A Journal: Chapter 1

December 20, 1996  **********************************

. . . . . Opened the Bible to Romans 10:10 this morning. Started me thinking about Southern Baptist doctrine on "assurance of salvation". Decided re-reading Romans would be in order. I've talked about Romans with Wood, I guess up in Rhode Island. An amazing book. Chapter 1, verses 21-23, seems to address our situation. Our foolish hearts were darkened after we became vain in our imaginations. (More Biblical evidence that it is mind which directs heart, leading us to understand that it is mind which is deceitful above all things, contrary to Jeremiah 17:9 [2021 note:  this is so contrary to my current doctrine i must make a note of it]) "Ordinary mind is the enemy(see here and here)." Verse 22 touches upon the reality of God__uncorruptible, spirit, love__and tells how we have crafted this complex image of a heavenly father "made like to corruptible man". Verse 25 says we worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. Have you ever visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.? I have. Call me amazed.

. . . . . Homosexuality? Let's agree to call them angels for now.

. . . . . "If we would judge ourselves we would not be judged" appears, I believe, in the King James version somewhere. "I judge no man, yet if I do my judgment is true" does too.  Jesus said that. (emphasis added)

. . . . . We had a guest Sunday school teacher a year or two ago. Outstanding. I remember him asking why Jesus was crucified. Wifey and I recently discussed this. She asked me. I said because he claimed to be the Son of God. She said he said it was because he preached salvation for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Can you imagine feelings running so deep over such shallow ground as, say, race relations? An aside: Paul, in Romans 2:12-16, tells us that the Gentiles who "do by nature the things contained in the (new) law" in effect do righteousness by loving God and man, and need not fear the righteous judgment of God which, we are told, shall come by Jesus Christ. This doctrine surely came from the disciples. Paul's judgment of the newly formed church of his day was not merely that its doctrine was already massively debated, but that that abominable doctrine resulted in the blasphemy of God by church people (see Romans 2:24).

. . . . . Southern Baptist doctrine, I think, holds that the Old Testament is made up of the law, which Jesus transcended, and the prophets, which He fulfilled. (Not all prophecies have been fulfilled, notably in Jeremiah 31:34; see here) Now we wait for His return. Jesus, though, clearly stated that He came not to destroy the law and the prophets but, rather, "one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:18) Doctrinally, I think, we are led to believe that when Jesus said, "in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias" (Matthew 13:14 note: Why did Jesus never get the quotation right when he recited scripture?) it was the people of 33 A.D. and only following His death and resurrection did we enter into the age of grace. Now, we are led to believe, we have this easy access to heaven. "Believe in your heart" just doesn't mean much today. Beware. "The priests bear rule by their means, and the people love to have it so." (Jeremiah 5:31) Yesterday and today, but tomorrow (we are told) we do not have always. We would do well to remember the famous closing scene of the movie version of Gone With the Wind when we think about Jesus coming back (my pet peeve with organized religion for years was that the teaching seemed to minimize Christ's return), following how many warnings, including the one about not needing people to testify about Him because He knows what is in man.

December 22  *************************

. . . . . Yesterday I read some more in Romans and decided to wait until I was by a computer. Read some in Corinthians, and started re-reading that. This morning (another early one) I re-read some of I Corinthians 1, notably verses 25-29. During first Sunday school today I decided that I would read those verses and comment on them if there were a comment call.

. . . . . My comments: I was struck with the thought that perhaps in this Christmas season we would do well not to be too happy with the thought of our salvation, our status as chosen of the Lord.

. . . . . It was Stephen Gaskins in, I think, Monday Night Class, who said, "Attention is energy." I can remember fifteen years ago, typing what I thought of as an essay on reality, considering how much my writing was impacted by the thoughts (and wills) of those at some point in the future reading what I was writing. I was amazed at how deep into thought I could get. But maybe "thought" is the wrong word. An open, supportive attitude is what should be taught to everyone as they learn to read. Certainly I'm not saying believe it all, or agree with it all; I'm encouraging independent, non-conformist thinking( see Romans 12:2). The dichotomy lies in the goal of this independent thought: we want everyone to have the mind of Christ.

. . . . . Back to Romans: By the way, I really liked most of Pastor XXXXXXX's sermon today. He made me want to read John again. What I said to Wood about Romans was that it incurred in me trepidation (or words to that effect). That was Christmas of 1980. I remember that I was too intimidated by the Bible at the time to mark in it. I don't think you could say I studied the Bible before 1978 (I read it a lot), though that year I can recall writing "Behold A Pale Horse" and thinking the phrase came from the Bible (in fact, I recall looking it up in the Harper's concordance that Wood and Emmy sent me that year). That might have been '79.

. . . . . An aside: There are people in the world who have said in their hearts that there is no God, people who are not fools, at least in the worldly sense. They have rejected that image of God which man has created. It seems to me that we need everyone working together to make this thing work. What is the scripture about preferring a loving return to a vengeful one? (Later:) It was open to it on the dining room table, I Corinthians 4.21__Paul writing, but I've always thought it was Jesus, saying, "What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?" It strikes me that how we be could be the determining factor, maybe the only factor. I also maintain, and have for years, that my example might make no difference, so let's agree to change it all; I'll be happy to sign up for that endeavor.

December 23  **********************************

. . . . . Left Jim & Brenda's about midnight, read for maybe half an hour, up at five. Read seven chapters in I Corinthians. Interesting: "But we have the mind of Christ." I'm going to challenge myself in pinball. (It's about 7:15 a.m. For some reason I thought again of the scripture i used in prayer on the way to church yesterday, "In your patience possess ye your souls". I just looked that up; happened to be the Scofield on the couch here, which has a break between chapter 21:19 and 20 in Luke. This is the chapter with verse 27's "Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" which I also have so considered. It strikes me that there are many mysteries with God. Like verse 32's "this generation", which I think I wrote in the margin of the Harper's something about evidence of reincarnation. I wish I had my copy of the Tao, because I would look up where Tsu says "Three in ten are followers of life; Three in ten are followers of death..." something like that...)

change: The garbage men picked up everything we put out, for which we both, I guess, are grateful. I've got 9:10 now, and am on my way to take a shower, thank you very much. (I've often considered the wonders of being physically clean back when Jesus walked the earth . . . Washing your face with clean water, a little grease for dirty hair__luxury; washing your feet__how very nice. A bath after a week or two of walking among a people divided__indescribable.)

December 27   **********************************

. . . . . It's been kind of a long busy week. Today is Friday. What a difference between the carnal mind and the spiritual one! Disability benefits are up for a doctor's review. We wouldn't be able to get along without it, as things stand now. Perhaps it won't be a problem.

. . . . . Nearly hit by another vehicle on the Interstate yesterday. Accident just down the road? First time to listen to Beatle's White Album in I guess years.

. . . . . Scofield says Paul's letter to the Romans expressed his "desire the Christians in Rome . . . have his own statement of the great doctrines of grace so bitterly assailed everywhere by legalistic teachers." (I just saw the old "letter is death, spirit is life" verse. [2 Corinthians 3:6]) Today's doctrine comes from an intense study of the letter of our sacred writings; the grace and truth and spirit sadly have been distilled to a vapor, mainly because we spend so much energy getting all the rest of the scriptures to agree with just a few verses we want to focus on( see "The priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so" in Jeremiah 5:31). Paul spoke of seeing through a glass darkly( 1 Corinthians 13:12), but what about us?

. . . . . What a warning we have in chapter 2 of Romans, verses 5 through 11. Verses 12 through 16 are those I paraphrased going over to Christmas Tuesday, responding to Wifey's promptings by replacing "Gentiles" with "Buddhists". Also have discussed with her verse 24, that God's reputation is damaged by church doctrine, which teaches for God's law the commandments of men (see Matthew 15:9), causing people to say in their hearts (after considering it in their minds) that there is no God (and this from people who are not fools in worldly terms).

. . . . . It strikes me, to switch back to reading between the chapters if you will bear with me, that the verse about Jesus growing "in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52) is a good one to elucidate. (The Beatles sang something about "Nothing you can sing that hasn't been sung; nothing you can do that hasn't been done." It has never struck me as being particularly untrue. Much study is a weariness of the flesh [Ecclesiastes 12:12] is another with a solid ring of truth to it.) Sure, Jesus grew up, in wisdom and in stature, but it was a spiritual wisdom which might have followed a rebellious youth, and which certainly made people think Him foolish or worse. Growing in favor with God, yes, though the Voice at the baptism probably startled Him as much as anyone else who might have heard It. In favor with man, no, no. They read the scriptures and payed special attention to the fact that the Messiah would be called Immanuel (early in Luke I think, and, of course, Isaiah); that the angel told Joseph to name Him Jesus is one of the mysteries of God that appears beyond man's understanding. Anyway, they judged Jesus by the letter of their scripture, and found him lacking.(see A Sunday School Lesson) What if there is a Comforter, which is The Holy Ghost, who will take the form of man and lead us to Truth( see John 16:7-13)? A little evidence may be Jesus saying "if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive( John 5:43)".

. . . . . Do you suppose the New Testament offers enough "letter" items for people who worship God with their lips, but whose hearts are far from Him, to be judgmental about such a being here among us? What kind of license do you think a verse like "try the spirits, whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1) will grant to the legalists of our day? If . . .

December 29  ****************************

. . . . . Yesterday Mary Ann got on my case about Buddhism and the Baptist's doctrine of salvation, and I was talking about Zen Buddhism as Charles Stanley was talking about believing in Christ and being saved "in a moment" right after Mary Ann said Zen is salvation by works and I said "No," that they seek immediate transformation, and that the door they use for that salvation experience (where they turn away from sin with a shout and find themselves in God's hand) is the door of Christ, His mind-set. I didn't say, and wish I had, that that mind-set is what Babba Ram Dass called "unbearable compassion". Yesterday I wrote in Parson's QuickVerse on John 10:9, because I have been reading John lately because, again, I am staying away from Romans (and Corinthians) until I'm by a computer. This morning I read a couple of chapters in John, then switched to Ecclesiastes, which remains, to me, a most inspired book.

. . . . . Maybe I'll get in trouble, saying things like "Proverbs is a duty" to read; I certainly realize my speaking my whole heart/mind on these matters could be considered, proverbially, the actions of a fool. Still, I like to consider myself a fool for Christ( see 1 Corinthians 4:10). And Martin Luther might not have been reviled too much when he pulled the Apocrypha out of the Old Testament (see Journal Chapter 1 (continued)) because, he maintained, they were not (I believe) as inspired as the other books. Anyway, let me do this: Moses, in the Pentateuch, apparently pounded and labored; Isaiah and Jeremiah were faced with the problem of stream-of-consciousness far out-pacing quill and ink. We are told, in a verse that strikes me as undeniably inspired, to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth( 2 Timothy 2:15).

. . . . . My note in QuickVerse about miracles is something I wanted to clarify. Maybe Jesus without much reputation worked miracles but, when the proud, high-minded, hard-hearted majority(?) got involved (disbelieving, knowing), He found His powers curtailed. Today a young woman with a baby who had a dislocated shoulder could walk up to a trailer door, looking for help, maybe believing that the resident was capable of working miracles. That person might open the door to the child's screams, speak to the two of them, and see that dislocated shoulder miraculously relocate. Horse cataracts disappearing, dying dogs, iris signs and pencil-plant wonders might happen. Reputation mostly limited to Dylan's "Obviously Five Believers". Reputation grows, and because of their unbelief pressure mounts. Remember how deceptive mind is. Contrite heart could be figment of imagination. Vain repetitions of mantras in mind might not be vain__but it might take a real long time for a true change of heart. God knows I've worked on it. "Jesus Christ have mercy on me (or 'us all')" is obviously a prayer; Jesus said it is prayer and fasting that is called for (in our ordinary mind-type devils). Perhaps...

. . . . . When I paraphrased Paul for "Billy" (an alias) and those others, the matter of re-birth of spirit came up. I mentioned that most women who had given birth would not call labor painless, or sudden, or easy. I have long maintained that (by their fruit you will know them: see Galatians 5:22 et al) being born again will result in a changed person, one with love, joy, longsuffering, patience, meekness, egoless (I guess I already mentioned Ram Dass said egoless people have strong characters), obedient.

. . . . . Maybe I'm through__I hope and think and believe I've said everything

December 31  ********************************

. . . . . Lao Tsu said, "The way of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough. Man's way is different." (Tao Te Ching, Chapter/Page Seventy-seven)

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