lULA POSTS: #29

SO DAIHO POSTS #31 [quote]Actually, God, the father comes from Judaism to Christianity. God is our creator, so, the Jews have always thought of God as Father and King. Malachi 2:10 says, "Have we not one Father?" Moreover, we recite the Avinu Malkenu (our Father, our King) as part of the daily Amidah prayer and have done so for a couple of thousand years. Both Jews and Muslims are strict monotheists believing in the absolute oneness of God. It was Christianity that introduced the mystery of the triune God. I hope this helps.[/quote

Besides Malachais and Genesis, the unity and plurality of the existence of the one true God is inferred in Isaias 48:16-17, "From the time that it occurred, was I there. And now the Lord Eternal has sent me, and His Spirit. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel."

SO DAIHO POSTS:

Christian theology and understandning God's written revelation of His holy religion from the OT to the NT is not logical fallacy.

While Christians know without doubt Hebraic Judaism was a holy battle for the doctrine of the Oneness of the Eternal God (monotheism), against the polytheism of the people who surrounded and persecuted the Israelites for centuries before the Christian era, Jews, on the other hand, do not properly understand that Christians are monotheists, believe in one true God and one only, that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He functions as 3 distinctive Persons---Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We've already discussed that Creator God referred to Himself twice in the plural in Genesis 1:26, Let us make man in our image and likeness..".....and Isaias names 3 distinct Persons in the one true God, "God the Eternal"; God "the Spirit"; and "Lord the Redeemer".

SODAIHO POSTS:

There are reasons for things and the reasons why most Jews reject belief in the Trinity is becasue they don't properly understand it and/or they reject the implication it embodies, namely, their Law was fulfilled and thus their mission ended. This neccessitated  Jews stressing the ONeness of God to such a degree that anything other than this meets with resentment.

The attitude of the Jews isn't surprising for the full revelation of the nature of the one true God didn't come until the advent of the King of the Jews, the Christ, the Messias, the Second Person of the Triune God.

Even Moses just before his death told the Jews "The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a PROPHET of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: Him thou shalt hear." Deut. 18:15. SoDaiho, you say:

Yet, at Christ's trial, after being scourged and crowned with thorns, Pilate finding no fault in Him sought to release Him and offered Christ back to the Jewish chief priests and officers. They told Pilate that they had a law and by their law, He ought  to die becasue He made Himself the Son of God. 

(And surely this charge was true as true as can be. From the beginning of His public life, Jesus strove to establish the outstanding and pivotal truth of His Divine Sonship and personal divinity. Persistently, He performed miracles so that they might know, and even in the anger of the Jewish leaders, Christ pressed His claim: "When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself, but that from God I proceed and come, .....it is My Father that glorifieth Me, of whom you say, that He is your God. Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM. And when the Jews began to stone Him, He said to them, "I and the Father are one." Caiphas asked Him, Are you the SOn of God, and again, "Are thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God?" and Jesus answered, "I am:..."

So Jesus proved in many ways that He is the Messias, is not blaspheming when He claims to be what was clearly described by the prophets....Isaias 9:6, sees Him as "Wonderful, God the Mighty." Ezekiel places on record heaven's own solemn promise, "God Himself will come and save you." ANd David rejoices, "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand....from the womb before the day star I begot Thee!" and Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee." Ps. 109:1; 2:7.)

Back to my point........Pilate said, "Here is your King." And they said, "Away with Him, crucify Him". And Pilate said, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We (the Jewish people) have no king but Ceasar." So here is their abject rejection of Christ as their King. By this public pronouncment, the heads of the Jewish nation and the official guardians and exponents of the Jewish religion officially merge and incorporate their nation into the pagan empire of Rome and surrender all their national and Messianic hopes and prophetic promises, renouncing the honor of being the chosen people of God, they become the vassals of the Roman emperors.

It's the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jacob, the complete departure of the scepter from Juda, Gen. 49:10. To have Jesus done to death, they give themselves to Ceasar. Jesus would have saved them, another Ceasar before long will beseige Jerusalem and destroy the Temple and massacre them, on an anniversary of this paschal festival (70AD).

Today, Jews crucify Him intellectually just as their forebears crucified Him physically 21 centuries ago.

We do know what he said because we have eyewittness accounts verified by four gospels written down by four different men who were with Jesus.  All four written not too long after the death of Jesus verified his words and all four books validate each other.  Do you discount other books written by eyewittness accounts? 

The only agenda I'm aware of (and I'm not talking the RCC which formed later because I agree with you on this part) is to get the message out to the world that the Messiah had come and will return for his own someday. 

Remember many of the very early church died as a result of getting this message out. When I say early church I'm talking the time period directly after the crucifixtion and up until the early 300's (book of Acts).  This is before the RCC came on the scene and claimed ownership of Christianity.   One may live for a lie, but not too many are willing to die for one. 

You say Jesus didn't lie, was just mistaken.  There's a thin line there especially since he claimed to be the Messiah.  You say he was enlightened.  How can one be enlightened and mistaken at the same time? 

Well I don't think I do that.  Do you think I do? 

I mean we do debate and discuss various points but I'm all about getting the main message across as well.  The main message started right in the garden with Adam and Eve.  God would someday send a perfect human being who would be able to keep the law that he was about to impose on a people group (Jews) because now sin had entered the world.  Up until that future time, nobody would be able to satisfy the perfection requirement it would take to be right with God.  Adam and Eve once perfect themselves now entered into a world of sin.  It's sin that separates us from God. 

In order for us to be right with God we have to be perfect and as long as we live in these fleshly bodies we cannot.  We would have to leave self behind (as you said) and follow the one who is the only way to Salvation; the one who was able to meet the requirement that the rest of us failed at.  Only HE kept the law perfectly and it's only BY HIM are we made right with God....that is, those who accept his perfect sacrifice....himself. 

That's what the whole message was about from the beginning in Genesis to the end Revelation.  It's just said different ways.  To Love God first and then to love our fellow man is evidence of the atoning work that has already been done in us.  We are incapable of loving our neighbor unless we have the love of God in us to begin with.  Oh, we try but we fail miserably.   

I am only declared righteous by God because when He sees me he sees His Son in me.  Otherwise I stand naked, cold and ashamed before him because my filthy rags (work clothes) are covered in sin.  I can't work hard enough to get myself clean no matter how hard I try. 

SODAIHO POSTS:

This is true of Hebraic Judaism, but that ended with Christ who fulfilled their Law and all the Old Covenant rituals ended in 70AD.

Scripture is replete with Christ claiming to be God. He proved by His life, teachings and miracles that He is true God and true Man.  Scripture describes instances of how the Apostles called HIm "Lord" i.e. God, and they supplicated Him as One who is omniscient and knows the hearts of men. The Apostles and his disciples showed how living and real their belief was in our Lord's Divinity.

God did become man in the person of Jesus Christ, blessed be His name.

 And you saying this isn't surprising....you join many Jews of today....who believe in God but fail to appreciate the simple fact that the teachings of Christ, the Messias are an acknowledgment and not a denial of God's oneness as proclaimed in the Sh'ma---"Hear O Israel, the LOrd our God, the Lord is one." The eternal law in the Sh'ma (hear) is more fully expressed in the Trinity, for it tells that the ONe God manifests as the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier, without impairing His oneness.

And then again, Jews reject the Trinity becasue they reject the implication it embodies, that their Law was fulfilled and thus their mission ended.

You can't be serious! After 2,000 years, Christ's words still have the power to convert.... a power of all their own. His words and parables go right to the heart and stay there....His words don't date, and cannot be faked.  The Gospels are real, the Holy BIble is real....it's God written revelation to us....what man could make up a character who says things that men will die for, not just today, but hundreds of years from now?

With palms together,

Good Morning Lula, All,

For some reason we nearly always come to this: Lula (and sometimes KFC) assert the divinity of Jesus, point out with their Christian eyes, that the Torah, Prophets and Writings are just chock full of evidence that a latter day Jesus was in the mind of all the Patriarchs, Moses, and the Prophets.  I, on the other hand, point out, not so.  Its a Christian spin on a Hebrew text.  Lula claims she knows all about Judaism, that is, the "true" Judaism of Christ after the Temple's last destruction.  And we are stuck in the past.

My article, Lula, is about hope. Its about moving away from a fear based model of government decision-making, and opening oneself up to a hopeful future.  I really don't care whether we are a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist.  I want us to take our faith and apply it. 

I loved that "What Would Jesus Do?" thing that was around for awhile as it forced belief into action. 

So, what does a Christ-filled person do to manifest hope besides talk about Jesus or witness for his salvational power?  I know what Jews and Buddhists do.   We don't focus all of our energy on our faith and beliefs, but rather direct it to our lives and the lives of others.  From a Jewish POV, the Tanach is replete with God imploring us to be generous, to care for the stranger, to love our neighbors. God tells us we are to be holy and to be holy means manifesting hope through our behavior with others. This is the evidence of our faith and union with God, not some simple statement like "I believe."

So how would Jesus (i.e., you) manifest hope today? 

Be well.

Dear KFC,  You certainly are a blessing.  The need for Jesus to be without blemish comes from the need to make Jesus as a sacrifice acceptable.  Please remember nothing in the NT is bible to me. While it is always interesting, using it as a prooftext is meaningless. 

As to what Christians do, I haven't a clue.  What I read here at JU is a lot about belief and very little about practice.   My experience with Christians, you recall, is with the Southern Baptist variety, major bible thumpers and in your face Christians. I sense that any discussion of practice leads to the division between belief and "works" which I see as a false dichotomy. Telling people about Jesus is one small part of what I believe Christianity should be about from my read of the NT.   And at some point, it becomes very tiresome.

I agree people hear what they want to hear and read into things what they need to read. I think you can see that I am willing to see outside the box.  My concern is that we all get stuck in our boxes, especially Christians as they seem to have this insistence that theirs is the only way to God. Oh well.

Anyway, the Lev. chapter you cite is not the correct parsha.  Lev. 20 addresses sexual conduct. Its Lev. 23: 1-44 that deals with festivals.  And we observe all of the annual festivals.  It is wise not to preach the annual religious cycles to a Jew: we do them year in and year out, year after year.

These have nothing to do with Jesus except that he probably observed them as well.

Be well.

Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't get me going on a "fear based model of government decision making and opening oneself up to a hopeful future"! Can you say....Obamanation and the Far Left majority? Oooh, something tells me with that combination it's gonna get ugly.

Ever since the results of Nov.4th, the doom and gloom is everywhere...and where's the "change"...Obama's bringing in all of the Clintonistas! 

Pope Benedict recently wrote an encyclical about hope that addresses many of the same things you do in your article....

I think you'll enjoy reading some notes on it from the Catholic News Agency.....

"Spe Salvi" challenges modern society and today's Christianity to self-examination of hope 

Vatican City, November 30 (CNA).-"Spe Salvi—by hope we were saved," with these words Pope Benedict XVI begins his second encyclical, which was released today. He asserts in the second half of his teaching that what is needed today, in a world often considered hopeless, is a self-critique of modern society along with the rediscovery and living of Christian hope.

Beginning in number 22 of "Spe Salvi", Pope Benedict challenges both modernity and Christianity to a self-critique. Modernity must enter into a "dialogue with Christianity and its concept of hope. In this dialogue Christians too, in the context of their knowledge and experience, must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and what they cannot offer. Flowing into this self-critique of the modern age there also has to be a self-critique of modern Christianity, which must constantly renew its self-understanding setting out from its roots," the Pope writes.

The first step that he takes in this analysis is to say that "we must ask ourselves: what does "progress" really mean; what does it promise and what does it not promise?"

Once this is done, the Holy Father explains, "the ambiguity of progress becomes evident." "Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist."

"Yes indeed, reason is God's great gift to man," the Pope stresses, "and the victory of reason over unreason is also a goal of the Christian life."

Benedict XVI's conclusion is that "very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope."

In this part of the encyclical, the Holy Father analyzes the ways that the condition of mankind affects society and what saves man from this state.

He begins by saying, "[t]he right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are."

The pontiff's second point is that there will never be a perfect government. "Since man always remains free and since his freedom is always fragile, the kingdom of good will never be definitively established in this world. Anyone who promises the better world that is guaranteed to last for ever is making a false promise; he is overlooking human freedom," insists the Pope.

He summarizes his point by saying, "In other words: good structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from outside."

The Christian Response

After showing that government cannot save man, Pope Benedict engages the other modern belief in salvation by science. "Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it," insists Benedict.

However, modern Christianity has not adequately responded to this need. The Holy Father writes that "we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering."

Above all, "It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love," he insists. "In this sense, it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope," the Pope reasons.

Continuing his analysis, he raises the question: "are we not in this way falling back once again into an individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope for myself alone, which is not true hope since it forgets and overlooks others? Benedict XVI answers, "Indeed we are not!"

Contrary to being individualistic, "[b]eing in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his "being for all"; it makes it our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole," the Holy Father explains.

In man's day to day experience, he lives through "many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives," relates the Pope.

Drawing on these experiences, "Spe Salvi" looks at their normal results. "When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain," writes Benedict.

"Thus, the Pope reflects, "Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real 'Kingdom of God'."

Summarizing his dialogue Pope Benedict writes, "[l]et us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain."

How to Grow in Hope

Eager to teach people how to live in hope, the Holy Father spends this section of his encyclical on "settings for learning and practicing hope".

Prayer

The "first essential setting for learning hope is prayer," instructs the Pope.  Prayer is "a school of hope" about which one can say, "when no one listens to me any more, God still listens to me," "Spe Salvi" explains.

Contrary to what some might say, praying "is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well," he relates.

"For prayer to develop this power of purification"—Benedict tells his readers—"it must on the one hand be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God. On the other hand, it must be constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints".

Action and Suffering

Benedict XVI's second place for learning hope is in "action and suffering".  "All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action," he says. 

"Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world's future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed," cautions the Pope.

"Like action, suffering is a part of our human existence."

What heals man, the Holy Father teaches, is not "sidestepping or fleeing from suffering …but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love."

Critiquing modern society, Benedict XVI emphasizes that a "society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through "com-passion" is a cruel and inhuman society."

"In the end, even the 'yes' to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my 'I', in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded," he insightfully explains.

Furthermore, Christian suffering means suffering "with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself."

"Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity," the pontiff reiterates.

Another facet of the Christian encounter with suffering that the Pope recommends is a "devotion—perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago—that included the idea of 'offering up' the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating 'jabs', thereby giving them a meaning."

"Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves," he proposes.

The Final Judgment

"In the modern era," the Holy Father explains, "the idea of the Last Judgment has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress."

Yet, "for the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God," the Pope reflects.

Meditating on the Last Judgment, Benedict writes, "[w]hat happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter?"

For some, their interior openness to the truth, in the concrete choices of life, "gets covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul," he says.

Continuing his meditation, the Holy Father writes, that our "encounter with him is the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation."

Pope Benedict XVI goes on to exhort people to live with others in mind saying, "[o]ur lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve."

He concludes his reflection by way of a question: "what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise?"

To read the entire encyclical go to: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=165

Besides testimonly, another way of application of faith is by the power of example which I guess comes under "walking the walk"!

that's why I didn't give any to you.  I asked you this: 

If you noticed I only gave you Lev 23 for a text.  I know that you don't accept the gospel and NT writers so I don't want to waste your time or mine going there.  I can use the OT just as well to get any of these points across. 

and that's exactly what I gave you....Lev 23.  I gave you the correct one.  I spent more than a year teaching just on this one chapter alone.  I am probably more familiar with these feasts and festivals than most Jews are.  In fact I've actually talked with some modern Jews who haven't a clue about them. 

You can't practice these festivals as intended with no temple.  There are no sacrifices anymore.  Instead of a lamb some use a chicken instead. Each one of these feasts have a modern way of celebration improvising how they were once celebrated. 

You say you think outside the box Sodaiho, but I don't think so.  If you did, you would have investigated these seven feasts and how they may have applied to the life of Christ (which they did) as he fulfilled the first four of them completely and to the letter.  No, you have bias against Christ and his Christianity and I think most probably they are based, sad to say, on man's actions. 

Remember some see the puppy field and others see the manure pile. 

This is true.  Improvisation over time is the key to religious survival in the face of a catastrphe such as the destruction of the Temple and exile. But we still celebrate these festivals, we still read the Torah in its entirety on an annual cycle.

Correct.  I misread your post.  Its good we understood each other.

Be well