity for it and even that capacity is a limited window of opportunity.

What we are is what we have learned in life. We are domesticated beasts capable of being transformed into saints. This is where God's power is really evident in my opinion. It is a true transfiguration, and it is not "natural."

Yes, even a drug addict can be called to priesthood, and the lion can be next to a lamb, as the Desert Fathers remind us. The whole creation is restored under grace. But pride and arrogance stand in the way, beginning first and foremost with me.

FK: "I suppose I am postulating that there is a real difference between change/motion and "something happening"."

Think about it real hard -- not that you haven't, but harder still, please. How is "happening" thought of without change? Isn't it that something "was"n't there and "now" it is, or it "was" this way and "now" it's that way.

I can't be absolutely certain of how it works, but I think of verses like this:

John 17:23 : 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

When did the Father START loving the Son? No start time, right? That means that for eternity the Father has loved the Son, and the three Persons of the Trinity have loved for eternity. Is love static, or does it mean something is "happening"? I would say the latter. The love within the Trinity has never changed, but has always been "happening".

Jesus says "even as" which says to me He is making some kind of comparison about which we can have "some" understanding, though pitiably incomplete. For us, love is definitely not static, it is surely a "happening".

MD, there is nothing innate in human beings.

No Asberger's autism? No neurological defects or anomalies? No retardation? No learning disabilities?

And if we see this innate things, can we not imagine that for some the wiring is so messed up that the normal affect related to the "remorse' might be messed up?

A typical question in the psych work-up of a special needs infant or toddler is whether he responds to the approval or disapproval of his parents.

I recommend "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" as an provocative book on the exogenous and endogenous variations in human consciousness.

(I'm assuming your post is in response to what I wrote about psychopaths and conscience?)

So you deny synderesis and argue that our entire moral consciousness is conditioned?

Of course I disagree. I think that in a way similar to that in which Pythagoras, Euclid ... Lobachevsky make new mathematical discoveries by the application of innate abilities to perceptions, there is a sense among humans (generally, though not in every case) of justice and mercy and the rest and that ethical thought, though full of errors, is the application of innate capacities to experience and our reactions to them and assessments of them.

I don't know how to argue this, though. What's your take on the first arguments in Lewis's Mere Christianity

What do you think the imago dei includes?

You've rocked me back on my heels.

[ Funny, but not surprising, that you chose to ignore the following verses: ]

Being forbid to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.. How is it that mankind can make judgments on most anything? Rightly?..

Through scripture(Sola Scriptura) or by lame or ingenious dogma devised by other men.. is a way.. i.e. ceremony, sacraments, liturgy, testimony of "saints", tradition, even spiritual modeling(Icons)..

Then you are making personal judgments as you are demurring to established rules of conduct.. LAW works.. until it doesn't work anymore.. Then you need opposite judgments to deal with overages that mankind is prone to.. The "LAW" is indeed a TEACHER.. What it teaches is its own limitations..

The "law" is weak toward flesh.. Flesh requires law to forbid chaos.. but it is a hard taskmaster, even brutal.. The spirit is more discriminating but still weak..

The only way(to know good and/from evil) is for fully interacting personal contact with the Holy Spirit.. Even then you can misread or not be open to the Holy Spirits(paeacletes) "help" in that way.. We MUST be sanctified in our choices.. i.e. weaned.. Weaned from our desires and qualia to righteousness.. i.e. good as opposed to evil..

ONLY God knows or can know the ultimate good from the evil of a thing.. Thats WHY Jesus left the Holy Spirit to guide us as much as we are willing to be guided.. Are "YOU"(and me) unwilling to be guided toward "the GOOD" sometimes?.. I know from experience I am.. and probably you are too..

Thats WHY we are not to touch the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil".. STILL.. If "you"(somebody) does not know the Holy Spirit he is in a world of hurt.. How can you know Him?.. Throw yourself at his "feet"(right where you are) and repent of all known arrogance.. and plead "MERCY"...

Of the four dimensions (Up-down, left-right, ahead-behind, before-after)Certainly by Newton's time were considered mathematically. Time is perpendicular to the other three, as are each of them to the others. This can't be visualized but it can sure be worked with mathematically. One of the two books I used to teach myself Celestial Navigation (just in time for computers and satellites to make all that work unnecessary) had a section on air and space navigation. All four-dimensional stuff. (and all definitely an Excedrin headache, believe me. I kind of skimmed those parts.)

Amy good introduction to Relativity (caution, do NOT try to read after the first Bourbon) will help with the presentation of time as a spatial dimension.

Haddon's excellent novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,

which I cannot recommend strongly enough, not only shows how to tesselate St. George's crosses (knowledge without which my life was incomplete) but also presents a very easy way to understand time as truly spatial.

But once you've eaten of that tree, then the math for "many dimensions" becomes easy enough to understand, though incredibly tedious to do.

I couldn't begin to tell you "where" time is. :)
That-a-way.

I like your thinking.

Here's my paradigm, sort of kind of.

Once we believe in the Trinity, we have to acknowledge that our idea about "one" was wrong in important respects.

We 'Have' to think of 'one' as not including 'many'. Or our brains explode.

Also, and extrapolating from the difference between chairs and justice to what we "have" to think about eternity ...

Chairs change. They wear out. They break -- as when the 250 lb farm manger (all muscle) of the place next door comes over to give us all the latest gossip, and I can almost hear my chair crying out in fear and pain.

Justice, though imperfectly enacted, is always what it is.

(We'll skip wondering if there is an unchanging "chairness" of which my chair is an imperfect 'enactment".)

So (work with me here) our thinking about eternity "has" to have changelessness included.

But the Revelation about "one" may provide us with kind of a clue, at which we can only marvel: that as oneness seems to have "room" for plurality, so changeless eternity may have room for something kinda sorta like Dynamism.

That's all I can do right now. (It's about all I can do ever on this subject, but I want to leave the impression that I could go on and on and have only spared you because ... etc.)

Kolo, please tell FK about the wind blowing ....

Yes and No, but very good.

The Law is Mosissimus Mose. It makes us aware of our lack of awareness so that we beg (ps 19) for cleansing from faults of which we may not even be aware (as I construe it, anyway.)

But it is lovely, sweeter than honey. It is not only about justice as we understand it, but it is instructions on how to make your life work, how to be human.

And the Revelation of the Law is a mercy. It "proves" that God cares. And when the justice of God , as Luther says in nobis est, non nostra we find little gleams and glimmers not so much of OUR obeying the Law but of obedience happening in us.

Generic, cryptic, hurried remark:
What we're dealing with here has to do with "incarnation" and with "realized eschatology". MY view, with which I expect you'll disagree, is that before the parousia we cannot entirely dispense with sacrament. ceremony, tradition, and religious festival. This is the "not yet" aspect of the eschaton.

But because of the Incarnation, these seemingly pen-bound things are vehicles, "earnests", and foretastes of what the blessed will have in its entirety at the Last Day. Part of living in a time of dark and mirrored vision is being bound to a pen, in some respects. Part of the Love of God in this "in-between-time" is that the pen is full of blessings.

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