In the new covenant age the church is the inn where all the formerly wonded sinners are brought.
"And he came to him and bound up his wounds and poured oil and wine on them. And placing him on his pown beast. he btouhhty him to an inn and took care of him.
And on the next day he tookl out two denarri and gave them to the innkeeper and said, Take care of him; and whatever you spend in addition to this, whem I return, I will repay you." (Luke 10:34-35)
The self justifying sinner needed to know that he needed a loving neighbor like the good Samaritan, who was a figure for the Man Jesus, the Perfect Man who ever lived of Luke's Gospel.
He was condemned to death under the law and was unable to take care of himself. Much less had he the mercy to take care of others. Jesus as the reality of the Good Samaritan alone has the human perfection and ability to show the mercy that can save him.
His coming again, His returning will be the time when those who through Him care for the saved sinners in the church (the inn) will be rewarded. This is reward in addition to the free gift of eternal life.
What they spent to take care of the ones Jesus saves will be recompensed to them in the millennial kingdom.
minus typos:
"And he came to him and bound up his wounds and poured oil and wine on them. And placing him on his own beast, he brought him to an inn and took care of him.
And on the next day he took out two denarri and gave them to the innkeeper and said, Take care of him; and whatever you spend in addition to this, when I return, I will repay you." (Luke 10:34-35)
@fmf saidThat is exactly why the Bible is still being read. If it were so clear and simple that only one interpretation were possible, it would have been consigned to the dust bin of oblivion long ago, along with thousands of other formerly sacred writings (hermetic, gnostic, etc etc).
How bizarrely convoluted this is.
@moonbus saidThe bible is still being read because people [Christians in particular], think that reading and studying is a substitute for keeping the commandments.
That is exactly why the Bible is still being read. If it were so clear and simple that only one interpretation were possible, it would have been consigned to the dust bin of oblivion long ago, along with thousands of other formerly sacred writings (hermetic, gnostic, etc etc).
That is exactly why the Bible is still being read.
If it were so clear and simple that only one interpretation were possible, it would have been consigned to the dust bin of oblivion long ago, along with thousands of other formerly sacred writings (hermetic, gnostic, etc etc).
I don't think the Bible is being read more and more because some parts of it are complicated.
I think the Bible reading persists because it's it feeds an inward thirst deep in man's spiritual being. It touches a deeper realm in our heart in a way no other human writing does.
I also think it encreases and readership because the central Person Jesus Christ has no equal in human history in wisdom, love, mercy, yet righteousness and purity, faithfulness. He has His hands on too much truth. He is in a class alone. He is in a catagory occupied by one Person, Himself. The second, third, or fourth most impressive people who ever lived are far below His class.
And the Bible encreases in readership because it is timeless in application.
It is written to address the needs of any generation of human beings without
having to have been penned down in a certain span of time.
It also ranges in content from very simple to not very simple.
It has hallmarks of God's wisdom in speaking to the largest and broadest scope
of intellectual capacity.
Then it is written in many styles.
Then it also contains supernatural prophecy of events in the future only God
could know.
Then in addition it spans so much time that it can display instances in history
when such prophecies were fulfilled vindication God's foreknowledge of time.
It also mentions thousands of places, cities showing geographic realism.
It mentions thousands of names of people displaying cultural realism.
It displays diversity of authorship as parts were wtitten by
politicians, priests. military general, prophet, statesman, poet (songwriter),
extraordinarily rich king, sycamore tree farmer, governor, debate recorder,
fisherman, tax collector, companion to an apostle, physician, scholar.
Then also it is a book which gives equal times to people with arguments against God, doubters, people under God's discipline, people under God's rewarding, people questioning God's faithfulness, and questioners of the very meaning of life. The Bible gives voice to humanity's would be complaints against God.
Our origin, purpose, nature, and destiny are covered in the Bible.
And it contains no scientific innaccuracy though it contains pre-scientific age
expressions of speech. It is a library of books bound together as THE Book.
Its span covers from eternity past to eternity into the future.
And it has been torture tested by time.
And parts of it have been more sliced, diced, examined, critiqued with passion
and intensity more than most other books. It is still persists and survives.
"Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will not pass away." -
Jesus
You appear to have dedicated your entire RHP Spirituality Forum life to making the Bible seem as complicated as possible.
I think that is an exaggeration and unfair.
Many times I expounded very, very simple concepts of the Bible.
Often that met with derisive replies of my naivete or lack of education or some such dismissal that that is too stupid. And it doesn't consider THIS or it doesn't take into account THAT or I forgot to realize the OTHER.
Then some more intricate analysis follows to attempt to help someone.
Then some like you gets on the opposite and charge with making the Bible WAY
too complicated.
This is "Damned if you do. Damned if you don't."
( no pun intended).
So some come whining "The Bible is just a terribly childish fairy tale."
I say "Hey, let me help you to see some of the profundity in this book."
Then some run around to the other side.
"You seemed to have dedicated your talking about the Bible to over complication."
"Its TOO childish, simplistic, naive" to
"You're making it TOO complicated!"
Christ in incarnation took on something God had not in eternity - flesh, the human nature, man.
"And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." (John 1:14)
Though He was a perfect man, He lived a life of self denial and put aside even His perfect humanity to live by the indwelling Father.
Here He says COULD NOT do anything from Himself, but only out from His Father.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner." (John 5:19)
Here again He denies HImself lving a "crucified" life, putting aside even His will to live by the will of His Father.
"I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgement is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him sent Me." (John 5:30)
Christ in incarnation took on something God had not in eternity - flesh, the human nature, man.
He spoke not His own words but what the Father gave Him to speak.
"I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true, and what I have heard from Him, these things I speak to the world." (John 8:26)
God became a perfect man. Yet this perfect man denied Himself to live by the Father, speaking His words, not offering His right jugment but judging as the Father directed Him to judge.
Marvelous and mysterious.
These things are the basis for me saying in resurrection the Father deified this
perfect self denying man and uplifted His glorified humanity to be FIRST -
Firstborn Son of God as the prototype of a mass production of a new
humanity mingled with God.
The tremendous priviledge we have today is to come after Him. And follow His way of denying ourselves to live by Him as He denied (even His perfect self) and lived by His Father.
"As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." (John 6:57)
This is the highest honor and highest art and highest profession - to live by Him as a son of God as He THE Son of God lived by His Father.
To do this we have to "eat" Him. We have to take Him in. He is in a form in which He CAN be taken into our being. He in resurrection became a life giving Spirit.
Though it is difficult to image the man Jesus is now in the eternal Spirit in a form in which He can enter into His redeemed people to be their life.
"the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)
If we excersize growing and deepening faith that JESUS can be each and everything we need, JESUS the life giving Holy Spirit will actually make His home in our hearts through faith.
"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith" (Eph. 3:17)
To have His home is not to visit. It is to take up abiding residence and blend with us. Then He can root us in love for Him and ground us unshakably in Himself.
"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:17-19)
@sonship saidAnybody reading that text, without any preconceived idea about the trinity, would see two entirely different entities.
Here again He denies HImself lving a "crucified" life, putting aside even His will to live by the will of His Father.
"I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgement is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him sent Me." (John 5:30)
The alternative is an entity sending himself, which is just plain ridiculous.
Anybody reading that text, without any preconceived idea about the trinity, would see two entirely different entities.
There certainly are two . . . . Someones(?) . . . . persons (?) . . . . entities (?) . . . .
It is hard to call them what because of the limitation of human language.
But there are two.
"Entirely two" . . . maybe aarguable given the entire revelation of the Bible.
The alternative is an entity sending himself, which is just plain ridiculous.
No it is not.
Not with God who is eternal life.
Not with a God who created time, transcends it, and can penetrate into it at will.