A New Creation
- Thread starter Thomas
- Start date
it's not one sizes fits all when it comes to us apostates haha.
In the Early Church, gentile converts to what was effectively a Jewish-Christian church were expected to get circumcised, according to the Law. Circumcision was the badge of membership. One needed to be Jewish to be Christian.
Paul took a stand. In his Letter to the church in Galatia, he claimed that ethnic, gender and class distinctions had been abolished, having been transformed by and in Christ and in themselves by the power of the Holy Spirit:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no male and female; you are all one in the Messiah, Jesus.
And, if you belong to the Messiah, you are Abraham’s family. You stand to inherit the promise" (Galatians 3:28-29)
The Resurrection signified a meta-cosmic event in which all those who believe in Jesus are caught up. Incorporation into that Risen Body means that when the Father looks at His Son, He sees all those who who now belong to him in a very intimate sense – the sense He always desired of His relationship with His people (cf Hosea 11:1), and they see Him as Father (cf Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:15).
The Churches must embrace this message of transcendant unity in Christ as a truly viable means of overcoming every human impediment and prejudice – and we'll need to do that in the church, before the signs show outwardly.
Pope Francis' anti-clericalism is just such a step – in Christ there is neither priest nor lay – all are called to a universal priesthood in the transmission of the one sacrament above all others – the Love of God.
And in so doing, distinctions of rank and class and order and colour and race and ethnicity and gender and orientation and ... and ... and ... fade away.
Then we will be all-in-all, living and moving and being in one medium.
Paul took a stand. In his Letter to the church in Galatia, he claimed that ethnic, gender and class distinctions had been abolished, having been transformed by and in Christ and in themselves by the power of the Holy Spirit:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no male and female; you are all one in the Messiah, Jesus.
And, if you belong to the Messiah, you are Abraham’s family. You stand to inherit the promise" (Galatians 3:28-29)
The Resurrection signified a meta-cosmic event in which all those who believe in Jesus are caught up. Incorporation into that Risen Body means that when the Father looks at His Son, He sees all those who who now belong to him in a very intimate sense – the sense He always desired of His relationship with His people (cf Hosea 11:1), and they see Him as Father (cf Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:15).
The Churches must embrace this message of transcendant unity in Christ as a truly viable means of overcoming every human impediment and prejudice – and we'll need to do that in the church, before the signs show outwardly.
Pope Francis' anti-clericalism is just such a step – in Christ there is neither priest nor lay – all are called to a universal priesthood in the transmission of the one sacrament above all others – the Love of God.
And in so doing, distinctions of rank and class and order and colour and race and ethnicity and gender and orientation and ... and ... and ... fade away.
Then we will be all-in-all, living and moving and being in one medium.
I assume you are referring to "males only".
Can one circumcise the heart?
It is the 'heart' that leads us to faith, and faith that leads us to good deeds.
Circumcision was and still is practiced by many Southern African tribes as part of the coming of age ritual when a boy becomes a man and a hunter and a warrior.
The gender roles for men and women are quite distinct in older tribal societies.
The gender roles for men and women are quite distinct in older tribal societies.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
and if you don't, then eternal hell.
Faithfulservant
Well-Known Member
Does that bother you that people believe that?
Yes, as one might guess, a contentious point among the many rules the gentile was obliged to follow.
Oh yes.
"Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked" (Deuteronomy 10:16).
"And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." (Deuteronomy 30:6)
"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings." (Jeremiah 4:4).
Quite, a point argued quite forcibly by St Paul in his letter to the church in Rome, Chapter 2:25-29 and on.
He summed it up succinctly at the start of his missionary career: "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." 1 Corinthians 7:19.
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It seems clear from the Letter to the Galatians that Paul, after his meeting with the elders in Jerusalem, was commissioned to preach the Gospel to the Gentile (the uncircumcised), whilst Peter and John would preach to the circumcised (the Jews) – Galatians 2:7-9. One can see how a two-tier church would inevitably arise in this situation, and why Paul challenged it so vigorously.
Remembering also that Peter himself received a sharp lesson according to Acts 10, with his dream visions and his journey to meet with the Roman gentile Cornelius and witness the baptism in the spirit of him and his house.
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For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." (Galatians 6:15)
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..so circumcision, in this context, is as in purification .. purification of the heart.
Really? I thought they did encourage reading other scriptures?
Compliments of the season, Aup. Hope your shoulder is repairing.
Do things start to get a bit 'Christmasy' this time of year around the parts of the world that you live ?
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
No, not really. I offer a thought from Baha'u'llah on this OP about a New Creation.
"This is the Day whereon naught can be seen except the splendors of the Light that shineth from the face of Thy Lord, the Gracious, the Most Bountiful. Verily, We have caused every soul to expire by virtue of Our irresistible and all-subduing sovereignty. We have, then, called into being a new creation, as a token of Our grace unto men. I am, verily, the All-Bountiful, the Ancient of Days." Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, pp. 29-30
Now we have a choice to be made new.
Regards Tony
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@Tony Bristow-Stagg
So Baha'i are not encouraged to read the scriptures of other religions, before attempting to correct the beliefs of people who follow those religions?
In other words you are simply to repeat what the Baha'i organisation tells you to say?
But you frequently quote from the Bible particularly the New Testament, as if you are familiar with it?
That's the whole issue really -- it's not you sharing your own beliefs, but that you need to instruct others, particularly Catholics and other Christians as to what they should believe -- that they need to get rid of their monastics and their Trinity and Eucharist and so on -- without having made the effort to at least read their scriptures?
I mean in this case it particularly refers to you because you spend so much time on this forum, and probably in other forums too, commenting upon the Abrahamic beliefs and scriptures?
It makes it impossible for anyone to have a proper conversation with you because you come across as having no thoughts of your own but just as a Baha'i propaganda machine.
So Baha'i are not encouraged to read the scriptures of other religions, before attempting to correct the beliefs of people who follow those religions?
In other words you are simply to repeat what the Baha'i organisation tells you to say?
But you frequently quote from the Bible particularly the New Testament, as if you are familiar with it?
That's the whole issue really -- it's not you sharing your own beliefs, but that you need to instruct others, particularly Catholics and other Christians as to what they should believe -- that they need to get rid of their monastics and their Trinity and Eucharist and so on -- without having made the effort to at least read their scriptures?
I mean in this case it particularly refers to you because you spend so much time on this forum, and probably in other forums too, commenting upon the Abrahamic beliefs and scriptures?
It makes it impossible for anyone to have a proper conversation with you because you come across as having no thoughts of your own but just as a Baha'i propaganda machine.
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Ok.
In that case I would not dream of commenting on passages from the Qur'an or Bhagavad Gita without having made the effort to read them. And even then I would prefer to phrase my comments as questions, inviting and deferring to the opinions of people who know them well and understand their nuance far better than I myself.
I would regard it as disrespectful.
Whatever ...
In that case I would not dream of commenting on passages from the Qur'an or Bhagavad Gita without having made the effort to read them. And even then I would prefer to phrase my comments as questions, inviting and deferring to the opinions of people who know them well and understand their nuance far better than I myself.
I would regard it as disrespectful.
Whatever ...
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
As you keep doing, but as I keep saying, it doesn't really address the point I was making.
Are just searching 'new creation' in Baha'i texts and posting the text as if that's adding something to the discussion?
In the Indian philosophies, Māyā means 'illusion' or 'magic', its meaning dependent on context.
The Upanishads describe creation as the interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles) and Prakṛti (the ephemeral, contingent material world, nature). The former manifests itself as Ātman (Soul, Self), and the latter as Māyā.
The knowledge of Atman is 'true knowledge' Vidya, whereas the knowledge of Māyā is 'not true knowledge' (Avidya, Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of true knowledge). in the Upanishads, knowledge includes empirical as well as spiritual knowledge, the complete knowing necessarily includes understanding the hidden principles that work, the realisation of the soul of things.
While Māyā translates as 'illusion,' that does not mean the phenomenal world is unreal. Rather, Māyā means the world is not as it seems; it's not as it appears to be, because at the level of the world, it is continually changing, and yet Māyā is always Māyā.
Māyā co-exists with Brahman (the Ultimate Principle). Māyā is birth, change, death in time. Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute. Māyā is the undifferentiated aggregate of All-Possibility that pre-exists with Brahman.
Māyā includes all liminal states between the finite and the Infinite, the relative and the Absolute.
If Māyā is feminine, the she co-exists with her counterpart Logos, masculine and the Ultimate Principle.
In the Pauline New Creation, our being In Christ means not merely a shift in perspective viewpoint, to see all things as they are, the Truth as it actually is, but like Christ, in Christ, our being is itself re-located in Being, from which it can, as it wills, in accordance with its individual logoi, orchestrate the nature, way and appearance of its own being in the world.
The Upanishads describe creation as the interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles) and Prakṛti (the ephemeral, contingent material world, nature). The former manifests itself as Ātman (Soul, Self), and the latter as Māyā.
The knowledge of Atman is 'true knowledge' Vidya, whereas the knowledge of Māyā is 'not true knowledge' (Avidya, Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of true knowledge). in the Upanishads, knowledge includes empirical as well as spiritual knowledge, the complete knowing necessarily includes understanding the hidden principles that work, the realisation of the soul of things.
While Māyā translates as 'illusion,' that does not mean the phenomenal world is unreal. Rather, Māyā means the world is not as it seems; it's not as it appears to be, because at the level of the world, it is continually changing, and yet Māyā is always Māyā.
Māyā co-exists with Brahman (the Ultimate Principle). Māyā is birth, change, death in time. Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute. Māyā is the undifferentiated aggregate of All-Possibility that pre-exists with Brahman.
Māyā includes all liminal states between the finite and the Infinite, the relative and the Absolute.
If Māyā is feminine, the she co-exists with her counterpart Logos, masculine and the Ultimate Principle.
In the Pauline New Creation, our being In Christ means not merely a shift in perspective viewpoint, to see all things as they are, the Truth as it actually is, but like Christ, in Christ, our being is itself re-located in Being, from which it can, as it wills, in accordance with its individual logoi, orchestrate the nature, way and appearance of its own being in the world.
Ahanu
Well-Known Member
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"The rest of the world" finds your distinction reasonable? Based on what data?
Even if we accept your distinction between miraculous means and natural means of cures for what was once incurable, we must admit natural miracles - such as giving sight to the blind through advances in medical science - are greater since they are replicable, whereas miraculous miracles are not. One-time miracles are no longer impressive, but a medical advancement that can cure anybody suffering from a certain disease now and in the future is.
This was in response to the following: "Conscious awareness reflected in any ancient text is not really an accurate reflection of reality."
@Thomas, I still stand on the foundations laid by my seven-year-old self, but that doesn't mean I see things the same way or think the same way either.
Then how come most ancient Greeks accepted the geocentric model of the universe? Why was the minority - the small opposition - ridiculed? It seemed right. They had limited tools to be proven they were incorrect. Some said the heliocentric model conflicted with their religious beliefs. Others made a philosophical case that the Earth must be the heaviest element, so it must occupy the center of the universe.
How come the characters in the Iliad act like ancient Egyptians in their autobiographies, in which emotions/inner thoughts are simplistic and almost always closely linked to the character's behavior/action? They lack the rich inner complexity of a character in a modern novel. I am sure the ancients experienced a similar rich inner life, but they definitely lacked the ability to express it for whatever reason(s) (such as incorrect models of how to represent it).
By no means to the depths of, say, St. Augustine and others educated in classical literature.
I would rather consider the psychological insights from the likes of Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, or Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day to be honest.
Too great of an effect?
How much of an effect should we regulate to them today? Why?
Messengers are human beings.
"And they say, 'What ails this Messenger, who eats food and walks in the markets? Why is there not an angel sent down unto him to be a warner with him . . .?" (Qur'an 25.7)
"And We sent not any messengers before thee but that they ate food and walked in the markets . . ." (Qur'an 25.20)
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru.
it does. it is the biggest example of exclusivity, not going with the current human values.